Seven hacks to a faster podcast launch
Welcome to the exciting world of podcasting.
The thrill of sharing your thoughts, stories, and expertise with a global audience awaits.
But before you get lost in the technicalities and equipment choices, let's take a step back and explore some surprising hacks that will help you launch your podcast faster and go further.
We’ll debunk a common misconception about starting a podcast and look at some unconventional yet effective strategies to fast-track your podcast launch.
These seven hacks will give you a fresh perspective and a competitive edge in the ever-growing podcasting landscape.
Let’s dive in.
1. Stop fussing about microphones
If the first question you ask yourself as you plan to launch your podcast is “which microphone should I buy?”, let me make this easy for you: you’re asking the wrong question.
After making podcasts and radio for three decades, trust me when I say I’ve been there, credit card in one hand, computer mouse in the other, ready to scratch that itch.
But here’s why microphones are not the right place to start when it comes to launching your podcast.
A microphone is a recording tool, nothing more.
A microphone won’t sharpen your podcast idea, create a listener avatar, or clarify your goals.
It won’t book your guests, do your editing or write your show notes.
In fact, a microphone won’t help you achieve any of the considerable number of things you could, and probably should be doing to get ready for a successful podcast launch.
And, whether you’re launching your first show, pitching your first sponsor, or punching through 10,000 weekly downloads, you’ll still only spend a small fraction of your production time in front of mic.
Your bathroom: Great place to relax. Bad place to record a podcast.
What’s more, a microphone is only as good as the environment it’s used in.
To hear this for yourself, try this quick exercise:
Take your phone into your bathroom and record a 60-second voice memo of yourself.
Now try this time-honoured technique used by radio journalists recording in hotel rooms: record the same voice memo, but this time with a duvet over your head.
Which one sounds better?
Chances are neither will win you an Academy Award, but I’m willing to bet a Neumann u87 the bathroom recording was terrible.
You’ll have sounded a bit closed-in under the duvet, but it will be a far easier listen.
Put that £2.5k Neumann microphone in an acoustically controlled environment (with a suitably high-priced signal chain to match), and you’ll get results that start to justify the price tag.
Take the same kit into your bathroom, and you’ll come away with a brilliant recording of a horrible sound.
So don’t kid yourself that throwing cash at a microphone is the key to launching a winning show.
Ultimately you’ll be better off focusing on other aspects of your production, and when you’re ready to record, hire a content studio. You’ll be able to concentrate on your content and your guest instead of fussing with equipment.
There are more and more studios popping up as the podcast audience grows (around 20 million regular listeners in the UK right now). And you don’t have to break the bank either.
At the Creative Kin studio, you could record half a dozen episodes for around the same cost as a Shure MV7 bundle - that’s your launch season in the bag.
So, forget your AKG 414, SM7b, and your TLM103. Even Creative Kin’s choice of studio mic, the illustrious Electro Voice RE20. Just leave them alone.
And focus on what you should be doing instead.
Maximum Impact.
Every Episode.
High Impact Habits for Podcast Success distils five essential strategies that move your show metrics up and to the right.
Download now for zero pounds.
2. Write an elevator pitch for your podcast
Yep. An elevator pitch. Why?
Because sharpening up a 30-second pitch for your podcast is a fantastic way to wrangle your idea to the ground.
It will force you to bring your show’s purpose, target audience, and value proposition into pin-point focus.
Your elevator pitch will help you clarify your show's direction and attract the right listeners.
It sounds simple, but boiling your concept into a few compelling sentences can be surprisingly difficult.
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Your pitch should include
The name of your show
What it’s about
Who it’s for
What‘s in it for them
Your show’s USP
Here’s an example:
Start by answering those bullet point questions:
Name of your show?: Making It
What it’s about?: content marketing with a focus on podcasts and video content
Who’s it for?: marketing execs and influencers
What’s in it for them?: high quality, actionable insights that help them perform professionally
Show USP?: Podcast focussed content expertise
Then write it through to produce your elevator pitch:
Making It is a weekly content marketing show for busy marketing executives and independent creators.
It’s focused on podcasts and video content.
Every 25-minute episode features a seasoned content expert who shares their wisdom on what works and what doesn’t.
Our followers get high-level insights and actionable tips to help them hit their content targets, have fun and stay sane.
Your elevator pitch is not just a great tool for quickly telling people about your podcast.
It’s also a terrific benchmark to measure your content against.
You can hold every episode, planned or published, up to your elevator pitch and ask how well it meets the criteria.
Can it deliver more? Or should it stay on the cutting room floor?
Your elevator pitch is a valuable tool to keep you on target.
3. The three-season launch
Something we recommend to all our clients in the prep stage of launching show, is to adopt the three seasons approach.
Publishing regularly and consistently over an extended period will ultimately be a better way to build your audience.
But the advantage of launching in seasons is that it gives you breathing space in your production schedule to reflect on feedback and adjust your content.
And when your listeners come back for more you’ll have a game-plan to deliver more content.
Producing seasons is also a great primer before moving to a regular (and more demanding) publication schedule.
Here’s how it works.
The aim is to plot out three, six-episode seasons. 18 episodes in all.
Start with a very basic sketch of your episodes. At this point you’re simply going to write down 18 ideas, giving one sentence to each.
Go over your list a few times.
Weed out any weak ideas, or episodes that are too similar to each other. Adjust or bring in new ideas where you need to.
