Why & How To Start A Podcast

The podcast craze is all the rage these days, and rightfully so, as it provides a unique opportunity for businesses and personal brands alike to connect with their consumers on a much deeper level. Two months ago, I launched my own podcast called No More Zero Days Podcast that aims to motivate and inspire you to not allow zero days (where you get absolutely nothing done towards accomplishing your goal) to become contagious and repetitive in your life.
Today, I wanted to help you in your podcast goals by detailing how and why you can start your very own podcast for yourself or your business.
Before anything else, I think that any podcaster has to answer this essential question as it will guide them moving forward when making decisions for their podcast:
Why are you starting a podcast?
To me, there are a few of the most popular and important:
- Building Brand — Giving a voice to your work and standing for something on a much bigger scale, whether you’re a personal brand or business. Podcasting is a great way for you to be able to verbalize your likes, dislikes, and preferences on any topic.
- Creating Long Form Content (Passive Consumption) — Consumers are looking for long form content to listen to on car rides, airplane trips, or when they’re in an environment when they’re able to passively consume something and continue to work. Many businesses today are not producing any long form content, which is a major miss to winning the loyalty of their consumers.
- Showcasing Topical Knowledge — This is a huge plus if you’re a market leader in your category or you aspire to hold that position as a brand or personal brand. There’s nothing more convincing than listening to someone passionately talk about a topic for an extended period of time. Anyone can fake that they know something behind a screen or in passing conversation, but listening to a 30–60 minute podcast showcases your ability to understand and apply the topics at hand.
- Raising Awareness — Creating a piece of content around a topic or with a subject matter expert to raise awareness for your product, service, or business is one of the most popular reasons people are starting podcasts today. Interviewing others in your area of interest or expertise, to then post on social media, creates awareness with that other persons community of who you are and what you do as a brand or business.
- Sharing Exclusive Information (BTS Content) — This is not used as much, but I think it’s one of the most under rated reason to start a podcast. If you are a content creator or a manufacturer that make things for a living, using the podcast to tell how you made it, why you made it, or what went into it is a great place to start.
- Monetizing — Many people see podcasts as a way to make money through getting a headline sponsor or running ads on their show at various points within the podcast.
Takeaway: It’s important to have a conversation with yourself or your co-host (if applicable) to understand why you are starting this podcast. For some people, it may be reasons not listed above, one of the reasons, or multiple of these reasons. What is important to know is that you need to know what you want out of podcasting and work backwards.
For example, if you know you want to make money off of the podcast then you need to be thoughtful about the word choices you make. A lot of brands are unwilling to sponsor content that may be vulgar in word choice subject matter or one’s that may take a hard political stance in any direction. On a more practical level, if you’re going to make your show very female focused then you will eliminate a lot of interest from male specific brands. This is not a downside, but just trying to get my point across about thinking backwards of what you want to happen from this show.
Now that I have convinced you to start your podcast, let’s talk about the actual “how” part of taking it from a dream to a functioning show people are listening to.
First, it needs a name.
If you have a few ideas already, go ahead and search for it on Apple Podcast and Spotify to make sure nobody else is already using your name or see what’s similar. Maybe your podcast show name has a few words or phrases that already exist in someone else’s and it might prevent people from finding your specific show or episode in the future. The goal is to have a completely unique name so that people can easily find your show when searching.
Using your name verses branding it around something else: The answer to this question is solved by answering the first question in this post: why are you doing this? I think it has to align with your intentions. If you’re just doing guest interviews, I think it makes a lot of sense to do it around your name. If you’re trying to explore specific topics then you may find a clever topical name around that. If you do a simple search of the top podcasts in the world, there is a mix of both so there’s no wrong answer.
Now that you’ve named your podcast, it’s time to make your first episode.
