Is your podcast requiring more graphic design than you expected?
How many times have you seen a Podcast (or podcast episode) on your phone and thought "Wow! That's a great cover image!". It's a natural reaction for people to stop when they see a unique and capitavating podcast episode thumbnail. Considering this, we think it's worth your time to design graphics for each of your podcasts (and each of their episodes). But that's just one way designing images can help your Podcast audience grow. Here are a few more:
There have been more podcasts launched in 2024 than the previous 4 years combined. That means there are more podcast producers, writers, graphic designers and sound engineers than ever before. And that also means managing all these different roles can be difficult.
Depending on how your podcast is set up, you may be in charging of marketing & promoting your podcast, or that may be someone else's job. But the more serious and professional your podcast is, the more important it is for you to successfully promote it (and each and every episode).
And take it from us: spending hours in photoshop just to put together a quick graphic for social media or your email newsletter is not the best way to spend your (very little) time. Stencil is designed specifically for that.
Some example graphics used for podcasts and podcast episodes:
New Episode Next Week
ThursdayJust passed 5,000 subscribers!
Won
a Webby
Award!
Thank you team!
Stencil is used slightly differently by everyone. But there are some ways that it's unqiue useful for Podcasts. To start with, we're the fastest graphic design service or software out there. That means that you can quickly crop an image, add your logo, write some text (in your brand font) and download (or post that image to social media) in minutes.
But we go beyond that: a lot of podcasts run their own websites too. And to help make it faster to get graphics and images on those site's, we've built a WordPress Plugin to make it as fast as possible. Stencil will show up right in your WordPress Admin, allowing you to design graphics while you're writing your posts, or editing your pages.
Searching for a photo can take way too long sometimes. That's why Stencil has licensed 5,000,000+ photos for our users to use (with no extra charge).
And to make you worry less, we've negotiated the license for these photos so that you can use them for both personal and commercial purposes.
Create your first imageWe know that the perfect photo isn't enough sometimes. Sometimes, you want an icon (or two) to make your design stand out. So to help with that, we've partner with icon providers to give you access to 3,100,000+ icons.
And just like the photos, you don't need to worry about the copright: you're free to use any icons you find in Stencil for both personal and commercial purposes!
Create your first image
We have dozens of podcasts using Stencil to design graphics every day. And what we've heard from them is pretty simple: Stencil saves them time. One of the ways we save them time is by giving them access to millions of photos and icons. But another way is by sharing our Chrome, Safari and Firefox Add-ons with our users (at no additional charge).
We've also heard that our Social Media features (whereby you can post directly to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterst and Buffer right from within the app) helps them simplify their flow.
Finally, we've heard that Stencil is perfect for designing podcast episode thumbnails. Because you can create your own "custom sizes" (eg. 400x400), you can quickly design your own thumbs for the different podcast distributors.
Visual content is more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source)
Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. (Source)
46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and storytelling strategies. (Source)
Buffer reported that for its user base, tweets with images received 150% more retweets than tweets without images. (Source)
While there are lots of ways to design graphics to increase your exposure, we wanted to share with you a few ways that our current users and using Stencil to help promote their Podcasts:
Getting your listeners excited about an upcoming episode, topic or guest is a great way to ensure your podcast is part of their regular routine (which in turn, helps them tell others about your podcast).
For better or worse, sharing statistics about your listeners and subscribers helps get new ones (by acting as social proof and validation). So when you reach those milestones, let people know on social media and your newsletter.
We know that active listeners and subscribers often share their positive messages. Don't hold on to those. Share those testimonials, reviews and quotes with your audience (ideally by including a photo of that listener). This, again, helps act as social proof for your podcast.
Remind your audience that there are real people behind the podcast they listen to (each week or month), by desiging graphics featuring your team. It's also a great way to show gratitute towards your team.
Recent estimates have stated that there are over 700,000 active podcasts. That means standing out isn't so easy. To help your podcast stand out, you'll want to engage with where your audience is: on social media. Whether that's Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, you'll want to share updates (and even better, images & graphics) with them frequently.
This is truly where Stencil shines: we've made it so easy to post directly to those networks right after you finish designing your image. After you connect your Social Media accounts, you'll be given the option to preview what they look like before you share them.
With so many (700,000+) podcasts competing for attention and ears in 2024, it can be tough to stand out. Trying to balance the research, production, editing and distribution of podcasts is a full time job in and of itself. But that's also why we think Stencil can uniquely help you: from day-1, we designed it to be the fastest way to design images and graphics.
We built it so that if you want to add your logo or watermark to an image, or if you want to crop and styling a photo, it can all be done in miutes (and often, seconds). We're always available to help you out, and we're always working to make Stencil better and better.
We hope you'll consider Stencil for your Podcast, because we truly believe that with a simple online graphic design service, you can help your podcast grow and reach more listeners.
Great reviews from people who use Stencil.
The quickest way for me to prettify an image. Super helpful!
We can easily create and share engaging, unique, and tastefully branded content with our customer community in a matter of minutes. It will be an indispensable community building tool for us.
"...this tool will open so many doors for you on Pinterest."
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