5 Steps to Take This Week If You're Considering Starting a Podcast [Ep. 89]
Click play to hear the steps to take when starting a podcast:
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Here’s what to expect from this episode:
Did you know that 41% of Americans aged 12 & up have listened to a podcast in the last week? Or that 69% of listeners say that podcasts introduce them to new products or services?
All that to say, podcasting is a HOT platform right now and is only continuing to grow. So if you're considering starting a podcast (which you likely already are if you're listening to this podcast!) to build trust and authority and drive your audience to your offers, then this episode is for you.
Because today I'm sharing 5 clear action steps you can take this week to help you decide if it's the best choice for YOU and YOUR audience. I'm also throwing in a bonus step and answering your questions from Instagram about the time and tech platforms needed to get started.
So whether you need a bit of validation for your ideas or to commit to starting, let's get this podcasting thing going!
TOPICS COVERED:
Step 1: Define your podcast’s purpose & your audience
Step 2: Do podcast market research to see what’s already out there
Step 3: Poll your audience
Step 4: Group your content into 3-5 content pillars
Step 5: Choose a name for your podcast
BONUS: Create your cover art!
Q&A: The time and tech platforms you need to get started
Resources mentioned:
TODAY'S FEATURED PODCASTER:
Stephanie Higgs might not have a podcast of her own yet, but she has such a passion and a heart for helping other educators. She would love to sit down with you and share some ideas on an upcoming episode of your podcast as a Gifted Educator and a Differentiation Coach.
As a mid-year teacher, she has quite a few areas of expertise, having recently taught not only gifted education but fourth grade, second grade, and pre-K. Her favorite topics include differentiating and education, creativity, arts integration, classroom management, and developing a stronger sense of classroom community.
You can find Stephanie on Instagram @littlemissgifted.
Connect with Sara:
Related episodes:
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Sara Whittaker 0:01
Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager, and I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. 41% of Americans aged 12 and up have listened to a podcast in the last week. More than 80% of podcast listeners spend upwards of seven hours per week listening to their favorite podcasts. 74% of podcast listeners listen to learn new things. 45% of podcast listeners have a household income of over $250,000.60 9% of listeners say that podcasts, introduce them to new products or services. So these are all recent stats about podcasting as of March 2023. And I'm sharing these numbers because they tell us a lot of important things. These numbers show us that podcasting is a hot platform and is only continuing to grow. It's telling us that people come to podcast to learn and that they come often. This is really good news for us as educators because that's what we do we teach. Lastly, this data tells us that podcasts are a great place to promote your offers, and that a majority of people who listen to podcasts have the funds to actually purchase the things that they hear about on podcasts. There's no doubt that podcasting is a great option for creating long form content, building trust and authority and driving your audience to your offers. But this episode is not about convincing you to start a podcast, if you're listening to this, you're probably already considering it. Instead, I'm creating this episode to give you some action steps to take in order to help you decide if it's the best choice for you and for your audience. So this one is for those of you who have been thinking about starting for a while now maybe you've listened to my episodes, maybe you've read some of my Instagram posts, maybe you've even downloaded my free podcast launch guide, but you haven't taken the plunge. Sometimes we need very clear action steps to get things in motion. So that's what I'm going to give you today, I'm going to give you five quick things that you can do this week to validate your ideas, commit to starting and get this thing going. A few weeks ago on Instagram, I shared that I was going to be recording this episode, and a few of you submitted questions that you had specifically about like practical things about starting a podcast. So I am going to answer a couple of those at the end of this episode too. So let's go ahead and dive into five steps that you can take this week if you are considering starting a podcast. Number one, I want you to define your podcasts purpose, and your audience. Before you start doing anything like recording your episodes, it's really important to think about why you want to start a podcast and who your target audience is. This will help you narrow down your focus and create content that really resonates with your listeners. And if you already have an established business, then this is probably going to be a very easy step for you. So let's start with your audience. I want you to use this sentence frame to get really clear on who your ideal listener would be. So my podcast will be for blank who want to blank. For example, my podcast is for middle school teachers who want to strengthen relationships with their students and parents. Another example is my podcast is for second grade teachers who want to set up systems and routines in their classrooms. Okay, so very clear who your target listener is and what they might be coming to your podcast for. And then your purpose of your podcast, I'm gonna go ahead and recommend that you have at least two clear purposes for starting a podcast. Here's an example. The purpose of my podcast is to support teachers in an accessible way, and to drive more traffic to my monthly membership. So one purpose is impact based, like what kind of impact do you want to have on your audience? And then the other purpose is income based? How do you want your podcast to have an effect on the revenue that you are bringing into your business?
