This episode is giving you the blueprint to how to start a podcast. If you’ve been thinking about launching your own show, but aren’t sure where to start, then this episode breaks down every step from your idea to going live and beyond with guests and advertising.

We’ve been hosting our show in the travel niche for the past three years and have learned a lot about what it takes to start a podcast and make it successful. We’re going to share everything we learned at launch and along the way and give you all the tips on how to start a podcast.

We launched a How to Start a Podcast Course that takes you from idea to launch and beyond with an 8-part guide to follow along with. The instant download PDF sets objectives and a task list for each part, has worksheets, links to buy the same equipment we use, and a glossary of jargon terms that we had to figure out through research. We detail hwo to set up equipment, how to edit audio in Audacity, how to find music for your show and so much more.

The 8-part course is outlined in a linear model with each secretion getting you closer to launching your show.

1. Set the foundation
2. Write trailer & the basics
3. Branding & digital presence
4. Equipment & set up
5. Record trailer, intro, outro
6. Audio editing 
7. Hosting & 1st episode launch
8. Expand with guests & ads 

When going through the process, you’ll follow a general guide to get things going starting with determing your niche.

The first step in starting a podcast is to determine your niche. What topic or theme will your podcast revolve around? This is important because it will help you focus your content and attract the right audience.

When we started our travel podcast, we knew that we  wanted to focus on sharing experiences and tips for traveling on a budget. We knew that there were a lot of people out there who wanted to travel but didn’t have a lot of money to spend, so we felt that this was a topic that would resonate with my target audience.

Early on you’ll also want to choose your format. Once you have determined your niche, you need to choose your format. Will your podcast be a solo show, or will you have guests? Will it be an interview-style show, or will you have a co-host?

There are a lot of different formats to choose from, and the best one for you will depend on your niche and your personal style. For example, if you are an expert in your field, a solo show might work well for you. If you want to bring in different perspectives, an interview-style show might be a better fit.

For our travel podcast, we decided to have a mix of shows with our co-hosts and intermittently interview other travelers on their epic trips or travel business owners on how they turned their passion for travel into a profitable livelihood. We felt that this gave our listeners a variety of perspectives and kept the content fresh.

Choosing the equipment was one of the ,most confusing parts for us. Thankfully the industry has come a long way to make this easier. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get started, but you do need a few basic pieces of equipment.

Here is a list of the equipment you will need:

• A microphone: This is the most important piece of equipment. You want to choose a high-quality microphone that will pick up your voice clearly and without any background noise. If you use a Blue Yetti, make sure to double check for echo. This mic picks up everything so its important to be in a soundproof echo-proof room.
• Headphones: You will need a pair of headphones to monitor your audio while recording. We can’t say enough how important this is!
• Recording software: There are a lot of different recording software options available. Some popular options include GarageBand (for Mac users) and Audacity (for PC users), we use Audacity and like it a lot + it’s free!
• A quiet space: You want to record in a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted or have any background noise.
• When we started my travel podcast, I purchased a high-quality USB microphone and used Audacity to record and edit my episodes.

Planning your content is one of the funnest parts of the process. This is where you will determine the topics you want to cover in your podcast and create a content calendar.  When planning your content, it’s important to think about your audience and what they want to hear. What questions do they have? What topics are they interested in? What problems can you solve for them?

For our travel podcast, we created a content calendar that included a mix of host-only shows and interviews. We would research and plan the host-onlyshows in advance, and we would reach out to potential guests for interviews. We also got a lot of guest inquiries that we would ensure have a connect to our mission before approving and scheduling.

Recording and editing your episodes means you’re getting closer to launch! This is where your equipment and recording software come in handy. One of the first things you’ll record is your trailer, we have another blog dedicated to tips on how to produce a podcast trailer for more detailed guidance. When recording your episodes, it’s important to speak clearly and at a steady pace and BRING ENERGY to your audio! No one wants to listen to a boring monotone podcast. You also want to make sure that you are in a quiet space with no background noise.

