How to launch a podcast

Starting a Podcast: The Complete Beginner's Guide is the video I made for anyone who keeps saying "I want to start a podcast" but has no idea where to actually begin. I get it. The first steps feel overwhelming when you don't know what gear to buy, how to structure your show, or what platform to use. This guide cuts through all of that. I walk you through everything a beginner needs to know to go from zero to actually hitting record. No fluff, no upsells, just practical information that gets you moving. Whether you want to launch a business podcast, an interview show, or something totally personal, the fundamentals are the same and this video covers them. If you have been sitting on your podcast idea for months, this is the nudge you needed. Watch it, take notes, and then go make your first episode. You are more ready than you think.

• CHAPTERS

  00:00 Podcast Launch: 8 Steps Overview

  00:45 Nail Your Podcast Concept

  02:28 Choose Your Podcast Format

  04:55 Plan Your First 10 Episodes

  06:10 Podcast Equipment You Need

  09:20 Choose Your Podcast Hosting Platform

  11:30 Record Your Trailer Episode First

  13:00 Launch With Three Episodes

  14:40 Commit to Your Release Schedule

• Transcript

  SPEAKERS

  Chris Hall-Franzkowiak

  Chris Hall-Franzkowiak  00:00

  If you've been thinking about starting a podcast for months, maybe even longer, and you still haven't pressed record, then this video is going to help you to get over that first little hurdle. By the end of this video, you're going to be able to have a complete guide on how to go from idea to podcast launched live in the world, and I'm going to show you the exact processes we go through with all of our clients. My name is Chris. I am the founder of between tracks, a podcast production company, and YouTube video production company that's been going for 10 years helping more than 70 shows to build podcasts across all audio platforms, video platforms, to support their business in becoming an authority in their space. And over the course of those 70 plus shows, we've learned what works, what doesn't work, and today I'm going to show you exactly what does here are the eight steps we take with every single client, and by the time we're done, you'll be able to take them too to record your first episode and get your podcast live. Step number one, nail your concept. So you've got to get this right before you start recording. Otherwise nothing will work and everything will just be plucked out of the air, and you won't know exactly what you're doing. So before you buy any equipment, before you get any cameras, any software, anything at all. Get this concept right. You want to be able to say who the podcast is for, what it's about, what problem you're trying to solve for them, and why they should stay with you to be the one that is going to solve it. So you've got to be able to put this into a single sentence like this is a podcast for UK entrepreneurs, that shows them how to build businesses around their expertise without facing burnout. If you can put your podcast into that one kind of statement, then you are ready to get going. That's step one, nail your concept. Step two, choose your format. So there's lots of different ways that you can create podcasts. It could be solo episodes, just like this, where you're talking to the camera on your own, as though you're talking individually to that person that is your ideal audience. Or it could be interview based, and there's lots of different types of interview based podcasts you could be recording as well. So which format is right for you. The solo episode style is great for building authority in your space, because within short episodes of around 15 minutes or so, you can share your knowledge on one particular small area of your coaching practice or business or what your brand does. And if you do that, week after week after week, you'll have a whole catalogue of all these mini episodes. People will be able to dip in and out of and learn one particular thing that they need help with. This catalogue can then be something that is brilliant for your website, for not only for your YouTube channel and podcast platforms, it becomes a huge like SEO catalogue of everything you know, and becomes searchable for people as well. The interview format is a great way to go for early podcasters, because it is a way that you can monetize early on. This can be done through the types of guests that you are booking on. Are they peers within your your niche, your industry, that could then be collaborators that you can work on projects. Are they people who are able to then share your podcast with their audience, and their audience then becomes people who come into your world and can start to buy your services, your products, all this kind of thing. The challenge with guest episodes is that you do need to continuously find guests to be able to book them in and to be able to record those episodes with them. You may find that people have to reschedule, rearrange for whatever reason, and therefore you are having to find other guests to be able to come on in their place. So it is something that takes more organisation than you doing those solo episodes on their own. Perhaps if you're a small business or a brand, then another option for you is to do what's called co hosting. So if you can have more than one of you hosting the podcast. There are benefits to this, in that you can bounce ideas off each other. You can build that chemistry that people start to really like about your podcast. It also has the benefit of, say, for example, one of you is unavailable for recording that particular episode. It doesn't stop you from continuously recording and getting those episodes out. So format is something that you can really play with, and there's nothing stopping you from doing a mix of all three that also helps keep the audience engaged in these different types of content that you are putting out. So. So solo episodes, interview based or CO hosting are three great ways to format your podcast. Step three, plan your first 10 episodes. This is really, really important for you to be able to consistently get episodes out, but more importantly than that, for you to actually get past that common podcast hurdle of stopping after three episodes or seven episodes. If you've got 10 planned ready to go and