How to Rebrand or Relaunch your Podcast

We break down the real difference between a rebrand and a relaunch while walking through a simple plan to restart your podcast with confidence. Practical steps, honest examples, and a clear push to publish without overthinking it. 

If you have questions about relaunching your podcast or about podcasting in general, email us at support@buzzsprout.com. 

Keep podcasting!

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Listener Question
• 1:08 Rebrand vs Relaunch Defined
• 3:17 Why Shows Pause and Return
• 4:13 Keep or Archive Back Catalog
• 5:48 What Changes in a Relaunch
• 7:47 Trailer vs First Episode Debate
• 9:18 Update Directories & New Platforms
• 10:03 Announce the Comeback & Promotion
• 12:00 Encouragement & Final Steps
• 12:55 How to Send Questions & Wrap

Transcript

Cara Pacetti: 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting QA, brought to you by the people at Bus Bro. I'm your host, Cara Pacetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. I am so excited about today's episode for a couple of reasons. But the first being, we are answering a question that was sent in through our fan mail feature from Sacramento, California. One of our real podcasting QA listeners wrote in and is asking how to relaunch your podcast. That's so appropriate because we actually just relaunched this podcast, podcasting QA. And I got to walk through that process. And I actually had a lot of help from Albin, who is the head of our marketing department. And that is who is here with me today to help tackle this question. So, y'all, I hope can hear the excitement in my voice, but this is going to be a really fun episode. Let's go ahead and tackle this question together. Albin, thank you for taking the time to be here with me.

Alban Brooke: 1:06

Thanks for having me, Cara.

Cara Pacetti: 1:08

Okay, so Alban, there is a difference between rebranding your podcast and relaunching your podcast. Before we dive into this, can you just explain the difference in those two?

Alban Brooke: 1:18

Sure. We've actually done both with this podcast. So I'll use these as an example. Rebranding is when you realize the brand for the podcast doesn't really fit the content anymore. And so you're changing things like maybe the title, you're might be changing artwork, the description, and you're just taking the show in a different way. So the show has grown out of the brand that you initially had for it. This show, I don't know, seven years ago used to be called Five Minute Mondays. That didn't make sense because nobody knew what five minute Mondays was about. They didn't know if it was ballet tips or if it was about the gardening or if it was about podcasting. And so we went, okay, we need a better name. And then we came up with podcasting QA because that felt, oh, that's much closer to what we're actually uh talking about. So we rebranded to podcasting QA. What you just redid, what you just did was a relaunch. And a relaunch is when a show might go on hiatus, maybe you just weren't loving it and so you stopped for a while, and then you come back and you go, ah, this is the time to get back into podcasting. Well, that's a relaunch. And so it's exciting to kind of differentiate this for some people because rebranding can happen just in the middle of podcasting. Relaunching is when a show has kind of gone away for a bit and you're trying to bring it back.

Cara Pacetti: 2:43

Great explanation. That really clears things up. I kind of think of a rebrand as very obvious changes. Like we are changing audience, even. I mean, we're talking maybe to different people, totally new content. And I feel like a relaunch, when it comes to any changes that you're making, are like a little bit subtle, uh, maybe more known to the podcaster than the listener.

Alban Brooke: 3:03

Right. Because you know why the show kind of podfaded for a little bit. And in that relaunch, you're going, okay, we gotta kind of think through why did the show stop coming out for a bit? For this show, we were doing podcasting QA as an audio podcast. And then eventually we said, what if we also added on a video component? And then we went, what if we had multiple hosts who did the video component? And the show got bigger and bigger and bigger. We went, Oh, this is easy this is too much. Yeah. And what it ended up being was podcasting QA was the piece we went, I think that can go on hiatus. And then an opportunity came up where you're doing all the lives and loving it, and said, Oh, it'd be fun if I also added on like a podcasting component. When now we go, Oh, that's not a new podcast. You could actually take this one we have had for a long time. Let's relaunch that podcast.

