098: Top Tips to Follow Before Launching a Podcast in 2023
2023 is the perfect year to launch a podcast for your business (check out our last episode for details on why that is.) But don’t rush into choosing how to number your episodes or picking a launch date yet, because I’m sharing what you need to know before launching a podcast this year.
I have five tips that are going to help you figure out how your podcast will support your business, send the right message, and make you sound clear and put-together as you put your voice out into the world. Let’s dive in and get you –and your podcast– set up for success in 2023!
#1: Get very clear (and specific) on your podcast’s purpose.
One of the first questions we ask during strategy calls at Wild Home Podcasting is “What’s the purpose of your podcast?” And the most common answer is “to build authority.” That might seem like a specific answer until we dig a little deeper. What field do you want to build authority in? What do you want listeners to understand about your expertise after every episode?
Here’s an example: For Podcast Your Business, our purpose is to build authority for Wild Home Podcasting in podcast strategy and consulting. We edit, manage, write, and plan for our clients too, but our goal at the end of the day is to help other podcasters think really intentionally and strategically about their podcasts, which helps set us apart from other podcast managers.
See how specific that sounds? Before you get any farther in your podcast planning, make sure you do this step. Write everything down, and understand exactly how you want your podcast to work for you, because it will inform how you plan every other part of your podcast.
#2: Plan your content ahead of time and make sure it syncs with your larger marketing plan for your business.
If you have a business, you have a marketing plan. (If you don’t… go do that before you plan your podcast!) You probably have website content, email newsletters, and social or video content to support your offers and your scheduled releases. So, why wouldn’t you include your podcast in that plan?
One of the biggest mistakes we see during audits and refreshes is podcasters who don’t factor their podcast into their marketing plan and don’t use their podcasts to support their business offers. You don’t have to get salesy or push new offers every week, but making your podcast completely separate from the rest of your marketing and content is a huge missed opportunity.
Instead, plan your podcast content at least a month or two in advance. Pick topics that can support your offers and that are relevant to your listeners and potential clients in specific seasons of their life. This will set your podcast up for the most impact both for your audience and your business in 2023.
#3: Decide what action you want your listeners to take after they listen to your podcast.
We’re not just talking about leaving a review or hitting subscribe. How do you want listeners to interact with your business? Podcasting offers you more time with your audience than nearly any other channel right now, so don’t pass up this opportunity to make even more connections with your audience.
Maybe you have a free download that can get them onto your email list. Maybe you offer free training or conversations on Instagram or another social platform where you can interact directly. If the goal of your podcast is to support your business, make sure you send them somewhere so they can interact with your business.
#4: Think about the first impression you want your podcast to make and make sure your graphics, intros, hooks, and content align with that vision.
If your podcast’s purpose is to build authority in a specific niche or to build relationships with a potential audience by offering relevant information, then you want that to be very clear to your listeners right away. It’s never a good sign if a potential listener, after seeing your podcast name, artwork, or description, still isn’t sure what your podcast is actually about.
Make sure your branding, your descriptions, your intro, and your topics and titles all tell a cohesive story about your podcast so that you can make a great first impression.
#5: Get a good mic.
Trust us on this one. We’ve learned the hard way. There are plenty of options under $100, and good recordings will make all the difference for your editor (especially if you’re producing your podcast yourself) and your audience. We recommend a mic that can be mounted on an arm instead of one that sits on a desk directly in front of you.
And that’s it! If you can take action on all five of these things, you’ll be in a great position once you start your podcast instead of having to course correct half-way through your first season.
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
098: Top Tips to Follow Before Launching a Podcast in 2023!
[00:00:38] Caroline Hull Are you ready to start a strategic podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic? This is the place. Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week I share the strategy behind having a podcast that helps grow your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager, strategist and consultant, and I've seen the power of podcasts can have for your business. Let's get started.
[00:01:08] We have not talked about launching on this podcast in a while, and I wanted to kind of take a break from all of the strategy and content that we've been talking about and talk about launching, because this is a time of year that a lot of people start to think about, Do I want to start a podcast? And when we're talking about starting a podcast for your business, there's a lot of other things that I want you to think about besides, you know, how am I going to number my episodes?
[00:01:38] And so I wanted to share my top tips for launching a podcast in 2023 and how to really make it count. If you listen to episode 97, which was last week's episode, I talked a lot about some of the predictions that are being made for podcasting and how I thought those were going to relate to and affect business podcasts, and I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode, especially if you are thinking about launching a podcast, because I think that episode combined with this episode are really going to convince you to start making movement forward toward that. You see, there are a lot of advantages to having a podcast for your business, but I really feel like the shifts that are happening in the podcast industry are only going to work in our favor as far as business podcasts are concerned. And so now is the time to think about launching, especially if you've been putting it off for a while. There are some things that you definitely want to have in place. However, before you sit down and start recording at the microphone, when you launch a podcast, it's really easy to just choose topics you love and start recording because you are excited. But I want us to think about it a bit more strategically. You didn't think I was going to completely walk away from strategy in this episode, did you?
