When to Launch Your Podcast for Maximum Impact
If you are thinking about launching a podcast, you may be wondering when the right time to go live actually is! Today's insights are tailored to help you choose the right moment to make your voice heard.
In this episode, I’m sharing the benefits of podcasting as a networking tool to the intricacies of content planning. We also discuss the personal journeys and transformations brought about through podcasting. Hear firsthand about the powerful connections and clarity gained through interviews and how these can pivot your business direction and strategy. This episode is a great first step as you start your podcast journey!
Understanding Seasonal Listener Trends
Listenership can vary significantly with the seasons, influencing when might be the best time to launch your new podcast. Historically, podcast listenership sees a surge in the fall and again in January. These periods mark times of new beginnings—post-summer activities and the start of a new year—when people are looking to reset their routines and add new podcasts to their repertoire. Timing your launch to coincide with these listener spikes can help you capitalize on increased audience availability and engagement.
Aligning Your PODCAST Launch with Business Cycles
It's not just about when people are listening; it's also about when they are most likely to engage with your content in a way that benefits your business. For instance, if your podcast is tied to your business cycle, launching during a peak time for your industry can lead to better synergy and conversion. For many businesses, September and January are critical months for setting the tone and direction for the coming months. Plan your podcast launch when your target audience is most likely seeking new information and solutions, which for many sectors aligns perfectly with these months.
The Pre-Launch Phase: Building Anticipation
A successful podcast launch is not an overnight affair—it requires thoughtful preparation and buzz-building. Start by teasing your upcoming podcast through your existing channels, whether it's social media, a newsletter, or your website. Share behind-the-scenes content, snippets, or guest introductions to pique interest. This pre-launch phase is crucial for drumming up excitement and ensuring a strong listener base right from the first episode.
Technical Preparation and Testing
Before you go live, a crucial window of technical preparation and testing must occur. This includes everything from finalizing the podcast format, running test recordings, to setting up distribution through various platforms. Ensure that your technical setup is flawless to avoid last-minute hitches that could affect your launch. Consider soft-launching with a select group of listeners to gather initial feedback and make necessary adjustments before the official release.
PODCAST Launch Timing and Marketing Synergy
Finally, consider how your podcast launch can complement and enhance your existing marketing efforts. If you have product launches, major business announcements, or seasonal promotions, aligning your podcast launch to these events can provide a cohesive and immersive experience for your audience. This synergy not only boosts your podcast's visibility but also enhances overall engagement across all platforms.
Choosing the right time to launch your podcast involves a blend of strategic planning, understanding your audience's habits, and aligning with your business goals. By launching at a time when your audience is most receptive and eager for new content, you set the stage for a successful and impactful podcast that grows alongside your business. Remember, the perfect time to start is also when you're ready to commit fully to this exciting new venture. Happy podcasting!
The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
181: When to Launch Your Podcast for Maximum Impact
[00:00:00] Have you been lurking listening to my podcast and wondering if, and when you should launch a podcast for your business. Today, we're going to talk all about launching all about timing and when you should start working on your podcast launch. So if you're thinking about launching a podcast at any point this year, this is the episode you need to listen to.
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[00:01:00] Hello, everyone.
[00:01:02] Welcome back to share strategize and shine. Oh, my gosh, I am doing a little bit of batch recording today and I just got off the most amazing interview. With Burke Monaghan. I cannot wait to share it with you. And I just feel like I have to talk about it even now. It was just so good. Can I just tell you the power and maybe this is the problem that we solve this week, but. Just the power of networking through podcasting.
[00:01:27] I think it's one of those advantages that we don't talk about enough. You know, being able to have a space where people to come onto my podcast and meet them and talk to them. I have made such amazing connections, but because I've become so, so clear in my messaging. It has allowed me to meet a lot of really amazing like-minded business owners. And it's like literally changed my life.
[00:01:52] And I don't see that lately, like, because I have chatted with Ann Marie Rose who was on the podcast. [00:02:00] She is helping me with her offers, you know, today, because I talked with Brooke, I have even more clarity around some of my offers. Gosh, I could just keep going down the list. I've worked with Amy circa, who was on my podcast.
[00:02:12] I'm Sydney. O'Brien. And Elizabeth Marbury who's coming on the show as well, or who was just on the show. So it's just been so amazing. And if you have a podcast or thinking about having a podcast, like I definitely do not recommend. Doing just interviews as a business owner. I think solo episodes are super, super important for a lot of reasons. But having the space to do interviews, to do that, networking, to form those connections. Is so, so important.
