Press play on a visual entry point for your show. This is part of a series of articles to help you make a great podcast website. Need a simple, beautiful, and affordable website designed just for your podcast? Start your Podsite free trial today.

Your video trailer is a first step in using other digital platforms to connect the dots between your podcast out in the world and possible new listeners. It can be as simple or elaborate as you want, ranging from an audiogram (a static image along with your audio podcast trailer playing) to a behind the scenes interview or recording of you making your podcast to a trailer that’s worthy of a blockbuster movie debut.

Your video trailer on your website

For new listeners, a play button on a video is familiar. It connects your voice with a visual, making the next step to press a play button on an episode even more natural. You can take a few different approaches to making your video trailer:

Audiogram

Simple yet effective. Works for any podcast.

• Conversations With People Who Hate Me uses the podcast artwork as the backdrop to their audio trailer.
• Wolverine: The Long Night does the same, and includes a number of calls to action in their video description.

Archival footage

Great for historical and documentary style podcasts.

• Past is Prologue, a podcast documentary about The Pixies, used concert footage overlaid with text from the voiceover for their trailer.
• Slow Burn introduced their new season with archival newsreel footage, perfectly setting the stage for their historical look back into the Clinton impeachment.
• In the Dark’s trailer for the second season mixes archival courtroom footage and modern on-site b-roll and interviews.
• Disgraceland mixed archival footage with stylized performances—perfect for a podcast about the bad side of rock stars.

Go behind the scenes

Great for interview podcasts or podcasts where the host is a significant part of the show.

• eBay’s Open for Business goes behind the scenes on the making of their show, including the host and guests, accompanied by the audio of their podcast’s trailer. They also smartly included the direct link to their podcast’s website in the description.
• Bear and a Banjo explains the backstory of their podcast and introduces important characters to listeners.

Expand your podcast world

Great for audio fiction and other creative storytelling.

Congeria sets the scene of their genre-bending drama with music and animated style.

• American Fiasco takes a playful approach to their video trailer, and used an information button in the top corner of the video to link off to their podcast website.
• The Adventure Zone introduced their newest seasonal arc with an animated trailer. Not only does this trailer bring a fantastical world to life, they gave full credit to everyone involved in the production process (complete with links to their work) to celebrate their loyal fandom in the description.
• Imagined Life brings a dreamy, other-worldly quality to their immersive biography-style podcast.
• The Ron Burgundy Podcast used their trailer to bridge their central character’s on-screen persona to podcast persona.

Your video trailer also points people to your podcast

Since your video trailer is hosted on your Youtube or Vimeo channel, the description of your video trailer can also get curious new listeners right back to your show.

Include the following details to connect the dots between your video trailer and your podcast:

• Your podcast’s title and logline
• Your extended description
• Your podcast website
• A link to your Where to Listen page