What Goes into a GREAT Podcast?

So, you want to start a podcast. Awesome! This is the start of a rewarding journey to create valuable content for your brand or business. A successful podcast creates a solid foundation of organic, authentic content that you’ll be able to share far into the future.

So… Where do you start?

Let me be frank. There are two types of podcasts: professional and amateur. If you’re doing this to make a name for your business, be a voice of authority on your subject matter, and grow your audience and client base, you don’t want to do this the amateur way. If you’re doing this for fun, to record your experience and see what happens, awesome! You can always revisit this down the road and take your show up a notch.

An amateur podcast can be done simply. Take a course (I love the podcasting courses on LinkedIn Learning), learn how to record, edit, and post your podcast. You might use a platform like Anchor or Podbean to post your podcast easily, and take advantage of their “all-in-one” model. More of my thoughts on “all-in-one” later.

The downside to that is that you can only reach a certain quality without sinking tons of your time into learning new soft skills to support your show. You’ll have to learn how to edit your audio, which is no easy task. Compression, EQ, and dialogue editing can make or break the listener’s experience. Have you ever been listening to a podcast, finding yourself constantly turning up and down the volume? Then a sponsor ad will come on and blast your ears off. It drives me nuts! There are quite a few podcasts I stopped listening to because I couldn’t stand the audio quality.

Amateur podcasts can be awesome, and are a great place to start! But it takes a lot of regularly dedicated time to really optimize a podcast. If it’s just you, you’re responsible for recording, editing, and posting. If you want to increase the reach of your podcast, you also need to create show notes with keywords for SEO and social media content. It can be a lot to add to your plate, especially if you’re already running a business.

When you’re ready to have a professional podcast, you need a podcast manager. Especially if you want to get into more narrative podcasts with sound design, creative editing, and more. “All-in-one” platforms like Anchor or Podbean are great for starting out, but don’t misunderstand what they actually do. While they will master your podcast to a good level for listeners, and provide basic editing tools, they don’t actually listen to your audio. A podcast manager is your second set of ears, your quality assurance, your collaborator, and your advocate. If you’re leveling up to a show that needs a sound designer, an editor, and another engineer to master the show, you’ll want a podcast manager to keep the team running smoothly. When you reach a good number of listeners and are ready to monetize your show, your manager is ready to help you find sponsors that align with your podcast.

So, back to the title of this post. What goes into a GREAT podcast? A lot of time, effort, and know-how. You can definitely learn the whole skillset and do it all on your own, but do you really want to? A podcast with a podcast manager is a podcast destined for success.

Are you ready to start your successful podcast? Let’s talk about it! Schedule a call with me today!