Teasing Your Audience with a Trailer

Too many people forget the art of the tease when making a trailer. Your podcast trailer needs to tell the listener what to expect without giving away all your secrets.

Here's what NOT to do:

“Listen to our podcast to hear our interview with a real life vampire. He’ll be telling us about sleeping in a coffin, drinking blood, vampire rituals where they meet up and do spells… last time they did spells that summoned a demon!” 🙅🏼

Anyone who hears that trailer has no need to listen to the podcast because you’ve told them about everything the guest is going to be talking about.

Here's what you SHOULD be doing:

“Are you fascinated by Dracula? Did the Twilight films have you in a spin? In this podcast we’ll be joined by a real life vampire who’ll tell us the shocking secrets and magical myths surrounding our favourite blood suckers!” 👍🏼

Can you see the difference? This trailer leaves the listener itching for more. They have to listen to your podcast to find out what’s going to be revealed!

To Script or Not to Script? That Is the Question 📝🤷🏽‍♂️

When it comes to creating a trailer, it’s better to not write a script (or at least not write a full script, as rough notes can help). You don’t want to sound all robotic, instead, you want to sound chilled out, free and easy. The more welcoming and knowledgeable you sound in your trailer, the more likely it is that people will listen to your podcast. 

The Weird Work Podcast does this really well by engaging you in their trailer and showing the podcasts personality by giving a general overview of what you can expect.

Write no more than 30-40 seconds of content. The trailer needs to be short and to the point to keep people's attention. Also, don’t fill the trailer with too many spoilers, which might be tempting if you’re trying to fill more than 40 seconds. Remember: keep it short, snappy, and engaging.

Making a Podcats Trailer That Matches Your Tone

It’s easy to go all out on the trailer and create something that sounds nothing like your actual podcast. Jaw-dropping trailers can drive loads traffic to your podcast, but if the actual content of the episode doesn’t match up then people are going to be pretty disappointed.

Give your fans a little peak behind the curtain by throwing in clips from your podcast to give them a taste. A podcast that does this pretty well is the Slow Burn podcast. They use clips from news reports, interviews, and the upcoming podcast to create a highly effective trailer.

You know your podcast best, so you know how to make a trailer that matches up. If it’s light and breezy, then keeping it chilled out with some upbeat music is probably the best way forward. If it’s dark and mysterious, then creepy sound effects and deep eery voices will work brilliantly.

Don't Overstuff Your Podcast Trailer

It can be tempting to mention everything under the sun in your podcast trailer, such as what's coming up, your social handles, website, merch store, donation links... the list goes on.

Overstuffing just confuses listeners, so you have to think what's the core message or theme you want to get across? For example, if you have an upcoming event then it makes sense to plug it. A single message in your trailer helps drive and direct traffic. Giving listeners multiple choices gets confusing, giving listeners one choice helps drive action!

Conclusion

Making a podcast trailer may seem difficult, but all you’re doing is picking the best and most exciting bits from your podcast, then presenting it in an exciting and fun way to engage listeners.

If making a podcast trailer seems too stressful or you just don’t have the time, then you can always outsource to us at Podcast.co. With our directors on the job, your podcast trailer will sound perfect. THAT'S A WRAP PEOPLE!