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15 Comments

Should podcasts have an intro?

This is mostly a question for @csallen, but I thought the answer might be interesting to others.

@csallen, I noticed you recently removed your intro from the podcast. Why did you do that?

Would you recommend that also for new podcasts, or was that something you could do because people now know your podcast and what it is about?

I read that the intro should be short. Not having one is yet another route.

What are other podcasters here doing and why?

  1. 3

    The Art of Product doesn't have one and, though I thought it was weird at first, I sort of love it. Makes binging especially easy (paired with how conversational it is)

    1. 2

      Art of Product is my favorite podcast right now!

    2. 2

      Thanks. Going to listen to it now...

    3. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

  2. 2

    i like it.

    some podcasts have 5 minutes of meaningless chatter before getting into it ...

    time is money

      1. 1

        This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

  3. 1

    Sorry, just now getting to this!

    I'm experimenting with not having an intro for a while to see how it affects drop-off rates in the first few minutes of the show. Here's the cost-benefit analysis of intros as I see them:

    Benefits:

    • new listeners get a brief pitch on what the show is about
    • if you have some good intro music, there might be a bit of a Pavlovian effect (I only say this because people have told me in the past that they get excited the second they hear the IH intro music… it's probably super minor)

    Costs:

    • time-wasting for people who are binging episodes or who already know what the show is about
    • causes lots of people to try to skip ahead to find where the interview starts
    • possibly results in more people dropping off in the first 30 seconds (this is what I'm testing)
    1. 1

      The music is great!

    2. 1

      Thanks for sharing. Would love to hear what you find out for the drop off and retention! Please share once you have enough data.

      1. 1

        The answer seemed to be that there was no effect, and a bunch of people drop off immediately, intro or not!

        1. 1

          Thanks for reporting. Good to know.

    3. 1

      I really like the combination of no ads and no intro. Oddly, it makes the show stand out a little since most shows are Intro -> Ad -> Interview.

      1. 1

        I totally agree on the ads. A brief intro doesn't bother me, but I don't like the super verbose Tim Ferriss-style ones or the ones filled with spoiler clips from the upcoming episode.

  4. 1

    We’ve never done an intro on the podcast we started in January. Our format is just me and my co-host catching up and talking about some of the stuff on our mind as we grow our respective business. I start to feel like we should be doing intros if we were doing an interview formatted podcast, but that’s not set in stone either IMO.

    1. 3

      Thanks! I kinda like the intro. I also really liked the one indiehackers had. It somehow created this "I'm listening to the indiehackers podcast now"-feeling, which I very much enjoy. I'd like to have a similar effect with my podcast, so I spend yesterday working on an intro....

      1. 1

        Ya, I get that too. I definitely think intros are friendlier to new listeners too. It's nice way to introduce yourself/podcast if they've never heard an episode before.

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