Cara Pacetti: 3:57

Yeah, this was an exciting uh new project for me. And so I've been honored to carry on this already very successful podcast. We see value in this podcast, even when it was paused. Listeners were still actively listening to episodes. And so I want to bring up that point, though, about historic episodes. With a relaunch, you may have a back catalog of many, many episodes. Alban, what do we look for to decide? Do those need to stay live and available? Or when would we archive those and say, nope, we need to take those off the feed and unpublish those episodes? What are some of those identifying factors, would you say?

Alban Brooke: 4:34

I think uh my default is keep it. And the reason is a lot of times people will take stuff offline because they're embarrassed and they go, oh, I used to not be as good as I am now. You know, I my mic technique was bad, and so you can hear it here in this spot. And so we're always the harshest critics of ourselves. And so we go back and we want to take them all offline.

Cara Pacetti: 4:54

Yeah.

Alban Brooke: 4:54

Now, if there is something out there that's going to get traffic and is wrong, go ahead and re-record it, maybe take it offline. But even um Buzzcast, we've got episodes that are about you know, changes that Apple made in 2018. Well, those changes have been changed two more times since then, but those episodes are still kind of a historic record of what was going on in 2018. So I feel comfortable leaving even those episodes out there.

Cara Pacetti: 5:24

That's such a great point. And I think most podcasters back up their episodes on their local hard drives, but some don't. Hopefully. I was gonna say, hopefully, you are backing up your content. But if you're not, they may only be live on your RSS feed. And so you're right, don't remove it, and especially as a relaunch, it kind of plays into look at what I've done and then look where we're going now. With any relaunch, there are going to be some changes. Like Alban said, podcasting QA has gone through a rebrand and now a relaunch. And one thing that we changed was the host. And so we started with Travis for five minute Mondays and then it got passed on to Jordan. And now I get to host podcasting QA. And that was a staffing change, that was a workload change. So that one was kind of obvious for us. But Alban, what are some other things that might change in a relaunch?

Alban Brooke: 6:16

So obviously, hosts can change, formats can change, you can change uh the episode publishing frequency, maybe the length. Some podcasts just realize that going all in on quality and publishing once a month is the best way for them to create great content. Others realize the weekly cadence is right for them and they'd rather have a little bit tighter episodes once a week. Find out what works for you.

Cara Pacetti: 6:42

Absolutely. Yeah, that's kind of the point I was making in the beginning that maybe the frequency is changing, or maybe you started as a question and answer episode. And I actually, on a recent episode of Buzzcast, uh, I heard Dave Jackson say he created a podcast expecting it to be a QA. And then he said, We didn't get any questions because we had no A or no audience. And I loved that. So maybe that's how you started your podcast, but now you need to revisit it and actually build up that audience before you can incorporate that component. And so maybe that's what's changing. Um and that would be perfect for a relaunch. So really identifying where you want your podcast to go and how you're gonna get there is that legwork you need to do beforehand before you actually go live with it.

Alban Brooke: 7:28

So we've identified why we're relaunching a show. Then we've identified what's the solution so that this doesn't happen again, what's gonna change? What's the third step? I mean, I imagine it's gotta be we're going to launch this show.

Cara Pacetti: 7:41

Exactly. So the first two steps were conceptual. Now we're into action. So the first step for us was actually recording and publishing a trailer, which actually, Alban, you and I saw differently on this. So I wanted to record a trailer because I knew that I was gonna be a brand new voice for podcasting QA. And I wanted to just say, hey, I'm new, I'm Cara. It's gonna be the same things, uh, same podcast, but you're gonna hear a new voice and I might offer a new perspective. And so I just record a two-minute trailer and then on our launch date, publish that trailer. That was one way of doing it. Alban, do you have another kind of method for whether or not to incorporate a trailer for a relaunch?