[00:03:04] I want us to think about it more strategically so that way when we launch those first two episodes, our podcast is already working for us and working for our business. And I think this is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make when they launch a podcast. They go online and they look at what other people are doing. They think about the podcast that they are listening to. But when we really, like kind of narrow it down and think about, okay, but how is this podcast going to serve you specifically and your business? There are things that not every podcast is doing or that may be being done differently by this podcast over here than should be done for your podcast.
[00:03:50] So today, again, I'm going to share my top tips to make sure that right away when you launch your business podcast, that it is supporting you and is supporting business growth. So the first thing I want you to think about is your podcast purpose. You really need to understand what job your podcast has and you need to get very specific. So when you start thinking about your podcast purpose, you know, an answer may be, Well, I want to build more authority. I want you to get more specific than that with your podcast purpose. Yes, I know we all want to build more authority, but what do you want to build more authority in specifically? You know, for me, this is a really fun exercise because before, you know, I guess two years ago, we would say that the purpose of my podcast was to support my agency and help me get more agency clients.
[00:04:49] Now, I definitely feel like my podcast purpose is to help build my authority in podcast strategy and consulting. And so that's really shifted the episodes that I choose and even other things, right? The things that we have done for our business and this purpose, right? Knowing this purpose is really going to help, you know, what steps to take with your podcast. It's almost going to be that North Star kind of thing, right? Like it's going to help guide and direct a lot of the choices that you're going to make about your podcast. And so if you're not super, super clear and I mean like crystal clear, have it written down, really understand what it is that it's supposed to do for your business specifically, you're not going to have a very targeted approach with your podcast, which in turn is not going to help actually build your business, right? Then it really just will be some audio out in the world that has your voice that's building your authority. But we want it to do so much more than that because we know that if we can make it targeted and really part of our content ecosystem, it can help our business grow. And so that's why you need to get really, really clear on your podcast purpose.
[00:06:08] The second thing I want you to do is to plan your content ahead of time, especially with the launches. You know, you want to make sure that you're going into it with a schedule. You know what's coming down the pipeline, You're already recording and working ahead. But I want to take that a step further, and I want you to plan your content ahead of time and also align it with your marketing and promo schedule. So I mentioned something about a content ecosystem, and this is one of those moments where that comes into play, right? So we're thinking about how our podcast content is working with everything else in our business. This also goes back to the purpose. It all has to work together and be aligned. And so as you're sitting down and you're scheduling out and thinking about your episodes for your launch and what you want to do, or maybe you're just thinking about episodes in general, like what kind of topics do I want to cover on my podcast? Really think about how you can line them up with what you're doing in your business and how the topics and the content can support that and direct people to the things that you're doing right. So planning ahead and having it align with your marketing and promo schedule.
[00:07:22] The next thing is, before you even launch your podcast, I want you to have a really clear idea on what you want people to do after they listen. And I'm not talking about leaving a review. I'm talking about how do you want them to get involved in your business, right? Like, what is the next step for someone who listens to your podcast and they say, You know, I'd like a little bit more of that. If you had listened to Episode 97, you would remember that I said that one of the things that we're seeing kind of shift in podcasting is this move away from ad revenue to content based revenue. And so people really are, I think, hungry for ways to connect with podcast hosts in and guests in other ways besides just the episodes. And so what do you have to offer them? That's kind of like the next step. And then how does that work with the rest of your business funnel, right? A funnel or getting them into and excited about your services? And so, you know, this can be something simple, like it could be a download, a free download, a quiz, it could be a community. You know, maybe it makes sense for them to go to a sales page. There's a lot of different options. But what you really want to understand is how you're going to capture those listeners and pull them from the episodes over to your business. And I'll give you just a little bit of because I have talked about this on the podcast before, but you don't want it to be something so big that they're not going to do it. So the call may not be the thing you want them to do, but join my free email newsletter may be more accessible and attainable, right? So that was number three.
[00:09:04] The fourth thing I want you to do is to create a really clear picture of what people are going to hear from your podcast when they listen. But we want to really look at how everything is going to work together. So when I talk about a clear picture, I'm talking about let's say somebody is perusing the Internet and they come across your podcast, what is their first impression? Is it going to tell them what they need to know? Is it going to get them excited about? Out your content if they happen to be your ideal listener. And so how do we do that? Well, there's a few ways. One is by making sure that your cover art and description are very clear and explain exactly what your podcast is. Aesthetically and also in words, right? So we want to make sure that it makes sense what we're seeing when we see those things and when we read your description. And then going further, like making sure that the entire outro and trailer all make sense together. So when you take all of this, this is kind of what I like to think of as the picture of your podcast. These are the things that kind of form that first impression, and this is what's going to hook people, right? This is what, when they read your description, are they going to be excited about it or is it like the same sentence they've read in other places? Is there a hook? There's all these things to think about. But what I really want you to think about as somebody who's thinking about launching their podcast is what picture am I sharing with people with all of these things? And I just want to say like, you know, these things can change down the road for sure. So don't feel like you have to get them perfect on the outset, but it is important to make sure that they all work together and tell a cohesive message. They share a cohesive message about what your podcast is and what it's how it's going to serve them, right? Like, we want to make sure that they understand if they listen, like, what are they going to get out of it because our time is precious. So that totally makes sense.