When editing your episodes, you want to make sure that you cut out any unnecessary pauses or mistakes. You also want to add any music or sound effects that you may want to use. There’s a lot more to it and you can follow along in the How to Start a Podcast Course or private message us for tips, good luck!

How to Start a Podcast – Episode Transcript

2 (57s):
Welcome to this week’s episode of the Travel Squad Podcast. This week’s podcast topic is a little different than topics we normally cover, but we’ve actually gotten quite a few questions on how to start a podcast and so we’re so excited to share some of that information with you guys today.

2 (1m 12s):
When we first started our podcast three and a half years ago now, it’s crazy how little we knew about podcasting and what we were getting ourselves into and we spent a lot of time researching and a lot of time reading articles and weeks and weeks of planning and moving in that direction. And so we learned a lot through that process and we wanna pass that knowledge on. We’ve packaged up everything we learned in that deep research phase, the things that we wish we would’ve known, and we put this all in an eight part guide on how to Launch your own show. And it’s available on our website to download Travel Squad Podcast dot com. But in this episode today, we’re gonna really break it down for you, tell some stories from our experiences and inspire you to start your own show if you’ve been thinking about it.

3 (1m 56s):
Honestly, this is like the perfect how to guide onto startup podcast. I remember our drunk cab ride in Mexico City where we decided, hey, we’re starting a podcast. And you know, I didn’t think it was necessarily all just drunk talk, but I thought to myself, oh, are we really gonna go through with this? This is gonna be hard and we know nothing on how to do it and we had to do all the leg work and research trial and error, figure all this stuff out and it’s very, very cumbersome. So I mean, If, you are really thinking about, hey, I wanna start a podcast with Be travel related, anything podcast related on different topics. This is the perfect how-to guide and we’re really excited to share with you guys what’s in this podcast course that we have available for you guys on our website.

2 (2m 41s):
Before we get into that, I have a quick question for you too. Knowing everything we know now about how much work goes into a podcast, would you still have done it and decided that in the cab in Mexico City that day,

1 (2m 54s):
I, you know, if I knew everything like laid out before me, I don’t know if that would’ve motivated me more for a timeline or like kind of like put me off like, oh, when are we gonna have the time to do this? So I’m kind of glad that we figured it out as we went because we did have that drive and because there was more of us at that time, we kind of broke it up and it made it more manageable. If it was just me on my own, I feel like the task would’ve been a little bit more daunting. But yeah, I mean definitely doable.

3 (3m 20s):
Great hindsight question. You know, Britney’s answer was literally perfect on that sense of things because yeah, it was a lot. And if I knew like, oh my gosh, all this goes into it and it’s not even just knowing that it goes into it, it’s then the trial and error figuring something out. You read something, it has more questions to it than answers, but again, that’s why this course that we have for you guys is really perfect, gives you that breakdown to make things simple and easy to understand.

1 (3m 48s):
What about you Kim? What would Juri answer be to your own

2 (3m 51s):
Question? I’m would because I see the fruits of the labor and the community that we’ve built and the impact that it’s made and that’s really what it’s all about. If, you have an idea for a show and I do agree if we had this guide when we started all those years ago, it maybe wouldn’t have seemed as daunting cuz it’d be like, okay, this is laid out, this is exactly what we need to do. But we spent so much time figuring shit out that yeah, it was a lot of work at first,

1 (4m 18s):
But I’m happy we are where we

2 (4m 21s):
Are. Me too.

3 (4m 21s):
Let’s talk real quick about our sponsor anchor. We didn’t start out as professional podcasters, so when we started we chose Anchor because it’s the easiest way to make a podcast.

1 (4m 31s):
There are so many perks to using Anchor. First off, it’s free and we love to save a dollar, which means we could put more money towards traveling. There’s also creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer

2 (4m 45s):
Anchor also distributes your podcast for you and you can schedule out episodes in advance. I love this feature. As soon as the MP3 is uploaded on the platform, you can publish it instantly or schedule it for a certain day and then it’s automatically distributed to Spotify, apple Podcast and Everywhere podcast or listen to

1 (5m 2s):
You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership.

