Are you thinking about starting a podcast for your business? A podcast can be a great tool for your marketing and sales funnel and to help you grow your business.  In this episode I share a behind the scenes look at how I launched the Empowerment Connection podcast and how I debuted at number 10 in the marketing category!

 

Listen to the episode now

Listen and subscribe on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

 

Should you start a podcast?

You’re probably wondering if a podcast is right for you and your business. As with anything else that you do in your business, you should decide on the motive and the vision before you launch. Are you considering a podcast because you want to build your brand recognition and grow your personal brand? Is this an educational tool so that you can point people back to courses and other digital offers? Are you looking at it as a way to network and build your own community? Or is this a way to consistently create content and grow your email list?

There are many reasons that people can start a podcast, but it’s important to know what your goal is before you launch one. Once you know your goal, you can decide who your podcast is for and what kind of content they want.  You should also consider what type of format and structure you want for your episodes, and what your release schedule looks like.

It’s important to come up with the strategy for how you’ll market your podcast and repurpose the content that you create. As a business owner, I believe everything should have a long term plan of monetizing for your business. Before you start a podcast, it’s a good idea to evaluate how a show will bring in more revenue for your business.

 

How to start a podcast

So if you already know that a podcast is what you want to do, then this will walk you through how to start one! I spent hours researching how to start a podcast, and I want to save you some time by sharing the stuff that I learned.

The first thing about podcasting is that you have to have a host for your podcast. You need a place where you upload your episodes and they can distribute your episodes for you. There are several podcast hosting sites, but the most popular would be Libsyn, Anchor, Podbean, and Buzzsprout. I use Libsyn and pay $15 per month to host my podcast.

When you sign up with a podcast host, you’ll fill out all the information about your show. This includes your show name, the categories for your podcast, a description and your artwork. Your podcast host will walk you through what you need step-by-step.

Something else you’ll need to decide before you launch your podcast is whether or not you want to edit your episodes. I record my podcast episodes on a free program called Audacity with a Blue Yeti microphone and a pop filter. I do outsource my editing, and if you go down that same route, you can find some affordable options on Fiverr.

Once you’ve submitted all the information to your hosting platform, recorded a few episodes and got them back from your editor. You’ll want to upload them onto your hosting platform and submit your RSS feed to iTunes. They will need to approve your podcast before you can launch it on their platform. A lot of people record a trailer episode and upload that first because you can’t get anything approved by iTunes until you have an episode in the system. Then you’ll submit your RSS feed at Podcasts Connect. After they approve it, you can also submit it to Google play through the Google podcast manager, Stitcher, Spotify and more!

 

How to launch and market your podcast (And land on the Apple Podcast Charts)

Having a strong podcast launch strategy is so important because it’s what creates hype around all your work. I’m going to share exactly what I did when I launched, so you can know how I debuted at number 10 in the marketing category. New podcasts have the easiest chance of charting and ranking because the way you rank on Apple Podcast Charts is by the amount of growth that you’ve had since the previous episode.  When you launch, you’ll have an influx of subscribes, reviews and ratings, which allows you to chart.

I launched Empowerment Connection with an intro episode that outlined who the podcast was for, what it was about, what format people could expect and why I would be qualified to have a podcast and share business tips. I also released 2 additional episodes, so during launch week people would have multiple episodes to listen to. This allowed people to be excited about the content that I was planning to release.

I put together a really small launch team of friends and clients that agreed to listen to the podcast, subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and then also share it to their social platforms. When you put together a launch team, you build that momentum and you’re not having to market it all by yourself.  The best thing I did for launch week was host a giveaway on social media. I knew that I needed people to rate and review the podcast, so for my giveaway, I asked people to rate, subscribe and review. And then for bonus entry, I asked them to share the podcast to their stories or their Instagram feed.

 

Weekly Podcast Workflow

When I record an episode, first thing I do is outline my episode. Then I record the episode and send it to my editor. My editor will clean up the episode, add my intro and outro music to the file, and then once I get it back from her, I upload it to Libsyn.

In Libsyn I add a podcast title and description with keywords that people might search for.  My next step is to create the shownotes and the blog post for my episode. I upload my episode to Temi to transcribe the episode with timestamps. Then I can easily write a blog post and create show notes with timestamps for my listeners.

Once my episode is recorded and uploaded, I figure out how I’m going to market the podcast content. I create an Audiogram using Headliner for Instagram or Instastories. And I personally like to use Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook to promote my podcast.

 

Be sure to listen to the episode to see how I started my podcast and how I launched a podcast that ranked in the charts. 

 

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Libsyn Podcast Hosting
• Fiverr – Freelance podcast editors
• Blue Yeti Microphone for recording your podcast
• Pop Filter to attach to your microphone
• Audacity to record your episodes
• Submit your RSS feed to iTunes at iTunes Connect
• Submit your Podcast to Google Play through the Google Podcast Manager
• Temi – Podcast Transcriber
• Headliner to create an Audiogram to promote your podcast episode