[00:11:04] And then the last thing I want to say, if you are super serious about starting a podcast and you really want this to work for your business and you want it to be something that is going to really help promote growth and draw people in and build authority. All the things I want to make sure that we can hear you well. So go ahead and invest in a mic. It doesn't have to be a super fancy, expensive mic. I actually recently upgraded from a yeti, which had been gifted to me and it was very beautiful, Mike and I liked it, but I didn't love it. And before that I had had a snowball, which I loved, but when we moved, my snowball got damaged. I started using my yeti, which I didn't love. And so finally I upgraded and got a USB condenser mike on a like arm on a boom arm, right? Oh my gosh. Just the difference is so amazing. And when you sound really good, it helps you feel really confident about your episodes, you know, even though I totally think, like, you can record wherever, whenever with your little headphones and your microphone, like I'm all for that as well. I think if it is accessible for you, like go ahead and purchase a mic that you're excited about.
[00:12:24] I also feel like this mic makes me feel really official. If I'm being honest, it makes me feel like a grown up podcaster. And that can help. That really does help, you know, build confidence and all of that good stuff as you're starting to work on launching a podcast. So those are my five things. Just to recap, we want to really understand your podcast purpose. We want to plan your content ahead of time, have it align with your marketing promo schedule. We want to know exactly what people are going to do after they listen. We want to create a really clear picture and great first impression with our podcast, and then we want to make sure that we sound good. So the key is to think about these things before you start, right? We can absolutely think about them after, but if you're listening to this and you haven't launched yet, I want you to think about these things before they can definitely evolve and change over time because we're going to evolve and change too, right? And our podcast is going to grow. We're going to grow. And so some of this stuff can definitely changed on the line.
[00:13:28] But thinking about how the podcast works for your business right out of the gate is really going to determine if it is successful in supporting business growth, right? Because that is the ultimate goal. If we're going to put time and energy into this, we want it to help convert listeners to clients. And so these are kind of like the first steps in that podcast strategy and the things that I really want you to think about before you launch your podcast.
[00:13:57] But here's the thing you don't have to launch alone. And I have a couple of options for you. If you are thinking about launching a podcast, I'm going to start out with my free and live launch Challenge, which is starting January 23rd, and it's going to round out with a live Q&A on the 26th. And in this challenge, we're going to really get clear on why you have a podcast for your business. So we're going to be talking a little bit more about that purpose that we've talked about and some things to consider. This is a really great place to start if you're thinking a. Out launching a podcast and not sure if it's the right move for you. So that would be a great place to start. Day two, we're going to talk about creating a podcast that converts. So going a little bit deeper into some of these things, I talked about having content that aligns all of that good stuff. And then day three, we're going to talk about logistics. What do you need to actually get started? And so on day three, we're going to be talking about. You know, that picture that we're going to create equipment and walls that you need to get launched. And again, this is a free and live challenge. And if you would like to join, you can head to Wild Home Podcast dot com slash launch challenge and we will put the link in the show notes as well because that's kind of a mouthful.
[00:15:19] And then starting in February, I'm going to be running my 90 day accelerator, which is a group coaching program which is just all about launching a podcast. And this is a really great way to get support if you're not quite ready to outsource your entire launch, but you want to have accountability and another set of eyes on everything you're doing to make sure that it is going to align and help you grow your business. And so to find out more about that, you can head to Wild Home Podcast dot com slash launch pad and we'll be opening up enrollment for that towards the end of January. But you can go ahead and check it out. And lastly, if you are in a place where you're like, listen, I want to launch a podcast, but I don't want to do all the things we have openings for our launch package. And this is like literally we take you through every step of launching a podcast. We create all the things. We help you create a really clear strategy on how your podcast is going to work for your business and make sure all the right pieces are in place. We also include your first four episodes with that as well. So this is a really great package for somebody who wants to take everything off of their plate and have a team supporting them in not only creating the podcast but actually creating the strategy. So all the links for those will be in the show notes and if you're like, okay, Caroline, but where do I start? I highly recommend starting with my launch challenge, which again is free and live, and we're starting that on the 23rd.
[00:17:01] So thank you so much for listening to the podcast and I will be back with a new episode next week. Thank you for listening to podcast Your Business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram @wildhomepodcast. If you're ready to launch up level or grow your podcast, head to WildHomePodcast.com to get started today.
