(This is part 5 in a 6-part series on podcasts – if you’ve ever considered starting your own podcast, or know someone who has, let’s explore together!)
Are you sitting there thinking about what to talk about on your podcast? How do you come up with ideas consistently that will engage your listeners? How do you think through all of the many aspects of your business and cull them down to palatable content that listeners want to hear? This is the problem that many podcasts have. They don’t understand how to determine the right kind of content to share with their audience. They either have too many ideas and want to go too deep into specific topics, or they sit down and can’t think of anything to talk about in an episode.
Whether you have too much or too little to say about your area of expertise, here are a few ideas on how to generate and schedule content for your podcast episodes.
Brainstorm Ideas
First, take some time to brainstorm as many ideas as you can possibly think about related to your business. No matter how big or small of an idea, write it down! Spend about 45 minutes to an hour making lists of ideas. This process will usually start strong, but become more difficult as time goes on. The brainstorming process may be difficult, but by the end, you will surprise yourself with how many ideas you came up with.
Ask Around
If you are really having trouble coming up with ideas, try to leverage current customers or other people that you work with to help in the process. Getting a larger group of people involved in the process will help you to have a more well-rounded idea of how your podcast can serve your audience.
Market Research
Another great way to find ideas for your podcast is to do some market research. What are others in your industry talking about? Don’t simply look at other people to copy. Take what they are doing and build on the conversation. What can you add that hasn’t already been said? Remember to give credit where credit is due.
Content Grouping
After you have your big list of ideas, it’s now time to group them into groups based on similar content. You may find that some ideas were duplicated in the process. That’s ok! We are using this exercise to see if we can create a series of content based on a similar topic. Some of your ideas may not fit into a specific group. That’s ok! Keep a group of one-off content to use when needed.
Hitting the Bullseye
Hopefully, you already have your target client identified in your business. If not, it’s important to identify who it is that you are trying to target and what type of content interests them most. As your look at your target client, ask yourself these two questions:
What problems are you helping them solve?
What are they interested in talking about?
Use these two questions as the lens to view your content groups. Go back through your content brainstorm and identify groups that most answer these two questions. These are most likely the types of content that you need to start with in your podcast. The topics that you’ve come up with that aren’t very strong in helping your clients solve a problem or don’t interest them are probably not the best to use on your podcast. Remember, your podcast listener will only continue to listen to your podcast if the content is relevant to them and helps them to solve a problem.
How should I organize my podcast?
After you’ve done the work to brainstorm ideas and come up with topics for your podcast, it’s important to organize them in a logical way for your listeners.
Schedule in Advance
One of the most difficult ways to create a podcast is the run-and-gun approach. This means that you come up with an idea, research it, and record it as quickly as possible. This approach leads to burnout because you will always feel behind on your work and you are always working so hard to come up with something to say.
By utilizing the process outlined in this article, it will become much easier to create a schedule in advance for your podcast episodes. A schedule will give you more time to think through each episode. It may also give you the opportunity to batch record content which is helpful to those who outsource the editing of their content.
Consult a Calendar
Another great reason to schedule your content in advance is the calendar. Depending on your business, you might want to talk about certain topics at certain times of the year. Think about the holiday schedule, your sales cycle, and any other external event that may play into what type of content you produce and when you produce it.
Record a Series of Podcasts
Recording a series of podcasts is by far one of the best ways to create a rhythm in your podcast. It will help you, the podcaster, schedule your episodes in advance, have content ideas already outlined, and be more confident because you know what you are going to talk about for several episodes in a row. It will also help your listener learn more in depth about a specific topic. They will also see a regular rhythm in how the podcast operates.
There are so many different ways to approach content creation for podcasts. Hopefully, this article will help you as you determine what’s best for you as a podcaster. Either way, make sure to plan your content in advance and develop a brainstorming and content strategy. Remember to have fun and create awesome content that people enjoy!
Chris LaFay