How To Launch Your Podcast for $200
Now that I’ve got my podcast up and running, I’ve had a few friends and colleagues as me how I did it. The entire process was actually pretty simple. I only spent $200 to get the essential equipment, which I’ll lay out for you below. But, I did spent substantial time researching the best methods, technology, and distribution systems to use.
Instead of spending as much time as I did in the planning and research phase, you can use this template to launch your podcast quickly and with very minimal investment.
Your $200 Podcast Investment in 3 Simple Purchases
The 3 purchases I made have been my only investment into the podcast. You could, of course, hire a podcast production company or freelancer to edit, upload and distribute your podcast for you, if you don’t have a lot of time. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got more time than money right now, here’s where you start.
1. Blue Yeti Microphone for Stellar Audio Quality
The first and most important purchase for your podcast is a high-quality microphone. I purchased the Blue Yeti USB microphone, which you can find on Amazon. These microphones often go on sale online, so keep your eyes open for that. The microphone cost $120, and it was well worth the money.
2. ecamm Call Recorder for Skype Interviews
You don’t want to limit yourself to local podcast guests, so you’ll need a way to record interviews online. There are many ways to do this, including Zoom, Skype and Zencastr, but the easiest one is to purchase ecamm Call Recorder (if you have a Mac like me), and it automatically records your Skype calls as an audio file. It’s a one time purchase of $40 US (or $54 Canadian).
3. libsyn Monthly Fee for Podcast Distribution
The benefit of using a service like libsyn is that it creates your RSS feed for you, so that you can get your podcast approved for iTunes without needing to learn how to code all of this into your website. I’m a tech-savvy person and could have done this, but I just didn’t want to spend that much time on one task. Additionally, libsyn schedules my podcasts, and pushes the content to iTunes, Spotify, and provides a player for my website. It costs me $20 US per month ($27 Canadian). The website also has tons of valuable how-to videos to help you get started.
Give yourself a day to get your first episode uploaded. It took me a full day to figure out how to:
edit the podcast
write the show notes
get my podcast approved by iTunes
use libsyn to distribute my podcast
After you’ve gone through this process once, and learned via YouTube and other blogs, you’ll be able to release podcast episodes much quicker. I now only need a couple hours each Sunday to edit, write show notes, and upload Monday’s podcast to libsyn.
Still have questions for me about podcasting?
Let me know, by sending me an email here.