[00:02:43] And if you're listening to this and you're like, I am still undecided about launching a podcast. You know, even being on other podcasts is so, so impactful, not just because of the visibility piece, but because of the connection and the networking that happens when you have these [00:03:00] conversations. You've heard me talk about how. Podcasting is such an intimate way of being with people, right?
[00:03:07] Like when we're listening to someone we're literally in their earbuds, like we're literally in their ears. And I just keep seeing evidence of how important and impactful this intimate way of connecting with people through audio can be not only in my business, but in my client's businesses as well. You know, and. I just, I think. We put so much emphasis on creating content for the sake of creating content.
[00:03:34] But I want to tell you right now, If you are thinking about creating a podcast. It is not only going to open up doors for you because of networking and connection, but it's also going to help you really hone in on your messaging and create connections that you didn't even know was there. And so. I, yeah, I think the problem we solve this week has to be like, I. Stopped doing interviews for a long time, [00:04:00] because it didn't really work with my life.
[00:04:02] I had a new baby. She's four now. And we'll be four soon and I've started doing interviews again. And they just light up my day. It is like the highlight of my day when I have an interview scheduled and I get to sit, I get to chat with someone. I get to meet someone new. We get to connect on ideas and opinions and you never know what's going to come out of those down the road. The collaborations that can occur that connections. So, yeah, definitely put that on your list of things I want to do when I podcast, because it has been so impactful for me.
[00:04:40] Oh, okay. So when this episode comes out, it is mid may. And we are approaching summer, which leads into fall. And I. knew going into this time of year about one of the things I really wanted to talk about was. When you should [00:05:00] be launching your podcast. And w I guess when an F right, when an F both of those things. Here's the thing. Like fall is such a great time to grow your podcast. In the fall, we always see a surge of listenership. You know, think about the cycle that people go through in their year and think about when Hughes tend to get the most inquiries.
[00:05:25] The most people reaching out for me, it's always fall. And then January, right. January is like bananas with people contacting me, wanting help with their podcasts. And then I also in the fall. So usually it's like September for us. And you think about like, what's going on in people's lives, right?
[00:05:43] Well, in January, it's the start of a new year. Oh my gosh. I have all these plans for the year. I need to get all these things done. Right. And then we go into spring and everybody's hustling to wrap things up. To have an impact, make things happen before they go into summer vacation. Summer, [00:06:00] everybody kind of slows down.
[00:06:01] Right. And then in the fall it like ramps back up because everybody's. Just running towards Q4, trying to hit goals, trying to make things happen. And when you think about that cycle, it makes a lot of sense then that you would want to have the meat of your podcasts, and think about your sales and promotion schedule as well. You want to have a lot going on? In your podcast in the fall and in January now I do have a client who one of their biggest sales times is a summer because she is selling something that benefits people. Like in the beginning of the fall.
[00:06:34] Right. And so she knows that in the summer she's gonna really ramp up. Her marketing really ramp up her content. Of course, the cool thing is with having a podcast and social media is we can do all this ahead of time and schedule so she can still go on vacation and still be selling. Right. But. When we talk about getting ready to launch a podcast, if you're not starting. Until September to work on your [00:07:00] launch is too late for the fall. If you are wanting to make an impact and to start seeing that impact. Not only in the fall, but also in the following year. This is the time you need to be working on your podcast. This is a time you need to be working on your launch. And let's talk a little bit about what a launch is, what that might look like for you. And why it's important to plan it out.
[00:07:30] Okay. So when I talk about launching a podcast, I'm actually like talking about. It's out. It's going out. This is the day it's happening. This is the week it's happening. Here are the episodes. Here's everything that's going on. But what people fail to realize is that there is so much more that needs to go into this, especially. As a business owner, who's creating a podcast to not only help you have a source of long-form content. But also create a [00:08:00] piece of marketing.
[00:08:00] That's going to be nurturing and warming for your audience. There's some things that we need to think about. We need to think about the purpose of your podcasts. We need to think about how that purpose is going to be communicated through the content and not only just the content, but through all of the other pieces.
[00:08:17] Right. There is crafting your title of your podcast, crafting your description. Working on your intro outro and your trailer, knowing when you're going to tease your episode, right? Your launch. When am I going to start talking about the fact that I am creating this podcast? How am I going to share it?
