074: Summer Launch Series: Are You Ready to Start a Podcast?
In the podcast industry, we constantly hear from people who are launching a podcast, prepping for a launch, or beginning to dream up their podcast ideas over the summer. Wherever you may be on the spectrum, there are a few considerations you’ll want to keep in mind when launching your podcast this summer.
In the first episode of this Summer Launch Series, I’ll be breaking down how you can determine whether or not you’re ready to start your podcast. You’ll hear me share what you need to think about prior to your launch, some of the first things you’ll need in place to get started and a few words of advice for your launch.
What’s in this episode:
How to determine if you’re ready to start a podcast
The lens through which you should look at your podcast
Why you need to audit your time before starting your show
How you might need to get support
Links:
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The Transcript:
074: Summer Launch Series: Are You Ready to Start a Podcast?
As they're formulating, as they're thinking about this podcast idea, ask yourself these questions and see where you're at. Maybe you need to do a little bit more formulating. Maybe there's some strategy that you need to work through. Or maybe it's time to jump in and start recording.
Welcome to the Wild Home Podcast, where we talk about podcasting life and all the wild in between. Join me, Caroline, every week as I share a peek into the world of podcasting and my wild life as well. Ready? Let's get into it.
Hello and welcome to the Wild Home Podcast. This is episode 74, but it's actually the start of a special series I'm doing called A Summer Launch. And in this series I'm going to focus on what to do and think about if you are getting ready to launch your podcast either during the summer or right after the summer, we do typically see a lot of launches at the beginning of the school year, so I felt like this was a really good time to kind of talk about launches and what goes into them and what to expect and all of that good stuff.
Today we're going to be talking about are you ready to start a podcast? And I want to put in just a little disclaimer here. So at Wild Home Podcasting. We specialize in helping CEOs who want to have a podcast as part of their marketing strategy, specifically online businesses. Right. And so when I talk about if you're ready to start a podcast, this is the angle, this is the lens at which I am talking about this. I'm talking to the CEO who is ready to share more of her message and her voice and get herself out there. And a podcast is a really great way to do that, but there are some things you need to ask yourself before you just dive in. And I have a way of knowing if you're ready or not and you can go to WildHomePodcasting.com/ready to download that free assessment. And it's a simple quiz you can take and it'll kind of give you an idea if you're ready to start a podcast or not.
So let's dive into a little bit about how to know if you're ready, and this kind of goes along with the quiz, so it'll help you as well. So the first things that you need to think about is how am I going to take my idea for a podcast, right? How am I going to take this idea and turn it into a podcast? And there are a couple things that we want to think about, questions that we want to ask ourselves. And one of those is, what is the purpose of the podcast and how is it going to serve me? It's one thing to just want to have a podcast because you just want to have a podcast, right? You want to share your message. Maybe you have something that you want to talk about, guests that you want to meet, that kind of thing. And that's totally fine. But if you're going to be using it as part of your marketing strategy, you want to make sure that your podcast has a purpose and that it's serving you. And so I want you to really think about what that means for you.
Are you wanting to bring in more leads? Are you wanting to share more of your message? Maybe you're writing a book and you want the podcast to go along with that to help sell your book. Think about these things. What is the purpose of the podcast and how is it going to serve me? One of my favorite things to say is that your podcast should really be an employee of your business, right? So it should be working in your marketing and sales department and helping drive traffic and leads. And if it's not doing that, then is it serving you in the way that it should be?
And so when you start to kind of think through your idea of your podcast, I want you to look at it that way and think about what is its purpose? What do I want this podcast to do in addition to that big idea that I have? And sometimes it's just a matter of tweaking that idea a little bit, refining it instead of just having a podcast about graphic design. Maybe there's something more in line with your business values. Maybe you want to have a podcast about accessible and inclusive graphic design, because that's something that you specialize in. And then how can you share that in a way that's going to get people excited about what you do right?
And so that's what I say when I say think about how it's going to serve you. That's the kind of thought process I want you to go through. Another really, really important question before you start your podcast is, do I have time?
