Why You Need a Launch Strategy For the Debut of Your Podcast

Building a launch strategy allows you to bring your podcast to life in an exciting, impactful way. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and pulling in as many listeners as you can when your show goes live for the first time can truly help your podcast efforts for the long haul.

To do this effectively, you’ll need to batch some episodes so you can publish more than one for your launch AND have content in your bank over the next several weeks so your show takes off with consistency.

To review, batching means to prepare a certain amount of content in advance so you give yourself a cushion on your publications and aren’t rushed to put out new content. It helps with consistency, scheduling, and allows you to still produce quality episodes while still handling all of the other responsibilities in your day.

Having a bank of episodes built up allows you to have an epic premiere for your show. And that’s exactly what you want to have! You’re releasing something that’s brand new that you want people to get excited about. Additionally, you want to get them hooked on your show from the first episode.

So…lead strong! Use the weeks leading up to your launch to tease your show and get people prepared. Then, drop multiple episodes on them in the first week so they get a true picture of what your podcast is all about.

Additionally, you should produce an introduction episode or trailer for your show and release it about two weeks before your launch.

The trailer can be quick and easy, like an advertisement, that summarizes what your show is all about. An introduction episode can be a bit longer than the trailer and go into more detail about what’s to come, but it doesn’t need to be long-form. Just a few minutes of setting the table will do the trick.

This serves two purposes:

1. In order to get your podcast published to directories such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon, Google, Podchaser, and many others, you need to have at least one episode published. If you use a host like Buzzsprout, which I highly recommend, it will walk you through getting your podcast onto these directories quickly and efficiently. Some will approve your show in less than a day, some take longer. But with your trailer or intro episode, you can get your show active on all the directories BEFORE your actual launch, thus giving you more opportunities to obtain listeners when your actual episodes go live for the first time.

2. Piggybacking on number one, your audience will find their podcasts through all the different mediums. You want your shows to be live in as many places as possible when you launch. Therefore, establishing your directories prior to launching will make your show much more accessible.

Why is it so important to lead strong with multiple episodes? As I mentioned, getting those episodes out there shows your excitement and gets your audience excited, too. But there are some additional reasons:

For one, the more content you produce, the more opportunities you have for listeners to rate and review it. The more ratings and reviews you get, the more algorithms will boost your show because they recognize people are enjoying what they’ve found. Therefore, they’ll want more people to find it. And that’s when the snowball starts rolling downhill.

When building your initial podcast plan, your launch strategy should be a key part of that. Developing your launch strategy will determine how many episodes you want to have completed and in your bank before launching.

If you want to launch your podcast with five episodes over the course of five days, or five or more episodes on launch day, make sure you have that many + several more to give yourself some lead time to produce more content.

The fundamental rule you want to remember is to not overextend yourself. And that won’t happen if you plan accordingly. Create your launch strategy from the very beginning and let it serve as the foundation you need to make your show grow.

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