The Ultimate Podcast Planner
This worksheet is your guide to planning an engaging
and informative business podcast to support your
content strategy.
Podcasting has exploded in popularity over recent years, with major
platforms like Apple and Spotify making huge investments in audio
content to rival TV shows found on Netflix and Amazon.
The growth in podcasting presents increased commercial opportunities
to create your own content, build relationships and raise your profile.
Podcast listeners in the UK alone reached over 15m in 2020, with
forecasts predicting close to 20m listeners by 2024.
Further research by the BBC found that brand mentions in podcasts
deliver on average 16% higher engagement and 12% higher memory
encoding than the surrounding content. The research also found the
more intimate and conversational podcasts created an elevated state of
engagement for brand mentions, helping to generate lifts in awareness
by 89%, brand consideration by 57%, brand favourability by 24% and
purchase intent by 14%.
While great sounding audio is key to growing podcast listeners, so too is
the quality of your content. This guide will help you plan the content
needed for each episode and how you can promote your series to
maximise audience reach.
Using this Guide
This guide has been formatted as a Google Doc allowing you to fill in the content online and share it with
colleagues.
Google Workspace users: Save a copy of this document by going to File > Make a Copy and save this within your
own Google Drive.
Other users: Choose File > Download to save the template as a Word or PDF document.
Part 1 - Format and Audience
This section covers the overall style and themes for your podcast. For example, how podcasting will fit in with your
overall strategy, branding and audiences.
What will be the format of your show?
eg. solo, general ‘round table’ discussion, interview or panel discussion
What will the tone of the show be?
eg. professional, jovial, comedic
Who will be the lead host?
What is your target duration for each episode?
Think about your audience. Are they travelling? Can your content be spread across multiple episodes?
What will be your planned release date/frequency/schedule?
Eg. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly
Will anyone need to sign off on the content prior to publishing each episode?
What will be your core content theme? How does this link back to your other content output or content strategy?
What should be the primary audience takeaway?
What are the primary calls to action? What would you like your listeners to do next?
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Who are your target listeners?
Do you have a listener community to contribute to the show or support its promotion?
How can you enable this? Eg. Social media hashtag, Facebook group or Discord community
Is there anything else to consider?
Format
Podcasts all follow their own unique format, but you should create a consistent style and format for each episode in
your series. You should also avoid changing the branding or format of the show too frequently.
Intros (opening introduction) and outros (closing statements and call to action) can follow a number of formats
depending on the style of your show, core messages and your audience. These are typically:
● Spoken voiceover with background music
● Spoken intro with no background audio
● Music opens the episode with spoken voice to follow, either with or without background music
The outro is an opportunity to thank your guests for their time, provide contact details to allow listeners to follow up
with them and close with a call to action.
Intros and outros can be universal for each episode, reducing the time needed to record and edit your content.
However, this can also overlook topical conversation points or opinions which adds a little more variety to each
show.
What style/format will you use for the intro/outro in each episode?
Do you want to include any common sections to feature in each podcast episode?
Eg. Quick fire ‘get to know you’ questions for your guests
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Branding
Is there any audio branding required for the episode?
Eg. Selected music, audio jingles or segment breaks
Do audio elements exist or require creating?
Some audio elements may be sourced from royalty free sources online.
What style should the sonic effects/branding follow?
This will very much influence the feel of your show and dictate the pace.
Will you need any background effects?
Such as machinery, outdoor sounds to emphasise the impact of your conversation?
Do you have supporting images and assets to promote each show?
eg. guest profiles or thematic images
Video
Will the episode be filmed for video content?
Filming your podcast opens a number of additional things to consider, such as location, camera placement, lighting
and background. This goes beyond the scope of this planning guide, but you can contact us if you want to talk through
the implications of filming your podcast.
Project Management
Who will be responsible for researching content, sourcing guests and making bookings for recording sessions?
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Part 2a - Episode Planner
This section covers the specifics for each episode within your series. For example, the intro, outro, promotional
content and any additional requirements not covered in your overall series plan.
You can reuse this section for each podcast episode that makes up your series.
Episode title?
This can be a working title if you wish. Consider your primary conversation topic, outcomes from the show or your
guests.
Season/episode number?
Recording date?
Who will edit the recording?
What is the edit deadline to give time to prepare the show for publication?
Consider how you plan to promote the show or share the final episode with others for approval.
Episode description
This should include relevant links. These are permitted with the descriptions listed on platforms like Apple Podcasts
and Spotify and are especially important if you don’t have a show notes page to support the episode.
How does this episode fit into the current series (if relevant)?
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Is there a reason why this content is relevant now?
Eg. Topical news coverage, company events
Will there be a link to each podcast episode on your website with show notes? How/where will this be added?
