5 min read

Launching a podcast

Launching a podcast
Photo by Jukka Aalho / Unsplash

I used to do a podcast about Sales & Marketing for the past two years. (you can check those episodes from here if interested!).

What I learned during that time was that there are a lot of benefits to doing a podcast.

Therefore it was quite a no-brainer to start one when starting TalentBee.

Here are the top reasons I've noticed when doing a podcast:

  1. It builds your company brand & personal brand.
  2. I learn so much about the topics I do episodes with guests.
  3. You develop great networks with the people you invite to the show.
  4. The podcast works for selling: You can invite people you want to sell to & you will get some leads as well.
  5. You keep up with what's going on in the market.
  6. It helps you with your employer branding.

And much more.

I failed in quite a few things when I did my last podcast, and now I have a chance to use those learnings to hopefully succeed even better at this time.

Here are the most important parts when planning & executing a podcast:

"It all starts from the target audience."

Decide who your listener is. You can't do it for everyone. This is quite hard and something I did wrong the first time. I tried to do podcasts for a lot of people. This time I wanted to do things differently.

My target audience is someone working in a SaaS company responsible for Talent Acquisition. That can still be quite many different profiles. It might be the founder, CTO, VP of Sales, HR, or recruiter doing recruitments.

They still all have the same problem. Finding the right talent for their SaaS company is a growth bottleneck for them, and they want to eliminate that bottleneck. I try my best to solve that problem by inviting guests who have been in their shoes and solved those same problems.

I would also recommend that the person you are doing your podcast for is close to your Ideal-Customer-Profile (or Ideal-Candidate-Profile) to ensure those are aligned.

Choose the topics to talk about

In my past podcast, I talked about Sales & Marketing. A typical discussion was how company X does marketing or what content marketing is etc. The problem was that most of my episodes were too high-level. People want to get deep.

That's why I've decided that in all of my episodes, I will try to pick up a specific topic inside of Talent Acquisition, stick to it, and go deep.

Well, how did you come up with great topics? I have three tips that I've used:

  1. Do customer research. When talking with your current customers or potential customers, listen to what kind of problems they are having. Use those problems as a topic. E.g., if they share that their challenge is getting good-quality applications --> Find someone who has had that same problem and has solved it and invite them to share how they did that.
  2. Ask your guests: "The topic should be around Talent Acquisition. What is a niche inside that you know extremely well and you have great stories & learnings to share?" --> You will get great answers to this.
  3. Ask all of your guests & listeners: What would be a topic that you would listen to an episode about?

How to get guests to join & who should you invite?

I've had many questions in the past: "How did you get Peep Laja or Neil Patel to join your podcast?". Easy. Just ask (many times).

But before hopping into my process of contacting potential guests, let's go through who you should invite.

I typically choose the guest based on a few different things:

  1. Who would be a person who would have super valuable learnings?
  2. Who would be a person who has a big following on social and would bring a lot of new audience to the podcast?
  3. What would be a company that would bring authority to the podcast?
  4. Ask your guests --> Who is someone you know that should join this podcast & can you do an intro?
"Getting people in is like sales"

I always start by creating a list of potential guests I want to join the podcast. Then put that list to Excel, HubSpot, or Monday, etc.

Then you start a sequence.

Step 1: Send a LinkedIn connection request with a short message. Something like this: "Been seeing your content around Talent Acquisition. Great insights. I'm launching a podcast about how SaaS companies do Talent Acquisition. Can I share a bit more?"

You get around a 70% replay rate to that message, and basically, all of them are: "Sure, tell me more."

Step 2: Then you pitch the idea to them. I typically do a personal video for that person. Just praise them, why I want them to join & share the names of a few other guests (best if I can see we have a mutual connection on LinkedIn with some of my past guests).

Step 3: They typically say yes & we schedule the episode.

If those steps don't work, then it's just follow-up after follow-up. Typically I comment on their LinkedIn post, send them emails, and might give them a follow/dm on Instagram. Some take more time than others, but eventually, you will get noticed.

Make it super easy for guests to join

I try to make it super easy for guests to join. The easier you make it, the more likely they are also referring to their friends!

Here is what I do when they say yes:

Step 1: Send a calendar and invite to ensure it's in the calendar. I've also tested the Calendly link where they can book a suitable time, but the direct calendar invite works better.

Step 2: Prepare questions for them & send them to them before the episode for comment.

Step 3: Add simple instructions to guests regarding mic & camera and all that stuff (I do the recording remotely.)

Want to see my template for questions & instructions? You can access it here!

Recording & editing the episode

I've tried different software for this. Nowadays, I use Riverside. It's my favorite. If you want to try it out, check it out from here (Yes, this is an affiliate link, so I will get a nice reward if you decide to use it!)

I also record both the voice & video, so I can utilize both.

You will also get a transcript of the episode from Riverside, which you can utilize as a blog post or shorter posts on social. They, of course, need some editing.

You can do basic edits inside of Riverside, but I prefer to make some other improvements as well.

My video/podcast guy helps me with this. I send him the materials, and I get:

  1. Edited podcast episode
  2. 3-5 short videos from the episode that I can use on TikTok, LinkedIn & Instagram.

Ps. If you need that kind of help, just send me a message, and I will do an intro. I can highly recommend him.

Content is king. Distribution is the Queen.

This is the part that most fail to do. Most podcasters just publish the episode and wait for listeners to come in.

Here's my way of ensuring the podcast will get listeners & the audience is growing.

Step 1: Use the short clips on social to drive traffic for the podcast episode. (Both company & personal profiles).

Step 2: Do a post on social every time you publish a new episode, share the agenda & tell people to listen.

Step 3: Use your guest (the most important!). Make it super easy for your guest to share the stuff on their social. Write a ready-made post for them, including all the needed graphics. And ask them to post it. It's ok to follow up with them if they didn't do it the first time.

I have one small request for you: Go check out the podcast from here & make sure to subscribe!