108: 3 Questions to Ask Before You Launch Your Podcast
You know you’re going to launch a podcast for your online business. You have a name picked out, you’ve got your first few episodes planned, and maybe you even have cover art mocked up. That’s all the big stuff, right?
All of that is important and necessary for your podcast, but the thing is, if you actually want your podcast to work effectively for you and your business, there are some other questions you need to answer before your launch.
#1 | What is the (very specific) goal that you have for your podcast?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when it comes to small online businesses, your podcast should work for you as a part of your team. You wouldn’t hire a team member without any plan for how they’ll contribute to your business or for what kind of work you’d like them to do, right?
And it’s the same for your podcast! Before you ever start recording, you need to figure out –specifically, not generally– what the goal of your podcast is and what you’d like it to do for your business. Is it just to increase your authority? Or would you like it to bring in leads too. Maybe you want to use it to promote a specific set of products. Maybe you’d like to use it to create more visibility or for a steady stream of content.
It can be one of those things or even a mix, but if you don’t know what you want your podcast to be able to do for your business, you won’t be able to tell if your podcast is doing its job! And it will be hard to feel invested in your podcast if you don’t have a goal in mind for why you’re doing it in the first place.
#2 | How will your podcast fit into the rest of the marketing for your business?
There are a ton of benefits to podcasting, but one of the biggest is that if you’re sitting down each week or every few weeks and recording episodes, you already have all the content and ideas you’ll ever need to promote your business. You won’t have to conjure up brand new ideas for every social post, email, or blog. You’ll have ideas and quotes and content to pull from and repurpose anywhere in your business, especially if it’s valuable aligned content.
So, knowing that, how are you going to work your podcast into your marketing? Are you just going to record an episode each week, make one social media post about it, and then go on your way (big side-eye here)? OR are you going to make your podcast the big content umbrella and use that to streamline your content and marketing so that you’re using your time efficiently, promoting your business cohesively, and making the most out of the valuable ideas you’re producing?
How specifically you do this is up to you. There are tons of creative ways to repurpose your podcast content without making it feel derivative or repetitive. But you need to be intentional, and you need to have a plan.
#3 | How will you manage the time it takes to produce your podcast on a regular schedule?
Let’s all be honest here: Podcasting takes a lot of time. It just does. It takes time to plan out episode ideas. It takes time to record. It takes time to edit, produce, and write quality show notes. And then it takes time to repurpose that episode into helpful content for your business. So how will you manage that?
Maybe you plan to do it all yourself (and you certainly can if you want)! Will you batch record a month ahead of time so you’ll be prepared in case you run into snags or other urgent business matters? Maybe you’ll outsource some of the admin parts to a VA. That’s another great option, but you’ll have to plan to edit and write with enough lead time so they can finish everything on time. Or maybe you’ll use an agency like ours to do all the management for you, and you just have to block out time to record.
It doesn’t necessarily matter which route you choose, but you do need to find a comfortable rhythm to settle into, because staying consistent on your end helps keep listeners consistent and that’s what will help grow your podcast in the long run.
So that’s it! Answer these questions and then go forth and podcast! We’re cheering for you!
If you know you want to launch a podcast, but need help answering these questions, planning out your long-term strategy, and setting yourself on the path to success right out of the gate, take a look at our Podcast Launch package.
Links:
042: Streamline Your Marketing with a Podcast
048: How to Make Your Podcast an Employee of Your Business
043: Ways to Outsource Your Podcast
051: How to Revive Your Podcast After a Break
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
108: 3 Questions to Ask Before You Launch Your Podcast
[00:00:00] Caroline Hull What is the action item that people are doing after they listen? Are they signing up for a newsletter? They opting into a freebie? What is the thing and can you track that specifically? Maybe there's a special link that you use just for the podcast, or maybe it's in a form that you have on your website that says, Where did you hear from this and has a drop down? And one of those is your podcasts. These are ways that you can kind of track. Sometimes it can be hard because people definitely can come to you in a roundabout way, right? But there are some things to kind of look at.
[00:00:35] 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.
