Clients often ask this one question: how long should my podcast be?
It seems to be important because business-type people are often taught by statistics, rather than gut feeling. In terms of podcast length, there is no recommended maximum length, it all depends on your target audience.
Our own podcast, Der U?bercast, produces a one hour show. Our target audience are mainly technically-savvy people who are comfortable listening to these longform podcasts. Other groups who are comfortable listening to this kind of podcasts are usually folks who spend a lot of time travelling.
Many of our client's podcasts are typically a little bit shorter than ours. They prefer to aim for a length of 15 minutes max. Listeners falling into this bracket usually also travel a little bit more but don't want be entertained by one voice only.
Another thing that you have to consider for your podcast is how well your audience is educated. Typically you could argue that younger audiences are still less educated than grownups. They don't read that much yet and therefore need the material to be presented in an easier to understand form. Another thing are attention spans. As people who are doing something while listening do not have enough energy to listen to everything you say. One example here are the aforementioned travelling people. Just imagine that you drive a car while listening to a radio program. You couldn't keep your attention on the radio, all of the time, as you would also have to take car of other people on the road. In these cases it's better to repeat your most important points, so that your audience has enough time to understand and grasp these things.
It is therefore not only a question of podcast length but also a case of podcast structure and storytelling. So what comes in your story first, where do you set hooks, etc. Obviously these means more beforehand planning.
So what is the most perfect ideal podcast length?
The sweet spots most people aim for a either 15 minutes or 1 hour. I think it is safe to say then that your goals should be similar. I also know some podcast which go way beyond the one hour mark but these are really not for the general audience – only accustomed and advanced podcast listeners will spend 4 hours on one piece of audio. Business podcasts most often aim for something along the lines of 15 to 30 minutes, whereas technical and chatty podcasts can be longer.
What podcasts are you planning for the future? Let me know in the comments, and please upvote, so we'll get this message to other readers as well! Thank you!
Comes visit our podcast at derubercast.com. My corporate media production company is at zcasting3000.com. If you are into trading cryptocurrencies, visit our Facebook group.