How To Produce A Podcast On Your Business’ Schedule

No, you don't have to release an episode of your business’ podcast each and every week. Or every two weeks. Or even every month.

The myth of “publish or die!” is an ad populum fallacy. Most podcasts are made by hobbyists. Most of those hobbyists are “playing at radio” with their podcast. Or they're inspired by traditional media -- television, newspaper, magazines - that issues new content on a consistent (often weekly) basis. Others were bloggers before they were podcasters,  perhaps published their own newsletter. They’ve gotten used to -- and popularized -- the notion of creating and publishing content for their audience on a regular basis.

That might make sense for a hobbyist. But does it make sense for your business?

Unless you're in the business of publishing, you're going to find that a weekly or even a fortnightly podcast publishing cadence is hard to sustain. If the schedule you set for your podcast episodes doesn't neatly fit into your business' work schedule… expect difficulties meeting your arbitrarily established podcast publishing deadlines.

But even if (as is likely) your business is not built around pushing content each and every week, you can still have a podcast. And a successful one at that!

You need to break out of the mindset of “let's do whatever the other podcasts are doing” and refocus on “let's do what's right for our business.”

Here are three different methods that might fit better in with the way you do business. And as a bonus,  I'm going to share with you three amazing benefits you'll get when you follow a non-traditional podcast episode publishing cadence for your business-focused or brand-based podcast.

Event-based

Is there an event on your business’ yearly calendar that you or your employees are going to either attend? Or maybe your business is putting on your own event? And even if you aren’t planning on attending, perhaps there's an event that is incredibly popular within your industry, attended by potential customers, existing clients, and even your competitors

If that's the case, you can build a series of podcast episodes that are catered to that pending event. You can produce a series of podcast episodes that culminate either on the day of that event or perhaps just before that event … even a great recap of the event once it’s over. It’s that single event that becomes the focus of your podcast. Doing this can cement your business or brand identity as a (if not the) thought-leader for the event and, by way of association, a thought-leader for the topic of the event.

Cycle-based

Think “seasons”. As in, “the seasons”, like Fall or Spring. Now think about the seasons your business or industry goes through on an annual basis. Can you build a series of podcast episodes that coincide with that business cycle?

When are people purchasing equipment? When are they making decisions about business planning? When does the news cycle really ramp up within your industry? What are the natural cycles your industry goes through on a regular basis? Do you have a low season that you can do some demand shaping around? Do you have a high season that you need to take advantage of?

Take inspiration from the way you’ve planned your business for the entire year and tailor your podcast episodes -- production and release -- to that.

Content-based

Even though you are likely not in the business of publishing like a newspaper or a magazine, there may be some things that you are in fact publishing.

We talked about making podcast episodes more like white papers on yesterday's episode. If you’re publishing actual white papers periodically, you can make podcast episodes that support those publications. Maybe one of your teams is producing a series of videos. Great! Build podcast episodes around those, maybe with some outtakes or with a “the making of” or “director's cut” type content.

When you look, you might find that your business is already producing content that's not in podcast form, but you can make podcast episodes to support that content to help it go even further.

There are some tangible benefits to non-traditional podcast publishing that work great for your business. Things like:

1. It makes marketing is so much easier.
   It's easier to build a marketing campaign around a less-frequent publishing cadence. It's hard to come up with marketing content every single week for a podcast the publishes a new episode every single week. It's fatigue, and it’s felt by you, your marketing team, and even for your listeners.
2. You’ll have time for serious promotion.
   You can plan out your promotions much better when you break the weekly habit. Promotion of individual elements -- episodes -- seems fresher and more important when it’s not something you have to do because a new episode is dropping on Friday.
3. It allows for easy content repurposing.
   Let's face it: There's a limit on the number of places where re-sharing a weekly podcast episode makes sense. The same “racing against the clock” problems that fatigues marketers and promoters also fatigues those who are trying to repackage and repurpose your content.

As you can see, your business has many more (and even better) options as to when to publish content than conventional podcasting wisdom would have you believe.

There's more to podcasting for businesses and for brands than what bubbles to the top of the larger podcasting landscape.

I'd love to help you think through the right podcast publishing approach for your business. If the info above helped you, fantastic! But if you need personalized help making it happen, this is what we do at Simpler Media Productions. Get in touch with me at evo@podcastlaunch.pro or visit PodcastLaunch.pro to see a list of all the services we’re currently providing our clients.

I'll be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications. Cheers!