[00:01:04] Hello, everyone. Today I want to talk about three things to consider if you are ready to start a podcast for your business. So specifically in this episode, when we talk about starting a podcast, we are talking about using it as part of the marketing for your business, using it as a way to build authority, a way to showcase what you know and to build a library of knowledge. And I talk about that a lot, how podcasting is so cool, especially for businesses, because you do kind of build this library of like what you know, how you like to share it with the world, what your messages, and then you put that out there and people are able to get to know you get to know what you're all about, get to know your style, how you like to work with people. There's just so many benefits to having a podcast for your business. And it also doubles as a really great way to drive SEO or to drive traffic through SEO to your website, which we love, and it kind of streamlines content creation. Okay, I just threw a lot of benefits at you because I've talked about these on a lot of episodes over the years on this podcast, and it's something that I'm really passionate about, not only having a podcast but making sure that it's working for your business. And so I would recommend that you go back through my Library of Knowledge, my podcast, and look for episodes that specifically have to do with how it relates to having a business. And we'll link a couple in the show notes for you as well.
[00:02:49] But so let's say you've gotten past all of that. You're like, Yes, I'm here for the benefits, I'm ready, let's do this. But there are three things I want you to consider before you hit record and before you put it out into the world. And so the first thing is, what is your goal? And I think this is like the biggest thing that all podcasters who are using it as part of their marketing for their business need to consider is like, what is your actual goal for the podcast? And I want you to get very specific. Is it to bring in leads? Are you just hoping to create more visibility? Like what is the thing that you're trying to do? I love the idea of using a podcast to generate leads, and I think it's a really great way to share who you are and what you know, but also how you work with people and what they could expect from working with you. This is especially effective, I think, for business coaches, health and wellness coaches, things like that, people who do strategy and coaching because it really helps people get a chance to hear your voice and hear how you feel about things and how you approach them and how you share them. And so when I'm saying goals, I mean, I think you can definitely set pretty concrete goals and say, I want the podcast to generate X amount of leads each month. That would be amazing. And I think that's a really cool goal to have. And you just have to make sure that you have a way to track that. Like what is the action item that people are doing after they listen? Are they signing up for a newsletter, they opting into a freebie? What is the thing and can you track that specifically? Maybe there's a special link that you use just for the podcast, or maybe it's in a form that you have on your website that says, Where did you hear from this and has a dropdown in one of those is your podcasts. These are ways that you can kind of track. Sometimes it can be hard because people definitely can come to you roundabout ways, right? But there are some things to kind of look at now.
[00:04:52] There are some other goals that you can set for sure, and I'm actually going to talk about these in another podcast episode about numbers and. Metrics and how to use them for your podcast and for your business. But for right now, I want you to just start to think about that goal and reframing the podcast as being a productive member of your team, of your business, right? So the podcast is working for you. It's generating leads, it's part of your sales and marketing team. That's what I like to say.
[00:05:20] So the second thing that I want you to consider is exactly how you're going to use this with your marketing. If you've ever heard me talk about marketing and having a podcast for your business, you know what I'm going to say, And that is, is that we spend so much time on the podcast and there's just such a wealth of information from each of your episodes that it makes a lot of sense for the podcast to be like the top tier of your marketing. And there's a lot of ways to do this. Whenever I'm teaching this, I always have this drawing of a funnel, and at the top of the funnel is your podcast, and then everything drips down from there. So from there you create a blog post, from there you create an email newsletter, from there you create social media posts and so on and so on. I think that one of the most underutilized things I see a lot when businesses first start podcasts is the shownotes. And so what we really try to encourage here is that if you're going to work on the podcast and you're going to post it somewhere and have to write a description for it, definitely like compose some really great show notes that can be used on your blog that are eco friendly, and then use the show notes to also help you compose social media posts. And so you're doing a lot of work on the podcast, and then that in turn is giving you so many snippets and pieces to be able to share. So a really great example is this episode. So in this episode I am giving you three things to consider if you're starting a podcast for your business. And each of those three things could be its own email newsletter, its own social media posts.
[00:07:05] There's so much I could pull from this episode, and so just kind of approaching them that way is going to be really key as you start integrating your podcast into your marketing for your business. It's really good to have a plan at the front of it when you're first developing your podcast, but sometimes that doesn't always happen and it can kind of happen naturally. I find that, you know, when I first started podcasting, I didn't necessarily think, Oh, I'm going to pull everything from my podcast. I would just like create content. And then I realized I was creating content in so many different places when I could just in fact sit down, record, write some amazing show notes and use that to create content everywhere else. And it saves a lot of time. It streamlines your messaging and it kind of gives you, I think, like an unlimited amount of of things to pull from. So for instance, if I'm stuck this week, I was a little stuck and I was thinking about something that I wanted to post on social media and I realized I had a really great episode a while back, I think it was episode 51, and I was like, Oh, I need to pull from that again, because whatever I talked about in that episode is so timely for right now. So I need to reassure it and it's really easy to do that if you have really good show notes that are very thorough and have quotes, polls and all that kind of stuff. And so as you start to think about your marketing, not just for your podcast but for your business, think about how the two can mesh together and integrate and become one. And it's going to save you a lot of time, a lot of energy, and it's also going to make it really easy to keep directing people back to the podcast and then from the podcast back to your site. Right? And so it's kind of like the circle, and sometimes you can bypass sending them off to Apple and Spotify because you have a really great blog post on your blog with a player right there. And so making sure that all the things are connected, that we are taking the time to use the content that we are creating and a really great way.
