The Basics of Launching a Business Podcast - Lindsay Reid & Mark Hunter
The basics of launching a business podcast
Every business podcast starts with the same question: why are you doing this? In this first episode, Mark and Lindsay cut through the noise and walk through five practical steps for launching a podcast with a genuine business and PR purpose.
Chapters
- 00:00Meet the hosts
- 00:59Setting podcast goals first
- 04:03Defining your why and your audience
- 06:27Choosing your topic, name and format
- 08:05Audio versus video
- 10:47PR hooks and visibility
- 12:58Gear and recording options
- 14:48Launch and managing expectations
- 16:38Consistency and wrap-up
Define your why and your audience
Before you record a single word, you need to know what you want the podcast to achieve. That sounds obvious, but most business podcasts skip this step and end up three episodes in with no direction and no momentum.
Lindsay makes the point well: whatever you talk about most is what you will become known for. If you want to be known as an expert in business growth but you keep talking about time management, you will become the time management person. Be deliberate from the start.
Your audience might be smaller than you think. And that is fine. A couple of hundred decision-makers in your sector, or a few hundred people with a very specific problem you can solve, is a meaningful audience. Modest ambitions for listenership do not mean modest ambitions for impact.
Choose your topic, name and format
The topic should come from the thing you know better than anything else in your professional life. If you talk about it every day anyway, you have already done the hard part.
On naming: keep it short and clear. Someone should be able to read the title and know immediately whether it is relevant to them. That said, do not let the perfect name become a reason to never record anything. Good enough and actually published beats perfect and hypothetical every time.
On format: audio is the foundation, it has to be. But video is increasingly how podcasts get discovered. Short clips on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok are now the primary engine for new listeners finding shows. If you record video, you are not committing to releasing full episodes on YouTube. You are giving yourself options, and in podcasting, options are valuable.
Bake PR visibility in from day one
A new podcast is not news. There are too many of them for that to land. So you need a hook: a milestone, a unique angle, a notable guest, or a message that fills a gap people are not getting elsewhere.
Mark has a natural hook as Scotland's first podcaster. What is yours? It could be that the podcast marks ten years in business, or that it is tackling a subject that is getting bad information in other channels, or simply that you have landed a guest with real profile in your industry.
Use social media first. It is the most accessible and far-reaching distribution layer you have. Then think about what else might be genuinely PR-worthy about what you are building.
Sort your gear and recording setup
Buying a bundle of microphones, lights and cameras on Amazon and getting a great-sounding podcast are two very different things. There is a reason professional studio environments exist.
Audio matters more than video. Our ears are less forgiving than our eyes. If someone is going to spend 20 or 30 minutes with your voice in their ears, the least you can do is make it sound good. That is the baseline standard you owe your listeners.
Whether you record in-house or come into a studio like ours, get the audio right first. Everything else is secondary.
Get started and manage expectations
Once the plan is in place, the only thing left is to actually do it. This is where most podcasts never happen. People love the idea, they prepare, they get almost there, and then something stops them.
Get out of your own way. Publish the first episode. It will not be perfect, and that does not matter.
Manage your internal expectations too. If you are the person in a business who has been asked to make the podcast happen, your leadership will likely want to see numbers. Set those expectations early. A business podcast is a long game. The ROI is in reputation, trust and relationships built over time. It is rarely in the first month's download figures.
Show up regularly. Build an audience that knows when to expect you. That is how a business podcast turns into a business asset.
Ready to record yours?
Podcast Studio Glasgow is a professional multi-camera video podcast studio in the east end of Glasgow. We handle the technical side so you can focus on the conversation.
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