Alban Brooke: 8:21

I mean, my default is often just do the thing you want to do. And if what you want to do is relaunch the show and you've got an idea of what it is, I just say record one episode and launch it and see if it's any good. See if you enjoy it, see if other people like it, and you can just skip kind of to that final step. With relaunching a podcast, and you were this is the first podcast you were gonna take, uh my default was more on the I don't know, do you know if you really like this? Why don't you just take an do an episode? But you it sounded like you felt like it's much more comfortable to be a bit more methodical, think through this, come up with a handful of episodes, record, plan, and then launch. And lucky for us, you follow through on all of that stuff. So it actually happened.

Cara Pacetti: 9:13

No analysis paralysis here, yeah. But that is such a great point. So once you've recorded the trailer, you want to make sure that your podcast is available. So if it is hosted with a podcast host and your content is on an RSS feed, you want to make sure all of your listening directories are up to date so that when you do publish that new episode, your listeners will hear it. And so you want to go through all of your directories, make sure that your historic episodes are there. And then another thing to consider is are there any new directories that have popped up since your podcast was on pause? I know YouTube is now accepting RSS feeds, and that was within the last two years. And so maybe that's an option now. You want to go ahead and get your podcast listed on YouTube and so that when you do start posting new episodes, it's available for your listeners there. And then really the last step is to get the word out. That's really the last step in relaunching your podcast. So, Alban, what are your go-to ways for advertising and sharing? We are back.

Alban Brooke: 10:15

I mean, the first is to release an episode because hopefully uh people's podcast apps are still following your feed. And if they are, they'll get that episode. And so you can just be honest in the trailer or the episode and say, hey, we're relaunching this podcast, we're coming back, here's what's changing. Thanks for sticking with us, you're the best, and move on to the content. Beyond that, you can start sharing stuff on social media or in your community groups or just in your friend group. Because you may have friends and family that weren't subscribed or dropped off, um, people who follow you on social media who never knew you had a podcast. And just depending on how long it's been, it's a great opportunity to say, I did this show, I took a pause, I'm coming back. I'd love for you to check it out. Share it on LinkedIn. LinkedIn seems to be a good place for podcasting now.

Cara Pacetti: 11:10

That's good to know. Yeah, I I do know it's a little difficult with social media, but in general, podcasting is so much still word of mouth. Like when you hear a great podcast, you share it with your friends. And so, like you said, that first step of just re-release your content, start publishing new episodes, get it out there. If your listeners are loving it, they're gonna share it. And so that is a great way. And especially with a relaunch, it's a little easier because, like you said, hopefully you have listeners or followers who have been subscribed this whole time and your show is in their library, they're just waiting for new content to be released. So when you're ready to relaunch your podcast, you first want to determine why are you relaunching and why did it stop in the first place? You want to make sure your directories are up to date and you're listed there. And then the third step, go for it. Publish your first episode and just start producing new content. I hope that it sounds encouraging and not intimidating. You can do this. Alban, do you have anything to add to that?

Alban Brooke: 12:12

Oh, just throw it out there and you know, people are gonna be excited that you're back. If someone's been subscribed, there's so many podcasts that I still hold on to them in my podcast player, and they just sit there in this folder that's like all these dead podcasts that I loved at one point. And one released an episode after two years of being gone, and I listened to it that night because I was so excited that they were back. So you might be that podcaster somebody, you probably are. Release the content. Don't be embarrassed. It's exciting to come back and try something new. And you know, if it works out this time, that's gonna be so exciting for everybody who's stuck with you.

Cara Pacetti: 12:53

Love that. Yes. And if you have any questions about relaunching your podcast or any questions about podcasting at all, you can always reach out to us by emailing us at support at buzzsprout.com. If you have a question that you'd like to see answered on a future podcasting QA episode like this one, please click the send us a text link in the show notes. I was so excited to get this fan mail and to answer it. And so, my listener from Sacramento, California, if you are listening to this, please shoot me another fan mail and let me know uh that you heard it because I was excited to answer your question. Albin, thank you again for joining me on this episode. It was really fun answering this question with you.

Alban Brooke: 13:35

Well, it's great being here. And everyone, send Cara some more questions, help her keep this show going so we don't have to relaunch it in the future.

Cara Pacetti: 13:43

It's been really fun. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.