Podcasting has grown exponentially over the past decade and is still a fast-growing medium, with 62% of people aged 12 and over listening to podcasts. The good news is launching a podcast is simpler than you think. Whether it’s for your business or personal endeavours,a podcast is a great way to build an audience, share new ideas, and establish credibility for a brand.
Check out our podcast checklist below to get your conversation started.
Determine your niche
First, you need to decide what your podcast will be focused on. Will it be on life advice? News? Business? The genre or theme you choose will affect the kind of content you create and who your target audience is. If it’s a personal endeavour, it may be easier to pursue themes relating to comedy or the arts. If it’s a corporate production, it may be smarter to hone in on the themes of finance, sports, or education.
As a creator, you need to define the main goal of your podcast and determine the “why” behind it. If there are many competitors in your genre, it’s important to figure out how you will make your podcast stand out.
Identify your ideal listeners
With an early podcast plan starting to take shape, you’ll then want to figure out your ideal listener. This involves determining the key demographics that make sense for your content. Start by evaluating the right ages for an ideal audience member, their location, occupation and personal interests. Knowing the listeners you want to target is fundamental to building a long-term audience.
Build your podcast brand
One of the main features of a podcast that will determine its success is its name. This is the key element of your overall brand identity, and needs to capably and succinctly deliver your main message to potential listeners. Try and keep your title as concise as possible, so your audience can get a quick sense of what you’re about – if they have to search for answers, they’re less likely to give you a chance.
If they do decide to explore further, writing a ‘hook’ or an engaging short description for the brand is a great way to share your podcast’s main mission. With the title and hook created, you’ll then need to design your logo and determine your launch date. You can create your logo design yourself through Canva or Adobe, or hire a freelance designer to make your vision come to life.
Once all of these are aligned, you can move on to developing a podcast structure and format.
Decide your format plan
Will your podcast be formatted through interviews? A scripted show? Educational advice? All of these formats work well, but as a creator, you must choose the best format for you because it impacts your workflow and the people you need to get involved.
If you’re planning to do interviews, start thinking about the people in your network you can connect with for the first couple of episodes, as well as consider whether you wish to have a co-host.
Podcast setup and equipment
For ease of production and high-quality output, there is some equipment you’ll need access to. The types of equipment needed to start a podcast include microphones, headphones, recording software and audio editing software. You need to make sure that your equipment is of good quality – you might have the best story in the world to tell, but if your microphone is muffled and your audio is unclear, no one will understand the content.
Thankfully though, you don’t necessarily need to own all of this equipment yourself. There are a variety of great studios available to hire in Melbourne, including our very own podcast studio at Melbourne Connect Co-Working, equipped with a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 microphone.
If you are interested in producing a podcast from home with your own equipment, there are options. In terms of microphones, USB microphones are the most affordable and the simplest to use, but they do have lower audio quality compared to more advanced microphones. Popular starter USB microphones include:
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- Blue Yeti (best USB microphone overall)
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- JLab Talk (best mic for less than $100)
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- Blue Snowball iCE (best USB mic on a budget)
If you’re a more advanced microphone user, dynamic and condenser ones are two other options. Dynamic microphones reject background noise and are great for two hosts speaking. Popular dynamic microphones include:
Condenser microphones are great for quiet, sound-treated spaces and bring excellent audio quality. Notable condenser microphones include:
Your podcasting setup can either be at home, a local studio, or a co-working space like Melbourne Connect Co-Working. All you need is a good microphone as mentioned above, a laptop, and headphones. For the production side of things, you’ll also need recording software such as Squadcast, Zencastr, Zoom, or Riverside and editing software such as Alitu, GarageBand, Audacity, Adobe Audition, or Descript.
Choose your release schedule and episode length
With a format planned and equipment at the ready, you should next figure out how often you plan to publish new episodes, and how long those episodes will be. The most common podcast publishing cycle is weekly, but bi-weekly and monthly uploads work too. Consistency is key to growing a following so find a schedule that you’ll be able to stick to. For episode lengths, this varies based on how long you need to deliver value to your audience. Podcasts can range from 3 minutes to 3 hours, depending on your style and preference.
Before you start creating your episodes, it’s worthwhile to come up with a publishing schedule and episode plan, instead of trying to create them on the fly. The best podcast setup won’t save you from having nothing to record, you need to create a game plan ahead of time. On top of that, one of the top podcast tips for new creators is to have multiple episodes recorded and ready before publishing your first one. This allows you to build and maintain momentum with each new episode without having to stress as much. Staying ahead of schedule gives you the best chance to build a following.
Select a podcast hosting directory
People often don’t realise that you can’t directly post your podcast on a platform such as Spotify, SoundCloud or Apple. Using third-party hosting directories such as Buzzsprout, Transistor, and Podbean will separately host your audio files and share them with the listening platforms.
When you have uploaded your podcast, you will submit an RSS feed, which is a URL that syndicates content to podcast directories. Once you’re in the hosting directory of your choice, upload your RSS feed link to verify your podcast to the various listening platforms. Each platform goes through a verification process before deploying your episodes. It’s simple and easy.
Create your content
After you’ve done all your podcast planning, it’s time for the real fun – recording. You can move onto actually creating your podcast by recording and editing your first couple of episodes. From there, you can begin uploading them onto your hosting directory for release.
It isn’t enough to just post your episodes alone though – it’s essential to promote them with extensive marketing to your target audience. You can try and garner this attention by writing short blogs that accompany each episode, and securing social media handles to advertise your podcast. You may even want to look into using search engine optimisation to make sure you are including keywords and phrases relevant to your niche.
Over time, as your podcast grows, you may be able to monetise your episodes. A couple of ways of doing this would be through sponsorships, direct support from listeners, affiliate sales, and marketing through promotion. From there, you’ll be set for success.
Start a podcast career!
If you’re ready to explore a passion project or deliver some quality information, there’s no better time to start. Source the people you need, put together a podcast plan, and start recording. And if you need the right place, Melbourne Connect Co-Working’s tailored podcast studio has everything you need to make an audio impact. Get in touch to learn more or book some time in the studio and start that conversation today.