Final Checklist Before You Launch Your Podcast

You're listening to Behind the Mic on the Funnel Radio Channel. Hey everybody, Susan Finch here, your host today for Behind the Mic. And you probably don't know, or maybe you do, I'm also an instructor for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California. And recently, we have revamped all of our courses and I as an instructor of now four years with them.

Wow, that's pretty exciting. I've made all of my courses into hands-on workshops. So you might know Funnel Media Group as a great producer of your podcast, so hands-on and puts so much attention into detail and really helps guide our hosts through becoming better hosts to get better guests and have a better following, bigger followings for their podcasts. Well, I thought that I'd bring up the fact that we also teach courses.

I teach courses and I can teach it to any department, any company, any group of people, your business organization. And I wanted to give you a little taste of that course. This is the third and final installment. The first course we talked about the reasoning behind podcasting, what you need to know before you even consider starting one, and what's involved so you know what to expect.

The course was very well received. I got such great feedback, it just made me beam. We have a max of 15 that could be in a class just because otherwise we can't all have hands on time where we can go around the room and give feedback and tell us where you're at, what you're thinking. And we kind of brainstormed as a group This is a group of strangers that had never met Well that the definition of a stranger isn it Yeah Well now they know each other because they been helping each other plan their podcasts for their companies None of the companies are competitors They all just getting to know each other and pulling from each other great ideas that they may not have thought about.

So the second one, we got into the actual podcast recording, editing, video editing, graphics, graphic templates, and all the pieces you need to have set up in order to make your podcast process very smooth. And yeah, I know this probably gets me out of a job with you guys, but I love teaching. And so it's a lot of fun for me to watch people implement all of these ideas and to create their own podcast solutions. So yeah, as much as I want to work on your podcast every week, some of these companies are just going to want me once in a while, if at all.

Some might just want me for a check-in or to brainstorm some ideas for maybe commercials, maybe some promotions, cross promotions, and getting better guests, more guests, and having the guest be more involved in sharing out the episodes. So this final installment, this is the one that everybody's been asking about and they can't wait for it. And this is publish, promote, and grow. So we're going to be reviewing everything they've learned up to now.

And we're going to talk about the checklist. With this list I'm giving you, I'm gonna let's pretend, let's do a let's pretend. You have your show, you have your branding, you have the dedicated email account for the show, you have your hosting set up, you have your landing page, you have a few episodes in the can ready to trickle out and you have tracking set up in Google Analytics 4.0.

If this is a lot well you should have been in the first class There still time though You could always sign up with me through the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California which is dmanc I'm doing another of the same series in January and in April. Remember, only 15 people per class. They fill up really fast. So let's talk about the reminder checklist.

13 items to finish before you're publishing. The prep work. Choose the launch date goal and frequency. Name the show.

Secure the URL. You know, one that's easy to say, no typos. And that makes sense too. Set up the email for all things podcast.

Select your hosting venue for your podcast. It can't just be WordPress. It's a little more involved than that. Select a host or host.

Decide on your editing and recording tools. then go shopping for a good mic and good lighting because you're going to want video too. We cover all that in the first course. Choose your bumper music and music for the intro and outro.

Choose your announcer if it's not the host. Gather the photo and bio of the host. Write the intro, the outro, because you'll be using that when you make your audio and video templates and then create your show branding to go with all of your goals that can be read really tiny too because you know those little tiny thumbnails you want to be able to read what it is and what are your episode templates going to look like so we can read those when they're little as well what going to stand out the guest name the host or the topic got to think about those things so those are some of my big tips and it a little hint into what we are covering in this I going to give you one big suggestion If you about to launch your podcast for your easiest episode do a five minute about the show episode that can be its own tag You know, you usually tag on topics and things in your podcast.

Why not have a tag be about the show? It'd probably rise up to the top. So people ever want to get to that very first episode that gets buried as you go along, they can always learn what's this show about? Tell me about the host.

And if you have to redo it at another time for season two, season three, do another five minute one so they can feel your energy. They know what the tone of the show is, what you're going to be covering, what to expect, the type of guests, the type of topics, and they can always be excited about it. That's a great thing to do in video as well. Put it on your YouTube channel, put it on your landing page for your podcast.

Put it everywhere. Make it really easy to get people excited about listening, subscribing, and sharing your show. I hope you found these things, if nothing else, intriguing. If you want to learn more, go to funnelradio.

com. Super easy. You can find the contact us at the top of the page. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Susan M.

Finch. Hope to talk to you soon, and I would love to hear about your podcast. Thank you so much. Find us in all your favorite podcast apps.

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