In June 2024, I launched my own very first podcast. A lot of the decisions were made on-the-go and embracing the “messy action” mentality. Here I want to bring you behind-the-scenes of starting a podcast, the dos and don’ts, some of the lessons I have learned and my main takeaways.
This definitely is one of those posts that will keep getting updated as I go through this journey as I’m exploring new insights every day!
Why did I decide to start a podcast in the first place?
Early June 2024, I launched the Savvy Offer Hub podcast.
While it’s been long-time coming, the moment when I got started was absolutely inspiration-based.
For years, I have created and shared MANY different types of content through my social media presence, my mailing list, as well as paid products like courses and memberships.
But I felt like I’m hitting the ceiling and my ideas and thoughts have nowhere to run.
Yes, I’ve always had a chance to add in more learning materials in the membership – which has been a great outlet for my creativity!
But even so… there have always been even more of the thoughts to share on all kinds of topics that are not always directly related to educational content or won’t fix in the box of the membership.
So the idea about the podcast was lingering on my mind for the longest time until I finally decided it’s TIME.
After busy few months, I just decided to get it started. So within one day I took it from just an idea to 3 already recorded episodes, the artwork being done and hosting account being set up.
I was good to roll!
Behind-the-scenes of starting a podcast
The first steps into podcasting
Let me make this perfectly clear – all of this podcasting journey has been a learning experience for me and the steps shared below are the choices I made, often on a whim.
Hosting
The very first thing I knew I have to do is figure out where I’ll be hosting my podcast.
Options like Buzzsprout, Spotify for Podcasters and Libsyn (along with many others) kept coming up as popular options.
I did extensive research on all a while ago but now, when the time came to make the decision, I decided to go for Buzzsprout.
They offer:
- Free plan with episodes being online for 90 days (gives you a chance to kickstart the process without the investment!)
- They have easy listing and listing instructions for all the most important directories – like showing up on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.
- The platform is straightforward, simple to use and has budget-friendly plans as well
So far, I’ve been satisfied with this choice.
There are also several features that I don’t use like having your podcasting website set up there, along with “Magic Mastering” that gives you a chance to automatically add intro/outro for the all the episodes.
There surely are a variety of other options and if you feel like it doesn’t live up to your needs, make sure to research other ones.
Creating the intro
The biggest challenge for me was creating the introduction and preparing the general outline for my episodes.
So the intro part felt incredibly awkward. I wasn’t yet fully sure how I want to position my podcast and I didn’t want to commit to any taglines…
Overall, it felt like too big of a decision to make early in the journey… So I decided to create something that I am overall okay with and just let it go.
Another question that came up was the intro music. I don’t particularly love the music part and didn’t want to put too big of an emphasis on that. But I might rethink this later.
What helped me here definitely was listening to some of my personal favorite podcasts!
And a few takeaways were the following –
- Most will have rather loud and catchy jingle in the beginning and end (free Youtube Audio library is where to go podcast intro music!)
- Along with the potential “welcome” and intro to the podcast, it’s also important to clearly identify the topic it’s all about so new listeners can evaluate if this is a good fit
- Additionally, most creators will also add a bit of their personal touch, either something you can expect from them (like “no filter” or “always focusing on the positive”) or something inviting (like “grab your favorite drink, I’m here with my cup of joe”)
My main conclusion about creating a good podcast intro was to do it my way. As long as it makes me happy – it’s good. Other way there are a few too many things to overthink 🙂
And yes, you can absolutely change and upgrade that along the way, there’s nothing wrong about it.
Recording and publishing the first podcast episode
Here’s the gist.
For your podcast to be listed in the directories and available to your listeners (on Spotify etc), you must have your first episode published before you do the listing.
The listing process itself can take some time. I have heard that sometimes it’s even up to 2 weeks!
In my case, my podcast got listed on Spotify in around 12 hours and on iTunes – even faster.
I have shared more about my podcast recording experience below.
Creating a bank of podcast episodes
I always knew that I’d want to batch-create several podcast episodes before launching my podcast. I personally don’t like seeing podcasts with 1-2 episodes as I feel like they might never release another episode (as many get stuck at 3!)
So once I had my intro ready, I jumped into recording and editing several initial episodes.
By the time of launching, I already had published 4, with 2 more to be released in the following week and a few more ready for editing.
That being said – I didn’t have to do much of the prep-work content-wise as I already have tons of different topics I could use for the episodes.
If you’re starting fresh, it might be helpful to create your episodes based on your Instagram posts, for example, as they can serve as a great base for the content!
Behind-the-scenes of podcast recording and editing
As an online course creator, I’m familiar with the recording process and various options for that. In my case, I choose the simplest options!
Yeti microphone for recording
In fact, I bought it specifically for podcasting way before I recorded my first episode. I just knew that I’ll want it!
It’s one of the lower budget options but it has done the work quite alright for me and I enjoy using it a lot.
Laptop voice recorder for recording
There are various options how you can record your voice but I choose a simple go to – my laptop and its voice recording function.
It’s easy to use, all recordings are directly saved on my computer and I can manage it easily.
Audacity for editing
Now, this is where it can get tricky…
I use free Audacity software for audio recording and it can be a it of a pain.
The editing process can be a bit of a learning curve – that’s just something to practice to get better at!
My podcast content plan and episode outline
A big question on my mind was about the best way to outline my episodes and whether or not I should do full or partial script for each.
From my video recording experience, I already know that having some content guidelines is the way to go but doing full script usually makes me sound robotic and uncertain.
One of the reasons I created my podcast was to have a space to chat about everything that doesn’t always find a place on social media or inside my paid offers. So having it scripted didn’t feel like the right thing to do.
In all fairness, I did do quite a lot of trials just to see what fits. The first few episodes got re-recorded 2-3 times before I found my flow. It can be an important part of the process – exploring!
I ended up writing down the bullet points for the episodes as a reference point instead of having it fully written out. Some lessons don’t even have anything besides the topic itself…
Another topic on my to-do list was the structure of the episodes. I wanted to consider if there will be any set intro/outro promos or anything I want to make sure to mention.
For now, I have decided to keep it simple but I definitely see this improving as I go through this journey.
Website creation for a podcast
Yet another thing I did on a whim was creating a website for my podcast.
I knew that I’d probably do it one way or another at some point.
But I decided to take fast action an evening before my podcast launch!
As a website designer in the past, I already knew my options and didn’t have to think too hard. It was either the option to create a self-hosted WordPress website as is this one or one of the website platforms.
My key goal was to keep the setup simple and I decided to opt-in for Wix.
Even though I have worked with plenty of different platforms over time, Wix is the one that I haven’t had much of hands-on experience. But as I got started, I knew it was the right choice as it really was easy to navigate plus they also have built-in podcast player so it’s the perfect website builder for podcasters.
With the goal to keep it simple, I created a template-based landing page with the key links and made sure there’s also one page for all of the podcast episodes to be easily accessible.
Are you thinking about starting a podcast?
My main takeaway is to keep it simple and enjoy the journey!
It might seem like there are many big decisions to make but, truth be told, most of these questions will solve themselves as you go into the process of creating.
The key to starting a podcast is to GET THE BALL ROLLING. And once you do, make sure to share your podcast as I’d love to give it a listen and share some love!! Those first downloads were invaluable for me and made the whole journey a ton more fun.
Follow for more inspiration on Instagram @coursecreationlab
& Give my podcast a listen at Savvy Offer Hub!