I believe the best form of a podcast is having a mix of three types of episodes throughout their library of episodes: interviewing guests, co-hosted discussions around a topic, and solo talks about something you’re passionate about. For my show, I have guests come on to tell their story and discuss topics that are relevant to them. Whenever theres something I’m really passionate about or want to share my thoughts on, I will do a solo episode by myself.
Now lets discuss the equipment needed to make this dream a reality.
At the most basic level, all you need is a smart phone. We will talk about distribution platforms in a few paragraphs, but the smart phone app Anchor is an app dedicated to people being able to edit and produce podcasts from their phones, using their phones. It’s very easy to use and built for beginners.
If you’re looking to take podcasting seriously, then you will need to record episodes using actual audio equipment:
Microphones — 1) USB mics are the cheapest and require the least amount of technical knowledge or additional equipment because you simply plug it into your computer to record. However, they do not give you that crisp broadcast sound you’d expect from a podcast. My first USB mic and one I still use whenever I am being interviewed by someone over the internet is the Yeti Blue USB mic. Which I believe ran me about $125. I have also heard great things about the Rode NT USB mic, which is slightly more expensive at $170.
2) XLR mics are what all mainstream radio and podcast shows use. I personally also record on XLR microphones. The challenge with these is that you have to plug them into a mixer or soundboard to power them as you cannot plug an XLR, obviously, right into your computer. But don’t get tripped up here, it sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is to use these microphones. I am using a Rode Procaster, which I love, and it ranges around $230 depending on where you buy.
Recorder/Mixer — I use the Zoom H6, which records to a SD memory card. These are the same cards used for digital cameras to record content. The Zoom H6 can handle up to 4 XLR mics being inputted. One of my favorite qualities about the H6 is it’s powered by AAA batteries (so it’s portable) and can easily be taken anywhere. Another big factor of why I use the H6 is the output of each XLR’s individual audio into its own file after recording, rather than one single audio file. This is priceless in interviews when you have a loud or soft spoken guest, you can adjust their audio levels after the fact to make sure everybody can clearly be heard. The H6 will cost you roughly $300 depending on where you buy.
How do I take the audio files and turn them into an episode?
By trade, I am a videographer. I edit all of my videos in Final Cut Pro, which is an Apple based video editing software. Because I can move the editing timeline around so fast, I truthfully edit my podcast episodes within FCPX. Honestly, any video or audio program that allows you to export your work as an MP3 file will work. Whether that’s iMovie already loaded onto your Apple computer or Premiere Pro if you’re an Adobe user. If you do have Adobe Creative Cloud, you can download Adobe Audition, which is their audio editing software. However if you’re looking for the most versatility and have the time and desire to learn an audio editing platform, Audacity is a free Mac or PC option for you.
How do I get my episode on Apple, Spotify, and other platforms?
This last and final step to making your podcast come to life is what many would think is the hardest part. However, In my experience, it was actually the easiest. There are a couple of easy to use, great platforms out there that make this supper easy. But don’t tell anyone because it sounds way easier to brag about all the places your podcast is able to be listened to on like Spotify, Apple, Google Play, Amazon Alexa Skills, iHeart Radio, Sticher FM, SoundCloud, etc.
I ultimately decided to use a service called Pippa.io that is in fact also their web address. The most popular hosting platform is called Libsyn, but I did a Google search of Libsyn vs Pippa and everybody was bragging about Pippa’s customer service. So as a first time podcaster with no real mentor or guidance, this pushed me over the edge to have the confidence from a support team if I ran into something I didn’t know the answer. Since then, I have fallen in love with their user interface and just how easy it is to navigate their website and upload my episodes. Additionally, they don’t cap how many episodes or total length of time of my show per month I am allowed to upload.
All of these steps and equipment are based on my experience. There are many other great articles on online that can help guide you in the right direction when choosing gear, software, and distribution platforms.
Just remember, you’re not going to learn anything unless you actually start it and put it out there. Just worry about making an episode at a time, don’t get overwhelmed by the idea that you need to put out hundreds from Day 1.
Remember: Done > Perfect
