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You want to start, develop, and grow, but you don’t have time? The good thing is that many marketplaces and service providers will allow for a fast and affordable outsourcing podcast production.
In this post, I will help you evaluate all the options you have. You should carefully consider which part of the podcasting process delivers the most value to your listeners and focus on creating and planning high-quality content while outsourcing repetitive tasks that create less value.
Spend more time brainstorming ideas and creating your podcasting brand instead of on tasks like creating transcripts and editing.
What is podcast outsourcing?
Outsourcing Podcast production elements is currently an industry full of professionals who, for a reasonable price, deliver outstanding quality and save you a lot of time.
You can easily find experienced people who can help you edit and produce, write engaging scripts, manage guests, and craft growth and promotion strategies.
There are 3 main ways to outsource podcasting production:
- Freelancer (via marketplace) – the cheapest and fasters way to find freelancers to outsource podcasting production elements. Usually, you will need to filter and verify the quality of service (always ask for a sample), as anybody can register, and people sometimes overpromise on the service quality.
- Freelancer (directly) – when you work with someone for a longer time, you can start working with them directly. For you, it is easier communication and a more personal connection. For freelancers, they don’t have to share % of revenue with the marketplace.
- An agency – usually provides a good level of service but it is the most expensive. You not only pay for the service but also your fee needs to cover all the agency overheads.
What is the concept behind outsourcing services?
The idea of outsourcing is so fundamental to civilization’s existence that we don’t even notice it, and don’t even use the name of outsourcing in many cases.
But think for a second, the fact that you buy even basic stuff like bread, clothes, etc. it is all a form of outsourcing. You could do it on your own. In fact, for most of human history, people were doing all of it on their own.
Take bread, for example. With work specialization, it made more sense for one person to focus on making bread, while other people concentrate on other activities. Now, you go to your job, and with the money, you buy products and services that are made faster, cheaper, and better by others.
Some people make bread today, but it is mostly a hobby or healthy-lifestyle thing. In a developed society, nobody makes bread as a way to get food.
Let’s get back to outsourcing podcast production.
When should you outsource podcast production?
Outsourcing podcast production is necessary to increase your productivity and manage your time more effectively.
I’ve already discussed the concept of effectiveness measurement in previous posts (HERE). In short, you need to measure the effectiveness of your efforts and decide what it is that makes the most sense to do in-house and what to outsource.
Outsourcing is basically buying services instead of doing everything in-house
If you make smart decisions, it is a great way to save both time and money at the same time.
Outsource when it is cheaper and faster than do to it on your own
If you are really struggling with some part of the process, think about outsourcing it. Most typical things that bother podcasters a lot are:
- Dedicated music recording,
- Editing,
- Converting podcasts to video,
- Marketing with special focus on platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
Buy low margin things and focus on most productive things
Making transcripts of your episodes is very important. But after you already have a ready episode, this part of podcasting can be easily outsourced. After the content is already created, it becomes a low margin task that makes a lot of economic sense to outsource.
Some services are so sophisticated we can’t imagine not outsourcing
Podcast hosting – you could do it on your own using advanced data center hosting likes Amazon Web Hosting, but it would be very time consuming to set up and manage daily.
- Read this if you want to learn how podcast hosting works.
- If you are looking for advanced analysis and comparison of best podcast hosting providers, check this post,
- You can check this post to figure out how to choose the best podcast hosting for your needs.
Website hosting – if you want to grow your show and promote it effectively, you need to have a website as a marketing hub for your show.
This post explains how to use a website effectively to promote your podcast.
RSS feed managed by Podcast Hosting – for your podcast to work, you need an RSS feed for your episodes. Podcast hostings provide an RSS as part of their services, although you can have your own.
How to ensure a high quality of service when outsourcing podcast production
It is always good to agree to a few points before ordering an outsourcing service. You don’t need to have a very formal contract, but you need to have an understanding when it comes to the scope of work, time, budget, and, finally, the quality.
- Form an agreement – doesn’t have to be written, and very formal. Agree to the key deliverables, make sure there is a date for the service to be completed, agree on a fee, and on the complaint process.
- Template for requested quality – if you repeatedly order similar services, like research, editing, transcripts, etc. have a template for how you want to receive the final product. It will save you a lot of time.
- Process of revisions – agree on a short timeframe, in which you have few days to review the completed work and either approve or ask for fixes.
