Who is Ali Abdaal & The Deep Dive Podcast
Ali is a former doctor from the UK who has a particular interest in productivity. His main YouTube channel has close to 5 million subscribers, and he started his Deep Dive Podcast in September 2021.
The Brief
Ali has an amazing team that helps him create content. For this project, we are fortunate to work with a podcast manager. We were brought on board to create the episode complete with an engaging intro, audio version, and social media clips.
Creating Ali Abdaal’s Deep Dive Podcast
Ali usually has a 2-camera setup with 2 SM7b microphones. When editing, we composite a 3rd camera angle, a side-by-side view, as a replacement for what was a wide angle in previous episodes. The footage is usually between 1-3 hours long, and the audio often needs a little attention for noise and room ambiance.
Along with the main edit, there are advertisement slots between 2-4, which are edited along with B-roll ahead of time and then slotted into each episode.
The Intro
Ali and his team are all about engagement. We, therefore, aim to hook the viewer within the first 1 to 1 minute and 30 seconds with an enticing intro. We want to tell the story of the episode so the user knows why they should stay around and, wherever possible, create a cliffhanger that leaves them wanting more.
As the podcast has developed, so has the intro, currently settling on a more calm storytelling vibe rather than the much more animated versions of previous seasons. The exception being that now we include text from the get-go for when users are previewing the episode on YouTube without audio before they click. This helps increase CTR (click-through rate).
AI Podcast Tools
We do use some AI tools, mainly for audio cleaning and caption generation. We find AI a useful tool to help us. Currently, it is not there yet to do anything unsupervised.
Tools we often use:
- RX Izotope (Audio manipulation)
- Adobe Podcast Enhance (Simple AI audio cleaning tool)
- Submagic (Caption generation)
Subscriber Growth
In September 2022, Ali had around 90k subscribers on his channel; now, we stand at nearly 400k. Utilising social media clips and YouTube clips has contributed to this growth.
1% Improvements
Podcasting is not a short-term game. It rewards consistency and dedication. Concentrating on the things that move the needle the most first. Learning from other podcasts and staying up with trends is a given.
We have years of experience in this field and have learned countless lessons we can implement into other podcasts. It’s helped with speed and efficiency in an industry that often has week-by-week releases.
Final Thoughts
Don’t forget to check out Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal.
If you have a podcast and you want help with production, we are happy to chat.