Sara Whittaker 4:34
The second step to take is to do podcast market research to see what's already out there. And you might have an idea of some podcasts that already exist in your niche but I want you to actually like go and set a timer for 15 minutes and head to your favorite listening app. Maybe that's Apple podcasts or Spotify, whatever it is, do a quick search and see number one like which podcasts are actually active. because you might have some pop up, that aren't actually releasing episodes anymore, maybe they haven't released an episode in one year or two years. So put in some some keywords that match your niche, see what kinds of shows come up. Another way to do this is to put like a quick question sticker on your Instagram stories and ask your people what are your favorite podcasts about whatever your niche is? What are your favorite school counseling podcasts? What are your favorite podcasts for secondary teachers, whoever your audience is, and see what they send you, they might send you some podcasts that you had absolutely no idea existed. Once you found some shows that are in your niche, and honestly, depending on what your niche is, there might not even be any podcasts, any active podcasts. That's a possibility. But once you found them, skim through some of their episodes, you don't have to like listen to every episode, but look through at their titles, you can maybe choose a couple to listen to and look at their show descriptions within Spotify or Apple podcasts, wherever you're listening on. And just take a look like what topics are they covering? How is their audio quality? How consistently? Are they releasing episodes, look at their Instagram, look at their websites, read their podcast reviews, and determine what are they doing really well? And what gaps are there that you could fill with your show? How could you really meet the needs of people in your niche in a different way than people are already doing? The third step that I want you to take is to pull your audience. If you're thinking about starting a podcast, you want to validate this idea and see if it is something that your people want. You can do this on your Instagram, if you have an active Facebook group, you can put it in there or you can do this through email. But just some casual questions. Do you listen to podcasts? How often do you listen to podcast? What do you love about your favorite podcasts? Would you be interested in a podcast about X, Y and Z about whatever the topic of your podcast would be? How long do you like your podcast episodes to be? The goal of doing this is to really get a feel for what your people like what types of podcasts they like, but also to validate this idea of doing a podcast if you if you put up a poll saying would you be interested in a podcast about fill in the blank? And 200? People say no. And two people say yes, then maybe a podcast isn't the best idea for you. I don't think that's going to happen. But ultimately getting that feedback from people and getting that validation of, oh, people really would like to hear a podcast about this, it's gonna make you feel really good. If you have decided that you want to start a podcast, but you're you have that like impostor syndrome about what if nobody listens, seeing that people would want this resource is going to be just a really great thing for you to see. Step number four to take is to group your content into three to five content pillars. This is a quick exercise that I like to do to think about how you're going to organize your content in your podcast and how you're going to really make sure that your messaging is very consistent across all of your episodes. And that it is niche specific for who your audience is. If you're not familiar with content, pillars, content, pillars are like buckets, if you can even just picture like a row of five buckets, and you have all of the topics that you talk about. And you could drop each of those topics into one of those buckets. It's how we categorize our content. And I always say aim for three to five, I think that that's a good number. It's, it could be more, it could be less, it kind of just depends on what you are an expert in. But grab a notebook doesn't have to be anything fancy. If you use a project management tool, put it in there. Write out your content pillars and just start brain dumping episode topics. A lot of times people are afraid that they're not going to have enough to talk about if they start a podcast. But I can almost guarantee that if you sit down again, set a timer for yourself 1520 minutes, and you sit down and you think about all the things that you talk about on social media and if you have a blog things that you've written blog posts about, if you have a TPT store, you're popular TPT resources, all of these things that you normally talk about in all of these other places. How can you break these apart into Episode topics and how can you sort those topics into content pillars so you can kind of see like, oh, I have a lot of ideas for for this pillar, but not so much for this. And I think you're going to find out that you have more topics to talk about, then you even know what to do with. And this exercise will probably also make you feel a certain way, when you sit down and you brain dump these topics that you could talk about on your future podcast, does it make you feel really excited? If it does, then that's probably a really good sign that this idea of starting a podcast is aligned with what you should be doing at this time. If it makes you feel overwhelmed, then maybe you need to take a step back and really think about whether or not this is the best decision for you right now.