record, then you will push through that first bump easily, and then you will get into that habit of doing it more and more consistently. If you can get more than 30 ideas for your podcast episodes before you even start. Then that's more than half a year's worth of content if you are releasing weekly, a year's worth if you are releasing bi weekly. So get some ideas down first before you record, and you'll be laughing. Step four, get your equipment ready. You do not need to have fancy studio equipment to record great quality podcast and YouTube content. What you do need is a microphone, a camera, a light, and then your platform to record it on. So if you are looking for a really decent microphone, there's going to capture studio quality audio at home. Then I would thoroughly recommend the Shure MV seven. So this is the slightly older version of it, but there is, there are newer versions where you can do all sorts in terms of it will automatically de noise, which takes away all the background noise of your recordings. Newer versions of these can come in at somewhere between 250 and 300 pounds, which is a lot for a microphone. So you can still buy, like slightly older versions. If you do need something more budget friendly that could be about 150 ish pound for a really good microphone. If you need an even more budget friendly version of a microphone as well, then the Samsung cue to you comes in at around 90 pounds and records great quality audio too. So in terms of a camera. You can do that for free, if you wish, with your phone, because they come pretty much as standard with 4k cameras these days, all you need is some kind of tripod to put it on so you can have it in a stable landscape position, not vertical, because if you're recording in vertical, that's going to be a problem for your YouTube videos and podcast episodes, so record it in landscape to get free, great quality video. If you do want to invest in a webcam, then something like the Insta 360 like this one is a great quality choice. It records in 4k and has great definition as well. Next you will need some kind of light, because your cameras will work so much better if you have a light that is helping them capture the best quality footage they can what you want to look for in a light is one that will enable you to adjust both colour temperature and the brightness. You will find some key lights only do brightness, so you can find that they are quite garish and too bright and they just don't give a very nice feel to the footage. If you can control the colour temperature as well, then you are really able to tune in the light and your cameras to get a much better quality shot. The final piece of equipment that you will need is some kind of headphones. So you may not need to wear them during recording, like I'm not, but you will certainly need to use them for editing, because they will allow you to edit way better and hear those tiny details in the audio that will get a much cleaner a much more pleasant listening experience for your audience in terms of recording and capturing the actual podcast, you need to have some kind of software to do that. And if you're doing audio and video, the best kind of platforms for you to use are going to be something like Riverside or descript. They are web based recording platforms, and they allow you to record in HD, both audio and video. You can edit episodes yourself within Riverside, if you are doing it independently, or you can share the recordings with people like me or US producers to then work on for you so Riverside and descript great platforms for capturing your podcast as well. So that is your basic setup for equipment and platform to choose to record onto step five. Dave is choosing your podcast hosting platform. Now there are a lot of podcast hosting platforms out there. Some are free, some are paid for. They essentially do the same thing. They will use what's called an RSS feed to send your episode out to all the different listening apps, Apple podcast, Spotify, Amazon music, potentially YouTube as well, if you wish, they are the home for in the majority of cases, the audio side of your podcast. You really want to have a look at the different ones and what features they have to make sure you choose the one that is the best for your use case. Some will be better for things like adding video to Apple and Spotify, because at the moment, there are only a couple or a few that will allow you to do that. It is something that is going to become wider across across the industry as time goes by. But if that is super important to you right now, you want to find the ones that will allow you to get video up onto Apple, as well as Spotify. Spotify, for podcasters, is a free one, and it allows you to get video up onto Spotify, but it doesn't let you get video up onto apple. It can be quite limited in other ways. So there are other paid for platforms such as podbean, Captivate Buzzsprout, that will do better things in terms of giving you a landing page for your podcast, your audio side of your podcast, because if you don't have your own website, you're going to want somewhere to host your podcast online, and having a landing page is going to be really important to have your podcast online somewhere that is yours. Other things that are great for SEO is making sure that you've got things like chapters. You can add transcripts, you can add all these sorts of things that is quite standard, but you might find that some of the platforms don't have those features. So checking out different podcast hosting platforms before you settle on one is really important to make sure you get the features that you need for your podcast. Step six, recording your trailer episode. So a trailer is a brilliant way of being able to promote your podcast before that first main episode launches. So you want to have material that you can put out on socials, on YouTube, on your actual audio podcast platforms, before the main episode goes out, and the trailer is the way to do that. It's just a couple of minutes talking about who you are, what the show's about, who it's for when it's coming out so that your audience can find out about it before the main episode. Not only that, it is a really good way of testing that you have everything set up correctly. Imagine coming to launch day. You press publish on that first real episode, and it doesn't go live.

