Making History
Come Alive
London tour guide, Jeremy John, takes you into the fascinating world of tour guides in his podcast, Street Historians.
Jeremy John has been a London tour guide since 2016. In that time, he has given thousands of tours, has written a book, and is in the top 5% on Tripadvisor. I had the pleasure of going on one of his tours a few years ago. He’s the kind of person you want to keep in touch with— entertaining, knowledgeable, and full of passion for what he does. So, when he reached out about working together, I knew it would be fun.
To add to his already lengthy list of achievements, he’d started a podcast. The premise seemed simple, he would interview fellow tour guides about how they began, why they love it, and how they create an exciting tour. But for him, it was more about crafting a great tour and finding the sweet spot between being entertaining and sharing the history of the city he loves so much.
What I learned by listening to the episodes, and to Jeremy, is that tour guiding is so much more than just standing in front of a group of tourists and reciting a memorized script. Part historian, part improv, they have to be ready to adjust their tour at a moment’s notice, adapt to environmental disruptions, and hold their audience’s attention.
A Name Built for Growth
As we began working on the name, it became clear that there were many ways this podcast could grow in the future. What if he wanted to interview tour guides from other cities in the UK, or other countries? Jeremy mentioned maybe exploring guests who worked in museums or on preservation projects.
There were certain words that kept coming up as we went through editing rounds.
Heritage. Walking. Streets. Footsteps. History. Preservation.
After working through a few rounds, we landed on Street Historians. It was the perfect way to describe him and his guests while leaving room to branch out in the future, ensuring that curators, historians, or researchers wouldn’t be out of place on his podcast.
Welcome, Everybody!
The Podcast introduction needed to succinctly get the point of the podcast across while grabbing the listeners attention. Working with someone who is a natural performer made this process very interactive. It was a process of writing, edits, and voice notes as Jeremy ran through the lines to test each option out.
The end result is something that gives off the same vibe as Jeremy’s tours. It’s informative, engaging, and immediately draws you in.
“Welcome everybody, I’m Jeremy John, and I want to take you into the fascinating world of tour guiding. Every day in London, you’ll find eccentric personalities guiding people in the footsteps of history. Some show historic architecture to overseas visitors, other bring history to life for school groups. All the best tour guides have one thing in common, they know how to tell a good story. That’s why I started this podcast, to capture the stories of these tour guides. You’ll find out what drew them to this profession, you’ll discover which sites they love the most and you’ll hear the secret methods they use to make history come alive.”
An Intriguing description
Before Street Historians could go live, we needed a description.
It’s a niche topic, which made the description both more and less difficult. We didn’t need to appeal to everyone, just the cross section of travelers, tour guides, and history nerds.
“Street Historians takes you into the fascinating world of tour guiding and uncovers what it takes to make history come alive. Go behind the scenes with author and award-winning guide, Jeremy John, as he and his guests reveal the secrets of the trade.”
Tale of Two Trailers
In order to get the word out about Jeremy’s new podcast, we developed two scripts. One was for the one minute trailer that would appear on each podcast platform and the second was for a trailer he planned to post to YouTube and Instagram.
At this point in the project, we had so many great phrases and pieces of copy that we were dying to find a home for. Why kill your darlings when you can just find a place for them?
I still work with Jeremy on Street Historians. Each month I help him craft episode descriptions, episode titles, and chapter titles. Luckily, I fall into the niche listener base of this podcast— a traveler and a history nerd, so it’s an insanely fun project to work on.
If you’d like to read the descriptions I help write, or if you’re interested in listening, you can find Street Historians wherever you listen to your podcasts.