Let's assume you’re a business podcaster, and you want to write the perfect podcast introduction for your next episode. And you also need some copywriting to create show notes excerpts, Youtube teaser copy, multiple social media posts variations, meta-descriptions for SEO or even Instagram slides and stories. These short-form pieces of content is is what we at Polymash call podcast micro-copy.
We know how hard it is to write a podcast introduction that captures attention and gets listeners or readers excited about what they are going to hear or read next. That’s why we highlight some Artificial Intelligence tools in this episode of the Podcasting Strategy Show! These can help you craft the perfect micro-copy for every episode of your podcast or blog post in just minutes. No more writers block! Just tell the tool what type of tone you want (witty, bold, professional) and let the AI do all the work for you!
AI tools can help give your audience exactly what they need for each episode – a successful podcast intro that makes them eager to listen or read on. And with over 10,000 different types of introductions available, there’s no way anyone could get bored listening/reading any one particular series again!
Plus, these tools are free so sign up for right now, with a 10,000 word AI generator credit, so check out the links in this episode today before time runs out!
Here is the full episode video, including the demo:
Perfect Podcast Introduction — Table Of Contents
- What is Podcast Introduction Micro-Copy? [02:20]
- 5 Examples of Podcast Micro-Copy [02:51]
- Podcast Introduction Patterns & Frameworks [5:09]
- Tool Series Recap So Far [07:02]
- Artificial Intelligence For Copywriting: Introducing Jasper [10:31]
- The GPT-3 Artificial Intelligence Engine [11:18]
- 50+ Writing Skills for Episode Introductions And Beyond [12:215]
- Demo: How I Generated An Episode Introduction Using Jasper[23:14]
- Episode Conclusion [27:53]
- Podcast Introduction FAQ
What is Podcast Introduction Micro-Copy?
So what is micro-copy? Well, you've been listening to it.
The introduction for this episode you just heard was 95% generated by an AI tool we will talk about in this episode.
When you are preparing micro-copy, there are some good copywriting patterns, or frameworks, to follow. One of the best and most flexible examples is the AIDA Framework is useful in a number of scenarios where you are leading up to a CTA. AIDA is the oldest marketing framework in the world. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. That action could be "listen to this episode". It could be "Visit our website", or "Follow, Rate, Review". We'll see a live AIDA demo later in this episode.
Copywriting patterns can be generated by the AI tool we will introduce today.
5 Examples of Podcast Micro-Copy
Typical applications for how we at Polymash think of Micro-Copy are:
1. Episode introductions and summaries
These can be both audio, but also appear in the description portion of podcast listening apps. Remember we want to post teaser copy and a call to action there, to visit your site to get links and episode resources, or at least to listen to the full content.
2. The Episode Excerpt
Excerpts are the short descriptions of each episode that show up on your podcast website or blog episode grid. Most CMS content websites have a spot for this.
3. The Episode Meta Description
The episode meta description is even shorter content snippet visible only to search engines. When someone finds your episode via search on the web, they are what shows up in the search results under the title. So important to make that click-worthy.
4. Social Media Shares And Post Variations
These are needed on LinkedIn, Facebook pages and groups, Twitter, Instagram posts, slides or stories.
5. YouTube Teaser Copy
Similar to episode introductions these are important for YouTube SEO, and typically feature a single link to the episode show notes post or page for full details.
And I think you will agree that this can be very time consuming to come up with, so an AI tool that can generate this automatically, or at least get the ball rolling, can save significant time in preparing your show notes. And, make them more effective at getting listeners engaged.
Podcast Introduction Patterns & Frameworks
And, copywriting for such short form content often consists of patterns. The opening of each episodes is of course a matter of choice, but there are some best practices to follow:
Open Looping
For example, the old presentation addage: "Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them." Daniel J Lewis did this really well in his early Audacity To Podcast episodes.
Copywriting Frameworks
When you are preparing micro-copy, there are some good copywriting patterns, or frameworks, to follow. One of the best and most flexible is the AIDA Framework is useful in a number of scenarios where you are leading up to a CTA. AIDA is the oldest marketing framework in the world. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. That action could be "listen to this episode". It could be "Visit our website", or "Follow, Rate, Review". We'll see a live AIDA demo later in this episode.
Another one is called the PAS Framework. PAS stands for Problem-Agitate-Solution. A valuable framework for creating new marketing copy ideas.
Another one is called the BAB Before After Bridge Framework. It outlines a before vs after state, and your episode constitutes the solution of how to get from the before to the after state.
All of these copywriting patterns can be generated or assisted by the AI tool we will introduce today.
Tool Series Recap So Far
I just wanted to take stock in where we were in the overall series highlighting our workflow tools.
Episode 6 — Episode Research and Planning Logistics
In episode six, we discussed a little bit about SEO research and how that is often the starting point for us and the tool kit that we used for preseason and pre episode research was the Mangools SEO tool suite. Also, we covered the tool that we use for managing the episode logistics and workflow around guest outreach, onboarding, and standard operating procedures and that's ClickUp. In an upcoming episode, we'll also talk to the founder of Postaga, which is a really interesting tool that manages guest outreach. So more to come, but episode six introduced that topic.
Tool Update: Topic Was Recently Aquired
Also in episode six, we covered content planning. The content planning basically is around content briefs, grading, SEO writing and preparing to have great show notes either after or prior to recording. The tool that we focused on there was UseTopic. Now, since then, an update. UseTopic got acquired by a much larger organization, which means they will be shutting down within three months or so. So in an upcoming episode, will be focusing on how we are going to replace that with some of the other tools we have for this. So stay tuned on how we are going to go about filling in that gap in our workflow. Right now for the next three months, we are still going to be using Topic as the primary solution for this.
Episode 7 — Title Development
Then in episode seven, we covered the title development and talked about Headline Studio as a great way to improve our titles.
Episode 8 — And The Rest Of This Series
This episode, episode eight, we're going to be focusing on microcopy development. Microcopy development is around episode introductions, promotional teaser video scripts, really social media shares, and the whole other number of applications in which having small, descriptive call to action, engaging copy is super were important.
Coming up in the rest of the series, we'll be covering distribution and syndication as well as episode promotion.
Artificial Intelligence For Copywriting: Introducing Jasper
What is Jasper? That's the sort of nickname for the artificial intelligence system that is behind it. But basically to define what it is, it's an artificial intelligence tool trained to generate content in a creative and original way.
NOTE: “Jasper” was formerly known as “Jarvis” — the company rebranded after we recorded this episode. Please mentally substitute any mention of “Jarvis” in the audio or video demos with the updated brand-name“Jasper” — Thanks!
It produces unique content that hasn't been used before, meaning its not duplicate content from elsewhere on the web. AI does use content that it finds elsewhere to inform what it does, but it goes beyond that.
The GPT-3 Artificial Intelligence Engine
I think important to realize is that AI algorithms are trained through some initial input. Many language platforms are based on what is known as GPT-3. GPT-3, you can look it up on Wikipedia, is the artificial intelligence platform that has to do with language processing intelligence.
But GTP-3 based AI tools aren't all the same. We've tested a number of these different platforms, including Copysmith, NeuralText, and more. Jasper is the one that we've landed on is our solution.
What becomes clear to us is that,
- AI tools have to be designed well to be usable
- The user has to seed it to train the AI for certain outcomes.
And as you'll see, hopefully in this demo, that there are a lot of variations it can output. So I think that what the Jasper team has done is the best job in actually utilizing the AI in an application that puts out useable and user friendly content.
50+ Writing Skills for Episode Introductions And Beyond
So going through of how it works, Jasper basically has developed a library of 50 plus writing skills. Even with the starter plan, you sort of get access to those skills.
The way it works is you initially choose from any one of those. Skills are like a blog post outline, or create a story, or create an intro paragraph, or create a Facebook ad or create a headline or explain something to a child. So that's the concept behind having a number of skills to choose from. In the demo, you'll see some of those will use one in particular to sort of jump right in.
Training Your AI
There is a part that is actually you, as a user, needing to collaborate if you will, with the AI. It requires some input.
You have to tell it about your brand, your podcast, your topic, your business. It can even accept the tone of voice that you want to use in the output, which is great for reaching a target audience.
So usually the workflow is that you select a framework or you select one of the skills that Jasper collaborates with you on, and then you have to tell it something about what it is that you want. What's your business about and what is a description of what you might like.
13 Favorite Jasper Skills
These steps refer to the Jasper Demo Video I added near the top of this article. The basic plans are enough for what we are talking about in this episode, which is to create really compelling podcast introduction and microcopy for a number of different used cases.
Maybe the best way to just give a brief overview before we actually try something, is to look at all the templates that are available. These are the skills that I just mentioned. There's a ton of them and you can sort of favorite the ones that are most important to you. So I'll just go through some of the ones that we have found very good use for, especially for podcasting.
1. AIDA Framework
The AIDA framework is something that we're going to demo in this particular video. That's the oldest marketing framework in the world.
AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, and action. We use this all the time to create ads, to create copy, to create intros. It's really a pretty good framework for copywriting, which is that you first grab the audience's attention through a question or something that sort of grabs them. Then you build some interest and desire to basically follow through with what your call to action is. Your call to action could be listen to the rest of this episode, watch the video, or subscribe to my YouTube channel. So, any business might have a call to action that's appropriate to what their strategy is.
