You’ve been thinking about starting a podcast to help promote your business, but you’re not sure where to start. Podcasting can be a great way to reach new customers and grow your business, but doing it well takes forethought and planning. Traci DeForge of Produce Your Podcast is an international podcast expert, speaker, and media contributor and spent more than decades of her career in broadcast radio. In this session, Traci shared the basics of starting, launching, and promoting a podcast to grow your business.  

Is it too late to start a podcast?  

Absolutely not. It’s not too late! It’s actually a perfect time. When I first launched my podcast, people wanted to know what a podcast was. Nowadays, everyone knows what a podcast is. Currently, there are roughly two million Apple podcasts. When I started producing podcasts in 2016, there were less than 350,000 podcasts. That is an extraordinary trajectory!  

How to start a podcast?  

First, let’s really define podcasting. A podcast, to me, is an audio recording. That’s an MP3 file. However, video has come to the market because video is a very engagement tool. But in general, my initial recommendation is to start with an audio podcast for cost and efficiency purposes. It’s also easier to implement and activate. Next, you must think about discovering por que you want to start a podcast. What is it that you have to say? How are you going to say it differently than anybody else?  

How long is a podcast, and how often should you publish it? 

On average, the sweet spot is between 23 and 28 minutes. And if you think about that in your lifestyle, that’s your average commute, workout, or chores like folding the laundry. However, if you have super engaging content and the quality of your audio is really good, then people will listen all the way through, and that’s when you end up with a 60-minute podcast. How often should you release? The structure around that isn’t necessarily how many. The question is, “how many can I do consistently?” Dig deep into your bandwidth.  

We recommend you start with two a month. If that feels comfortable for you, then go to one podcast per week.  

How do you promote your podcast? 

Even if you’re just starting, you want to create a newsletter when you start your podcast, even if it’s just your immediate friends who sign up for it. Then, every time you release a podcast, make sure to send a newsletter out with the podcast graphics, a link to the show, and some bullet points about it. That’s why it’s important to prepare everything prior to the recording. Get your guest’s bio and headshot. Create an episodic graphic and some social media posts. Put your guests’ names in the post. They’re more likely to share it if it’s their face and their name.  

How to repurpose your podcast?  

It’s important to consider how much it takes to produce a podcast and how important it is to manage that. That’s why it’s efficient to repurpose your podcast. You can transcribe it and pull social media posts out of it. You can write blog posts out of it. You can utilize the audio clips for social media posts. If you do video, you can use the video clips for promotional pieces.  

How do you monetize your podcast?  

The first way is through traditional advertising, like you would hear on the radio or television. This is what you call “live reads,” where you talk about the product on the podcast.  

Another way to monetize is how you deliver your call-to-action at the end of your podcast. Suppose you want to increase your mailing list, which would ultimately increase your ability to market to people who want to do business with you. In that case, it’s going to affect your revenue ultimately. This is not a direct way to monetize, but it’s a direct connection from listeners to your website, from your website to your bank account.