Your show might not have sponsors, but yes even if you don’t have sponsors your podcast should still have a mid-roll. Here’s why.
40 minutes of unstopped talking is going to get boring and listeners are going to tune out. That could mean they click pause and just don’t listen anymore or they might just stop listening to the show even though they leave it on. We’re going to try and solve that.
So let’s figure out how to get started with this…
Podcast Mid-Roll – Pattern Interrupts
Pattern interrupt is an NLP term that simple means – to change or disrupt a persons state.
The habit we want to interrupt is listening without really listening. We want true engagement. For those of us that aren’t skilled enough to keep someone interested for 40 minutes straight we can rely on some quick post production to fix this.
Call to Action: Add one or two “music breaks” into your podcast. This is really easy and something anyone can start adding to their show.
Someone who has made it to the halfway mark in your show is obviously interested and probably an avid and repeat listener. So this is the person you want to get a great call to action to. So what should you be saying?
You should be driving people to something of value you’re giving away for free. This client of Just Hit Publish – Ecommerce Influence has recently introduced mid-rolls for their email marketing checklist.
But we didn’t just all of a sudden start throwing a mid-roll into their episodes. We eased into it.
And here’s how. We started putting a small “music break” into their episodes for a couple months to get people used to a pattern interrupts in their podcast.
After a couple months of doing we decided it was time to start adding in the call to action.
Notice the mobile call to action as well. With the new Leaddigits features on Leadpages creating this mobile call to actions is getting easier and easier.
Some questions you might have about a podcast mid-roll.
How long should the mid-roll in my podcast be?
There is no set length it should be. If you’re call to action is entertaining and interesting it can be a minute long. Maybe you bring in someone to give a testimonial for what you’re trying people to go download or sign up for.
If you’re just telling people to go do something though I would say no longer than 30 seconds.
If you have a great story to tell and have something that is interesting you can go up to 90-120 seconds.
What if I don’t have a email checklist. What else can I do?
Don’t have a free piece of content to give away? I would first advise you to figure something out. But if you don’t want to there are still options here.
You can ask people to subscribe to your podcast on iTunes. Subscribe to your email list on your site so they can stay up to date on all the latest episodes. You can ask people to ask you a question by using a form on a website. You can ask people to tweet out their favorite quote from the show.
There are so many options… Always think about what your audience is likely to do and then go with that option!
Why not just say it at the beginning?
Great question! I would definitely say you should. It’s extremely valuable to have multiple conversion points in your podcast just like you would on your site. If someone is checking out a blog post you have written think of how many times they have an opportunity to join your email list. Maybe you have something in your sidebar, bottom of the post, pop over, something that slides down from the top or up from the bottom. You have 4-5 opportunities. We should be treating podcasts the same way.
With a mid-roll you KNOW you’re getting people who are interested in your content and probably really good fits for your call to action.