Back when I was a journalism student in college, I had a gravelly-voiced Pulitzer Prize-winning professor with an encyclopedia of stories and knowledge from his career as a newspaper journalist.
Throughout the three years I took classes with him, he dropped all sorts of eclectic wisdom.
There were a few pieces of advice he gave me, however, that remain seared into the forefront of my consciousness while I produce podcasts like Grow The Show.
One of them was this: when you sit down to write a story, you should try to make it so that each sentence compels the reader (or listener) to keep going. Every line you write or produce should make the reader feel like they just have to know what the sentence after will say.
If that sounds like a tedious task, that’s because it is. However, my teacher didn’t give us that advice to make our lives more difficult.
He was training us to write this way because today, whether you’re a journalist, podcaster, or blogger, you are writing for the attention economy.
Paying Attention Pays
Attention economy is a term that, in short, refers to the fact that our attention is scarce.
We can only pay attention to so many things at once, so we can only do and think about so many things at once. This, in turn, means our attention has value.
And, in today’s world, our attention is more valuable than ever. We are surrounded by social media, streaming, and other platforms that are designed with the sole purpose of catching and holding our attention.
All of the people involved with the platforms—the social media apps, the influencers, streaming services— all of them are getting paid via advertising when they catch and keep our attention .
As podcasters, we are also a part of this attention economy.
A lot of our monetization methods are based on the downloads we get, or how many people are paying attention to our shows.
But, podcasting is vastly different than a lot of the media we’re competing against.
In a world where a lot of the daily media people consume consists of quick-hits like TikTok and Twitter, we as podcasters are producing shows that are often half an hour to an hour long. In addition to that, people tend to listen to podcasts while completing other tasks like driving or working out.
I’m no economist, but what this tells me is that podcasters are both at a significant advantage and a significant disadvantage.
About 65% of podcast listeners actually listen to full episodes.
The advantage is that our medium doesn’t usually take up the majority of a consumer’s attention.
People have finite attention to give, but they don’t have to give us all of it. This means that our listeners will stick with us for a longer period of time than they might spend with others.
I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty rare that I’ll watch an entire 45-minute-long YouTube video. I did, however, listen to a 45-minute-long podcast this morning while I made breakfast.
The disadvantage is that, because we rarely hold someone’s attention completely, we have to fight extra hard to keep them engaged.
There is obviously more than one solution to the challenge of keeping people’s attention. We can make sure we write a killer intro to our show, create a killer show premise, and land killer guests.
But, when it comes to keeping people hooked mid-episode, it’s all in the writing and production.
This– the attention economy that we are competing in and the unique position that we’re in as podcasters— this is why my teacher’s advice is so important.
About 65% of podcast listeners actually listen to full episodes, and his advice is how you can increase the likelihood that your listeners are part of the 65%.
Strategies for Writing Compelling Copy
So, how can you make listener feel like they just have to know what you are going to say next on your show?
There are two great strategies I like to use to compel my readers and listeners to stick with my content all the way through.
1. Switch up the Story Structure
The first strategy is all about the order in which you reveal your information.
By switching the order away from how you might naturally tell the story, you can create suspense and drama.
There is a great example of this in an episode of another podcast I produce, called Philly Who. This particular episode was about a bookshop owner who was hit hard by the pandemic.
Here is a short transcript where the host’s voiceovers are in bold, and the guest’s audio is not:
Kevin: Decades earlier than she originally dreamed, Jeannine accomplished the dream. She was a bookshop keeper, and Harriett’s bookshop took the city by storm. It was perfect.
And like every perfect dream, just when you think it can’t get any better, you wake up.
Jeannine: Six weeks later we are told we get an email from the city that we need to shut our doors completely.
Kevin: You see, Harriett’s bookshop officially opened on February 1st, 2020.
Six weeks after the bookshop opened the entire world closed.
Jeannine: I remember going into the back of the store and just like bawling like and just laying on the floor I was just laid out on the floor just crying …I put a lot into this and this is not gonna work Um and it’s you know again I saw him fairest so publicly embarrassing right To like do this this way and now it’s going to fail.
