Day 7: Swimming in Podcast Waters

It’s Day 7 of our 12 Days of Christmas Posts and want to use today to give you a 7 step plan for starting a podcast. The age of voice is here and we should know — we’ve been streaming Internet radio content for over 7 years now and have operated a companion podcast channel for 3.

I know the thought of starting a new content initiative around podcasting may make you feel like you’re swimming upstream. The 7 tips and best practices below won’t cover you from shore to shore in the podcast pond but will get you started. At the end of the day, the mechanics of getting a podcast launched is actually the easy part — the hard part is the brainpower and creativity that is needed to draw and sustain a following of listeners.

So here are 7 steps to get your feet into the podcast waters.

  1. Define Your Focus Audience
    • Your target audience
    • Who you want your show to resonate with
  2.  Determine the Format
    • Single Host – Goes it alone or interviews guest(s)
    • Co-Hosts
    • Sidekick
  3. Determine a Name
    • Choose a name that is Broader than your niche
  4.  Flow and Length
    • Intro Music – Fade in as you start and sets the tone so make sure it makes sense
    • Welcome – Introduce Host/Hosts, today’s topic, guest/guests
    • Interview/Conversation
    • Call To Action (“Follow Us on Twitter”, “Learn More At…” Tell listeners where to follow you, find you, etc.)
    • Outro Music – Fade out as you’re ending using the same piece of music for the intro and giving calls to action
  5. Decide on Frequency and Stick to It 
    • Monthly is the bare minimum;
    • every 3 weeks or every other week or weekly is best
    • greater frequency will yield a bigger audience as you publish more often to various podcast networks (Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, etc.)
  6. Album Cover
    • 3,000 x 3,000 pixels so it can scale down for any podcast distribution (iTunes, Google Play, etc).
    • It must be a true square.
  7. Marketing and promotion
    • Embed each episode into a blog post and write about the episode and/or get the episode transcribed to create long form post.
    • Publish #ICYMI articles/social media strategies for previous episodes
    • Once you have a dozen or so episodes, call out episodes that are most popular in blog posts and social media
    • Make sure to include appropriate episodes if you’re doing a end of year Look Back content push on your blog OR, conversely, if you’re doing a Look Into the New Year effort
    • If you have guests, give them clear guidance on how to market and share (embed, social media hashtags, etc.

Hopefully, these 7 tips will help you get started!