[00:08:37] How am I going to get people excited about it before it even comes out? The thing is though. Is what a lot of people skip over is working on the funnel. And. Understanding. How the podcast is going to take people into their business, through their business, what things are going to happen? What opt in what's going to happen to [00:09:00] them after. And they will launch a podcast. They won't think through these things.
[00:09:06] And then they will come to me 20, 25 episodes in, and you know, my episode, my podcast is not converting for me the way that I want it to. And then we look at what happened during the launch. And we're able to like retroactively go back and see like, okay, these are the problems. These are the things that we skipped that we needed now implement. And then we implement those things and then it takes time for those things to take effect because we're having to change. How our listeners. Interact and connect with our podcast.
[00:09:38] If you think about all of these things from the beginning, you are going to set yourself up for so much more success. And I don't say this, like lightly, this is like true story. I ain't even think about my own podcast. I think about. When I started the podcast where I was going to be talking about podcasting. So having a podcast [00:10:00] about podcasting is really funny to say.
[00:10:02] But my original podcasts about podcasting. , was not called share strategize and shine. If you've been here for any length of time, you know that I've gone through a couple iterations.
[00:10:11] But that first iteration. I really didn't quite understand what the ultimate goal was. Of the podcast episodes. I literally had a podcast to have a podcast. And it wasn't doing much for me. It really wasn't until I thought through my funnel. And I realized, okay, well, the name isn't working. And the call to action isn't working and the way I'm structuring my content, isn't working. And I had to go back and reimagine all of that, which is a lot of work. And when I went back and re-imagined all of that. I immediately saw the fruits of my labor.
[00:10:52] Right? Like I saw, I started getting inquiries directly from the podcast. I booked a client who is still a client of mine. [00:11:00] Sight unseen because she listened to the podcast episodes. You know, these are the results that you want. This is what you want to hear. From people when you talk about your podcast and if they're listening to it, And it can happen for you right away.
[00:11:14] It can absolutely happen from the minute you launch. But you have to take the time to put these things into place. So that's the first thing that people underestimate when they think about a launch. The second thing is. The tech. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to talk about the tech for a second.
[00:11:30] Podcasting gets pretty techie sometimes. It's definitely gotten easier from when I started, we didn't have as many resources. To podcast. And so I became like an expert in things like Adobe audition and, and isotope and all these crazy programs. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about. And there are so many other things now out there that make it so much easier for you to do it yourself, but you still have to learn how to use those things.
[00:11:56] Right. You still have to learn how to use them, how to use them [00:12:00] effectively. And how to make sure that they're not. Creating more time that you're spending on it, because at the end of the day, we want our podcast. If it's going to be impactful for our business, it cannot be a time. Suck. And what happens when people start to work on their launch is they get sucked into the details. Into what am I getting used to edit?
[00:12:23] Oh my gosh, my feed isn't set up correctly. How do I get it distributed to places? They, they get sucked into all of these techie things. And the only support they have is to go to Google and try and find the solution on Google at midnight.
[00:12:38] I don't know about you all, but I do a lot of my Googling at midnight, which is why I always say that.
[00:12:42] I feel like whenever I'm trying to solve a problem, it's usually at midnight and I'm on the Google and I'm trying to find something that's going to help me solve the problem. That's not how I want to live my life. And I know that's not how you want to live yours. And so. You have to allow yourself a little bit of time and space to work through that tech [00:13:00] and to figure out. What your tech stack is going to be what your process is going to be, what your systems are going to be.
[00:13:06] Because if you can get all of these things in place, then when you start releasing episodes, it's going to be so much easier. And that's the ultimate goal is when we get to that launch, the next step, which is to continue releasing episodes consistently. Isn't going to feel hard. Isn't going to feel difficult.
[00:13:26] Isn't going to feel like it's as so much time to your schedule. That you don't enjoy it. You don't want to do it because the minute you feel that. Then you stopped doing it. And then all the work you did to set up your podcast to think through your funnel. To work on the tech. It means nothing because you're not going to stay with it.
[00:13:46] Right. So. During the prelaunch time. I like to make sure. That my clients not only feel really great about their content, but they feel really great about the process. [00:14:00] And then that they have support afterwards because inevitably what happens is once you, okay, I got my launch ready. I've got my three episodes ready to go.
[00:14:10] I've got my episode for the following week. I'm going to go take a nap and then they have to get back into it again. And that's where it gets hard. And so having that support is so, so important. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that here in just a second. But let's go back to the funnel piece for a minute. Having her podcasts function as a piece of your funnel is one of the biggest ways it's going to make impact for you.