[00:09:12] And the last thing that I want you to consider, if you're ready to start a podcast for your business, is time and outsourcing. So time, I feel like becomes a really touchy subject with a lot of podcasters after they get started. I feel like intentions are always good and then as you jump in, you realize how incredibly time consuming the process is and soon your time starts to get away from you and then you start to feel like you're doing episodes last minute. If you are a CEO of a business or even a solopreneur, or maybe you have a couple people who work for you, one of the things you will quickly figure out is that incorporating a podcast into your weekly schedule can be a challenge unless you really get yourself into a good groove. I actually posted. Today on Instagram when I'm recording this about having a rhythm. And I think this is really important and something that you need to kind of think about before you start the podcast. Like what is your weekly rhythm going to look like? How often are you going to record? When are you going to record? When are you going to work on all the other pieces that go with it? When do you want to have the episode scheduled? And this is something that I am still working on because you can have good intentions and then things happen. And that's why I don't like to use the word schedule. I like to use the word rhythm because I feel like rhythm allows for a little bit more wiggle room when things get busy or crazy or something pops up. But it is something to think about because as you start to work on your podcast, you want to make sure that you are a head on episodes.
[00:10:48] And if you're not ahead, you have a plan. So that way you can keep the podcast momentum going, right? Keeping consistent keeps listeners consistent. All the things I've said on all the episodes, right? So find that rhythm and you know, if time feels like it's going to be something that is going to be really difficult for you. Let's say your plate is just maxed, but you know that you want to have a podcast. What can you outsource? What are the things that you know, you could get off your plate? What are the things that you want to tackle? Maybe you want to do the editing and the audio and the show notes and then have somebody post it and schedule it. Or maybe you're ready to offload the whole thing. And a lot of times we don't know the answer to these questions until we get into it. But it is something to kind of have in the back of your mind as you're starting the podcast process, because like I said, the last thing you want is to get so far behind that you're having trouble keeping up with it and not getting episodes out when you want. Right. And so having some kind of rhythm, having outsourcing help is going to really help with that. And I think, too, you have to be honest with yourself, you know, how much time do I have to give to this? How much time each week am I going to dedicate? Is this something that maybe I'm going to have to do on the weekends for a while? What does that look like for me? And I do have an episode about outsourcing for your podcast, so we're going to link that in the show notes as well. Lots of things we're going to link to this episode because a lot of this does refer back to things that I've talked about before, and they definitely bear repeating because they are really, really important. I think outsourcing can be really overwhelming, especially if you haven't done it before.
[00:12:31] But I definitely want to encourage you as a business owner, you know, with so we're wearing so many hats, right? Just make sure that the podcast is an extra hat on top of all the hats that you're already wearing. And that's goes back to my previous point, which was about marketing and if you can use this to also streamline your marketing and help save time as well. And so these are the three things that I think are very important to consider as you get ready to start a podcast for your business. I think these are the things that sometimes aren't thought about until down the road, which is totally fine too. I mean, sometimes you just got to do the thing and learn as you go and find out what works for you and what's going to be the most impactful for you and your business. And that's totally okay. I'm not saying that you need to have all of this figured out before you hit record. I'm just saying, as you start your journey as a podcaster and as you start your journey sharing and using this to get your message and your voice out there. These are things that you want to be thinking about.
[00:13:39] And the other thing too, is I always tell people like, give yourself 10 to 20 episodes to kind of figure these things out as well. You may start and have time and then things change, Things happen, Things evolve and decide Now it's time to bring somebody. And then what does that feel like for a couple of months, you know? And so it's all a big experiment. I say all the time that it's still the Wild West. Everybody is still kind of doing what works best for them. And at the end of the day, that's what you have to do as well, is do what works best for you. Let me know if this episode is helpful. You can email me hello@wildhomepodcasting.com or connect with me on Instagram at Wild Home Podcast and I will see you 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 wildhomepodcasting.com to get started today.
