How to Brainstorm Unique Podcast Ideas That Stand Out

Hello there and welcome back to another episode of The Lazy Girl's Guide podcasting and in this episode, we are talking all about brainstorming unique podcast ideas that stand out.

Now why is this important?

Well, we know that podcasting has absolutely exploded in popularity in the last few years with more and more new shows popping up every day. And with the rise of podcasting, this has led to an increase in the number of creators and producers trying to break into the podcasting world and industry.

But with so many podcasts out there, it can be really challenging to come up with unique ideas that will make you stand out from the crowd make your show stand out from the crowd. So new creators are so often left with the question 'What should I podcast about?' 'Where do I even start?' 'I don't know what to podcast about.'

And this is really where brainstorming comes in. So what I want to do for this episode is explore some tips and tricks for generating fresh and exciting ideas for your podcast. And hopefully, even if you've been podcasting for a very long time, or if you're looking to revamp your show, if you're brand new to podcasting, whatever, we have got you covered in this episode. So let's dive in.

First of all, choosing podcast ideas that you're passionate about. This is the biggest thing that I want to encourage you to do. Is to really question what it is that you're passionate about, because it's so important that your podcast reflects the topic that you're interested in. What is it that really lights you up and that you could talk about for hours and hours and hours? And yes, I do say hours and hours and hours, because regardless of how long your episodes are going to be for successful podcast, you need to have the momentum. You need to have content to be putting out there every week or every two weeks, every series, whatever it is that your content schedule looks like.

Why? Well because it's really obvious when you listen to a podcast and the host is just not interested in what they're talking about. In fact, it's a real turnoff when you can tell that a podcast is podcasting for the sake of it or just to follow the trend. No one wants to listen to that. So first of all, before you go any further consider what is it you're passionate about and what can you talk about every episode.

Before you start brainstorming podcast ideas, it's really critical to identify your target audience. Knowing who you're creating content for will really help you tailor your ideas to their interests and needs. So consider demographics such as age gender, location interests, and it's also essential to understand your audience's pain points and what they're looking for in a podcast. What are their challenges and how is your podcast going to solve them?

Because understanding those audiences wants and needs will help you create content that resonates and keeps them coming back for more. And when I say challenges, I don't necessarily mean challenges as in delivering how tos or tech tutorials or reviews. It could be that your audience wants entertainment in which case what do they want entertaining with research your competition so to create a unique podcast idea, it's essential to research your competition.

By analysing what other podcasters are doing, you can start to identify gaps in their content or find a unique angle for your own podcast. Start by listening to podcasts in your niche and analyse their content, their format their style. Look for areas that unlearn not covering and consider a way that you can fill that gap. Consider the ringtone format and length of their episodes as well as the topics they cover. Because researching your competition will also really help you understand what works and what doesn't work in your niche. This knowledge will help you avoid common mistakes and create content that really resonates with your audience.

Okay, so brainstorming techniques for your podcast. How are you going to come up with ideas for your podcast? So these are kind of these are my ways which I would advocate the most of the first one you've probably heard me talk about it before is the 20 ideas list. Once you've had decided what the topic is of your podcast, draft out the first 20 ideas for episodes that come to your head.

Try not to overthink your list at this stage. Just write down whatever comes to mind and it's not to say that you're necessarily going to record every single one of those 20 ideas. It might be that none of them come to fruition it might be only half of them get used. However, if you can't list out at least 20 ideas for episodes for your podcast. You don't have a podcast. Why? Because you don't have enough content that you're going to be talking about to fill up besides for your podcast.

So if you can't think of 20 episode ideas in like 10 to 20 minutes, you might want to rethink the your podcast topic. I'm not saying completely abandon it, especially if you've really set your heart on that topic idea. I'm just saying make sure that you have got a realistic amount of content to get started with because fundamentally you want to avoid pod frayed pod fade from the get go.

Statistically, the vast majority of podcasts will go into this pod fade quote unquote, after the first eight episodes and one of the main reasons is that the podcasters run out of content ideas. So that is really the benefit of making sure you've got enough content to begin with. And another benefit of listing out at least 20 episodes well if you're doing podcasts every single week, that's nearly half a year of content ideas ready to go and if you're doing bi weekly episodes, but pretty much a year's worth of content covered.

The next way of brainstorming ideas is to use Mind Maps mind maps are visual brainstorm techniques that involve creating a diagram of your ideas. What you do is you start with a core idea in the center of the paper. If you're using a piece of paper and then branch out related topics, you can use colors, images, keywords to help you visualize your ideas. So for example, if I were making a mindmap for the Lazy Girls Guide to podcasting, I would start out with the core idea of starting a podcast in the center of a piece of paper. And from that I would have topics branching out and these topics could include tech software reviews, interview techniques, podcasting basics, and then from each of these macro topics, I could then have micro ideas coming off and these could then start forming the basis of a concept for an episode.

I have to say I do love doing a mind map on with pen and paper. I love getting creative with Sharpies. However, if you are a Canva user, they have now got this new mind mapping function and they've got something like 980+ templates that you can choose from to create these really awesome mind maps. So that can be fun as well if you prefer to mindmap on the computer.

The next way you can generate some ideas for your podcast episodes is through word association. This can be a really fun way of brainstorming different ideas using related words and phrases. So the idea is that you start off with a single word that relates to your podcast topic, and then use the thesaurus to find synonyms and related words. And this technique is excellent for generating ideas quite quickly, and can lead to some quite unexpected connections.

You can also use a random word generator online to find unexpected words that could give you some more inspiration for podcast topic ideas. And honestly once you start this you can just go on and on and on. So have fun with that.

My next tip is to reverse brainstorming your podcast ideas and this involves flipping a problem on its head and brainstorming solutions to the opposite problem. For example, if you podcast about healthy eating, maybe brainstorm unhealthy eating habits and how to avoid them, see what I did that just flipped it on its head.

The next and final way that you can generate some ideas is to utilise current events and trends and thinking what's really going on that relevant at this point in time to your podcast topics, or look for stories or topics in the news that relate to your niche and find a unique angle to cover them from. For example if your podcast is about personal finance, you could cover the impact of the pandemic on people's finances. You could cover trends in investing or changes in tax laws. By covering current events and trends you can create content that's timely relevant and engaging for your listeners.

So there are my top ways of generating content ideas for your podcast. I hope you found them useful. I would love it if you got in touch to let me know which one is your favorite app Verity Sangan on either Twitter or Instagram. And if you want more inspiration on this then do make sure as well that you check out our online course The Confident Podcaster where we've got an entire module explaining exactly how to conceptualise your podcast and how to take that concept and those initial ideas right through to publish a podcast that you're proud of, to host and tell the world about. So do check out the link in the show notes for that for that online course.

Otherwise, I will see you next episode.