Podcasts are gaining massive traction and are very deserving of it. There are currently 850,000 active podcasts and over 30 million podcast episodes. Just recently The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast moved from YouTube to Spotify in a deal worth 100 million!
Suffice to day, a podcast is an effective way to share and consume new knowledge, entertain, and have become a proven marketing channel to build your personal brand.
Whether you own a SaaS business or an online boutique, podcasting can open up many marketing opportunities for you.
But creating your own podcast? That can seem out of reach. We’re here to tell you that it isn’t! Podcasting can be a great way to reach your audience on a deeper level, and transmit your message and value through an innovative and growing channel.
Here are the most important steps to launch your own podcast, build your personal brand, and create content on the topics that matter to your audience.
1. Listen to top podcasters and take notes
A great way to start is by listening to the best. Search for podcasts that cater to you and your audience, listen, and take note of everything from cadence, topics, guests, length, style, and audio.
Understand what works well, what you like about them, and then “steal” with pride! Not the actual content, of course, but the recipe for success
2. Build a calendar of topics
In our previous post about building your LinkedIn profile we talked about the planning phase that included:
- Selecting topics you’d like to be known for
- Differentiating yourself and your personal brand
- Creating achievable goals
These three steps work for podcasting. The best way to approach it is by continuously documenting and planning your calendar of topics. Consistency is key since you don’t want to go weeks without content.
Create a calendar of topics and subtopics within each. From there you can start recording notes, quotes, ideas, and speakers. By continuously adding to these over days and weeks, you’ll have enough content to work with.
3. Identify possible co-hosts and guests
Look within your network to find interesting people that could either contribute to one of the topics you’ve added to your calendar. Dialogue is key in podcasting. By searching your LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social platforms you’ll easily find a list of contributors.
A permanent or occasional co-host could be a great asset in helping create different perspectives, topics, and contrasting opinions to the table.
Keep a close eye on your network and friends and reach out to them to discuss topics that not only resonate with you and your audience but that convey the passion of those around you.
4. Invest in the proper gear
Podcast Insights lists the following podcasting equipment items on their article for beginners or professionals:
- Microphones
- Audio interface
- Mixer
- Pop filter
- Headphones/headphone amplifier
- Mic stand
- Shock mount
- Acoustic treatment
We recommend you research and test before spending cash on expensive equipment. This will depend on your budget, your tech-savviness, and the kind of quality you want to achieve.
Many beginners choose to skip the high tech and record on their mobile, use free editing tools, and upload. The important part is the content and making sure it’s insightful and valuable to your audience.
5. Find royalty-free music
Sound effects, a good upbeat jingle, and background music are a great way to liven up your podcasts. Make sure you find royalty-free music to avoid copyright infringement. A popular website to find the right music is the Free Music Archive. It features thousands of artists and their tracks that are completely free to use.
6. Choose an editor tool and hosting
You’ll need three important things before you’re ready to launch your podcasts.
First, an editor tool – you may have GarageBand for free if you use iOS, but as an alternative, many podcasters vouch for Audacity.
7. Select the right podcast host
Aside from the editing tool, where you can patch recordings together, add music, directly record or remove unwanted content, you will need a host for your podcast to be able to upload it to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For a list of podcast hosts, specs, pricing, and comparisons, go to this article by The Podcast Host on where to host your podcast.
8. Create your podcast art
Align your visual branding with your podcast art. Make sure you follow the guidelines, Apple Podcasts, for example, has a guide for best practices in creating header and promotional artwork.
As for designing the artwork, after you’ve reviewed the guidelines, you can easily use Canva to make a compelling visual that represents your podcast.
9. Upload to all major platforms
If you’ve already completed all the steps listed above, you’re ready to launch! Congratulations! 😉
Now, make sure to either choose one specific platform or submit it to all the major podcasting platforms available. Undoubtedly, Apple, Spotify, and Soundcloud are some of the most widely used. Some others include Stitcher and Google Podcasts.
They all include the option to reach millions of potential listeners and provide metrics to measure the performance of each episode and learn information about average listening time, listener location, and amount of subscribers.
10. Promote on your webpage and social channels!
A podcast is only as good as its listeners, so start promoting your podcast in each and every one of your networks.
Make sure you have a personal web page to highlight each episode as you publish, info on where they can listen, topics, quotes, and your full schedule. With your Paper.li Paper you can do these things and more. Here’s an example of how it looks:
As explained in our Getting Started with Pro post, to add your podcast to your paper all you need to do is follow these steps to use our Spotify widget:
Add it to your paper by clicking 
Thinking of launching your podcast? Stop thinking and start doing!
