Do you want to give your audience something special?
Here are 8 bonus content ideas for your podcast.
Thank you for joining me for The Audacity to Podcast!
I'm Daniel J. Lewis.
Bonus content can be a really fun way to engage and reward your loyal podcast audience, either
publicly through an opt-in or exclusively in a premium subscription.
So here are 8 things you could try making for your audience, both to promote your show
as well as reward the audience that you already have.
Follow along in the notes, a simple tap or swipe away inside of your app, or go to theaudacitytopodcast.com/bonusideas.
Number 1. Bloopers.
We all mess up.
Sometimes our mess ups can be hilarious.
Instead of only cutting out your mistakes and putting forth your most perfect self,
consider setting them aside for a blooper reel.
With some good editing and even a little fun music to give it some extra flavor, simple
mistakes can become hilarious outtakes that your audience will want to hear, even if you
host a serious kind of podcast.
Now how you edit these bloopers can make them funny or boring.
And I won't get into detail about exactly how to edit bloopers in this episode, but
I generally suggest tighter edits. And you can look at blooper reels from movies and
shows for some ideas on how they edit their bloopers together. Like how tight do they
make it? How much of the mistake do they include? How much laughter do they include? These are
the kinds of things that you need to think about in order to edit your bloopers effectively
so they're actually funny and keep being funny without people getting bored listening
to your bloopers.
Number two, behind the scenes.
When you've developed a good relationship with your audience, they sometimes want to
see how you make the magic.
Your behind the scenes content could be an unedited video version of your podcast recording
session, live streamed or recorded.
Or you could show your audience your process as if they were in the room asking you, "Hey,
How do you make that podcast?
Could you show that to me?
Like with bloopers, good editing can make this kind of content far more engaging.
For example, if you have to go to a store to buy something for your podcast, record
that whole trip and some commentary along the way while you're doing your shopping
and getting that thing.
But don't publish that unedited full recording.
Edit it down to only the interesting bits.
And that can be really engaging for your audience.
Number three, sneak peeks.
Sneak peeks come before the content you'll be publishing. In a way, kind of like a trailer
and currently with our episode formats that we have, you could consider marking it as
a trailer format, but it's not really a trailer, but right now that's all that we
have if something is leading into an upcoming episode. Even though it's not a trailer,
it is a way to build anticipation for what's coming or leading into what's coming. You
You could make behind the scenes sneak peeks or simply tell your audience a little of what's coming.
For example, a podcast about personal finances might offer a sneak peek like this.
The next episode might change your life.
I talked to Jane Smith and she told me about a free money saving app she uses and when
I tried it myself, I was blown away by how easy it was and how effectively it helps me
save money.
Just in the few days I've been trying it, I've already saved $100!
I would have never thought of this before.
So make sure you listen to the next episode and tell me what kinds of results you get
from trying Jane's Method.
Now see, I'm not actually sharing the episode, if this was my podcast, from this example,
but I'm telling you what's coming.
And not just telling you what's coming as in "this is a feature" but telling you the
benefit telling you the transformation it made for me and that I think it might make
for you. That's a little sneak peek of what's coming. And yes, you could say that same kind
of thing inside of the episode, but people are right about to get that inside of the
episode anyway. What if you said that before the episode is published? This might work
only when you have longer lead times before your episode publishes, whether that's a
few days or weeks or months even before that episode comes out.
But even without lead time, you can give your audience a peek at what you're planning
to do or something you just discovered that you'll talk about in a future episode.
Like you might say, "Hey, I just stumbled across this technique and wow, this is so cool.
I can't do an episode about this yet, but I'm definitely going to do an episode about
this in the future because this is so radical.
It's changed my workflow completely.
You are going to love this so give me some time to work out how to try this, how to tell
you about it, and some different things that I can do, and I think you're going to love it.
See, that is a sneak peek of what's to come, even though you haven't actually prepared
any of that content yet.
You just know you want to, or you're planning to.
Number four, extended editions.
Remember the Lord of the Rings and its extended edition, and then its director's cut, and
And then it's extended director's cut, and then the extended extended extended uncut
director's extended cut.
Fans bought these.
And there are plenty of advocates who will insist with their dying breath that everyone
should watch only the extended editions.
