Yesterday I launched the second part of the Ultimate Audio Guide to Producing Popular Podcasts. The first part is available to everyone – but the rest of the course has been produced to say thanks to The Podcast Guy enewsletter subscribers for signing up.
If you sign up today, I’ll be sending out the links and more details about that show to new subscribers next week.
Anyway, I’ve received nine emails since that second part of the Ultimate Audio Guide went out for the first time. The most popular element of that episode was my super-secret guide to what I consider is the perfect podcast format for beginners.
The next-favourite section dealt with the tech you need to get your podcast up and running. While the Ultimate Audio Guide goes into much more detail, I figured you’d probably want to know what you need to get started.
It’s easier than you’d ever know. And aside from the initial time investment, and small financial commitment into the hardware, once you get into the flow of creating shows and a process to follow, the resources needed to make podcasting an incredibly valuable ingredient of your marketing plan are remarkably small.
Fab apple pie by lenore-m. Click photo for her Flickr stream...
Talking ingredients, let’s look at that definitive recipe for a popular podcast…
It starts with
Passion. Having the passion to talk about and research your area of expertise. Without passion, you’re without the best chance of growing a passionate and engaged listener base – the most valuable of all customer communities.
Tech
- Skype. If you don’t have a big studio and you like mixing it up with new voices, Skype is a must.
- A way to record your Skype conversation. Complicated: Having you and your remote guest/co-host record your own side of the conversation using Audacity (free audio editing software detailed below). Super-easy solution: Pamela for PC or Call Recorder for Mac that automatically record both sides of the convo, and give you either a WAV file or MP3
- A microphone. If you’re recording on your own in a room, get the Blue Yeti. If you have two people in your ‘studio’ I suggest you buy a small mixer and two dynamic microphones. I have specific information about this setup in the shownotes for Part 2 of the Ultimate Audio Guide, available exclusively to The Podcast Guy enewsletter subscribers.
- That $30 soundbooth if you love your listeners.
- Audio editing software. If you’re on Mac, you’ll have Garageband built-in. No matter what computer you use, the brilliant and free Audacity is definitely worth a download.
- Levelator. I’m a big fan of this. It quickly and automatically smooths out your audio tracks so there are no unexpected ‘peaks’ and it all sounds sweet.
- Music for the intro, segues and outro sections of your show. Preferred directories of mine include Jamendo and musicalley.com – or choose from 99 cent royalty-free music at jewelbeat.com.
- Some social media profiles. Once you’ve decided on a name for your show you’re going to want to have ways to promote it – and that starts with a Twitter profile and Facebook Page to reflect your brand. Enter your show or brand name at Namechk.com and it’ll tell you whether it’s available at more than 150 social networks!
- A website. This is the place where you’ll provide listeners with shownotes, ways to subscribe to your show, and the complete ‘community’ experience.
- Somewhere to store your podcasts. While there are many methods of hosting your shows, from adding them to your existing webspace and finding out that your webspace provider isn’t too happy when you get popular, to Amazon’s S3 service, to Podbean (don’t), to Archive.org and Posterous, I would advise that you sign up with Libsyn. I’m not affiliated – I just know how great they are – and cheap. Plus when you scale, they scale with you – and the price stays the same.
That’s it. Seriously!
I cover on the Ultimate Audio Guide exactly how everything fits together, and how to get your show off the ground using the 5Ps in a Pod(cast) formula – but you have all the bits and pieces here to make it happen.
Why isn’t everyone podcasting?
Businesses of all shapes and sizes are literally throwing their money away on traditional radio ads for stations over which they have little to no control. Yet here we are, in a day and age where you can set up your own radio show – full-blown radio station, even – to reach out to and engage specifically the people you want to become part of your customer communities.
If you know me you’ll know I’ll readily admit I don’t have all the answers. And I definitely don’t have the answer to why people in their droves haven’t woken up to the incredible power of podcasting.
But I’m happy to keep it our secret. It’s the most successful marketing tool most businesses have never heard of – so let’s keep it to ourselves for now, right?
Want a hand?
If you want me to set all this up for you, you only need ask.