3 (5m 6s):
It’s everything you need to make a podcast in one place. and we love tracking our podcast statistics and seeing which episodes you guys like the most.

2 (5m 14s):
Start podcasting now by downloading the free anchor app. We’re going to anchor.fm to get started. So we’re gonna keep one thing the same and we are gonna start with the tips in this episode. So first tip I wanna share, if we haven’t scared you off about the amount of work it is and you really are considering starting your own show, I highly encourage you to go for it. Start now, the podcast industry is not too saturated. I think there’s an endless need for good quality content that’s entertaining or educating or inspiring and If. you think that you have something like that to offer. I think you should go

1 (5m 51s):
For it. Another tip is there’s a lot that goes in behind the scenes of making a podcast. You’re constantly editing, you’re preparing for guests, you’re also working on your Social Media content and then also you may be building a website as well. So you have to keep in mind that there are so many things that go in behind the scenes of just recording an episode word editing it and then posting it online. Cuz you want your podcast to be seen, you want it to be heard. And the way to do that is by reaching out to other guests to get it on their platforms or connecting through Social Media and promoting your podcast. So a lot of people don’t realize how much upkeep there is in the shows for

3 (6m 29s):
That. To that point, Brittanie. And that’s one of the things that I really love about our course right here. And it’s one of those things that, hey, we had an idea, right? Even though we had an idea, we had to think, well what are our objectives with this, right? Like who are we trying to reach as a, to just give information? Are we trying to inspire, et cetera? Define who you are. and we really, all four of us at the time, again, when Zan was still part of the Travel, Squad, Podcast had to figure all that out. And that’s one of the most important things even before really you start recording buying your equipment, anything like that is really just kind of brainstorming those ideas and say to yourselves, what is it that you want to do to find your objectives, determinative vision, identify it audience set that goal date that you are launching and we make that clear the course here at first that that’s one of the most important things.

3 (7m 21s):
And that’s something that we didn’t even think about. Like at first we were just like, yeah, we’re gonna have a travel podcast, but realistically about what, right? And then so we started doing a few things first, fine. And then we realized whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s kind of figure out a different sort of strategy so to speak. And I think it was very helpful for us in defining who we are today.

2 (7m 39s):
It absolutely did. And that’s why that’s the first part of the course. Before you actually get into the fun stuff with recording and and getting your voice out there, you have to think about those things. Who are you talking to? What do you want that person to feel? What type of content are you going to be publishing? What is your Launch date? First of all, set a date and hold yourself to it so you can get all the other prep and recording things done before that date. I think that’s really important. and we did do that and I, I remember we have notes on a Google doc about these very things and it was, we wanna inspire people to travel, we wanna show them that it’s not as expensive or unattainable as they may think it is. and we wanna encourage people to travel even if it’s in their own backyard or city or whatever.

2 (8m 24s):
and we go back to that a lot actually. And I think it’s super valuable to have three plus years later where we’re like, should we go venture off into these other topics? and we refer back to that and we’re like, well this is our mission. So, and we get reviews back from people and they say, thank you for inspiring me to go here and like showing me it could be really affordable. And we’re like, yes, we’re doing exactly what we sent out to do.

3 (8m 49s):
Well to the point of your question that you had earlier when you said, do you remember all the leg work in hindsight, would you still still do it? One of the things that I was gonna say that I didn’t say, and I don’t know why but I’m gonna say it now after all you said is one of the most rewarding things is when we get those dms or emails from people that say, Hey, we booked this trip because of you. We did this because of you. All your information was very, very helpful. And that’s kind of the things that, you know, we need you as gonna really come. But once you actually start getting those things, once you start your podcast, it’s such a rewarding feeling that you can’t even really describe. So If you are thinking of starting a podcast, just know those are gonna come and use that as your motivation beyond what it is that you wanna share with the world.

3 (9m 32s):
Know that somebody’s gonna find value and what it is that you’re giving them.