Time is huge, especially when we talk about a podcast. Podcasting is time consuming in addition to the recording and the planning, which is just time consuming in and of itself, you have all the post-production stuff that needs to happen and then all the things that need to happen on your end as you share the podcast, promote it as it integrates into your marketing. And so is this something that you're going to be taking on yourself, or is this something that you are going to hire out for help? One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners do when they start a podcast is say that they're going to do it all themselves, inevitably, inevitably, every single time it leads to a inconsistent schedule.
So maybe they'll start not releasing episodes when they should. And then the second thing that usually happens is burnout, which if you go back and listen to last week's episode, I did a whole episode on Burnout, but. When you are trying to tackle all the tasks yourself, it can get very overwhelming. And that time that you used to have to focus on other things that are important in your business starts to disappear because you're trying to make this happen or the opposite happens, and you're doing your podcast at midnight last minute because everything else takes up so much time. And so it's a really important question to ask yourself before you dove in. Do you have time?
And as you ask this question of yourself, ask, do I need to hire some help? And this can be help that you already have. Maybe there's someone on your team who can help you with tasks that are related to the podcast. Or maybe this means that you need to outsource and find somebody to help you with your podcast. I would say nine times out of ten people usually outsource and find someone who specializes in podcasting to help with their podcast just because there's more of a hands off factor. And also just knowing that there's not a learning curve there. Right, because there's a lot of things that kind of go with podcasting if you don't necessarily realize it can be really confusing. And so having someone on your team who understands podcast can be really vital.
One of the things that I think is really key is as you're doing your formulating and taking your idea from idea to podcast is going ahead and seeking out that help that you may need to get an idea of what the workflow is going to look like, how things are going to work. So as you start thinking about integrating the podcast into your work schedule and your life, you can kind of have an idea of what it's going to look like, and that'll help you make decisions too, about outsourcing as well. There's no harm in seeing what's out there and what people are doing for others when it comes to podcasting.
So definitely think about if you have time and if it's time to hire some help. And then the last thing and I've kind of mentioned this, but it's really important to take a moment to think about this because it is very important. And oftentimes people don't do this, they'll just start a podcast and then see how it goes. But I want you to think before you launch, how does this fit into my marketing strategy? Do I understand my customer journey and who I'm talking to?
One of the things that I love to do with people who are launching a podcast is go through your customer journey. Think about the different stages at which you help people, and if you understand what stage certain people are at, then you understand better what content to provide for them. And this is really, really important because we want to make sure that our content is meeting our listeners where they are at now, because that is going to help drive excitement is going to help drive leads. It's going to get them excited about your offerings, right? If we are tackling the problem that they have now and so really think about how it fits into your marketing schedule.
What are things that you can promote or talk about on your podcast? Think about your sales cycle and how that can relate to your podcast episodes. Do a survey. Figure out what people want to hear from you. What are the things that they like learning from you in other places, such as social media or in-person speaking? And how can you build on that in a podcast? And so these are just a few of the questions that are really important to go through before you hit the publish button on your podcast. And what I really recommend people do is, like I said, as they're formulating, as they're thinking about this podcast idea, ask yourself these questions and see where you're at. Maybe you need to do a little bit more formulating. Maybe there's some strategy that you need to work through, or maybe it's time to jump in and start recording. And again, if you want to grab a free assessment that can help you decide if it's time to launch or not, you can go to WildHomePodcasting.com/ready and I would love it if after you take that assessment you would DM me on Instagram or send me an email hello@wildhomepodcasting.com and let me know if you're ready because I would love to cheer you on and help you get ready to launch your podcast. I hope this helps.
Now, remember, there's going to be more episodes about launching a podcast, and next week we're going to be talking about some roadblocks that you may hit when you're starting a podcast and how to deal with them. So be sure you go and hit that follow button so you can make sure you do not miss that episode. And I will see you next week.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. To stay in the know has a Wild Home Podcast income and be sure to connect with me on Instagram at Wild Home Podcast. See you next week.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. To stay in the know, head to WildHomePodcasting.com and be sure to connect with me on Instagram @WildHomePodcasting. See you next week!
