Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, now we're going to tell you how we did it, including:
Let's dive in, starting off with our awesome video trailer.
Once we know our business objective, audience, and budget we set out to put together a show concept that will resonate with our audience and help us hit our goals.
To do that, we needed to know what our audience is listening to today.
According to Chartable, there are over 8,334 branded podcasts on Apple Podcasts.
While we couldn't audit all of them (we're only human), we did want to understand the tactics used by the top podcasts in the business category. So, we did an audit.
We evaluated 20 high-performing business podcasts and gained five insights.
This audit gave us the context to define our strategy.
How would our show be better and different?
These became our editorial guidelines for the rest of the show.
Next, we set our show format.
There are a few common podcast formats that have the ability to grow an audience.
After exploring various formats, we went with a hybrid format -- Chat Cast + Interview.
Bringing together the energy of a chat cast with the expertise of an interview.
Sample Episode topic: Why Is Every Company Suddenly A Media Company |
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Segment 1: The Context |
In the opening segment, our co-hosts will provide context and talk through some fun facts and stats about the episode topic Ex.) HubSpot acquired The Hustle |
Segment 2: The Debate / Discuss |
In this segment, we'll give our hosts a series of questions on the topic and questions we are featuring for some off-the-cuff opinions on both. Ex.) Should more SaaS companies follow suit? What happens to media companies if all companies are media companies? |
Segment 3: The Interview |
In this segment, we'll bring on the business leader of the company/topic we are discussing to get the real story behind the decision and the other decisions that have made them successful. Ex.) Kipp Bodnar about the Hustle Acquisition |
Finally, we had to figure out how we were going to make this thing.
To build a high-quality podcast, you need to invest in a team.
There are countless things that need to happen in the making of a show. We have broken down those responsibilities into eight core roles, but there are often teams of much more, and there are also teams of much less who are doing 3-4 jobs each:
This list does not include the folks involved outside of podcast creation, including the creative team involved with making promotional assets, the person responsible for the communication plan of the show, and more.
Another layer of difficulty here is the decision of whether to build a team in-house or search for a podcast production agency that can fill these roles for you.
Resourcing was one of the biggest challenges in the creation of The Shake Up. We'll let you behind the scenes on some of our decisions:
We were also lucky enough to have a Senior Producer, Matthew Brown, on staff, who has won awards for previous shows like The Growth Show.
So if you're looking to invest in a team to create podcasts, use this list as a starting point to gain an understanding of the different moving parts, and carefully consider the decision of hiring for these roles, or bringing in some external help.
But the list is just a starting point, and if there's anything that we can recommend about podcast creation, it's the quote from Lao Tzu, “There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” And your opponent, in this case, is the amount of work involved in creating a show.
Invest in the resources to do it right, and understand that it takes a village.
Podcasts aren't a new medium, but they are having a moment.
Will podcast marketing become as standard as content marketing? Will having a podcast become as ubiquitous as having a blog?
Time will tell, but it's clear that this is the “wave” that many podcasters predicted.
At HubSpot, we have chosen to invest heavily in media going forward, and podcasts are a large part of that strategy. The HubSpot Podcast Network and The Shake Up are the first parts of that.
If, after reading this, you choose to invest in building one, here is a checklist you should follow:
We are incredibly proud of the hard work that went into launching The Shake Up. Listen to it here on your favorite podcast platform.
Originally published Aug 3, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated August 13 2021