2 (9m 36s):
I, I’ll go back to tips. When we were first planning in June of 2019, I remember asking you all, you know, if we put ourselves out there, we could get negative feedback. You know, the haters are real, right? Yep. and we were like, that was one question we asked ourselves, could we deal with that? And the other one was, how long are you willing to do this without making money? Because that wasn’t our initial goal. And I think that’s an important thing setting out on a podcast too, is of course it could be a stream of income from certain things, but that can’t be your underlining reason. And you know what you’re putting out in the world, you have to put out more than that. Those are two important questions to ask before you get going too.

3 (10m 13s):
I remember we were like, oh yeah, you know, we can, we can take the negative feedback. And I feel like when we got our first negative one, all of us were kind of like really bummed out about it. But then I said to myself, I know, I know, I know. But then I said, and I I I really do believe this, once you start getting the negative ones, you realize that you’ve hit an audience beyond just kind of like your niche, right? Because everybody at first who’s listening or wants to take the time to review if you’re just getting started, is gonna be somebody that actually values the content. It’s once you start getting a few bad ones sprinkled in here and there that you know that your reach is far. Now are there, has that person left a bat one gonna be a constant listener?

3 (10m 55s):
No, but I know my content is out there beyond, you know, just where it was initially. So I looked at the good and the bad with that negative review right there.

2 (11m 5s):
Love the perspective on that. All right, so your first part of planning your podcast is really that foundation and we just went over the planning stuff to scheduling stuff. The second part of developing your podcast are things like your intro, your outro and your trailer and choosing your podcast music, which is really fun. We had great debates about what song to put in if we’re actually thinking about changing up our music again pretty soon here.

1 (11m 31s):
And just because you pick one thing that fits you now doesn’t mean that’s something you have to keep forever. And that’s something we’ve talked about. We’ve actually changed our intro before work. But what’s important is getting it out there, writing it and having it in your podcast to start. And then as your podcast adapts and changes and morph, you can change that too. You don’t have to be stuck to that forever,

3 (11m 52s):
Right? And to, to the point of where we’re talking about music here, it’s one of those things you think, oh yeah, just music. But then when you really start to say, okay, beyond when you find music that fits you right, if you’re actually multi-talented and creating your own music for the intro, outro of it all the better. You own the rights to that. But when you’re not that multi-talented, you have to think, oh well I’m finding somebody else’s music. What about copyright on that? Where do you go in order to find this music that when you download it you can use with licensing or if it’s not free for so many uses that I have to actually pay to utilize this music, this, that and the other. Those are things that you know, you don’t really think about until the time comes and we make clear in our course here and something that is worth noting just as well, right?

3 (12m 41s):
And it’s not as simple as all may seem. There’s a lot of things that will come up at are just completely outta sight outta mind until you’re just like, oh shit, yeah, what about this? You know?

2 (12m 52s):
Yeah, new challenges to overcome. But e even though the music can be hard to attain at first, there’s places that have royalty-free music or places that you can purchase rights to use the music and we go over all of that in the course. But I think the about part, the intro part to your episodes, it’s super important to be catchy and you know, have some cool music behind it. The energy that your podcast is gonna be putting out there. Introduce your host, introduce what the podcast is gonna be about, but do that all in like just a few seconds to reel people in and brand your show. I think that’s a key part of a good show. Same thing with the trailer and I just put up a TikTok video on our page. Travel Squad, Podcast TikTok, oh follow us over there.

2 (13m 32s):
We’re doing a whole stream of videos on how to start your own podcast. So I did one on a trailer recently and you don’t need a trailer, but you should have a trailer because when people are kind of starting to look at your podcast, see if they wanna listen to it, the first thing they’re gonna see is the trailer. So they click on that. It’s like a minute, two minutes, go through your podcast, introduce the host, tells them exactly what they’re gonna hear, exactly what they’re gonna feel and experience. If they listen and subscribe and you wanna reel them in, you wanna get subscribers so your podcast can rank better in the feeds. And so you actually have listeners to grow your community and the trailer is great for that. And it’s also great for getting you set up on the distribution platforms, which we have plenty of stories about getting set up there in the very beginning too.

