‘Never judge a book by its cover’
Thing is, we absolutely do, don’t we?
And when it comes to a podcast, we often judge it by its cover art.
Let’s be real here. Branding IS king, and I for one am an absolute sucker for it. I’ll be drawn to a product because of the design. I’ll favour one over another if the branding is better.
It’s perfectly natural. If we’re considering three separate services who all do the same thing, but one has a nicely designed, clean, functional website, they’re more likely to get our custom, right?
If you’re searching in a podcast app and there are three which cover the topic you’re looking for… well, you know the rest.
Your podcast cover art is your shop window. There’s a high probability a listener will see your artwork before they hear even one second of your content. And if the artwork is a mess, why would they want to press play?
Stop thinking of your show as ‘just a podcast’ and realise that it’s a brand. If you want to be the best, it needs to look the part as well as sounding the part.
We went deeper into this on the first episode of Pod Almighty – my new monthly ‘podcasting masterclass’ show with my colleague Ellie. Every month we get a guest on who is an expert in their field.
George Lodwick came on the first one. He’s a graphic designer who specialises in working with podcasters. That’s how we met and he now does regular work for several Sound Media clients.
George raises some great points and has some brilliant advice.
Budget
I get it though – at this point you probably have alarm bells ringing as you worry about cost.
I’m not daft. My world may well revolve around podcasting but I realise that a lot of people don’t have piles of cash to throw at their podcast, and while businesses may have some budget, they still need to be savvy with it.
But it isn’t going to cost you a fortune. Somewhere around £100-£120 will get you quality cover art, and will be a sound investment.
I know having great cover art then raises other questions – do I need a logo, and do I need images for every episode for social media?
We tackle these on the episode and find a middle ground where you can use a tool like Canva alongside some design work to get the best of both worlds.
Have a listen and you’ll see what we mean.
Your podcast IS a brand, so if you aren’t already, start treating it like one.
If this is really resonating and you realise it’s time to up your game, you’re not on your own. We can help. Fix up a quick discovery call here for some free advice and we’ll help you work out some next steps for you.