Kevin: Many of us felt this way in the early days of the pandemic – it’s over, my life is over.
But, our lives weren’t over, and neither was Jeannine’s.
When we produced this episode, we purposefully withheld the date she opened her bookshop and what happened that caused her to shut her doors. Instead started with the result: The city told her she had to close her store.
This left listeners asking “why did she wake up from her dream?” Then, “why did she have to close her doors?” And, finally, “how did she survive?”
Each sentence gave the listener a question, and they have to keep listening to get the answer.
If we hadn’t switched the order, the episode might have sounded more like this:
Kevin: Decades earlier than she originally dreamed, Jeannine accomplished the dream and opened her bookshop in February, 2020.
It was perfect until the pandemic hit the next month.
Jeannine: Six weeks later we are told we get an email from the city that we need to shut our doors completely.
I remember going into the back of the store and just like bawling like and just laying on the floor I was just laid out on the floor just crying …I put a lot into this and this is not gonna work Um and it’s you know again I saw him fairest so publicly embarrassing right To like do this this way and now it’s going to fail.
Kevin: Many of us felt this way in the early days of the pandemic – it’s over, my life is over.
But, Jeannine came up with the idea to give books to essential workers, and that kept her business going.
The segment would have been less dramatic, and the emotion would not be so strong.
2. Leave a Breadcrumb Trail
If the first strategy I discussed is about the order you tell your story, the second is about speed.
By this, I mean that you don’t always have to cut to the chase. Instead of leading your listeners directly to your destination, leave a breadcrumb trail of information for them to follow.
Check out this excerpt from the intro to this very article to see what I mean.
Throughout the three years I took classes with him, he dropped all sorts of eclectic wisdom.
There were a few pieces of advice he gave me, however, that remain seared into the forefront of my consciousness while I produce podcasts like Grow The Show.
One of them was this: when you sit down to write a story, you should try to make it so that each sentence compels the reader to keep reading. Every line you write should make the reader feel like they just have to know what the sentence after will say.
If that sounds like a tedious task, that’s because it is. However, my teacher didn’t give us that advice to make our lives more difficult.
He was training us to write this way because today, whether you’re a journalist, podcaster, or blogger, you are writing for the attention economy.
Instead of one chunk of information—I had a professor who gave me gave me specific piece of really helpful advice— I broke the story down and stretched it out into a few different parts:
My professor gave me a ton of great advice, I still use some of that advice today, here is a specific piece of advice I use, and here is why that advice is important.
This leaves the reader asking “what is the advice?” Then, “why did he give you that advice?” And, finally, “what exactly is the attention economy?”
For reference, here is what the shorter version might look like:
My favorite piece of advice that my professor gave me is that every line you write should make the reader feel like they just have to know what the sentence after will say.
It’s a tedious task, but it’s important, because we’re competing against a lot of types of media for people’s limited attention. Social media and streaming services mean that we have to work harder to keep people interested.
It’s more direct, but it’s less intriguing.
Avoiding Confusion is Key
These two strategies can be used separately or even at the same time in order to produce an amazing podcast that will leave your listeners glued to their earbuds.
While each works in a slightly different way, they both force your listener to ask questions that require them to listen further.
It’s important however, that you answer questions quickly to avoid confusion.
It might seem a bit antithetic to the rest of this article, but hear me out.
There is a very fine line between creating suspense and confusing your listeners.
It’s important you avoid to confusion because confusion leads to people tuning you out and turning you off.
If you are making your listener ask a question, then make sure you answer that question, at least in part, within the next sentence or two.
In Jeannine Cook’s story, we left listeners asking why she woke up from her dream in one sentence, and in the next sentence we answer the question by letting them know that the shop had to shut down. Then, the listeners ask why the shop shut down, which we again answer almost immediately.
In Conclusion…
In today’s attention economy, it is incredibly important for podcasters to write and produce compelling shows.
If you’re intentional about the order and speed in which you reveal your information, you’ll be able to reel your listeners in and make them feel like they have to keep listening.