Once I began podcasting six years in the past, every little thing was guide. 

It began with back-and-forth emails to potential friends to discover a recording time. Subsequent, I might report on-line with one of many few choices obtainable, use rudimentary enhancing software program to create the episode, make use of Photoshop to create graphics, and I by no means even thought-about video. 

Lastly, I might use one of many few podcast internet hosting platforms obtainable to publish and distribute the episode and manually followed-up with the episode visitor to allow them to realize it was stay. All in all, this course of took me anyplace from 5 to 10 hours per episode. 

Luckily, podcasting instruments and automation capabilities have come a good distance, making the method simpler and sooner. Since beginning my first podcast six years in the past, I’ve partnered with a pal and launched a podcast company. And after producing many shopper podcasts, we now have created a system constructed on nice instruments that streamline podcast creation.

Under, I’ll stroll by means of the instruments I take advantage of for podcast visitor administration, recording, manufacturing, enhancing, content material multiplication, and publication whereas additionally mentioning probably the most useful instrument in every class. If you wish to begin a podcast or enhance your podcast course of, this can aid you get began.

Apollo.io is a superb instrument for constructing lists of potential podcast friends and emailing them mechanically. Inside Apollo, I can create an inventory with standards like firm measurement, income, trade, and job title. So, after I needed to create a content material advertising podcast for my enterprise, I shortly constructed an inventory of those who had been the pinnacle of content material for corporations with income between $10 million and $100 million.

As soon as I’ve an inventory in Apollo, I can add folks from it into an electronic mail sequence inviting them to be on my podcast. I normally ship three emails (on day 1, day 4, and day 9) asking the particular person to be a visitor on my podcast.

Within the electronic mail sequence, you’ll be able to customise the e-mail to higher swimsuit the particular person you’re contacting. For instance, you’ll be able to have the e-mail mechanically use the particular person’s first title on the prime, in addition to the title of their firm. This type of customization helps fight that mass electronic mail feeling and can get higher outcomes.

Utilizing Apollo, I can schedule lots of of emails to be despatched out inside minutes, whereas earlier than, it could have taken not less than every week.

WordPress

When you invite somebody to be a visitor in your podcast, it’s essential to direct them to an internet site with extra details about the present. An excellent web site additionally is useful when advertising to listeners. We use WordPress for this as a result of it’s versatile and quick, with 1000’s of templates obtainable, making it straightforward to construct a stable web site shortly. 

I’m slightly biased towards this instrument as a result of I ran a WordPress company for 10 years. Nevertheless, many sources can be found should you get caught, together with annual WordPress conferences in most main cities, common WordPress Meetup teams, and tons of tutorials on YouTube.

Calendly

I wish to put aside a number of days every week to report podcast episodes within the early afternoon. Calendly is the very best instrument for permitting folks to e book time in your calendar. It integrates with all main calendar varieties and makes it straightforward for folks to e book a gathering with you.

For podcasting, I take advantage of Calendly to e book visitor recording instances. I can set it up so it solely provides recording slots on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 pm to 4 pm. Then, if one thing else goes on my calendar throughout that window, Calendly will see it and never provide that point.

When podcast friends use Calendly to e book their recording, they get a calendar invite that features all of the recording particulars, just like the hyperlink and different recording data. 

Calendly additionally has some primary electronic mail automation to thank your visitor for signing up and remind them about their recording time. Though these particular person duties could solely take me minutes, Calendly in the end saves me hours of labor.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a robust electronic mail advertising and automation instrument, however it could be overkill you probably have a podcast with few friends. However this is a superb choice you probably have a weekly present and have to automate your emails for a visitor follow-up. 

I take advantage of ActiveCampaign to observe up with podcast friends to allow them to know when the present goes stay and ship them advertising belongings to make use of earlier than the present. That is the way it works:

1. My workforce and I create the podcast episode and all advertising belongings.
2. The podcast episode is scheduled to go stay.
3. Within the ActiveCampaign contact, we replace the episode air date, hyperlink to the ultimate episode, and hyperlink to the advertising belongings we would like the visitor to make use of.
4. ActiveCampaign automates the remainder and:
    
   • Sends an electronic mail a number of days earlier than the present goes stay, letting the visitor know when will probably be stay, the place to seek out it, and the episode URL for advertising belongings they’ll use to put it up for sale on social media.
   • Sends an electronic mail the day the episode goes stay, asking the visitor to advertise the podcast episode.
   • Sends a thanks electronic mail a number of days after the episode went stay.
   • Sends one other thanks electronic mail 30 days after the episode went stay, asking the visitor to put it up for sale once more.

