Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur, Dragon’s Den investor, and the founder and face of the hit podcast Diary of a CEO (DOAC), is well-known for his mantra: "Sweating the small stuff."

He let TV show host Jimmy Fallon in on some of his secrets recently, including that he controls CO₂ levels in the studio to sharpen guests' 'cognitive processing' and plays their favourite music to evoke certain emotions.

And in a tour of his London office with Forbes, he showed a few more tricks up his sleeve. Like how the aesthetic and comfort of on-set furniture is pivotal to making guests feel either relaxed or on edge.

There's also a very intentional culture around test and learn, including a "experimentation and failure" team and a weekly "experimenter of the week" trophy.

One person who has had their hands on that trophy a few times is Anthony Smith, director of trailers at Flight Story - the media company behind DOAC and other shows like Begin Again with Devina McCall.

Smith was working on a trailer for a highly anticipated episode with podcaster and academic Brené Brown and he got stuck between two choices: a value-driven hook versus a mysterious teaser.

The result? The teaser won by a landslide: 15 per cent higher clickthrough rate, three times more viewers and a 250 per cent more referrals to the DOAC YouTube channel. You can see the winning trailer below.

"We wanted to find a way to promote podcasts that’s not really been done before," he told JournalismUK.

Cinematic podcasts

The answer they came up with was the podcast trailer. Watching it feels like you're at the cinema, popcorn in hand, Pepsi in the other, waiting for the film to start. The way the music drops in and dips out, the array of different camera angles and reactions, the different text fonts and colours that come into frame, the fact that in a minute-and-a-half there is a complete narrative arc.

There's rationale for it too, as DOAC this year hit the big screens to premiere the exclusive episode with Louis Tomlinson, the One Direction singer who opened up about his rise to fame via the X-factor and the untimely death of his bandmate Liam Payne. This clip reached 40m views and engagements across all platforms.

A ten-step process

How does Smith do it? His approach to trailers is a blend of manual rigour, narrative instinct, and data-driven decision-making. Here’s how he breaks down the process: