What’s holding you back from podcasting?
It’s 2022, where is your company’s podcast? If you haven’t already heard (excuse the pun!), audio is the way forward in the world of advertising and marketing.
There are currently over 2.4 million podcasts in existence! Here’s why:
In podcasting, you’re quite literally speaking to your audience, building connections with them, and forming long-standing relationships. You can shape your podcast to whatever you want it to be – whether that’s a series guiding people on how to set up an ad account, or a more informal series busting marketing myths (or whatever topic relevant to your industry) and having a casual chinwag in the process. Podcasting is a great way to get out of your own brand’s way and speak to people as a person vs as a company brand and rigid tone of voice.
The best thing about podcasting is that you don’t need to be an established content creator or business to make a start, you’ll get engagement as long as you provide valuable entertainment and/or information to your listeners.
Here are a few things we’ve learned since starting our podcast earlier this year…
Introverts, podcasting is for you too!
A common misconception about becoming a podcast host is that you need to be extremely chatty. That couldn’t be any further from the truth! Think of a podcast being more of a relaxed conversation between you and someone you’ve known for years – as long as you can follow the guidelines/script you’ve agreed on then you’re more than capable! Pre-podcast nerves are a real thing. Introverts, you will probably feel the nerves more and you’ll more than likely have thoughts such as ‘what if this goes horribly wrong and no one listens to it?’. But speaking from experience, it’s so fun getting to speak about a topic you’re passionate about!
Don’t be shy to use guides
YES, you want your podcast to sound natural, but you also need it to flow. Trust us, create guides to follow – you might even want to start by writing a full script and running order! When you mix your nerves with producing a completely new type of content, it’s quite easy to forget where you want to go with it! If you give yourself prompts and key bits of information to remember, it will ensure that you cover everything you originally set out to say. As you progress and become more comfortable with hosting, you might want to leave the prompts behind, but we still find them super useful.
What exactly are you going to do?
There are some key questions you’ll need to ask yourself when planning to launch your own podcast. Here are a few of those vital questions:
- What topic are you going to talk about, is it something you can create multiple episodes on?
- Who will host the podcast? Will it be just you or will it be co-hosted, or perhaps you plan to invite guests onto some or all episodes?
- How frequently are you going to post your episodes?
- What will your intro and outro say and sound like?
- Will you follow a format for each episode?
You don’t need flashy equipment
The Get REAL About Marketing podcast started out using much more basic equipment than we use today. If you have an iPad and Apple voice notes you’ll find you probably have enough to start a podcast. When you realise that podcasting is actually super fun (and your audience is engaging with you) then you might want to upgrade to a better microphone and recording software – but even then, it doesn’t have to be expensive. At REAL, we now use the Sontronics Podcast Pro microphone with the Elevate stand which comes in under £500 combined!
Be YOU
You will sound a little bit rusty on your first few episodes and that’s completely normal. But authenticity is key when it comes to podcasting. It’s what your audience wants to hear and as they’ll ultimately be a part of your journey from the start you need to make sure your listeners know that you’re having fun with the podcast and just by doing that you’re likely to provide them with something they’ll enjoy listening to.
So, if you’re thinking of starting a podcast, it isn’t too late! Follow our simple steps and most of all, have fun! You won’t regret it.
If you still don’t think creating your pod from scratch is for you, then Contact us and we’ll guide you in the direction of your perfect podcast.
