Thinking about starting a podcast for your company? In this solo episode, Jeremiah covers everything from how to set your creative strategy to producing and growing your show.

Rather than going into depth on how to set up a great podcast website, or the exact recording tools you should use, this episode is focused more on what you need to know before starting a podcast for your business. Do you know what your goals are? Is your team aligned on how to measure ROI? Have you done your research and talked to your ideal audience to better understand what your show should cover?

We take you through each step of the process so you know exactly what to expect before you dive in.

You need to evaluate the commitment, expectations, and bandwidth required to start a podcast for your company. Are you willing to commit yourself to this project for the better part of a full year? Is your team aligned on how you will dictate the success of your show? Do you have the bandwidth and budget to dedicate a team to this for the next 6 to 12 months? These are all crucial questions you need to ask yourself before you dive in.

What are you trying to get out of this podcast? If the goal is sales enablement, for example, make sure your episodes cover any objections your customers have. If your goal is to share your company’s point of view and strategy, focus on creating a branded show. If you want to promote internal communications, think about starting an internal, private podcast instead.

This is where a lot of companies go wrong. Rather than researching their competitors in the podcast ecosystem and talking to their ideal listeners to better understand their pain points, they skip the creative strategy altogether and create a lookalike show. Spend your time evaluating 20 to 30 shows in your space and talking to at least 10 to 30 of your happiest customers to craft your position in the space.

After your creative strategy is done, you need to define your hook (what sets your show apart from the rest), the exact type of content you want to cover, how often you want to publish episodes, and what style of podcast you want to create (narrative, interview, solo, hybrid). Jeremiah recommends publishing at least once a week to really build momentum.

Ideally, the host of your show is a subject matter expert on the topic you want to cover. Why? Because they’re going to ask the right questions, understand the audience better, and have more engaging dialogue because they can push back, disagree, or elaborate with confidence. It’s also very important that they have a flexible schedule to fit in recordings (particularly if you’re going to have guests on your show) and a willingness to commit to hosting for the long haul. The last thing you want is your host to bail on the show two months after launch forcing you to find someone else to take over and risk the show taking a dip in quality.

This is why it’s so important to create a strong architecture to run your show. You’re going to want to create a repository where you keep all your episode information (episode number, guest info, interview date, prep guides, production status, release date, and show notes) so everyone can see what stage each episode is in. If you’re managing your show internally, you’ll also want to use a project management tool, like Asana, to build out repeating tasks for your team to keep each episode on track.

Make sure you build out a space on your website where every episode lives and has its own piece of content. Don’t bury these within your blog! Whether it’s a separate landing page or a section of your “Resources”, it’s important to give your podcast a home. This is where you can embed sound files, videos, show notes, transcripts, and information about your guests.

The more episodes you have in the bag before launch, the easier it will be to stay true to your publishing cadence. This will make sure you’re ahead of any inevitable hiccups like guest reschedules, content shifts, holidays, sick days, etc. You’ll have plenty of episodes in the pipeline in order to help accommodate those gaps.

It's really tempting to look at 150 downloads after 4 months and think your podcast isn’t growing fast enough and scrap it. But being patient and consistent will help you see larger numbers as you go. It’s also important you listen to reviews and feedback, repurpose your episode content on the channels your audience hangs out in, and consider running a podcast tour to grow your reach.