This post is part of a series titled How to start a podcast in 2025. If you’ve missed any of the posts, check back here.
Starting a podcast can feel overwhelming, but with the right approach, it’s completely doable. To wrap up my beginner’s guide to podcasting in 2025, here are five essential tips to help you launch and grow your podcast successfully, pretty much summing up the past five posts.
Given my main focus is audio, the series and these tips have been written with audio podcasts in mind but can be just as easily applied to video podcasts.
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1. Start with a clear concept
Your podcast needs a strong foundation and the key to that is in having a clear concept. A clear topic and format make it easier to stay consistent and attract listeners. For Ken On Food, my subject matter is the Irish food scene, and for the Food In 5 Minutes series in particular, it’s about delivering five food stories in five minutes or less-ish. Concept, format.
With almost 170 weekly episodes in the bag, The Football Manager Football Show was a podcast dedicated entirely to the video game Football Manager.
If you’re considering starting a health and wellness podcast, why not ‘niche down’ and focus on a topic like mental health tips for busy professionals. It gives you, and your listeners, clarity and helps you stand out and target the right audience.
2. Invest in good audio quality
Listeners will forgive a lot, but bad audio isn’t one of them. You don’t need a professional studio, but a decent microphone and a quiet space make a huge difference – take it from a broadcast engineer with over 20 years of experience in this space.
COVID was a grand for Zoom calls and lower quality audio when everything had to be done remotely, but that had a limited shelf-life too. If you’ve got the budget for hardware and software, invest well and invest wisely.
If budget is lacking, pick your recording space wisely. You’d be surprised the difference in audio you can capture if your space has a carpeted floor or a wooden floor, lower ceilings or higher ceilings, if you’re indoors or outdoors, whether your microphone is near or far away.
Put yourself in the listeners shoes – would you listen to your recording? Your content may be amazing, but poor quality audio can be an immediate turn-off, not just for one episode, but your entire podcast.
3. Plan Before You Record
Even if your podcast is casual, a little preparation prevents rambling and helps keep your episodes engaging. I’ve written plenty about this in the past, including why I think your podcast needs a running order.
Do yourself a favour before you hit record and draft an outline of your episode, even in bullet point format. You wouldn’t jump in the car to get from Wexford to Donegal and simply hope you reach your far-flung destination (it’s about a four hour drive too, by the way). You’ll have looked at a route, followed sign posts or a map of some description, taking you from door to door.
After a while, you’ll be doing it from memory. The same applies to podcasting. Make a plan, draft your bullet points, keep your questions in mind to guide conversations and go from there.
4. Be Consistent with Your Release Schedule
This is the big one and can result in the life or death of a podcast. Building an audience takes time, and consistency is key in this case. Whether it’s weekly, biweekly, or monthly, stick to a schedule so listeners know when to expect new episodes.
To help with this when you’re getting ready to launch your podcast, it can really help to have a few episodes ‘in the bag’ so that you’re already ahead of yourself for your release schedule.
5. Promote Your Podcast Effectively
The downside to all this wonderful podcast work is that recording is only half the job—getting people to listen is just as important. Where you can, leverage social media, collaborations, and word of mouth to grow your audience.
Tools like Headliner are great for sharing short audio clips to social platforms, or if you’re camera savvy, something like Opus can be a great help in preparing short video clips for socials.
What about you – any tips you’d like to suggest? Sound off in the comments below.
This post is part of a series titled How to start a podcast in 2025. If you’ve missed any of the posts, check back here.
