Podcast Strategy

Reimagining and Reorienting

After a few months of working on the intros, sound editing, and post-production for the years-old Catholic Creatives podcast, I was realizing our listenership was dwindling — as was our team’s enthusiasm for it. We’d gotten into a monotonous rut. So I decided to give it a facelift.

I created a survey and advertised it through a few episodes of the podcast. After about 100 responses, I realized that the long, meandering interviews had meaningful moments, but many people tuned out before they hit home; and, the interviews with high-level experts often left burgeoning creatives feeling left out of the conversation.

We needed 2 major changes:

1. A way to feature up-and-coming members of the Catholic Creatives community

2. Content-level editing so each interview had a consistent story and practical takeaways

Concepting, Production, and Hosting

A New Podcast to Feature New Creatives

Within the main Catholic Creatives podcast feed, we decided to add a shorter-form interview with up-and-coming creatives who were part of the community. I created a new format that included zany questions, fun games, and more pointed conversations — all in under 30 minutes.

I contacted guests, scheduled recordings, set up equipment, planned our interviews, and co-hosted the podcast with Cody Barras. I also edited the content, adding sound effects and bumper music, as well as intro and outro voiceovers.

These podcasts resulted in a 30% bump in downloads — and got enthusiastic feedback from the community.

Content Editing

More Emphasis on Storytelling

I began to make some intentional improvements to the long-form interviews, including:

• Introductions with thorough guest bios

• Mid-podcast breaks with summaries or further explanations

• Editing for length, content, and story rearranging

We also grouped interviews together in overarching series themes, in order to better ground the interviews for more practicality.

Unfortunately, Catholic Creatives had to halt operations due to COVID. I’m sad to think about what could have become of these efforts, but I’m grateful that I got the chance to hone my skills in a new medium.