The great factor about utilizing Zoom to report a podcast episode is that everybody is already accustomed to it. You may get fairly a bit accomplished with the free model too. However remember the fact that with the free model, you might be restricted to a 40-minute assembly, so you’ll have to maintain your recording time below that. 

The draw back of this platform is that it compresses audio information, so the standard is inferior to different platforms. In the event you use Zoom, select to report domestically, as that provides you with the highest quality recordings. Additionally, make sure that to allow the setting to report every visitor individually.

Riverside.fm

My company, Edgewise.Media, makes use of Riverside.fm for our podcasts and our shoppers. Riverside works contained in the browser, so there isn’t any software program for anybody to obtain. It additionally captures the best attainable high quality audio and video. 

Riverside has echo cancellation to make sure the highest quality audio from you and your visitor. It additionally means that you can play your intro and outro audio proper as you might be recording, lowering the necessity for enhancing later. 

Riverwise doesn’t help digital backgrounds, which I take into account a function. I imagine audiences choose to see folks of their pure areas, and most digital backgrounds look odd, with the particular person having utterly totally different lighting than the background. Riverside makes recording high quality audio and video straightforward for you and the visitor. 

Dropbox Replay means that you can watch a video and make feedback at particular time limits in that video. The feedback then all present up on the facet of the video, and the editor can shortly click on from one remark to a different to see what the producer stated about that particular section within the recording. I normally go away feedback when my visitor makes an important level, and I wish to guarantee my editor cuts out that half so we are able to apply it to social media.

Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper is a word-processing instrument much like Google Docs and Microsoft Phrase. We like it due to its seamless integration into the Dropbox expertise. It is a light-weight instrument that permits fast doc creation with out a lot software program bloat. 

I take advantage of Dropbox Paper to create episode guides that put together the podcast visitor and host for the recording. It additionally helps feedback, so we are able to collaborate and speak by means of the finer factors of the doc.

At Edgewise.Media, we love Reaper for a number of causes. You’ll be able to simply edit audio and video with this instrument, plus it has quite a lot of plugins obtainable, making it much more useful   (just like the one we use for white noise discount, which works like magic). Reaper has an enormous group supporting it with blogs, YouTube tutorials, and extra, serving to you be taught to make use of it extra successfully. And contemplating how complete it’s, it’s very inexpensive.

Audacity

Once I began my first podcast six years in the past, we edited it in Audacity. Audacity is a free, open-source audio enhancing instrument. It has an enormous group supporting it, with many YouTube movies and different on-line sources. The largest draw back to Audacity is that it seems like a instrument from the 90s and would not edit video.

For one shopper, we turned a single podcast episode into 5,387 phrases for website positioning, seven social graphics, six brief movies, three audiograms, and one full-length video.

Supply: Edgewise.Media

Canva

What used to take me hours in different packages will be accomplished in minutes with Canva. It’s a improbable instrument for creating lovely designs with ease. 

We use Canva to create podcast episode graphics, similar to title graphics and pull quotes. Plus, Canva has some respectable video enhancing capabilities with some nice animation templates. So, we additionally use it to create brief movies for social media.

Headliner

Headliner is a superb instrument for creating audiograms, that are brief movies that normally function a nonetheless picture with a transferring waveform and captions accompanying the audio. Headliner makes the creation of audiograms straightforward. It has starter templates, varied waveform codecs, and lots of choices to create one thing to fit your wants.

To make your podcast obtainable to the world, you’ll have to host, publish, and distribute every episode. Many companies provide this, most of that are very comparable. Under are a number of we now have used and some issues that make them totally different.

• Anchor is owned by Spotify, so it has some distinctive integrations that different platforms will not have. For instance, you’ll be able to play music inside your episode, and in the event that they hear on Spotify, it performs by means of every music. This platform can also be free, which is at all times a plus.
• Megaphone can also be owned by Spotify and is good for bigger podcasts as a result of it has subtle advert insertion serving to you to monetize your present higher.
• Captivate has deep integrations with WordPress. While you publish a present right here, you’ll be able to have it mechanically present up in your WordPress website. Utilizing this instrument, you may also publish the podcast episode instantly out of your WordPress website.

Prepared? This is what’s subsequent

Taking a podcast episode from concept to publication took me over 10 hours. Immediately, it takes two. 

With the instruments on this article and others like them, you’ll be able to create a podcast extra simply than you assume. You simply have to get accustomed to the instruments and construct a system that can be just right for you. Then, run that system and produce extra podcasts and content material than ever earlier than.

This publish is a part of G2’s Trade Insights collection. The views and opinions expressed are these of the writer and don’t essentially replicate the official stance of G2 or its employees.