- Refund policy – when outsourcing, you should always try to pay after the service has been completed. If you need to pay any amount upfront, agree on the refund policy if your order cannot be fulfilled.
Top 10 Things for Outsourcing Podcast Production
1. Music – intro, outro, and jingles
One of the core things to outsource when working on your podcast is to get a good intro and outro.
There are nuances when it comes to playing music on your show. You don’t want to break any copyright laws. Read in this post for more details on using music on your show.
- Order a good intro made just for your show. You probably need max 10-20 seconds so it shouldn’t be expensive.
- You can also buy an outro using the same music samples.
- For consideration – get a professional voice-over actor to introduce you.
2. Research
If your podcast is heavy on facts and numbers, you can always outsource the research part of your podcast. Things you can order:
- Manual data scraping – pay someone to visit 20-30 websites and get you all the info you need in a spreadsheet format you need,
- Data mining – pulling data from a lot of different sites for analysis,
- Statistical analysis – order data crunching, finding a correlation, and relevance in your data samples.
3. Scripting
At first sight, it may appear counter-intuitive that you would outsource the script of your podcast. But if you prepare an outline for your show and know what your speaking rate measured in words per minute is, you will know how many words you need to fill an average 10 or 20 minutes of a podcast.
Then you can order a script based on your outline and according to your other requirements.
4. Recording production
Just search for any music, radio, podcasting studio that lends its facility and equipment on a per hour rate.
Outsourcing the recording process will save you time and money on:
- Choosing the best podcast equipment,
- Hooking it up and setting up your mic in the most optimal way,
- Soundproofing a studio, so your room will sound nice and quiet.
5. Post-production editing
You can hire a freelancer or a pro sound editor that will gladly polish your final track to sound great and clean. If you are inexperienced in editing or simply don’t have time, this is a great way to complete this crucial part of publishing a podcast without spending a minute on it.
A good editor will cut your material, clean it from hisses, remove mistakes, level your volume, etc.
6. Transcripts
Many podcasters skip transcripts, but this is a crucial way to get discovered in Google and grow your show organically.
Where can you order transcripts?
- Go to a website like Fiverr or Rev.com, where you can find transcribers. The rates are usually $1 per minute,
- Sonix.ai offers automatic transcriptions using machine learning,
- Some podcast hostings also include transcriptions in their range of services. If you use Buzzsprout, you can easily get the job done for $0.10 per minute.
Transcripts are also a great way to monetize your podcast. All the people who will find your transcript in Google and land on your website can be shown display ads.
7. Website for your show
Although setting up a website using reliable hosting providers and wordpress.org engine is straightforward, it may be time-consuming, especially if you have never done this before.
The basic setup can be performed in 15 minutes. But configuring a nice looking skin, adding all the necessary pages, disclaimers, and configuring an email collecting widget for your podcast email marketing can take many hours.
8. Graphics
Graphics are another simple part of your podcasting production that you should outsource. Usually, for your show, you will need a logo and essential visual identity elements for your podcasting website.
As much as I love services like Canva, for simple graphics I might need, I always outsource logo and more complex aspects of my visual identity.
9. Marketing
You can outsource a lot of aspects of your podcast marketing. I will just list a few of my favorites:
- Cutting show into audio clips and soundbites for social media,
- Cutting show and adding basic graphics for YouTube promotion,
- Outsourcing pins’ preparations for your Pinterest board,
- Ordering graphics for Instagram.
Evey show is unique and may require different marketing channels to reach its full potential. You definitely should think about which part of marketing you will outsource.
10. Monetization
There are many ways you can make money with your podcast. Some of them will require a lot of effort to find podcast sponsors, manage relationships with them, and develop ads.
On your own, you can also develop your own products to offer and sell. On the other hand, you can focus on building a listenership base and then outsource parts of monetization to your partners. There are 3 main ways to outsource podcast monetization:
- Partner with a podcast network that will play ads on your show,
- Use podcast hosting that offers monetization capabilities,
- You can set up a campaign focused on donations, contributions, and support using the right podcasting Patreon strategy.
Conclusions
Outsourcing podcast production elements is crucial to saving valuable time.
Be honest about what you are good at, focus on this, and try to push out as many services as possible. Although you pay for them with money, you will soon find that your time is probably much more valuable.
You also need to realize that you can outsource many more things for your podcast that you are willing to admit.
What aspect of podcasting that you outsource delivers most value?
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