Starting a Business Podcast with No Experience and A Few Hundred Dollars // Local Marketing Insider #081

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Widewail is launching its first podcast: Feedback Fatigue. Its niche: residential real estate.

It’s been fun to make with my friend and coworker, Katie Ritter. We’ve learned a lot. I’d recommend it to any marketer because it’s an easy format to meet people in your industry and learn from their experience.

I had a hunch, but I’ve been surprised by how willing people we don’t know that well are to give an hour of their time to our show. 

We had a 92% acceptance rate on invites.

Today’s article overviews our production process. But first, some background on the show.

The premise: We all get a lot of feedback (reviews, surveys, emails, etc.). What do we do with it all? We’re talking to industry experts and identifying the playbooks that work today.

Feedback Fatigue, Widewail’s first podcast, draws from my recent experience; so feel free to copy what you like from our process. To date, I’m happy with its effectiveness, but there have been some bumps that I would like to note as well.

I love the podcast format. It’s intimate, it builds a more substantial connection with those aware of Widewail and interested in hearing what we’re about. It’s also convenient - listeners can keep up while driving to work.

For Katie and I personally, it’s been a great way to connect with more people in the industry and build our knowledge.

And perhaps what I like the most of all, it’s (reasonably) easy. As a “recovering introvert” with a mumbly voice, I was insecure about doing this project. Having Katie there with me made it much easier to be natural. It wasn’t too bad at all.

Let’s lay the groundwork. 

Here are some basics to focus on first.

Our affordable kit 

The Shure MV7 mic ($350) and recording/editing tools Descript + Squadcast ($30/month). We invested in the mics. A high-quality mic provides instant credibility, so if you have room to overinvest somewhere, do it here.

Map out your entire production process early 

Media production is humbling. You should expect problems. By pre-planning your production process in detail, you will at least give yourself a chance to stick to the landing, from guest recruitment and prep calls to recording, editing, and packaging final episodes, to publishing and promotion. Having a documented workflow helps avoid mistakes and identify appropriate timelines.

Work ahead, batch episodes, release in seasons 

We chose a season format to avoid a never-ending production schedule. By recording a whole season's worth of shows before you launch, you remove the time crunch that is particularly painful for any content project after the initial shine wears off. Doing so allows you to promote aggressively and maintain consistency. We are doing a 10-episode season, recorded primarily before launch. With this format, it's easy to get ahead and limit the scope of the work to a preferred time window, reducing conflict with other key projects.

Leverage co-hosts 

Host with a friend. Half the responsibility, half the questions, better product. Avoid putting too much pressure on a single beginner host early on. 

You need four pieces of equipment

You’ll need some gear. Here’s my recommendation for balancing cost with quality.

Microphone 

The Shure MV7 ($350) is a fantastic mid-tier XLR mic that will capture rich, clear audio while being relatively affordable for beginners. This version with the tripod is small and can travel with you to events.

Recording Software 

Squadcast ($20/mo by itself) is a decent recording solution. We use it because it was included with Descript for $30 total, which we were already paying for. You’ll need it to capture separate audio/video locally for reliable quality. We’ve had some minor recording bugs with Squadcast, commensurate with its low price. Riverside is an alternative.

Editing Software 

Descript ($30/mo) is “for podcasters.” It generates transcripts automatically and allows you to edit audio/video by editing the transcript text. It also has built-in AI tools to edit and format video clips for different aspect ratios. I describe it as “appropriately lightweight for social clips.” I’ve used Adobe Premiere in my past life. It's fantastic but demanding. For this project, it’s overkill, and as far as I'm aware, it does not do captions, but that could be outdated.

RSS Publishing Feed 

You’ll need to be able to connect the podcast networks (Apple, Spotify) with an RSS feed. We used Wistia, and it was easy. That said, Wistia offers a bunch of features related to video that drive the price up ($300/month). I’m guessing you can find a dedicated podcast RSS tool for less.

How we structured our production process

We set aside 2.5 months for pre-launch production, start to finish, which went by fast. Assume each guest will take one month between acceptance and recording. While most took less, some took longer. Your production process should be flexible enough to accommodate their schedule because you’re asking the guest for their time and insight for free. 

