Your Guide To Starting A Business Podcast

If you’re looking for new ways to promote your business, then you will probably have noticed that Podcasting has exploded in popularity over recent years, with major platforms like Apple and Spotify making huge investments in audio content to rival TV shows found on Netflix and Amazon. The most popular podcasts have thousands or even millions of listeners tuning in every week, but if you’re thinking of starting your own podcast, where do you begin?

You’ve probably listened to podcasts yourself and maybe even have a few favourites.

They’re hugely accessible through a multitude of mainstream apps like Apple, Google, Spotify (plus many other more niche platforms) and easy to jump in and out of while working, travelling or even cooking. Despite podcasts being easy to find and listen to, for many, hosting and producing your own podcast feels like a complicated business with a whole new level of technical wizardry needed to release one.

Questions you might be asking yourself include, What will I talk about? Will I be able to find guests? How do I record it? Where does it ‘go’ to get found?

While there’s little doubt podcasting can get very technical and require a degree in sound engineering and radio production, getting started needn’t be nearly as complicated as you might think. In fact, if you’ve hosted a recorded Zoom meeting, you pretty much already have a podcast in the bag!

Podcast Listener Statistics

Research found that podcasts reached over 15m listeners in the UK alone during 2020, with forecasts predicting close to 20m people regularly tuning into a podcast by 2024. This growth in podcasting presents fantastic commercial opportunities to create your own content, build relationships with your audience and raise your profile.

Further research by the BBC found that brand mentions in podcasts deliver on average 16% higher engagement and 12% higher memory encoding than the surrounding content. The research also found the more intimate and conversational podcasts created an elevated state of engagement for brand mentions, helping to generate lifts in awareness by 89%, brand consideration by 57%, brand favorability by 24% and purchase intent by 14%.

While most people thinking about starting a podcast worry about the technical challenges of producing audio to rival a broadcast production with jingles and sound effects, it's actually your content that should take priority. Those who find your content valuable will absolutely tolerate some inconsistencies with your audio. If your audience grows, then at some point you’ll probably need to improve the production value to retain your listeners, but you shouldn’t let perceived technical barriers prevent you from getting started with your own show.

Content Planning for your Podcast

With the emphasis on content for your podcast, it’s vital to think about how you’ll present your show, the format it will follow and of course, what you’ll talk about. There are lots of options, but whatever you choose will have an impact on your brand and what people think of you. Starting your podcast is the start of a long-term distance relationship with your potential clients and customers!

To help you with planning your podcast content, we’ve put together The Ultimate Guide to Planning your Podcast. This editable Google Doc is easy to use online or download as a Word file and will walk you through every stage of your podcast series, from planning the format, creating your branding, identifying your audience and the key elements you’ll need to include in each episode.

Part 1 focuses on the format of your podcast and your target listeners. This will apply to your overall series and include each episode and is key setting expectations amongst your listeners and of course, give you a feeling of how much time or resource you’ll need to keep the momentum going.

Part 2 of our podcast planning guide helps you to think about each individual episode and how you’ll structure the show. It also covers some important points such as show notes and transcriptions to maximise your reach.

Finally, in Part 3, you’ll be guided to think about how and where you’ll promote your podcast across your social media channels and how you’ll distribute your audio across each of the popular podcasting apps.

Download your free podcast planning guide from https://adigital.agency/podcast-planner.