Looking to start a podcast? In this helpful guide, we provide four easy steps to starting your very own podcast, no matter your budget or experience. Read on to find out more.
Define Your Topic
A sensible way to do this is to define your audience. Ask yourself, who is the podcast for? Imagine your ideal listener and develop content that will prove both valuable and relevant. When considering your ideal listeners, ask yourself questions like:
- How old is your audience?
- Where do they live?
- What do they do for a living?
- What media do they consume?
- Do they currently listen to podcasts?
- What are their hobbies?
- What issues do they care about?
Narrowing down your topic is crucial, helping to focus your content and grow your audience in the long term, establishing trust with your readers and demonstrating yourself as a specific subject matter expert. You should aim to choose a topic that is broad enough to cover a multi-episode run, potentially running for several series, yet one specific enough to appeal to a certain demographic.
Build Your Brand
Nothing quite cements your podcast’s brand like a strong title, helping to immediately relate to your audience your name, subject matter or theme, so think hard and long about the perfect title for your podcast. Be witty, clever and brief, most podcast titles come in at under 29 characters, so bear this in mind. In extension, you should spend time creating and perfecting your specific brand elements, such as your show’s cover art, custom intro music and unique design elements.
Source Equipment
As you’d expect; sound is your number one priority when it comes to starting a podcast, (such is the format), with high-quality equipment required to achieve superior audio. Whilst you can easily record your podcast on a phone, tablet or through a laptop mic, it’s a smart decision to invest in a separate podcast microphone for a clearer, more professional sound. This won’t need to cost you a fortune, nor will you require an expensive podcast studio, however, with many start-up podcast microphones costing less than £50, simply connecting to a laptop via a USB.
Record & Edit
Once you’ve sourced, (and tested out), your equipment, it’s time to start recording your first ever podcast episode! It’s entirely up to you how you approach your podcast setup; some podcasters choose to script the majority of their segments, whilst others may improvise from beginning to end following loose topics, the choice is really yours– just be consistent. In any case, you’ll likely encounter a few hiccups during your first recording session, with interruptions from guests, long pauses or mistakes not uncommon for even the most experienced podcast hosts. You can simply cut these out in the audio editing process later.
Want to create, develop and launch a podcast? At Listening Dog Media, we offer a complete podcast launch service, working with you from the genesis of your idea, all the way through to the podcast branding and launch. Whether you need a long-term solution for audience growth, help with branding or top-quality podcast equipment, get in touch with our expert team today.