  Chris Hall-Franzkowiak  13:00

  You're

  Chris Hall-Franzkowiak  13:00

  not sure what's happening, you've told everyone is launching and there's a big problem. If you do this with your trailer couple of weeks before, few weeks before, you will see that there is a problem and you will be able to fix it before the actual launch. So the trailer is a really crucial part of making sure your launch goes perfectly. Step number seven, launch with three episodes, not one. Why? Because you are giving your audience a chance to really get to know your content, your podcast, and what it's about. If they love that first episode, they don't have to wait a week or however long for more to come out. They can really delve into it. And you're creating that early connection with your audience, because they can become invested in it very quickly. Imagine it's like a Netflix series launching and they put it all out, and you binge it straight away. That's what you're doing with your podcast. Not only that, it can help with discoverability, because you are giving people the opportunity to listen to more than one episode, they go on to listen to all three. That racks up your listen account and that helps put you up the charts to become more discoverable on these listening app platforms like Apple and Spotify. So launching with more than one episode is a really great way of creating early connection with your audience, but also helping with discoverability. Step number eight is committing to your release schedule. This is crucial to creating a successful podcast that is connecting with your audience, because your audience will start to learn and build a habit around when your episodes are coming out. If they know it's weekly, they know what day it's coming out, what time they can plan their commute around it. They'll know exactly when they can listen to. That one evening after work, or whenever it is, but they build a habit around your release schedule. And it is also true that a podcast that consistently releases episodes over time will far outperform an inconsistent podcast that the audience doesn't know exactly when things are coming out, they randomly appear one day in their app. It's not something they can build that habit around, committing to a release frequency and then doing that over a long period of time is the single biggest factor in your podcast succeeding. So there you have it, the eight steps that go into launching a podcast. If you follow those eight steps, you will go a very good way to launching successfully. If you did find this useful, please do give us a like and a subscribe. Give us a comment as well. If you've got questions or want to know something more about one of these steps, put it in the comments. I would love to hear from you, and I'll get back to you on that. And if you are a business or entrepreneur who is looking to podcast but thinks they haven't got the time for any of this, this is exactly what we do. So give us a shout, and love to have a call with you about your show. I will be back again next week, going into some more foundations of podcasting. I'll see you next Tuesday.