2. The PAS Framework
The next framework is called the PAS framework. That stands for problem agitates solution. It's just another sort of way of basically stating something and then offering a solution for it. That's often a good way to introduce a topic.
3. Blog Post Or Podcast Introduction Paragraph Generator
The next one is a blog post paragraph. That one I think is interesting because all you need to basically do is put in a title or a concept for a title, and it then generates 20 introductory paragraphs for you to choose from. You can often just piece something together from that. I still like the AIDA framework better for most intros, especially as an episode. Simply because there usually is a called action involved at some point.
4. The Blog Post Conclusion Paragraph Generator
The next one is a blog post conclusion paragraph. So that's sort of wrapping up a post with an engaging conclusion.
5. The Explain It To A Child Simplifier
I tend to be kind of complex in my language. There's one tool to help explain something to a child. That basically rephrases your text to make it easier to read and understand and to simplify it.
6. Facebook Ad Headline And Content Generator
Another great application is to basically use this for Facebook ads.
If you've ever run Facebook ads, the headline and the ad text is something that you want to vary a lot. This is not unlike social media posts. If you're sharing an episode on Twitter or on LinkedIn or elsewhere, you don't want to use the same copy every time that you tweet about it, or every post that you share with your audience. You want to try a number of different variations. Now you might lead it and link to the exact same URL.
In Facebook Ads language, that's basically the Genesis of AB testing, is that we set up a number of different headlines and the number of different variations. We also variate the images. If you have sort of nine of those, you can run that as an ad set on Facebook. You will get information and quickly learn which one is most effective.
7. Social Media Post Generators
So those tools and those skills in the AI, are also very useful when you're generating content for social media. That is variable when you're trying to check out what resonates with your audience the most.
8. Headline Generator
They do have a formula for generating headlines. We covered that in episode six tool. Tool that we use to score our own headlines. Sometimes these are interesting, but there other formula generators out there. We don't use or recommend using formula driven headlines all that often, other than just to ideate when you're when you're stuck with something.
9. Video Script Outline Generator
The video script outline is another the tool that it offers. These can work really well for listicles, or how to style videos. You again, give it some seed content about what your video is about, and it generates a script for you to follow. So it's kind of a creative tool and it's fun. I think for creating a podcast introduction for podcast episodes, again I have found it okay. Not as good as the AIDA framework, PAS framework or some of the other frameworks that are available. It's definitely worth playing with.
10. Video Title Generator
Also, the video titles for sort of click-worthy titles, that's very similar to creating a perfect headline. Those skills I'm not as familiar with, but if you have access to the tool, you might as well use them, right?
11. Video Script Hook and Introductions
The next one is this video script hook and introduction. That's actually pretty good because it generates a couple of different paragraphs that introduce the video and try to grab your visitor's attention enough to get them to watch the video all the way through. So that's not dissimilar to the AIDA framework of attention, interest, desire, and action. The video description is very similar to that. You can get a script, but you need a longer form descriptions for YouTube videos.
12. SEO blog or episode title and meta descriptions
These are sort of like a recipe where you do a little bit of SEO research, write a post concept, and then also get the title and meta descriptions, which are short pieces of micro content that tell the search engines what your article is about. So meta descriptions aren't necessarily visible to anyone. They are embedded in your web content. So you need those for your podcast episode articles, or show notes as well. So that's another interesting tool to play around with.
13. Feature to Benefit Translator
The last two are featured to benefit. That's basically where you list a set of features and they're coming from a point of view of tell us your product features and then we turn it into benefit driven language that compels action on the part of listeners. I would say that this could just easily be a podcast episode.
What some of the highlights were in the podcast episode, if you want to turn those into more benefit driven language. Sometimes that's a good idea, or that's an application that might be worth trying. Then the last one is the before and after framework. That's sort of before and after bridge framework. That's where you sort of describe what a situation might be before. Then you explain how your episode basically leads them to a realization or an insight or something like that. You can see that there's so much richness in the other formulas that we haven't even talked about in this tool.
Jasper Episode Title Skills Summary
Even when you are using only two or three or of these, I think it's worth getting this in your arsenal of copywriting tools. The fact that there's 50 of these, just this added value and a cherry on top as far as I'm concerned. Even if I wind up only using four or five of these consistently, I love the idea that this is there to just sort of help me ideate or help me write better copy, or to try out if I'm stuck on something. Let's just see how we would use this to create an introduction to an episode.
That's actually what I did for this episode.
Demo: How I Generated An Episode Introduction Using Jasper
If you watch the video or have listened to this episode from the beginning, you would've heard my introduction. 95% of that episode introduction was generated through the AIDA framework. Let’s see exactly how the episode introduction that you would've witnessed in this episode was done and how the AIDA framework actually works.
