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We are the first to welcome you to the truly wonderful world of podcasts.

Seriously. We love podcasts so much that we have two of them (and one of them has over 4 million downloads). 👀

When we started podcasting, we did it with hope in our eyes. We knew it wasn't necessarily the easiest way to promote yourself – but we knew that it could work.

And it did. After starting two successful shows, we will show you the basics for starting your own podcast.

You don't need a large budget or a large audience to start your podcast. You just need to know who you're doing it for, what you're going to talk about, and a few technical and software parts to bring it all together.

Here are the 7 must-haves to start a podcast.

# 1: Ideal listener

Your ideal listener is your customer avatar. You are the person you would ideally like to hear your show and around whom you will curate your content.

For example, Tim Ferriss & # 39; ideal listener is someone who wants to improve by listening to how others eat, exercise, do business, and push their mental boundaries. This person will also be interested in Tim's other products, such as his Tools of Titans, 4-Hour Workweek, and Tribe of Mentors.

For the DigitalMarketer podcast, our ideal listeners are marketers, agency owners, and business owners who want to learn from successful marketers and entrepreneurs how to improve their business. This is also the DigitalMarketer customer avatar, meaning that all of our listeners are also leads with whom we can talk (if necessary) about our products.

To find out who your ideal listener is, you can fill out the customer avatar worksheet that will help you with the next podcast must-have: your description.

# 2: Podcast description

Without a surprise, your podcast description will describe your podcast. What can listeners expect and from whom can they expect it? For example, here is the description for the podcast "Perpetual Traffic" as it appears in Spotify.

Here is a checklist of things to include in your podcast description:

✅ How often do you publish a new episode?

✅ Who hosts it?

✅ What industry are you talking about?

✅ Who benefits from your podcast?

# 3: Podcast cover art

Podcast Cover is the image that appears when someone searches or listens to your podcast. Your cover is essentially your podcast's logo – you want something that people think of you as soon as they see it.

There are several ways to create podcast covers by just selecting graphics or taking a photo of yourself. For example, here is our podcast, the cover of Perpetual Traffic, which is a graphic:

And here is the cover for Russel Brunson's Marketing Secrets Show with a photo of Russel:

There is no right or wrong when it comes to creating your podcast cover. Just make sure it's a brand.

# 4: RSS feed

You publish your podcast in your RSS feed so that it can be heard by your listeners. This RSS feed is either on your own website or on a podcasting platform that you use to host your podcast. For example, you can publish the audio directly to your website and use this link to iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, etc. OR you can use a platform like Libsyn to upload your audio and route your RSS feed through it.

There is no right or wrong choice here. We recommend doing research on various podcast hosting platforms to determine if there is one that meets your needs and is a better option than hosting on your own website. At DigitalMarketer, we host our podcast through Libsyn and use a smart player to make the audio in the show notes of each episode accessible.

# 5: microphone

Okay, now that we've gone through the parts of your podcast that others see and hear, it's time for the things that only you can really see: the technology. As a new podcaster, you don't have to spend a lot of money on a state-of-the-art microphone.

A good starter microphone is the Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB. It costs about $ 100 and has a USB port that lets you record audio directly to your computer. Since it is a handheld microphone, make sure you also have a stand and clasp for it (which should be included when purchasing).

With your cool new microphone, you want to find a quiet place to record your episodes. Since audio is the be-all and end-all of your podcast, you want to make sure that background recordings or strange echoes don't distract you from recording in an empty room.

Make sure you do some audio testing before recording your entire episode so you know it sounds 👌.

# 6: audio editor

The second technology that only you will see is your audio editor. This is not essential if you just want to record your conversations and don't want to worry about editing your breaks or "um". However, if you want to take your podcast to the next level, you can use audio editing software.

If you're on a budget, you can easily use iMovie or GarageBand. Both are free on Apple computers. You can record your audio data with Garageband and edit it within Garageband or export it to iMovie to edit it, depending on which platform you are most familiar with.

Once you're ready to move on to the next step, you can use platforms like Logic Pro X and Descript to edit your audio.

# 7: A (mini) marketing strategy

Ah, and now it's time to get people to listen to your podcast. We are sure that your podcast is great, but it can be difficult to talk about if you don't have a large audience yet.

Here are some quick tips for marketing your podcast:

1. Invite guests to interviews: this will put your podcast in front of an audience and get you more attention
2. Be a guest on someone else's podcast: As a guest on someone else's podcast, you are exposed to your audience and can show them why they want to come and listen to your episodes
3. Take your episodes and turn them into articles: You can publish these articles on your website, medium or quora with a sentence below that says: "Originally released as episode 6 of the brand new podcast, listen here for more marketing tips to get your podcast. "
4. Advertising in Facebook groups, forums, subreddits, etc.: While advertising in these groups is usually prohibited, you can mention your podcast without annoying enough moderators if you include enough value in your replies and posts
5. Advertise in newsletters: Find the newsletters that your ideal listener has subscribed to and ask if you can have a commercial in one of the upcoming emails

And that's pretty much all you need to start your own podcast.

It shouldn't cost you a lot of money and you don't need a large following to get started. You need to be ready to find out exactly who your ideal listener is, what content interests you and how you can bring your show to more people.

Remember, every podcaster started somewhere (even Joe Rogan).