When you have 18 robust and distinctive ideas, write down the names of two candidate contributors next to each episode.
Add a sentence to each name, summarising what they can tell your listener.
Take a look back through your list. Are any themes or subject groups emerging?
Look for patterns of content that could anchor each of your three seasons.
Write down your three season theme-headings, then group your ideas into suitable batches.
Aim to have have your six strongest episodes in your first season.
At this point you’re ready to sound out your first contributors.
4. Start with friendly faces
This is an obvious one, but it’s surprising how often it’s overlooked.
When you are recording your first episode, you want to make it easy on yourself.
So the guests for your first six episodes should be people you are comfortable with – friends, close colleagues or family.
The last thing you want is to feel stressed, anxious, or over-awed by your guest.
So start with contributors you feel relaxed with, and you know will be relatively low maintenance.
You’ll probably find these guests easier to book too.
Content creation can be hard work, but at Creative Kin we firmly believe it should also be fun.
So go easy on yourself.
Lean on friendly faces to get your first episodes under your belt.
You’ll build confidence in your presentation and your workflow, and iron out any kinks along the way.
Your aim for your first season should be to deliver six high-protein episodes that are value-stacked for your target audience.
Overwhelm and nervousness can easily derail your podcasting journey, especially in the early stages.
By choosing easier contributors to get started, you’ll go into season two buoyed by the experience, and stoked for more.
5. Go Short
Google ‘how long should my podcast be?’ And you’ll get 864 million results.
Any of those that are worth their salt will boil down to this: give your content the time it deserves.
That’s excellent advice, wholly endorsed by us at Creative Kin.
But there’s a caveat.
As a busy marketing executive or independent creator, you’ll be constrained by time and resources.
You’ll want to squeeze the absolute maximum out of every piece of content you produce.
And in a competitive media market, you need to punch above your weight.
“I always listen to what I can leave out.”
Perhaps most importantly, every piece of content you publish needs be a shining ambassador for your brand.
So there’s an advantage to keeping your podcast tight:
Applying a time-constraint on your show keeps you editorially focussed.
You’ll have to cherry pick your best material, and trim away the excess.
Creative Kin recently recorded a pilot for a sports show, in a 1-2-2 discussion format, that came in at a pacy 20 minutes.
They did what they came to do, had fun, and were gone - see you next episode.
And it was a terrific listen.
Every show is different, and every podcast has a unique purpose, with a specific resources driving it forward.
And there are some hugely popular shows that carry their audience for a couple of hours.
But for new launches we typically suggest no more than 40 minutes for discussion shows, 25-30 for interviews, and 10-15 max for solo shows at least at the outset.
A shorter running time sets you up for higher impact.
It makes it easier to maintain editorial focus, deliver high-quality content, and make a lasting impression on your audience.
If you hit a rich seam with your contributor you can keep rolling, and mine the additional material for clips, or even a part-two episode if it’s strong enough.
Then if your audience tells you they want longer episodes, you can stretch out knowing you won’t be turning followers away.
6. Prep your episodes
This is an essential step - and a massive time-saver.
If you want to get the best out of contributors, and deliver for your audience, you need to go into every recording session knowing exactly what you want to get out of it.
Genevieve Hassan, the creator and host of the award-winning indie podcast, Celebrity Catchup: Life After That Thing I Did, meticulously researches her contributors.
In an interview on content marketing podcast The Content Mavericks Club, Genevieve says she does about 24 working hours of research for each guest on her show.
“I watch every YouTube interview they’ve ever done”, she explains.
“I’ll listen to other podcasts, I’ll read every interview... I want to know everything about them because I don’t want them to repeat what they’ve said to other people”.
Not everybody will be able to invest 24 hours of preparation on each episode of their show.
But the key takeaway here is that your podcast must deliver value to your listeners. You’re not taking them on a fishing expedition.
And with NPR research showing that about a third of all listeners drop out in the first five minutes, you need to nail your opening at the very least.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
So do your research and map out your episode.
How to prepare the perfect podcast episode is a big subject with a lot of aspects.
But here are some simple bulletproof guidelines that will put you on track to record a great show:
Write a title and describe your episode in a couple of sentences.
Bullet point six question areas to cover
Research your guest.
Read your scripts and questions out loud. They should feel comfortable in your mouth.
Prep a one-pager to guide you when you record.
That’s it. You’re ready to rock n roll.
7. Get on with it.
Perhaps the most crucial hack of all is to simply begin. Now.
Here’s a few quick stats that might motivate you.
There are currently some 2 million podcasts in existence.
However, two-thirds of those have no more than 10 episodes.
Some of those will be high-performing series produced by big-hitters by the likes of like Apple and the BBC.
But lots of them won’t.
In fact 44% of podcasts have three or less episodes. That’s 880,000 shows that didn’t make it past episode three.
That tells you two things.
“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
First, if you can guide your podcast past 10 episodes, you’ve already output more content than 1.28m shows. Just let that sink in for a moment.
Second, if you stay the course, publish your three seasons, and keep going - you’ll give yourself a massive advantage in the podcast market.
By persevering and committing to your podcasting journey, you'll win your share of the growing podcast market, and leave all those ‘one-and-done’ shows in the dust.
So what are you waiting for? Stop talking about that show you’re planning, and start talking about the episodes you’ve made.
And just to show we’re not all heartless drill-instructor, we even offer free consultations to help get you on your way.
I know. We’re good like that.
