How To Find The Right Podcast Production Partner For Your Business
You've got friends, colleagues, or even competitors who are active in podcasting, and you've finally decided now is the time to try it out for your business. Tubular! But if you’ve never done this before, where do you even start?
For most business owners, that means a Google search for "podcast production company" followed by a dozen open tabs that all sound identical. There are many studios out there who can produce high quality audio and video, but before you start filling out contact forms, it’s important to understand what your options are.
Here are six questions that will point you toward the right podcast production partner for your business.
1. What Level of Involvement Am I Looking For?
Before you evaluate a single studio or freelancer, get honest with yourself about how hands-on you actually want to be. If you want to show up, record, and let someone else handle everything around it, there are teams for that. (We’re one of them!). Others want a say in creative direction, to plan episode topics, and stay involved in how the show gets marketed once it’s launched.
Neither approach is wrong, but they point you toward very different partners. Consider out where you fall before you start scheduling consultations.
2. What Services Do I Actually Need?
This is where a lot of business owners overpay or under-buy. If you're running this on your own with no in-house support, you likely need a partner who can guide you through the entire process: strategy, development, recording, editing, and distributing episodes out into the world. That's a very different need than a business that already has a marketing team and just needs a skilled editor to turn raw recordings into finished episodes.
(If editorial is genuinely all you need, we'd enthusiastically point you toward Alison and Steve at Podcasting For Creatives — they're excellent at exactly that!)
3. Who's Handling Guest Booking and Scheduling?
Some podcast production companies offer guest booking as part of their service. Others don't. We believe that before you go looking for that specific capability, it's worth stepping back and asking yourself a more fundamental question: is an interview-driven show even the right format for my business?
We'd rather help you land on the right format first, then determine where the guest booking responsibilities lie.
4. When Do I Want/Need This Podcast To Launch?
Different teams have different timelines. For us, the timeline for launch will depend on the findings of the discovery process… but if you’ve already landed on a concept and area ready to jump right in, the timeline is easy to expedite. If you’ve got a deadline, be forthcoming about it so production partners who can’t commit to the timeline can bow out.
5. Who Will Own This Show?
This is a question most business owners don't think to ask until it's too late. Who actually owns the media? Who controls the RSS feed and hosting account? If you decide to switch production companies six months from now, or take the podcast production in house, what does that process look like?
We recommend you ask directly: If this partnership ends, what do I walk away with? When you work with us, the answer is “everything!”
6. Do I Need Help Marketing This Show and Growing an Audience?
Social reels and blog posts are a great way to get more mileage out of the content you capture with your video podcast. But are you seeking a partner who will actively help you grow your audience? And is download and follower growth is actually the metric that matters for your business, or should you be judging the show’s success by different KPIs, like the conversations it opens up or the credibility it builds with your current prospects?
(For podcast marketing an audience growth, we highly recommend The Podglomerate.)
And if you haven't considered this yet, don't worry—we can help you define what success looks like for your show, whether that's audience growth or something more specific to your business.
The Bottom Line
None of this requires industry expertise, but getting clear on these questions before you start reaching out to podcast studios will separate a productive first call from a wasted one!