Give Actionable Tips That You Could Apply In Your Own Business

My name is Andrew Armitage and I'm the owner and founder of A Digital. We're a digital agency and we started our Podcast, The Clientside to capture some of the conversations we were having between our team and our clients. There's still a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to digital marketing and managing websites, so we wanted our podcast to give listeners actionable tips that they could apply in their own business, drawing on our experience and that of our guests. Many of our guests have been published authors and I myself am writing my first book on the website planning process which is due to be published in late 2020.

I've listened to a lot of podcasts going back 10 years - well before they hit the mainstream! I've had so much value from them I really wanted to offer the same to other people. While I can't hide the fact that there are commercial reasons for running the podcast, when all is said and done I'm a bit of a digital geek and really enjoyed the process of choosing the right kit, testing and experimenting with the software.

We started the show back in early 2019, and to be honest, it was all a bit ad hoc. We probably broke every rule in the 'launch a successful podcast' playbook, but we were learning and were much more focused on getting something out there and making a start, rather than having several months worth of shows all lined up ready to go. The first few episodes we recorded with colleagues to try and build up our confidence and check the sound quality etc., but we're now into a regular routine with guest interviews.

With the goal of the podcast to help drive leads into our marketing agency, we fund it entirely ourselves and monetising it was never a priority. We release a new episode every fortnight (well, at least we're getting more consistent with this!) which is usually an interview with a guest, and each episode it kept to about 30-40 minutes.

Finding the time is a challenge because it's entirely up to us to produce it - there's no-one chasing us for content! If we get busy, because it doesn't directly generate revenue, then its inevitably one of the things to fall down the list.

Producing each show probably takes about an hour to prepare the interview and research our guest, then recording usually takes another hour. We've now started to have the show professionally edited which saves us time, then we transcribe the show and add it to our website. For a 30 minute show, there's probably about 4 hours of work involved.

The biggest gain from podcasting is without doubt speaking to and learning from other people. We're always learning in our sector and every conversation offers a new opportunity. Not only this, it's a lot of fun to do and it pushes me beyond my comfort zone, especially when interviewing well known and respected people. I'm not a natural conversationalist, so I find it challenging sometimes but it's a great feeling at the end of each recording.

We hope over time we'll see benefits feed into the agency. We know clients have been listening to the shows, so we really want the podcast of extend and build on our relationships, as well as sharing our knowledge and experience.

We've done a number of in-person interviews and for these we have 2 Samson Q2U mics which feed into a Scarlett 2i2 audio interface. We then record using Adobe Audition. Since the global lockdown though, we've been hosting most of our interviews over Zoom, and we've simply used the native recording options within Zoom, recording each speaker on to their own track. For the Zoom interviews I've been using a Rode Podcaster which is a simpler setup.

Most of the guests I've interviewed so far have been within my own network, but we've also had success using Matchmaker.fm which is a bit like Tinder for podcasters! You can research shows to appear on and find guests, and for now at least, its completely free to use.

I try not to over-prepare for each episode. I script an introduction, then let the conversation take its own course generally, although I do like to have a few questions up my sleeve in case there are any awkward silences! I'll usually add a quick outro too, but its a fairly simple process overall.

To be honest, we've spent so much time on creating the show, the marketing has been a bit of an afterthought! We're getting better at this now and mainly use social media to promote each episode. We'll pick some 'quotable quotes' to share and include these in the show notes on our website too.

We about to up our game on marketing the show, so we expect to use audiograms, email and increase our posting on social media to widen awareness of the show.

I think if I was doing this again, I'd be a little more prepared. It's great to get something out there, but I would have planned a little further ahead than I did. The last thing you want to see is momentum build and then you run out of steam which is what happened to us.

My biggest fear was finding guests for the show, but actually, it's been easier than I thought. It helps that podcasting has become so popular now; not many people turn down the option to appear on a show.

Some of the most helpful resources I've found have included Mike Russell's YouTube channel for editing tips (mrc.fm/youtube.com) and Mark Leruste (theunconventionalists.com/podcast) who always has great guests and interviews. Generally though, I've watched dozens of YouTube videos on kit, technique and editing!

For more details of the show and to find show notes and transcriptions, visit our agency website at https://adigital.agency/podcast. You can also follow us on social media; I'm personally @aarmitage on Twitter and Instagram, and our agency is @adigital_uk.