I’m including the video again at the right demo starting time stamp here:
Configuring the AIDA Framework For Podcast Introductions
So I'm going to click on AIDA framework within this tool, and we'll start from scratch and here are three fields. As I mentioned, these are there to seed the AI production and give it some information to work with. So the first one is under a company and product name. Well in this case, I'm just going to put in the title of the episode that I want to produce. The title for this episode, for example, as concept was perfect podcast, introduction, show notes and social media copy in five minutes.
All right. So, that was my title. Now I needed to give a little bit of bridge here, a little bit of a description of what this episode is about. Here is what I trained my AI with:
Hey, every episode deserves a great introduction. You suffering from writer's block need some help in convincing listeners or readers to take action?
Okay. So that is, that's all I'm going to give it and I'll see what ready to come up with.
Setting up the AI’s Tone Of Voice
The tone in a voice is something that's an interesting concept. I'm going to click through here to just basically open one of the help bars. See, this is one of the reasons that I like it. There are videos that explain every step of the way, how you can use the tool. The sidebar is one example of it. Here, for example, all the tone of voice choices that you might it have.
The “Tone Of Voice” feature is useful for matching your target audience and podcast listener demographics
Now, it's not that there's a pre-programmed list of tones that Jasper utilizes, but you can help it develop the tone of voice by typing in. So they don't have to come from this list, but you can type in something that's funny or, or casual or excited or professional really, or sarcastic, or any of these choices. So in this case, I'm just going to type in, let's say, witty and bold.
Generating Podcast Introduction Outputs Using AIDA
All right. So now I'm just going to tell it to generate four outputs and let's wait and see what it does. All right. So here, it's used this AIDA formula and it's even put the attention, interest, desire, and action labels onto the output that it's created. So here's one that's maybe worth taking a look at. I'm going to read it out.
Attention
The attention part is, "Are you looking for a way to make your podcast introductions more engaging?"
Interest
The interest part is "introductions are an important part of any content marketing strategy. They can be the difference between someone listening or scrolling past, and they can also be a great opportunity to build trust with new listeners and readers."
Desire
The desire part is, "it's easy to get stuck on what you should say in your intro, but we have good news. There's help available. We know that every episode deserves a great introduction. So we created AI tools that will write one for you. Our tool takes care of all the hard work, so you don't have to worry about it anymore. You can focus on creating amazing content instead of worrying about how it starts out. Just tell us some information about yourself and your show and our AI tool will do the rest. All this means is less time spent writing boring intros and more time spent doing what matters most, creating awesome content that people love."
Last Step: Tweak To Suit Your Voice and Call To Action
So you get the idea, the AI copy was pretty good to start with, and I then easily modified the one that I wound up landing on. I'm not going to go through and reread the entire intro here, but basically 95% of that was written using this AI tool. I just then added or edited some of it.
Episode Conclusion, Links and Resources
I'm hoping you get the sense that this is a very interesting way to produce lots of variations of formulating introductions that match your style, that are more engaging, and that are somehow more exciting than what I initially input. So it's just a matter of scrolling through all the different variations that you might see from the tools output, and then putting the phraseology together that you like. All of this takes a fraction of the time that it usually does to write a podcast introduction or other micro-copy.
That is the mini demo of the Jasper AI tool. I hope you found it useful and I'm hoping that you'll have a look and see whether you can use it for yourself. There's a free trial available. If you don't mind, use our affiliate link, we earn a small commission at no cost to you. Disclaimer: If you wind up signing up for the trial and later decide to pay for it, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you whatsoever.
If you'd like to support Polymash and the Podcasting Strategy Show, that's one good way to do it, we appreciate you listening!
I would encourage everyone to sort of give it a shot and see whether this doesn't help with the promotion of your episodes and content integration of your podcast into your business.
Links And Resources
- To try Jasper and get AI credits from our Polymash Deal for 10K words: https://polymash.me/jasper Disclaimer: If you wind up signing up for the trial and later decide to pay for it, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
- Learn about the show at https://podcastingstrategy.com
- Visit Polymash Podcasting at https://polymash.com/podcast-production/
Podcast Introduction FAQ
What is the best podcast introduction format for my target audience?
The answer to this question depends on understanding your podcast audience and demographics. If you have a young audience, then the tone should match their expectations, likewise for business podcast formats or storytelling shows. However the above mentioned copywriting formats can still apply. If you are using Jasper, this is where the "tone of voice" selection could be very helpful.
Can Jasper help me produce a Podcast Outro as well?
Of course! You could try the "Blog Conclusion" skill as a starting point.