Sara Whittaker 10:37
Okay, step number five, I saved this one for last because I think it's the most fun, and that is choosing a name for your podcast. And maybe you already have a name in mind. But even if you do, I still want you to listen to what I have to say about this piece. Number one is that you need to choose a name that is going to be highly searchable. It should be short, it should be very clear who your podcast is for. If somebody just sees the name of your podcast typed out in isolation, they should know that this is a podcast for your ideal listener. Podcast names are one of the very few things that are searchable within listening apps. And so you want to make sure that you are really leveraging your podcast name so that people can find you within the podcast apps. If you have a really like cutesy fun name that you were really excited about. And I just totally burst your creative bubble. I would really recommend taking this advice about making your name searchable. And you can use any kind of like cutesy name or phrase for things like a sign off on your podcast or a tagline for your podcast. There are other places that you can use more creative things like that. And then the second piece of naming your show is to, again, go back and I would type this into Google, I would also type this into the podcasting apps, but type your ideal podcast name out and make sure that it's not already taken. Because even if it's something that's slightly the same as yours, or of course, if it's the exact same as yours, you don't want to use that you don't want to run into any kind of like trademarking issues, or anything like that. So, definitely make sure that you take a couple minutes and search the name of your future podcast. And then kind of a bonus step, if you wanted to take it a step farther is you could sit down in Canva and create your cover art, which is always a really fun piece of this as well. Okay, so let's quickly recap these five steps. Number one, define your podcasts purpose, and your audience. Number two, do podcast market research to see what shows already exist in your niche. Number three, poll your audience to get a feel for what people like about podcasts. And if they'd be interested in listening to your podcast. Number four, group your content into three to five content pillars. And number five, choose a name for your podcast. Now, before we wrap things up, I did say that I'd answer I picked two quick questions that were submitted on Instagram that I think would probably benefit anybody who's listening who's considering starting a podcast. Number one was how much time does it take each week to have a podcast? This really all depends on a lot of factors, the biggest two being a Will you have help with your podcast, there are people like me, who have a production team where all you do is record and then you submit your episodes to us. And we do everything else like editing, show notes, scheduling all of that. So that is obviously going to be a lot less time intensive than if you're doing everything by yourself. So consider whether or not you're going to have help with any part of your podcast, even if it's just the show notes or just scheduling. Number two. The other big factor is how long will your episodes be, the time spent on creating and producing your podcast is going to be drastically different between a 15 minute episode and a 45 minute episode. The longer your episodes are, the longer it's going to take to outline the longer it's going to take to edit. But for sake of giving you an example, I'm going to I can kind of break down what it would look like for let's say a 15 minute episode. I think that 15 to 20 minute episode is a really good sweet spot, especially if you are speaking to educators who are very short on time. So let's say you want to do a 15 minute episode weekly, so one episode per week. I'd say that you can sit down and outline or script depending on how in depth you want to go with this in about 30 minutes. You can get that recorded and another 30 minutes If you're thinking, well, if it's a 15 minute 15 minute episode, why is it going to take me 30 minutes to record, I'm kind of giving a little bit of wiggle room there just like the logistics of actually sitting down, getting your equipment hooked up getting your Google Doc up getting your recording software up, like really factoring those things in. So 30 minutes to outline, 30 minutes to record. If it's a 15 minute episode, you can edit that in about an hour, I would say it usually takes anywhere from two to four times the length of the episode to get it edited, if you're doing in depth editing. And then I'd say another hour to sit down and write show notes and get your episode scheduled. So the way that I broke that down for a 15 minute episode is about three hours to outline, record, write show notes and schedule. If it's a longer episode, it's going to take more time. And of course, in the beginning, this most of these things are probably going to be a new skill. So it might take you a little bit longer in the beginning. And then you have to account for, you know, time that you're going to put into creating various promotional assets, which you should be doing anyway, your podcast is just going to give you the content that you need to create things like social media posts. So it's kind of all about how you think about your time, could you record an episode, instead of scrolling Instagram for 30 minutes? Yes. So think about like how you're balancing your time and what you want to put your time into. And I will just also note that if you're really scared of the time commitment that comes with a podcast, especially if you are doing this completely by yourself, you're not going to have any help. You could do seasons for your podcast, at least to get started. So you