It’s no secret that podcasting can be a time-consuming process; you need to prepare, record, edit, and market your show, along with a dozen other to-dos in order to run a successful podcast. But you don’t need to burn yourself out over the process if you know how to streamline it!
Don’t Forget the 5 P’s
Thinking back our blog on how to create your own podcast, a successful podcast follows the 5 P’s:
- Plan
- Prepare
- Practice
- Publish
- Prosper
But the first step is the most important part for streamlining your creation process. There’s no getting around effort when creating a podcast, but you can use collaborative processes, tools, and other things to help you make it a less painful experience.
The first place to start is with planning. A good way to streamline your process and avoid burnout is to schedule time in your calendar for your podcast. Find times that work with your life and also give you the chance to take a well-deserved break! It’s also important to recognize that success lies more in the quality of your episodes rather than the quantity. You can consistently create high-quality episodes by planning them in advance, while also giving yourself room to breathe during the process.
Create a plan and schedule that works for you and your content. Some folks like to record all of their episodes at once, then spend the rest of the time editing them and releasing them on a consistent schedule. Of course, this method may not work for timely content, but there are plenty of things you can do to make it a more seamless experience.
Share the Love
Collaboration is an excellent tool for large projects like ongoing podcasts. If you run your podcast with a co-host or two, then it’s worth splitting up the responsibilities between you to make it easier for everyone involved. Rely on your strengths to figure out who should take on what task.
Even if you don’t have a co-host you can still delegate some of your tasks! If you have the budget, then investing in a professional freelancer to help you with certain aspects of your podcast is a good way to save yourself some time and energy.
Automate! It’s Great!
It’s almost impossible to avoid automation of some sort in this digital age. Why not use it to your advantage when creating a podcast?
There are plenty of tools out there that help with episode/script ideation, transcriptions, editing, social media publishing, and much more. Your hosting platform might even have a few useful tools to help streamline your process (hint, hint.)
If you’re hosting your podcast on RedCircle, then you have the opportunity to easily edit audio in to your show using Dynamic Insertion. At its simplest, dynamic insertion allows you to add audio anywhere in your podcast in real-time. This means that a listener might hear specific audio while tuning in to your podcast. The best part? You don’t need to do any editing! Just add a pin (an Insertion Point) to a timestamp in your episode and voilà, the assigned audio will play!
You can use RedCircle’s Dynamic Insertion to add an intro and/or outro to your episodes, make timely announcements across all episodes, run some A/B tests, and perhaps most enticing, insert ads directly into your podcast with little effort on your part (even less effort if using programmatic ads!)
As with most automation, be careful not to rely too much on it. It’s a great tool to help make the podcast process easier, but what makes podcasts great is the human touch!
No one will say that podcasting is easy (especially if it’s your full-time job) but there’s an abundance of tools available for amateurs and pros alike to make the process more efficient. Taking the time to plan ahead and know your limits, relying on others around you, and investing in specific tools can all help to alleviate the difficulties that can sometimes come with podcast production.
Looking to take your podcast to new heights? Why not sign up for RedCircle! We offer 7-day Free Trials for all of our plans so you can really explore the platform before deciding to commit.