[00:14:35] And when we talk about the funnel, we really are talking about a few things. We're talking about the path that people take, but we're also talking about content. And all of these things need to be thought through and thought through, well, ahead of time. Because we want to make sure that we're setting it up.
[00:14:53] Like I said, to work for us from day one. The content piece is really, really important. [00:15:00] And one thing that I really have found to be super helpful is planning my content quarterly. So I will plan a whole quarter of podcasting content. Now I may move it around. I may tweak some things. I need to change some things. But at least I have a plan for how this is all going to work together. So. If you were thinking about launching. Yes, you are going to plan your launch.
[00:15:24] You're going to plan your episodes. You're going to plan how you're going to prepare. You're going to plan how you're going to tease your podcast. And then you're going to plan that actual launch week. Which should feel like an absolute celebration. It should be a time to really drum up excitement about your podcasts and get people excited to listen, get them subscribe, get them following.
[00:15:48] Get you added to their apps. And then you also want to plan what comes next after that. This is why, when I talk about your podcast, having an impact in the [00:16:00] fall. This is why now as a time to start working on that launch.
[00:16:05] When I work with clients, one-on-one for the launches, we can take anywhere from six weeks to, I don't know, months. You know, because there's always things that pop up, right. There's always things that come up as you're working through these things that you're going to need help with. And it may be mindset.
[00:16:25] A lot of times people come up against mindset blocks. I'm not sure if anybody wants to hear me, I'm not sure if I'm communicating this correctly. You know, they might get hung up on their cover art not being perfect. Or the description isn't quite right. All of these things can stop you in your tracks when you're working on the launching.
[00:16:45] I think anybody listening to this, you're a business owner. You know how it is like when you're planning any kind of campaign. Any kind of launch. You know, you start with a small checklist and that checklist just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing, and it can definitely get overwhelming. [00:17:00] Especially when it's something that feels. Like, I don't know exactly what I'm doing.
[00:17:04] Right. That's how I feel sometimes when I'm working on new offers, like, especially if it's structured differently than how I've done offers before. I'm like, I don't know exactly what I'm doing. And sometimes it can feel like that's a huge roadblock for me to continue setting up the sales page and setting up the Thrivecart and all the things. 'cause I'm like, Ooh, I don't know.
[00:17:22] I don't know if I'm doing all of this correctly. And that's why we get support, right. That's why we reach out for help, because we want to make sure that we're doing all the things correctly. And so I just want to. Mention a couple things to you that are coming up, coming down the pipeline that may be of interest to you.
[00:17:39] If you are thinking about launching a podcast. One is on May 16th. I am holding a workshop called launch your podcast funnel. This workshop is perfect for you. If you want to start a podcast, you want it to have an impact for your business, but you're not exactly sure what it's going to look like. We're going to talk about that.
[00:17:58] We're going to talk about what it needs to [00:18:00] look like, the pieces you need to be thinking about before you start working on your launch. And I even have a special tool for you. That's going to help you generate your. Podcast, name and description and idea and all of that. So that workshop is on May 16th. I have been developing for a while, a quick two day to launch kit.
[00:18:21] So I basically have taken all the fluff out of launching and condensed it. So you could literally, if you had two days where you didn't have anything else to do. Could launch a podcast for your business. But I know that me just giving you a PDF with videos and all the tools. That's still DIY, that's still doing it without support.
[00:18:42] So starting in June, I'm going to be. Doing a launch accelerator, and this is going to be a six week program. Well, we will work through the kit together. There will be live calls for support. And at the end of it, you will be ready to launch your podcast and you can either launch it. Now you can [00:19:00] launch it in the fall, whatever feels good for you.
[00:19:02] But the point is, is that. When these moments of doubt pop-up or when you don't know how to do something, you're not going to have to go to Google because you're going to have me to help walk you through that. So if you're thinking about launching a podcast, Now is a time to start working on it. I love, love, love launching podcasts in the fall. And I love, love, love launching podcasts in January and February.
[00:19:25] And. It is going to take some time to get all the pieces together. And so make sure you give your spouse, give yourself that space in that time. And so you can really create something that's going to be impactful, not just for your marketing, but for your business and your bottom line as well. Because at the end of the day, that is the ultimate goal. So, if you're thinking about launching a podcast now is the time to start. I'm here to help. And I will be back soon. With another episode.