Each episode requires five steps:

1. Guest invite and confirmation
2. Pre-interview call: 30 minutes not for publication that identifies the best talk tracks and questions to ask. Recording is recommended in case you miss anything in your notes. We found a time to book the recording session at the end of each pre-interview call. 
3. Recording: Each recording is completed with Squadcast within a 1 hour window. Our typical episode length is 30-40 minutes.
4. Post-production: With a team of two, our production time is a few weeks. It’s a bit more relaxed on purpose because, by design, we don’t have an aggressive deadline to hit
5. Launch and social promotion.

Eventually, it may be possible to eliminate the pre-interview step. I’m not yet convinced that this is a good idea, and it hasn’t been a significant inconvenience, but it’s a possible time-saving option. There are a handful of efficient tools within Descript that will speed up editing time, which I’ll get into next.

Efficiently editing with Descript

Descript is not a professional editing tool, and that’s a good thing. At my last job, I lived in Adobe Premiere. It’s an incredible tool, but it's unnecessarily complex for this type of project. 

Video editing is notoriously time-consuming. Anything that can be done to limit the complexity is a good thing. In developing this show, I’ve tested a handful of Descript features that are great for speed.

But first, why Descript? Captions, primarily. The caption accuracy is exceptionally good. Not perfect, but one of the best options I’ve found. For every video file added, the audio is automatically transcribed and added to the project. This enables you to edit the video by editing the transcript. Pretty cool. It makes the tool much more accessible for beginners. It still has a timeline feature like a normal video editor, which I often use. 

Automatic Multicam

If you’ve recorded your podcast via Squadcast or Riverside, you will have separate video and audio files for each participant. This offers wonderful flexibility. Inevitably, any host or guest will spend a lot time staring blankly into the camera, listening. It’s awkward. 

Rather than have all participants on the screen the whole time, automatic multicam cuts between different speakers and combinations of participants. As a result, with one click of a button, it will cut up a 45-minute podcast ~250 times, alternating between speakers accurately. Huge time saver.

Templates

Editing clips for social media from scratch is time-consuming. With templates, we’ve built a preset look for 1, 2, or 3 speakers that match our show’s branding. To produce social media clips, we isolate the video section into a new project and then apply the template. Voila, social media is ready (plus cleaning up the caption text).

Digital Staging

At my last job, I spent hours waiting for videos to export. Only to be downloaded (taking up space on my hard drive), sent to my boss, and critiqued. Something would always need fixing. I’d fix it and wait for it to export again. 

No more. 

With Descript, a version is published to a private link, which can be shared internally or with guests. When it’s time to distribute clips or get approval on the podcast content, we just use the link. Only when it’s time for publishing, at the last moment, is downloading needed. 

My recommendation is to dial in all the steps with some test content to identify issues in a low-stakes environment before you begin editing your first episode. We tried to do this and still had some surprises. Don’t skip prep.

My two favorite non-obvious promotion tactics

Everyone will use the same basic promo strategies: podcast networks, social media, and websites. 

Those are table stakes. Start there. 

Here are two of my favorite non-obvious tactics. 

Leverage guest networks

For each episode, we produce at least three social media clips for our guests. 

We send them the video file and some starter AI copy. This does two important things. First, it gives you the best shot of having the episode promoted by the guest. 

Presumably, the guest has an online network specific to the industry that your podcast is designed for, so leverage the guest audience. Second, it provides the guest with some media they can use to elevate their online status, acting as a deliverable in exchange for their time.

Wistia Channels

This isn’t free, but it’s legit. Netflix for the rest of us. Check it:

Wistia acts as our RSS feed as well. When I publish a podcast episode via Wistia, it is automatically sent to a library of networks.

Push Play

I’m borderline embarrassed to admit how excited I was when I first saw our show on Apple Podcasts. It became real at that moment. I’d recommend it. 

I hope you get there too, and I hope this helps.

Good luck, Insiders.

Listen to Feedback Fatigue: Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Widewail.com

Thanks for reading. I hope this helps!

See you next month - Jake, Marketing @Widewail