You could do the same thing with your bonus content for your podcast.
While you might edit something down to make your podcast episodes flow better, some of
what you edited out might still be valuable content, just maybe not a good fit for the
published episode. And I do recommend that you take that approach to your episodes when
you're having an interview or a conversation as you think about, "Does this content that
we just got into really belong in this episode?" Maybe it doesn't, you could cut that out
of the episode that you publish, but then save that for some bonus content. Or you could
save specific parts of the content for the extended editions or bonus content, like something
you know you want to cover, questions you want to ask, stories you want to tell, and
you can tease that in your regular episode and then you release it as a bonus at some
point. That story show and the Babylon Bee podcast do this really well, saving some bonus
stories or bonus conversations for the extended editions that are available only to premium
subscribers and sometimes they say or give you a little preview of you're
going to hear the answers to this or this is what we talked about in the
extended version of this podcast. That is really compelling and it can entice
people to subscribe, to become a paying subscriber that is, to get those extended
editions, that kind of bonus content. Number five, audience engagement.
Interacting with your audience can be one of the most fun parts of podcasting.
I don't suggest locking all your interactions behind a paywall where only people who join
ever get to talk to you or hear from you except what you say in the podcast, but you could
consider producing some of it into something your broader audience could enjoy.
That kind of recorded interaction of some sort.
For example, you could do question and answer or some kind of ask me anything where they
are asking you a question that you answer.
bonus content that could be for the public or behind a paywall of some sort. It could
be chats with your audience members, very casual, on the phone, on any kind of online
platform. It could be reading and responding to feedback. Like for my Once Upon a Time
podcast, we would get all of these theories and ideas and observations and we couldn't
fit them all in a single episode. And sometimes they just weren't relevant to what we were
discussing inside of that specific episode, but we could have, and we did sometimes do
this, make a feedback episode that was a sort of bonus for the show and that's where we
shared some of this feedback and discussed it and responded to it. Not just answering
questions but really inviting their ideas into the podcast and sharing those with our
audience and then adding to them. You could also try suggestions from your audience. Depending
Depending on the format of your show, these different ideas could work for you or could
be something that you could try.
Similar to how reading reviews of your podcast helps you get more reviews, and I hope you're
using mypodcastreviews.com to collect all of those reviews automatically to make it
easy for you to read those in your podcast, and similar to that, sharing audience engagement
with your audience will further engage your audience.
Plus, this helps turn those featured audience members whose interactions you're featuring
inside of your podcast or content that they've offered or suggested or questions they've
asked, it turns those audience members into super fans.
More loyal, more engaged, and also more likely to help you grow the podcast because if you
were mentioned on the podcast you absolutely love and something you sent in was featured,
wouldn't you want to tell other people about it?
"Hey mom, you gotta listen to this podcast, I was featured on it!"
Or your co-workers or your friends, and then you, as an audience member, become an evangelist
for that podcast.
You can do that same kind of thing by turning your audience into superfans who will evangelize
for your podcast for you.
Number six, quick content.
Even if your podcast episodes are hours long, there are probably countless bits you could
share in quick formats and not simply excerpts of what you already recorded, but communicating
the same information. This could be a selfie style video, a short email, or other messages
in other formats. For example, I have a weekly email newsletter that shares multiple podcasting
tips and you can get the link to sign up for that in the notes for this episode at
theaudacitytopodcast.com/bonusideas. Much of the content in this newsletter I've already
shared elsewhere. But I keep my emails very short, so it's one tip generally per email
instead of 20 tips. And the emails are short, very readable, they come out on a different
schedule. And plus, even if it's the exact same content that I've shared in a podcast
episode or an article somewhere, people might read my emails months or years separated from
when I talked about that same content, but in a different way in my podcast. Your quick
content can stand alone behind your premium subscription or it could help you promote
your existing episodes to the public by sharing those excerpts and then pointing back to those
episodes for more information.
Number seven, downloadable resources.
With some brainstorming, you can probably think of several things you could offer as
bonus downloads for your podcast, maybe even for every episode you publish.
These can be handy for your premium subscribers, but they can also work really well as gifts
for people to join your email list.
These are often called opt-in incentives or lead magnets.
For example, here are some past episode specific downloadable resources I've offered for joining
my email list.
