A business podcast is a different proposition than a hobbyist podcast. Besides mastering the technical aspects of creating and producing any type of podcast, a business podcast must also be aligned with the company’s vision, narrative, and communications initiatives.

Done right, a business podcast can broaden your reach, showcase you as a thought-leader, and help you influence clients and customers in ways that encourage them to purchase your services, or invest in your business.

Here are 9 steps to set you on a path to podcast success:

1- IDENTIFY YOUR GOALS
To avoid drowning in the waves of podcasts listed on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play, start with the business reason you want a podcast. Is your goal to create more awareness for your product or service? To provide more value to existing members of your community? Or is it to create a platform to engage your employees?

2- DEVELOP A CONCEPT
A concept is the show’s promise to listeners. A show’s concept will drive how the podcast is described and published on all podcast portals. A focused concept and properly written description must include the meta-data that ensures your show will be searched and discovered by the right audiences.

3- WHO WILL LISTEN?
This is where the concept meets your audience. Your podcast audience is not “everyone.” Think about what market niche or what need you already serve. It’s okay if it is a small segment. For example, if you are a super-yacht manufacturer, then your niche — though very, very small — consists of people who think that a super-yacht is one of life’s pinnacle achievements. To a great extent, the growth of podcasting has been fueled by this kind of narrow focus: by offering relevant information to a market segment who wants specific information. For a business podcast it’s not the largest audience that counts — it’s the right audience.

4- CHOOSE A PODCAST FORMAT
Format includes episode frequency and length. Do you want to publish a weekly podcast? Or is every other week a better fit for your content and audience? If you have 40 minutes of useful information on estate planning, why cut it down to 15? If your goal is to offer management tips to new managers and you can deliver these in 10 minutes, why make the podcast longer than it needs to be? Choosing a format and sticking with it every episode is key.

5- THE PODCAST’S PLATFORM
This is the publishing platform that will act as the hosting and distribution point for all your podcast episodes. For SEO purposes and integration with you brand, this is best installed on a subdomain on your website, rather than using a third-party podcast hosting service. A podcast platform will enable your listeners to subscribe to the podcast via popular portals and apps, to listen to episodes on the site itself, to read descriptions of the episode, to search and find archived episodes by tags, or by genre, to subscribe to email alerts whenever a new episode is ready, and to comment on, or share episodes.

6 – PRODUCTION
You are a busy business owner, entrepreneur, or marketing professional, do you really want to bother with bit rates, audio file compression, EQ, peaking, ID3 Tags, or converting from WAV to MP3 when professionals can do it for you?

At BurstMarketing, we use remote recording software. This means you, as the host, can be in one location and your guests and co-hosts can be in another. Our audio engineer is online during production, managing sound bites as you talk. Our ongoing production process includes:

  • Coordinating the recording schedule.
  • Producing, recording and editing every episode.
  • Adding intro, outro, music and sponsor commercials.
  • Mixing and balancing the sound so it isn’t jarring to listeners.
  • Adding ID3 tags to the sound file so data within it can be stored.
  • Posting the episode on your site.
  • Monitoring the podcast feed for tracking purposes.

7- PUBLISHING AND DISTRIBUTING YOUR PODCAST
Once all moving parts are in place, it’s time to distribute your podcast. We know how to distribute your podcast show everywhere podcasts are searched and found — in portals and apps such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Spotify, RadioPublic, Pandora, TuneIn, Stitcher, Castbox and Podbean. Some of these portals will make your podcast available within 24 hours. Others may take up to two weeks for your podcast to be accessed. Either way, we have you covered.

8- LAUNCHING AND PROMOTING YOUR PODCAST
Hundreds of new podcasts are coming up every day. Promoting and building awareness for your show will lead to listener engagement and downloads. Typically, we launch with three episodes and coordinate a marketing and social launch with you. The goal behind this strategy is to get initial subscribers and listeners and to drive your podcast to the top of each directory’s “popular and trending” list. This, in turn, creates more awareness for your podcast. After launch, we equip you and your podcast guests with the tools to promote each episode, including audio clips for posting on social media.

9- IS ANYONE LISTENING? AUDIENCE TRACKING
How do you know your podcast is successful? We will track your podcast’s analytics, which will include audience development information such as numbers of subscribers, downloads, unique listeners, average time listened, and page views and insights.

A business podcast is a great way to build connections by offering useful content to existing audiences, building new audiences for your products and services, expanding your peer network, and increasing thought-leadership in your industry. All can open doors to exciting, new opportunities!

Marisol Murano

As BurstMarketing’s Chief Content Manager, Marisol guides the content strategy for your podcasts and develops engaging narratives that lead to audience growth. With more than twelve years of experience as a writer and producer, Marisol has created award-winning content for e-zines, magazines, videos and podcasts. As a former news reporter, she’s skilled in using storytelling to engage audiences.