could say, Okay, I'm going to do a season of 10 episodes, or 15 episodes. And then I'm going to take a two month break. And then I'm going to come back with another 10 or 15 episodes. So that would be a good way to get your feet wet, but have a finish line in sight, and allow you to really like see what kind of time you need to put in to get this done. Alright, question number two was what tech platforms do I need? I don't want to feel overwhelmed, but I also want it to work. Well. Great question. So I'm gonna give you like the, the rundown of the platforms that I would recommend using to like really get things done from start to finish on a basic level, like you can absolutely get your podcast out every single week using these things. So a would be I don't know if this counts as a platform, but Google Docs Google Docs is what I use to outline my episodes and then record or not record organize all of my episodes, like the audio for for episodes. So I have like a folder for each episode that has my outline and my raw audio and then the edited audio. Number two would be Audacity. I recommend this because it's a free program, you download it onto your desktop, and you can use this to record your solo episodes. And then you can also use it to edit your episodes and it's completely free. I had no idea how to use Audacity when I first started podcasting, and I learned it in a weekend. So you can do the next thing would be a platform to record guest interviews on or if you're doing a video podcast to record your video podcast. You can totally use Zoom. Zoom is kind of hit or miss for people depending on how their internet quality is and how their guests internet quality is it can be a little bit glitchy. So if you want to do an upgrade I would recommend using a platform like Zen caster, which is specifically created for podcast, video and audio recording. The other platform is a phonic. A phonic is, it's a website that you go to and you put your edited audio in. So after you edit the episode, you just drop it in there and it's going to level out your audio so that it is optimized for people who are listening in the car, people who are listening with headphones, people who are listening on their computer, it's going to get it at that rate that it needs to be to sound good no matter where people are listening. You can sign up for a free account for up to two hours of audio per month. So you know if you're doing 15 to 20 minute episodes, you could get away with a free a phonic account. And then you need a host, a host is where you're going to upload your podcast episodes every single week. That's the only place that you have to put them and then your host will shoot them out to all of the different listening apps. I recommend either Captivate or Buzzsprout for podcast hosting, both of those are going to run you about $19 a month if you're doing weekly episodes. So those are the basics Google Docs, Audacity, zoom or Zen caster, a phonic and then either Captivate or Buzzsprout for podcast hosting
Sara Whittaker 20:01
All right, my friends. I hope that this gave you some ideas on how you can take some quick, simple action this week to get things going if you're considering starting a podcast, so, go take action on those five steps we talked about, you can check out the show notes for anything I mentioned in this episode at podcasting for educators.com/episode 89. And lastly, if you do decide that you are ready to do this thing, you're ready to start your podcast I would love for you to join us in my online course and community, the podcasting for educators prep school, it will walk you through everything you need to do from planning your podcast, to launching your podcast, including how to promote your podcast from the very beginning during that launch phase, as well as how to manage it and grow it week to week after you launch. All of the episodes are on my course platform, but then they're also on a private podcast so you can listen on the go. There's also a private Facebook group where you can come and ask any questions that you have at any time. And you can come and connect with other podcasters you can learn more about the prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I will see you here next week. Before we sign off, let's check out this week's shout out. Each week I'm sharing a voice message from a fellow podcaster and they could be your next podcast guest after listening. If you'd like to collaborate with them, you can reach out using the information in the show notes from today's episode. If you're interested in being featured head to podcasting for educators.com/voice Happy collaborating
Stephanie Higgs 21:48
Hey everyone, my name is Stephanie Higgs. I'm on Instagram at Little Miss gifted. I actually don't yet have a podcast of my own. But I have such a passion and a heart for helping other educators. I would love the opportunity to sit down with you and share some ideas on an upcoming episode of your podcast as a gifted educator and a differentiation coat. A few of my favorite topics include differentiating and education, creativity, arts integration, classroom management, and developing a stronger sense of classroom community. As a mid year teacher, I have quite a few areas of expertise, having recently taught not only gifted education, but fourth grade, second grade and pre K. I love sharing ideas with other educators and I would love to hear from you again. You can find me on Instagram at littleness gifted, the other podcasts have completed have had great feedback and I'd love to hear from you soon. Let's keep learning together.
Sara Whittaker 22:49
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.
More about Podcasting for Educators:
Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!
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