Again, if you're interested in joining my email list, I've got the link in the notes
for this episode as well as the links to all of these following examples that I'll mention.
In my episode using text expansion for podcasting, I offered a bunch of TextExpander snippets
to download that you could use.
In my episode about everything to do before you record each episode, I offered a printable
pre-flight checklist and that actually was so popular that I turned that into the main
thing that I offer.
When people visit my site and they've never been on my site before, they consume a couple
pieces of content, then they might move somewhere and it triggers this little thing that pops
up and says "Hey before you go, would you like this free checklist?"
And that's been huge for growing my list.
In my episode about how to make podcast cover art, I offered a resource toolbox in a PDF.
And in my episode about speeding up your website, I offered bonus tips and tools in a PDF.
These free downloads have been huge for building my email list.
So much so, that after I'd made a few of these, I stopped making more because my email
list was growing so fast that I didn't want to have to pay more in my email service provider.
Look at your own podcast and try brainstorming some ideas that you could try. And it could
be anything. It could be a PDF, it could be a bonus episode, it could be some bonus content
that I've shared here, some of these other things that people could download and take
with them. It could be an app, it could even be an AI generated wallpaper or some other
kind of image that somehow represents your whole podcast or even represents the content
of an individual episode.
And that image could be enticing enough to attract your audience to download it and take
whatever steps are necessary to get that download.
And that can be a fun bonus.
And if you do something that's episode specific, maybe you do some kind of timed thing where
it's a limited edition.
I'm not saying go the NFT route, although you could if you wanted to, but you could
make it where, okay you can only get this wallpaper if you sign up or if you join by
such and such date.
Or you can only get these downloadable resources through this particular link or by this deadline
or anything like that.
And number eight, community.
Never forget the value of relationships.
The bonus "content" that you offer could simply be connecting with you and other audience
members in real time through some kind of online community. You could create that on
Facebook, Slack, Discord, or anything else that you and your audience would use. For
example, I recently purchased and completed several programming courses to help me as
I build My Podcast Reviews version 2 coming in summer 2023. Check it out. Previews of
it are in a little community that I made for the group, but you can join My Podcast Reviews
over at mypodcastreviews.com. It's going to do a whole lot more than it currently does.
But I've been going through these courses to learn better coding techniques as I make
version 2. All of these courses also included access to private discord servers, often with
some course specific access. So when I have questions about something related to one of
those courses, I can ask in the community and I might get the answer I need from the
teacher himself or even from fellow members. And in fact, and this was really awesome,
in one community a fellow member made a browser extension that fixed two frustrations many
of us were experiencing with the particular learning management system that was hosting
the course. And I would have never seen and benefited from that extension without being
part of that community. And that's been a wonderful bonus for me to experience. And
You might have that same kind of thing where your audience can experience a bonus from
other audience members either in the relationships or in something that they make.
And that's all part of the community that you can offer as a bonus.
So these eight ideas that I've shared with you are number one, bloopers.
Number two, behind the scenes.
Number three, sneak peeks.
Number four, extended editions.
Number five, audience engagement.
Number six, quick content.
Number seven, downloadable resources.
number eight, community. All of these bonuses could be things that you sell in some way,
they're included with something else, they're exclusive to your premium subscribers or membership
that you run or to anyone who donates a certain amount, gets some of these or you could have
different tiers or anything like that. Or these could simply be bonuses that you put
in your podcast feed. Maybe it's during a hiatus, maybe it's to help you promote an
upcoming episode, maybe it's between your regularly scheduled episodes that you just
want to put something else out there as a special bonus or special content. I'd love
for you to try something that I suggested here or maybe you've tried something else.
Please comment on the notes for this episode at theaudacitytopodcast.com/bonusideas or
message me on Twitter @theDanielJLewis and let me know what are some of the bonuses you've
tried or if you try these or you've tried anything else, what has been your experience.
I'd love to hear from you how your audience responded to that.
And if this episode has been helpful to you, please share it.
Go to theaudacitytopodcast.com/bonusideas to share it with any other podcasters that
would benefit from this.
Now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the bonus tools, it's
time for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and PROFIT.
I'm Daniel J. Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast.com.
Thanks for listening!
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