3 (14m 17s):
I remember when we first finished recording our trailer, putting it up, splicing it with music, splicing it with sound on the facts. And even though it was only like two minutes of work, it was one of the most satisfying things. And dare I say, I still think our trailer’s really, really good. Oh,

2 (14m 31s):
I love it. Yeah, it’s fantastic. It’s so funny, our trailer was not two minutes of work, but the finished pro,

3 (14m 37s):
Well that’s what, that’s what I meant by it’s two minutes of work, not how much was we put into it, but how much. Of course the trailer is two minutes in that sense of things. But nevertheless, you know, that’s one of the things that we touch about two on and we, you said it earlier, Kim with branding and that’s one of the forces or parts of the course itself is talking about the branding, figuring out website domain, why you would wanna have a website, you know, what is your logo gonna look like, how would you create something like that, even if it’s with your own image or just image art and giving you all the resources of where you can find the platforms to do that for free or paid or a mix mash of both.

3 (15m 18s):
So really good content in there on the branding I would say we benefited a lot because in everyday life and your professional career and that is to a degree what you do. So we were really thankful to have you and your professional knowledge on that, whereas somebody just getting started may not. And the information in the course be really, really useful for

2 (15m 40s):
Them. Yeah, branding is important and it’s not really something you first think about when you have an idea to start a show, but it is something that you should think about in the beginning because the colors that you use, the vibe of your music, the picture or graphic that you use for the cover art of your podcast, you want it all to give the same feeling that someone gets when they actually listen to your podcast. And then you want those things to be on your Social, Media on your cover art and like pull you together, be recognizable out there when people are looking like they’ve seen you before, they’ve seen you again. And branding is important for that. And what also goes along with branding is setting up your digital present, your website, your Social, Media handles, TikTok, Instagram, whichever ones that you’re using.

2 (16m 25s):
I’ll just caution you on this step. You can go ahead and reserve the handles and I do encourage that, but don’t feel like you need to tackle every platform in its entirety because that’s just way too much to focus on. I would pick one or two channels and put your energy there and then scale up and move on As you develop and

1 (16m 43s):
As you create those channels you want, as you’re creating your brand, you wanna use your cover art photo as your profile picture so that it is easy for people to recognize you and recognize your brand. Because for us, if we had a different profile pick on our TikTok, let’s say to our Instagram, people are gonna wonder is that them? If, is this the brand that I’m looking for? So make sure that you’re cohesive and that everything matches up.

2 (17m 8s):
We reserved our domain name I think pretty much right away we got our website, at least the shell of it going. And over the years we’ve experimented, we did more stuff on YouTube at some point we were focusing there and then I, I’d say primarily we focused on our Instagram as the main social channel in addition to the actual episodes. But just pick one and and kind of start developing your community there. Another

1 (17m 32s):
Thing to consider as you build a website is whether or not that website is gonna be a place where you want to sell things and how that’s going to play into your podcast. Because setting everything up in the beginning and knowing where you plan on going in the future will make things a lot, lot easier than figuring it out as you go.

2 (17m 52s):
Yes, there is a lot we have learned about website over the years with this podcast. We host our website on show it, which is more so used for designing the pages. We have an integration with WordPress for blog at some point we may get an integration with Shopify for e-commerce functionality to sell products and merch, but there’s a whole world there. So when you think about an episode and and about how much time it takes to fully do everything, it it’s like five to one what you see. That two minute trailer was actually 10 minutes of work. Exactly.

1 (18m 25s):
And

3 (18m 25s):
Again, I just wanna circle back around on the value of the course cuz it really gives kind of all that information for you. And again, you don’t necessarily need to tackle everything at once, but it gives you those basis for those building blocks on getting there. But again, we’re talking about a podcast so we kind of really talked more, you know, again about brandy, your mission, why, but let’s get into the equipment piece cuz I feel like this is the biggest learning curve for people, especially if you’re not really tech savvy, right? What it is that you need to do. and we were just having to Google and getting so many different things and figuring it out. Luckily you could order from Amazon and do free returns and things and we had to eventually kind of do that and all sorts of stuff.

3 (19m 7s):
So let’s talk a little bit about equipment and what it is that we would need for setup.

