The Mike Bills Podcast To Make A Return For Modern Weddings

It seems just like yesterday. I'll never forget how excited I was back in the fall of 2019.  Back then I was putting together something that at the time was not being done in Charleston.  At the time, it was the perfect marriage of my skills as a professional wedding DJ and an experienced producer of audio. On November 1, 2019, the Mike Bills Podcast was launched.  Being an experience producer of audio, I knew what it took to put together a professional sounding podcast. In the months leading up the launch of the podcast, I was listening to other podcasts to get a feel for how I could be laying out my own.  What I learned pretty fast was how great the level of effort was to put together the Mike Bills Podcast.  For someone who attacks most everything he gets into wih passion, the podcast did not take long to become an albatross around my neck.  Why was this?  How are things going to be different this time around as I put together NEW podcasts for the modern bride and groom?  You'll want to read on as I lay out my plan to resume The Mike Bills Podcast.

Let's face it. Life is one big balancing act. We all have to take care of our obligations. Whether that is going to your 9-5, operating your business (both full-time or part-time), there are only so many hours in a day to get it all done.  And in case you must know, I do have a full-time job, in addition to operating my business and brand as a top wedding DJ in my market. For more information about Why You Can Be A Top Wedding DJ Without Doing It Time <---Click HEREI don't mean to be cliche, but there are certainly a lot of times when I wake up and the first thing out of my mouth is "The struggle is real." When I first launched the Mike Bills Podcast, I was between jobs. I had decided not to make an attempt to go back to work until January 2020. As a result, I had time to put this podcast together.  Let me give you a quick primer on how to put a podcast together.

Content Creation Of Podcast
Before you record a podcast, you need to know what it is you are going to be talking about. Fortunately, for me I had a ton of written content on my blog that I could re-organize and record into a podcast.  But if there was a topic I wanted to discuss that I had not yet written about, I would have to spend some time writing out my script, so that I could then record the podcast.  Who knows how long this may take, but for an estimate, we'll see 2-3 hours to write the script to record the Mike Bills Podcast.

Recording The Podcast
In my early experiences with The Mike Bills Podcast, I got hung up on making sure I was not making mistakes during the recording. Unless the errors were so blatant in the audio during the recording, I began to find that it was not important to not worry about it and to just move on when a glitch occurred. After all, recording a podcast should not need to be like recording a radio commercial, where the read has to perfect. Recording a podcast should sound more like a natural conversation and it should not sound like the person speaking is talking "at" you.

Producing The Podcast
Producing the podcast putting all the recorded parts together and reviewing it to make sure it sounds good enough to be uploaded. This actually might be the quickest part of the entire process, but a very important one.  It was during this phase of the podcast where I found myself not happy at times with how some of the recordings sounded. It was att his time that I made a decision to re-record some parts of the podcast, which lengthened the production time.

Uploading The Podcast
Once I felt like the finished product was ready for podcast land, I uploaded it to my podcast hosting. Once it was uploaded to my podcast hosting, it became available on all of the podcast platforms like Google Play, Apple, IHeart Radio, and Spotify. Also, at this time, I needed to produce graphics for the podcast, as well as producing additional audio that could be used to promote the podcast in Instagram stories.  

The Mistake I Made With The Mike Bills Podcast

So you can see there were numerous hours put into the making of one podcast. Here's the deal. The biggest mistake I made at the beginning of The Mike Bills Podcast was thinking I had to have a podcast uploaded every single week.  While I did a lot of listening to other podcasts to see how they were laid out, I wish I had gotten advice early on from experienced podcasters telling me I was not required to release a new podcast every single week.  While I do have a ton to talk about as it pertains to the life of a successful wedding DJ, do I really need to put a podcast out every week? The answer is no. Does the podcast need to be 45 or 50 minutes? Once again. The answer is No.  

From November 2019 through February 14, 2020, I ended up recording 16 episodes of The Mike Bills Podcast.  On February 18, 2020, I began a new full-time job, which would take me away from having the time to produce the podcast. About a month after I began that job, the COVID pandemic began and actually allowed me to work from home. Even though it may sound as though I would have time during the pandemic to record more podcasts, I was still burned out from the 16 that were uploaded.  Also, it was not until 2021 that I redesigned my recording studio which would make things "easier" to produce a podcast. Believe it or not, the earliest episodes of The Mike Bills Podcast were recorded in a closet.

It had been a while since I logged into the hosting for my podcast. When I logged in, I was tickled to see that despite any new content in 3 years, people were still organically finding The Mike Bills Podcast.  Even without any recent promotion of the podcast on social media, the podcast had continued to receive limited downloads. Upon review of some of the podcast analytics, there was a startling realization about which podcasts were receiving the most downloads.  The last podcast that I produced and uploaded was put together in October 2020. It was the shortest recording that I had uploaded, but it had gained the most downloads and listens. Who would have thought in 4 years that our attention span would have decreased that much, but it did. 

Clients Listened To The Podcast And They Booked Me

One of the benefits of having a podcast are the episodes are there on the hosting and can be downloaded thousands of times. Newly engaged brides and grooms can still listen to relevent content for their 2023 or 2024 wedding that was created in 2020. I've been truly humbled by some of my clients over the past 3 years who listened to some of my podcasts during their search for their wedding DJ. This is EXACTLY one of the biggest reasons why I decided to publish a podcast in the first place; to possibly allow tech savvy clients to hear me speak about passionately about the wedding DJ industry. I think podcasting is an excellent way for my clients to get to know me and what it is I will do for them should they hire me to be their wedding DJ.  i mean, if you don't have time to read this blog, take a listen to The Mike Bills Podcast and you'll be on your way to learning how to find the best wedding DJ.

A Leaner And Meaner Mike Bills Podcast Is On The Way

Based on a review of current podcast analytics for the Mike Bills Podcast, I've made a determination that consumers of the podcast prefer shorter podcasts. Let's face it. Most modern brides and grooms are being bombarded by so much information in their social media feeds on a regular basis.  Our news has been reduced into smaller soundbytes. Well, if our news is being reduced into smaller soundbytes, then content that is consumed on how to find the best wedding DJ should also be delivered in smaller portions. Be on the look out for shorter podcasts coming to where you download your podcasts.

Ready To Sit Down With DJ Mike Bills To Discuss Your Wedding?

Thank you so much for making it all the way to the end of this post. I am excited to be getting back into the studio to begin producing more content for The Mike Bills Podcast. It certainly has been long time coming and it's my hope that this new approach to producing the podcast for you won't be so much hard as it was when I initially uploaded the first episode.  If you are recently engaged couple who are in the hunt for the best wedding DJ who fit you as a couple, you are invited to listen to other episodes of The Mike Bills Podcast, as well as the rest of my blog. In order to set up a time to speak with me about your wedding, just click over to the Contact page.