How Much Effort Goes Into Starting a Podcast?

Hosting your own podcast offers many benefits that include establishing yourself or your brand as a thought leader, drumming up positive attention for your business and creating content you can promote on your website, blog and social media channels.

But is the effort that starting a podcast requires worth the time and money investment?

To answer this question adequately, we need to address how much time and money you can expect to invest.

The Time It Takes

There is no universal answer to the question of how much time it takes to start a podcast. Some people painstakingly pore over every minute detail again and again. For these people, it may take weeks to produce one episode. Other people may fly through the process, content to leave some details to chance. Creating a podcast would obviously go much faster for these people.

While the amount of time can vary, there are some elements that are common across working styles.

• Planning
• Setting up equipment and technology
• Editing
• Production
• Publishing

Enlisting the services of experienced podcast producers is a great way to save time. Plus, you can then focus on the content itself and presenting it well, letting your production partner take care of the technical aspects. They will handle editing and publishing the episodes, leaving you time to tackle your other responsibilities.

How Much Money It Costs

As with the time spent, the expenditures required to start your own podcast depend on how much you are willing to invest in it. First, it is important to understand which pieces are necessary to host and run a podcast:

• Equipment – microphones and recorders
• Software – editing packages and media hosting
• Cover art – graphic design that accurately represents the podcast
• Music – to set the right mood
• FX – to enhance the program

You can keep your podcast basic and save money at first in several ways. For example, by opting for homemade cover art over a professionally designed cover and skipping advanced software to record the podcast on your own computer. By taking the simple route in the beginning, you can feel out podcasting to see if it delivers the ROI you need.

If you discover that podcasting is profitable and/or meets your other goals, you can then ramp up the money you allocate to it accordingly. Just remember that the more sophisticated you get, and the more pieces you add, the higher costs will rise. But these costs are absolutely worth the advantages that hosting a podcast gives you.

Again, hiring podcast experts to assist you can also prove extremely valuable. While it does require paying their fees, people in this business know exactly how to help you succeed!