This could be a blog entry, or a dedicated page for your podcast or mixed-media content. This is recommended to
support accessibility and your search engine visibility.
Is a transcript required?
How/who will create this? Online transcription services such as rev.com or sonix.ai can reduce your transcription
time, but still require a human edit.
What is your preferred URL for the podcast episode page, show notes or transcript?
Think about both your SEO value in this content and accessibility. You may also wish to use a short link for social
sharing.
If the episode becomes too long, how should the content be split?
Consider you may need to record a separate intro or outro to introduce your guests if your episode recording runs for
longer than expected.
Do you have a sponsor or advertising on the show to monetise your content?
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Part 2b - Episode Structure
Episode Introduction
Who will be the lead host?
Who are the guests and what are their roles?
Check any tricky pronunciation before introducing them.
What’s the theme of the podcast?
What will guests learn from the show?
How is the topic relevant to the audience?
How will the content influence the desired outcomes for you and your listeners?
Body Content
How will you segue from the introduction to the main content?
What will be the structure of the conversation?
Eg. Pre-agreed questions, free-flowing conversation, initial questions to start the conversation
Do you need break points to separate different parts of the conversation into segments, or will you naturally segue
between them?
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What are the key questions you’d like to ask your guests?
What signal will you give to your guests that you need to draw the discussion to a close?
Eg. Asking for their contact details
Do you need to mention/acknowledge any external references to sources you might quote in the show?
Eg. If discussing statistics or quoting from reports
Outro
The outro is an opportunity to thank your guests for their time, provide contact details to allow listeners to follow up
with them and close with a call to action.
Consider the following in your episode outro:
● Do you wish to provide a summary of the discussion in the outro?
● What are the links you’d like to share with your audience? Eg. Show notes
● When will the next episode be released?
● What will be the topic of the next episode?
● Where can people subscribe to the show for future episodes?
● How can people leave feedback for the show (eg. via social media or on email)
● How can listeners help you to promote the show? Eg. Encourage social sharing
● Ask for ratings and reviews?
● Thank your sponsors (where relevant)
What is the main call to action? What should listeners do to follow up from hearing the conversation?
Eg. Join an event, follow you on social media, download a whitepaper.
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Monetisation
Are there any sponsors to mention in this episode?
Is there an offer from the sponsor?
When should the sponsor feature be included in the audio?
Intro, Outro, Intermediate
Are there any ad swaps or reciprocal shout out opportunities with other related podcasts?
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Section 3 - Promotion
This section can relate to your overall series as well as individual episodes.
What distribution platform will the podcast be uploaded to?
eg. Anchor, Podcast.co, Libsyn
Which platforms will the podcast be shared across?
Eg. Spotify, Apple, Google etc.
Publication date(s)
We recommend long episodes can be split and released on different dates.
Is the episode to be launched to coincide with other events or activities?
Is a trailer required for the episode?
Eg. a short teaser to summarise the core elements of the conversation and encourage listens/subscribes.
What social media assets can be created?
eg. Audiograms, video trailers, quotable quotes or extracts from the audible content to share on social media.
Don’t forget to notify guest(s) of the release date and provide social sharers for them to promote the show!
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What are the additional assets needed to support the release of each episode?
eg. Guest photos, bio content, blog posts etc.
Is there a need for external PR distribution? If so, what sort of briefing will be required?
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Series Planner
Plan a series or season for your podcast below. A season or series may depend on how many episodes you plan to release. A season may typically be a
collection of 8-10 thematically linked episodes, but could run for longer. A series can also be serialised content, covering one larger topic over several
episodes.
Timescale? Eg. Every 2 weeks
Episode
Record date
Release date
Format/style
Lead host
Thematic link
Guests
Key Topics
Call to action(s)
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Where to go from here?
There are plenty of other elements to consider with your podcast. In particular these are where and
how you’ll record your show. Of course you’ll need to record in a space with as little background noise
as possible and limit the chance of people interrupting you.
Recording your Podcast
There are plenty of options to record your podcast depending on your equipment and whether your
guests are joining you remotely, or online.
We recommend the following platforms for recording your podcast with remote guests.
● Zoom or Teams
● Riverside.fm
● Squadcast.fm
● Zencastr
Publishing your Podcast
Having recorded and edited your podcast, you’ll need to upload it to a hosting service which will
distribute your content to major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, Spotify and others.
We can recommend:
● Anchor.fm (free, great to start with)
● Podcast.co (includes transcriptions, multiple shows, editing and promotional tools)
Need some help?
A Digital are experienced podcast producers and have the benefit of our own professional studio. For
more information, download our brochure for rates and packages.
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