Guide
What you need to launch a company podcast
A company podcast needs four things before recording starts: a format you can sustain, twenty episode titles written down, a fixed publishing rhythm, and a distribution plan built on short clips. Equipment is the easy part. Most company podcasts fail not because they sound bad but because they run out of things to say.
The test that predicts whether your podcast survives
Write twenty episode titles today, before anything is booked. Not topics - titles, specific enough that you could record them this week.
If the list reaches twenty comfortably, the format is wide enough. If it stalls at six, the format is too narrow and it is far cheaper to widen it now than after the intro music is made and the artwork is designed.
The shows that survive past episode ten have one thing in common: a subject the host would talk about anyway. Shows built purely as a marketing channel run out of material fast, because nobody wants to record episode twelve about their own product.
Choosing a format you can actually sustain
Four formats work for company podcasts. Pick on the basis of what you can produce every month for a year, not on what sounds most impressive.
- Guest interviews. The easiest to sustain because the guest brings the material, and the hardest to schedule. Book guests three ahead, always.
- Two hosts in conversation. Cheapest and most consistent, and it lives or dies on whether the two people are genuinely interesting together.
- Solo explainer episodes. Shortest to record and the most work to prepare - these need a script, not notes.
- Customer or project stories. The strongest for a business and the slowest, because every episode needs permission and preparation.
Publishing rhythm beats publishing frequency
Weekly is not better than monthly. Predictable is better than frequent. An audience that knows an episode arrives on the first Tuesday of every month will return; an audience that gets three episodes one week and nothing for two months will not.
Record in batches. Two or three episodes in one session costs far less per episode than three separate visits and builds a buffer, which is what protects the schedule when someone is travelling or a guest cancels.
The distribution plan is not optional
A podcast with no clips reaches the people who already know it exists. That is the whole audience, permanently.
Four to eight vertical clips per episode, captioned, is what carries the show to people who have never heard of you. This is also why recording video from episode one matters even if the show is primarily audio - you cannot cut a good clip from a waveform.
What a first season realistically requires
Planning figures for a company podcast publishing twice a month for six months.
| Item | What it takes | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Episode titles before launch | 20 written down | The single best predictor of survival |
| Recording sessions | 4 to 6 | Batch two to three episodes per session |
| Studio time per session | 2 to 4 hours | Book 90 minutes per 60 minute episode |
| Edit turnaround | 5 to 7 working days | Per episode, after the session |
| Clips per episode | 4 to 8 vertical | Captioned, cut from the finished episode |
| Hosting account | In your name | Not the studio's - insist on this |
| Buffer before launch | 3 episodes recorded | Protects the schedule from day one |
From idea to first published episode
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01
Write twenty episode titles
Before booking anything. If you cannot reach twenty, widen the format now.
-
02
Decide the format and the rhythm
Who hosts, how long, how often, and what the recurring segments are. Write it down; it is the reference for every future episode.
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03
Record three episodes before you launch
A buffer is what keeps a schedule alive through travel, illness and cancellations.
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04
Set up the hosting account in your name
Then submit the feed to Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This takes an afternoon and must not be delegated away from you.
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05
Publish the first three close together, then settle into the rhythm
New listeners who find episode one should have somewhere to go next.
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06
Cut clips from every episode and publish them between episodes
The clips are the marketing. The episode is the product.
Questions people ask about this
How often should a company podcast publish?
Whatever you can sustain for a year. Twice a month, published predictably, beats weekly for six weeks followed by silence. Batch recording is what makes a rhythm survivable.
How long should episodes be?
Long enough to say something and no longer. Twenty-five to forty-five minutes suits most company podcasts. Length should be a decision made in advance, not the result of how long the conversation happened to run.
Do we need a professional studio, or can we record in the office?
You can record in an office if the room is acoustically treated. Most are not, and reverb from a glass meeting room cannot be fixed in software. If you record in-house, spend on treating one room rather than on better microphones.
What equipment do we need to buy?
If you use a studio, nothing. If you record yourself: one microphone per speaker, an interface with separate channels, headphones for everyone, and acoustic treatment. The treatment matters more than the microphones.
How do we get guests?
Ask people you already know first, and record three episodes with friendly guests before approaching anyone you would be nervous to ask. Book three guests ahead at all times - scheduling, not recording, is what breaks podcast calendars.
How do we measure whether it is working?
Downloads matter less than most people think for a company podcast. Better signals: clips shared by people outside your company, guests who ask to come back, and sales conversations where the other person mentions the show.
If you want this done for you
We can run the production side while you talk
Studio, recording, multi-camera, editing and clips as one service in Amman - so the only thing you have to sustain is the conversation.