1 (19m 13s):
Well I think it really depends on how many people are going to be in your podcast. Is it you and you interviewing a guest one day at a time? Are you gonna have multiple co posts? Are you gonna be recording in person or are you gonna be recording recording remotely or are you gonna be doing both? And then defining all of that and figuring out what you truly need is gonna help you. One thing we learned kind of later on is our favorite is to report in person. Of course that is our go-to. The sound quality is much better. It’s always gonna be better than recording remotely no matter what anyone says because there’s also like a part of cohesion and a dynamic when you’re talking with each other and you get to really get into that conversation.

1 (19m 55s):
You don’t get that same dealing online, even If, you can see the other person in like a Zoom video, but sometimes that’s not feasible for the podcast that you’re running. So maybe you have to have people in and perhaps then a different type of equipment is best for you at that point. So you’re gonna want to, one, determine the equipment that you need. And then two, go ahead and buy the recording equipment and, and sometimes things are are sold in sets, like you might get a microphone and pop filter and all of that, but you may have to add onto a base product. You might really have like a really good, let’s say Yeti for example, but you still might wanna buy a pop filter even though it says it doesn’t need it or you still might want a different stand.

1 (20m 35s):
So you are gonna wanna add onto the the base of your recording equipment as well. And then beyond that, you’re gonna then need to set it all up.

2 (20m 42s):
When we first started our podcast, we did buy a set, it was a microphone, not a blue Yeti, although that would probably be the easiest way to get going by yourself. A blue Yeti, you can record us a group and it picks up sound really good, really, really, really good. So you’re gonna wanna kind of be in a soundproofed room as best as possible. But we didn’t start with a blue Yeti, we actually started with a combo packed from Amazon that was a microphone that could be XML or usb. We got a interface that mixed our sounds together. We had headphones that came with it and the tiniest fucking stand that was not a stand because we still had to put books on the table. And then the fan on top of it,

3 (21m 22s):
I almost forgot the days of stacking the books because the mic thing didn’t really lift at all. Oh my God, why

2 (21m 28s):
Did it take us so long to buy a new stand?

3 (21m 31s):
I do, I, I do not know. I do not know. That’s a really good question. But I remember thinking to myself, you know, I mean what is an audio mixer, right? Yeah, I mean If, you have multiple mics, you want it all to go into one platform place, right? You can’t really plug in or five microphones into a laptop if even if that’s where the audio file eventually is gonna go, right? So you need that audio mixer, then it funnels into the laptop, puts everything together. So I mean there’s all sorts of different options. But that goes to the point of what Brittanie was saying earlier too, is really identify, you know, is it just you? Is it you and a guest, multiple people? And from there that kind of really dictates the equipment that you need.

3 (22m 13s):
But this gives you kind of really all the steps to kind of figure that out. And more importantly, once you’re recording, where is it recording too? Figuring out your recording software. Our favorite to use for simplicity and ease is audacity. We love it. But even that comes with a learning curve on how to edit, put things together and even record because we spent so much time recording, what was it our first or second episode, not that aired, but what we were recording Hawaii first, were we not talking about Kauai and our trip? And it just, we spent a good hour talking about it, thinking our conversation was the best thing ever. Come to find out something went wrong and we actually didn’t even record it at

1 (22m 53s):
All. The look of our defeated basin and

2 (22m 56s):
We all, what did it look like?

1 (22m 58s):
We couldn’t use that audio because it did not exist. We did not save it correctly, was like, are we really gonna rotate this again? But we did. We took like a quick break. Think we got some food in us. So we’re like, all right, we could do this again. Guy, what

3 (23m 11s):
Happened? Does anyone remember what happened? Did we just not hit record or did we do something wrong? I don’t remember. All I remember is that moment of defeat, like Britney had said,

2 (23m 20s):
I don’t remember what exactly went wrong, but I do know every podcaster has a story about audio that they lost for one reason or another. Everyone gets defeated by it, but it will happen and you will survive it.

