Over the past few months, I’ve noticed a huge difference in how podcasts deliver their content. Some do their best to get to the meat of things fairly quickly, while others have gobs of “stuff” to cover before they really get started.
Below are five podcasts that I enjoy, and I thought it’d be interesting to see how they handle it. In particular, I’ve been listening to 2Bobs a lot lately, and they really seem to move quickly to get things rolling every time, which I really appreciate!
For the sake of simplicity, I looked only at a single recent episode for each. It might be more fair to look at the last half dozen and average the numbers out, but this already took up too much time. 🙂
Here’s how they all stack up.
2Bobs, with David C. Baker and Blair Enns
https://2bobs.com/
Total episode length: 33:30
Intro music: 0:00-0:13
Episode Begins: 0:14
To be fair, they begin with a bit of an episode preview banter, but they essentially start with real content after just 14 seconds.
Akimbo, by Seth Godin
https://www.akimbo.link/
Total episode length: 25:44
Preview of the episode: 0:00-1:33
Intro music: 1:34-1:42
Promotion: 1:42-2:44
Episode Begins: 2:45
I really like his cold opens, and I don’t think his promo block is normally that long.
Online Marketing Made Easy, by Amy Porterfield
https://www.amyporterfield.com/amy-porterfield-podcast/
Total episode length: 67:51
Snippet from the episode: 0:00-2:12
Intro music / about the podcast: 2:13-3:04
Preview of the episode: 3:05-5:30
Episode Begins: 5:31
I haven’t listened to her in a while, and I remember in the past there was often more than 10 minutes of “stuff” at the beginning, so it seems she’s tightened things up a bit, which is great.
Build a Better Agency, by Drew McClellan
https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/agency-owner-podcast/
Total episode length: 64:56
Intro music / about the podcast: 0:00-0:36
Welcome: 0:37-1:03
Info about his summit: 1:04-3:22
Info about his Facebook Group: 3:23-4:37
Preview of the episode: 4:38-8:23
Episode begins: 8:24
I’ve not listened to Drew’s podcast as much lately, as my commute is only about 15 minutes so I hate to waste more than half a trip on the meta stuff. It tends to be great content, though.
Duct Tape Marketing, by John Jantsch
https://ducttapemarketing.com/about/duct-tape-marketing-podcast/
Total episode length: 24:13
Intro music: 0:00-0:10
Promotion: 0:11-0:35
Episode preview: 0:36-0:57
Episode beings: 0:58
Another one that gets to the content in under a minute!
There are many others out there with varying degrees of fluff around their content, but I thought these were five good examples. People notice how much time you spend on that stuff, so be aware of your timing.
Slightly twisting the topic, when someone sends me a link to a video with a “you have to watch this,” especially if it includes a “wait for it,” without some context, I’m probably never going to watch it. This is probably generational, but I dislike video because I don’t know what’s in a video without watching too much of it. If videos “got to the good stuff” in the first few seconds, maybe I’d be motivated to continue.
Like you, I “judge” podcasts by the signal to noise ratio, especially in the first minute or two. If I’m a minute in and there’s been no valuable content, I’ll probably never find out what follows.
100% agreed. Some videos can be pretty bad about that.