Time: What Is a Typical Commitment for Podcast Production?
One of the first things our prospective corporate communications clients ask us is how much time they’re going to have to devote to each podcast episode. Though we take many many hours of production time off your hands, each podcast episode will require a time commitment on your part. How long depends on a few factors.
How much time you need to devote to one podcast episode
Your podcast time commitment will be devoted to:
Brainstorming show ideas and topics
Coordinating schedules and booking guests
Crafting the conversation (aka creating podcast interview questions)
Getting approval on the transcript and final audio
Depending on how many episodes you’re planning to record every month, this could easily be a full-time job for one person on your marketing/communications team. For most of our clients, it’s a part-time task handled by one marketing person.
If you’re going to bring in outside guests, finding guests for each episode may be time-consuming. You need someone who is knowledgeable, eloquent, and who will show your brand and organization in a good light. (Trust me, that last point is not always guaranteed!)
The biggest lift for our clients is coordinating the schedules of their internal team with the guest’s calendar. It may take a week of back-and-forth emails to understand calendar availability. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to find a time that works for everyone within a week or two. You might be booking the recording two, three, or more weeks down the road.
Show ideas and topics may also take a while to iron out. Not all ideas might pass muster, so there will be back and forth with brainstorming and editing. Or, you might be able to knock this out in one staff meeting.
All ideas need to be on brand, but be careful of recording and releasing the exact same topic in back-to-back episodes (unless your podcast is devoted to one topic).
Finally, approval. Our clients need to get approval on the transcript we provide after the recording and on the final audio before it is released. Depending on how many people need to be involved and how busy they are, this could go quickly or involve a lot of back and forth and/or sending reminders.
To give you an idea of how this could look in real life, here’s what one of our clients did:
In May and June, they started planning for a 10-episode series to be released weekly in the fall. They spent around a month planning: brainstorming ideas and topics, coordinating schedules, and booking guests. In July, they started recording episodes. When September arrived, we were ready to release the first episode with two to three more queued up and ready to go.
How much time we spend on one of your podcast episodes
First, we need to know your schedule! We ask our clients to give us two weeks notice to book the podcast recording.
Between the time you tell us and the podcast recording date, we order headsets to be delivered to your guests (we like to leave plenty of time for any delivery delays or mishaps). We may also schedule two calls:
If your guest hasn’t appeared on a podcast before, we schedule a prep call to discuss how the process will work and answer their questions.
Once your guest has their headset, we will schedule a test call to make sure they can connect to the platform we use for recording. We have occasionally run into issues with heavy firewalls or VPNs that block guests from connecting. If they do get blocked, their IT team may get involved, or we may figure out a workaround, like using their personal computer (which could involve their legal team).
On recording day, we schedule an hour to record plus an additional 15 minutes for everyone to get settled and ready to go.
Once the recording is complete, we can turn around a transcript in 24 - 48 hours. And in a perfect world, recording to editing to launch could take just three days. But it never goes that fast (primarily due to approvals).
If this is the first episode of a brand new podcast, the feed needs two to three days to fully sync with distribution platforms. (To learn more about launching a podcast, check out our Ultimate Guide to Corporate Communications Podcasts.)
Our production expertise saves you days, weeks, and even months. Clients who have tried to DIY podcast production have come to us frustrated after spending several months on producing one episode (of questionable quality). This explains why at least 2.5 million podcasts were flagged inactive in 2023 - they stopped publishing episodes. Production is a lot of work!
Save time and ensure high quality episodes when you work with a podcast production expert
Podcasting doesn’t have to be hard or time-consuming. Tell us what you envision for your corporate communications podcast, and we will let you know a realistic time budget - along with how we will make the process as easy as possible for you. Reach out today!