1 (23m 33s):
And once you get your equipment, make sure that you play with it a bit, you know, play with the settings, play with the speaker, play with the mic. If you’re using like a Yeti for example, see what picks up in the background because simple things like even rubbing your hands together could pick up really well and like throw the sound off. And in the guide we specifically talk about and give instructions on how to set up recording software for one host or for multiple hosts. and we outline and link every single equipment that we recommend for you to get. and we even dive into like the editing portion of it

3 (24m 7s):
As well. Yeah, I can’t put enough stress on the value of playing with your equipment before you record. I think I don’t even know how it took us a good month, month and a half to figure out why our headphones were not working when we put on our headphones. And so like we had a month of recording the stuff that we did where it was just in the mics and okay, yeah, we could hear ourselves talking but we weren’t getting that feedback in the headphones to know are we too close? Are we too far? And I could tell you this, when you podcast with some headphones on, there’s nothing quite like it in terms of just kind of the feel of it and even giving you more in the mode on it. And so it took us a long time to even figure out our headphones when we got that.

3 (24m 47s):
Which plugs to plug in our mics too. To this day we still have to go a couple over into the mixer when we’re recording on that for whatever reason it still won’t work. So there’ll always be something but you’ll make it happen. That is for sure.

2 (25m 1s):
When we launched our podcast, we had a specific day set in mind. So we had our trailer go up a couple weeks before so it could hit all of the distribution networks and be set up when we wanted to go live. That’s a really important step that we didn’t know about at first, but definitely important. And so when we launched, we actually launched with Bore episode and I think that’s really smart too. When you Launch If, you just put out one episode, it’s not really enough for a community to build a relationship with you, but If, you have four episodes that gives them about four-ish hours of content with you. They can form a bond if they like it, they’re most certainly going to subscribe and it gives you momentum right out of the gate.

1 (25m 42s):
And I think we’ve paired that really well with Social Media cuz we were teasing on our Social Media platform this many days until the podcast released and kind of teased some of the episodes that we were gonna have as well. And so you wanna pair those two things together, your trailer going out a few weeks beforehand and pairing that when you make your Social Media appearance.

2 (26m 1s):
So once you have your first episodes out there, it’s all good from there. Just kidding, it’s not. There’s still more work to come. So depending on how often your cadence is, if it’s once a week, twice a week or even if you’re a daily podcast, you have to schedule those recordings out, get a bunch of stuff. If you’re smart, you’ll batch a bunch of stuff before you Launch. So you’ll have stuff to continue coming out there. And then for every episode that goes live, you wanna continue building your community promoted on Social Media as you look to expand your podcast, reaching out to other podcasters to become guests on their show. It’s a really, really good way to get in front of new audiences and drive people back to your show ultimately. One other tip, and this is in our outros, this is Jamal’s famous line, is to subscribe, rate, and review.

2 (26m 47s):
And that’s really important too. I think for episode, give them a call to action, ask them to subscribe if they liked it, ask them to share it with a friend if they enjoyed that episode. Rate your podcast, review your podcast on Apple and now Spotify, you can leave reviews and those are super important to help your podcast show up in those organic rankings within those platforms, which is how we’ve gotten a ton of our new listeners.

3 (27m 9s):
Those are some really good tips and I feel like, you know, there’s just so much stuff to kind of really cover an audio format here, going over it without sounding like a book. And obviously we would all wanna do that to you guys, but it is given step by step in the podcast course here. And you know, as we kind of were just talking about recording and launching those episodes, you know one of the things that we just didn’t even mention and and a lot of people won’t think about is, okay, well now I have ’em recorded, where do I Launch them to? How do they go onto these things like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, all of that. And that is really finding your podcast host, right? Think of it if you’re technologically semi savvy, you know, like you could access any website from any computer, right?

