How to Start Your Own Business Podcast
Are you thinking about starting a podcast? The podcast industry has exploded over the last few years, and with good reason! There are so many benefits that come along with adding your own business podcast into your marketing strategy.
In this post, I’ll share some of the things you should think about and brainstorm before deciding a launch date for your podcast.
1) Know Your Goals for Starting a Podcast
This is a big question to ask yourself: why do you want to start a podcast?
If the answer is money, you may be disappointed. A podcast is an organic marketing strategy which means it takes time to monetize it.
Most successful podcasters start their podcast to increase brand awareness, build their community, impact more people and help them build that know, like, and trust factor with their audience.
Knowing your why behind starting a podcast is essential for sticking with it. A podcast is all about consistency and growth, which will make it hard to stick with if your primary goal is revenue. You can, however, monetize your podcast with time and it will help you connect with your audience, which will lead to more sales, but that should never be the focus when starting a podcast.
2) Know Your Ideal Audience
An essential part of starting a podcast is knowing your audience. You need to be clear on who your podcast is for and the reasons why they should be listening to it.
If you’ve already got an established business, this should be pretty easy as you’ll want your podcast to speak to the same audience!
Knowing your audience is not only going to help you craft the perfect podcast episodes and topics, but it will also help with the format. For example, how busy is your audience? If they are moms, for example, they probably won’t have the time to listen to hour-long episodes.
3) Decide On Your Podcast Format
As mentioned above, your podcast format should be determined by your audience and your subject matter. Be sure to consider who is listening and what state they’re likely to be in when consuming your content when deciding on your format.
You should also plan out if you will do solo episodes, guest podcast episodes, or a good mix of both.
Another consideration is the format style. Will your audience want to hear more stories or bite-sized actionable steps?
4) Start Brainstorming Your Podcast Episodes
The next step before launching your podcast it’s to brainstorm some podcast episode topics that your audience will want to listen to.
Ideally, you’ll want to launch with 3 to 4 podcast episodes ready to go to take some of the pressure off as you start.
To brainstorm some topics, you can ask your audience with a market research survey. You could also join some Facebook groups where your ideal audience hangs out and see what questions or posts they are making in the group.
5) Record Your Intro and Outro
If your format requires a pre-recorded intro & outro, you’ll want to get those recorded too.
Your intro should explain what the podcast is about, who you are, and what listeners can expect to learn. Your outro should thank your listeners for taking the time to listen, ask them to leave a review, and have a call to action for where they can connect with you.
Final Thoughts
Now you are all ready to get those first few episodes recorded and plan a launch date for your podcast! And as you prepare your podcast, make sure to keep your systems organized with a project management system like the Podcast Host Toolkit I built after releasing almost 100 episodes in just 2 years.
