And no, I wasn’t assigned the role of the murder victim.  

 

 

I hear knocking on the door.

 

One by one, my friends shuffle in looking, speaking, and acting like time travelers from the 1920s. We have a huge night of merriment ahead of us.  

 

The house is decorated.  

 

A 3-course meal is ready to be served.

 

Clues are hidden all over the house.  

 

And in one of my bedrooms, there is a fake corpse covered in a “bloody” (corn syrup and food coloring) bath curtain.  

 

The sweet sounds of raucous laughter and horrible acting flood my house.  

 

For all effects and purposes, I should be ecstatic, right? After all, this is the night I’ve been planning for months, and everyone is having the BEST time.  

 

But unfortunately, I had been feeling sick.  

 

Since this was a whole production and everyone made the time to be there, I didn’t find it in my heart to postpone it.  

 

 

 

As the night went on, I started feeling worse and worse.  

 

I lay down on my sofa, pale-faced, stomach abuzz, in full costume, with the back of my right palm resting against my forehead, looking like a 1920s damsel in the grips of a mysterious illness.  

 

My friends periodically checked in with me, fixed me fizzy beverages, gave me a damp towel to hold against my face.  

 

They did the whole game and helped clean up afterwards.  

 

So at around midnight, I changed into my pajamas and tried to go to sleep.  

 

But my body was NOT having it.

 

I will spare you the details, but I had a stomach bug and ended up in the hospital.

Despite me getting sick and barely participating, my guests had a blast in the murder mystery party.  

 

If there’s one thing about me is that I fucking LOOOOVE hosting random themed events. And in my years of experience, I’ve concluded that you can’t just design a pretty invitation, call it a day, and expect people to have fun.  

 

You have to go beyond that and think about the little details.  

 

What will they eat? What will they drink? What will they do? What will they feel when they walk through the door?  

 

When you’re launching a podcast, don’t focus only on marketing (the invitation).

 

A lot of attention is rightfully given to a podcast’s visibility, especially during its launch.

 

You might create a podcast trailer and release it a couple of week’s before launch date. You might painstakingly set up a comprehensive content calendar, making sure your potential listeners hear about your new podcast everywhere — Instagram, Threads, your newsletter… You might even set up a private community so a select group of people can listen to the podcast early and spread the hype.

 

All of this is awesome!

 

Buuuut it’s worth very little if listeners discover your podcast, listen to one episode (or less!), and promptly leave with no plan of returning.

 

So how do you get them to stay?

 

 

I could talk about this forever (which is why I plan to do a deep-dive on this for my Point of the Story podcast interview - coming soon!), but for today I will give you one easy tip you can start implementing right away:

 

 

What’s your attention span like these days? I ask because mine feels shittier each day.

 

I know you can relate. We’re all trying to get our attention spans back from the clutches of social media, but unfortunately everyone is affected.

 

And on top of that, there are soooooooooooo many options when it comes to what media we consume and what feels like so little time to consume it, that listeners often press play on a podcast episode and immediately change their mind and switch to a different one.

 

I do this all the time, especially when I’m trying out a new podcast to see if it’s a good fit for me.

 

For all these reasons, the first minute of your podcast is CRUCIAL.

 

 

Choose a couple of your favorite podcasts ever and jot down what they do in the first 60 seconds of an episode. Ask yourself if the intro captured your attention or not. And if it did, ask yourself why.

 

For example, today I was listening to a You’re Wrong About episode titled “Is Your House Too Clean? with Sarah Archer.”

 

 

Here is the breakdown of the first minute of the episode:

 

—

 

0:00-0:05 - Starts with a short, random, and out-of-context snippet from the episode, in which the host says, “If anything, we should make more things smell like vaginas. And with that, I will see myself out. laughs”

 

0:05-0:16 - Theme music (suuuper fun — almost surfer punk — you’ll get it if you listen to it lol)

 

0:16-1:00 - Welcome to You’re Wrong About. I’m Sarah Marshall, and today we have a special spring cleaning episode with our Home Economics correspondent, Sarah Archer. About this time last year, Sarah came on to talk about the tradwife, and now we’re going on a thought cruise through the history of cleanliness and the rise of CleanTok, and we’re going to be asking the question, “how clean is clean enough and how clean is too clean? I loved this conversation because…”

 

Then, she explains the reasons she loves it, other related bonus episodes, there’s a little music transition, and the interview starts at 1:57.

 

—

 

Notice all we learned from just one episode! I highly encourage you to repeat this exercise with other podcasts and yours if you have one!

 

Feel free to experiment with the techniques you learn to craft an intro that captures your audience’s attention right away.

 

 

This podcast is the kindest “You’re wrong!” you will ever get! And I don’t know about you, but I seriously enjoy questioning my assumptions and misconceptions. I live for being mindblown and learning new things.

 

Sarah Marshall is a phenomenal podcast host who picks fascinating topics and guests about whatever piques her interest — everything from cleaning to true crime!

 

Plus, I really love her voice and feel like she would be a perfect dinner guest (two important criteria for me in determining what podcasts I fall in love with).

 

 

“Sarah is a journalist obsessed with the past. Every week she reconsiders a person or event that's been miscast in the public imagination.”

 

 

I’ve made this twice for guests with pigs in a blanket (ooooh, two recipes today!) and not a single blanketed pig has survived.

 

I even had a guest who hates pickles, somehow love this dip! It’s tangy, cool, and delicious. And the best part? It’s ridiculously easy to make.

Chop pickles and dip. Mix all four ingredients together. DONE. Save it for your next party!

🥂 Cheers,

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