3 (27m 53s):
But there is a host that hosts that website. It’s kind of really the same thing with podcasts. You need to find who is gonna be hosting your podcast. We’ve always talked about it. You’ve probably heard our ads for Anchor before. We use Anchor, we love Anchor, it’s free and a lot of other hosts will have different features for them. Some of them charge you to put on there, some do not. So really compare and see what is best for you. I mean if I’m sure If, you just Google podcasting host sites, you can figure out and do your research on what’s best for you. Cuz there is no like answer

2 (28m 26s):
And you don’t have to do your research because we have this in the podcast guide, a couple of good ones outside of Anchor that’s free and we use our Riverside FM and Lisbon, they are paid, but I do hear they have better dynamic advertising included with your episode. So If, you are a podcast that’s really trying to hit it hard out there. Become a popular most downloaded podcast within a short period of time. Maybe I would go that route because of the advertising options there. But again, don’t do it just for the money. The last section in the course, we focus on expanding your podcast. This isn’t necessary to get going by any means, but we wanted to include this because it’s kind of like a what’s next?

2 (29m 7s):
Once you have your show launched and you have some episodes out there, If, you’re not a guest based podcast, at some point you might wanna have guests on. So finding those guests or responding to inquiries that may come into you going on other podcasts to be guests like we said before. And I think some of the biggest questions with podcasts are often around advertising and income streams because you certainly can make money off podcasting. And for some of those podcasts that are a million downloads per episode, they’re making a really good income from it. So when you’re ready, and I think for us, we said a couple years, but it could be sooner or later when you’re ready, there’s income streams like the dynamic advertising that pays on a impression basis.

2 (29m 47s):
There are potentially Social Media brand partnerships that you could do. We’ve had a great, one of ours sponsored the podcast was Manscaped. We got some social promotion for them as well. Merch March is a good one. Everybody loves podcast merch, especially if there’s any inside jokes or things you say often that make them feel like they’re part of your community. Ugh, we love

1 (30m 8s):
Merch, but I feel like we got on the merch game a little later than we wanted to, but we got on it and we actually now have merch up on our Etsy and connected to our website. But it’s a really good way to also put yourself out there, put your podcast out there, create merchandise that connects to your listeners and for them. And there’s also other opportunities like affiliate links though, that are really big on Social, Media, If. you have an Amazon list and you are talking about specific topics or you’re recommending things. Those affiliate links from Amazon or any other company are great and a great way to get paid cuz you’re getting paid a commission based off of what’s purchased or just people clicking on the link and then buying within a certain period.

1 (30m 50s):
And then also other sponsorships are available out there as well. There’s a website called Pod Corn, and it’s a marketplace for podcasters to connect with brand and it’s a good place to start. You actually set your own price for what you want for making an ad for them and they can be a good negotiated and you put their ad back up on your podcast and it’s a great way for you to get paid as well. So there’s a lot of different opportunities and streams and honestly you want to mix and match those. You wanna be doing multiple things at once. You don’t wanna focus just on one thing. Like currently we are doing merchandise plus pod, plus the anchor sponsorships as well. So we have mul plus

2 (31m 30s):
Our own products, which we skipped. And a lot of podcasters take years to get there. And I think we jump straight into products, digital products, that is our trips. We turn them into detailed itineraries that people can download, downloadable planner templates, so things like that. But you can also develop physical products once you’ve grown your podcast and your brand to a certain level. Like I have ideas for the most perfect luggage, but I can’t tell you the features because proprietary

3 (32m 0s):
And there’s so much more detail in this podcast course for you guys. I mean, this is just some of the basics, talking about our experience, what you can expect in there, how it’s gonna help you. But did any of you ladies have any final thoughts or anything else you wanted to say about the course?

2 (32m 16s):
Well, if this episode inspired you or you’ve been thinking about a show and what we’re saying is resonating, then I would highly encourage you to go check it out on the site, download it, If you have questions, you can also reach out to us, DM us. We’re happy to help you even more than the forest. All right, Squad, thank you so much for tuning in to our episode this week. Keep the adventures going with us on Instagram and TikTok at Travel Squad Podcast,

1 (32m 38s):
And send us in your questions of the

3 (32m 40s):
Week. If, you found the information in this episode to be useful or If you thought we were just playing funny. Please be sure to share it with a friend that would enjoy it too. And as always, please subscribe, read, review our podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes

1 (32m 54s):
Stay tuned for next Week’s episode. We have the more amazing adventures and tips in store for you.

1 (33m 1s):
And bye squadies!