Want to launch a podcast?

That’s exactly what we are doing this month, so we’d love to take you along with us and share what we learn on the way.

We’re working with the Together For Healthy Bone Marrow Alliance, which comprises six charities all working to raise awareness and support for rare blood disorders. The podcast is called Rare Voices, and aims to give a voice to the patients and carers who are living with these rare diseases and trying to navigate everything that comes along with that.

The podcast launch and first six episodes are funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.

Making sure you’ve covered costs of the initial launch and ongoing episodes is the first step towards getting your podcast off the ground, here’s a few tips to find funding and working out how much budget you need to allocate:

💛 Charities

If you’re a charity there are lots of funding opportunities out there - do your research and make sure you apply to the funds that best fit your organisation or aims. The National Lottery Community Fund, for example, is available for projects that bring communities together - this fits perfectly with the concept for Rare Voices. 

🤑 Budget

Work out a detailed budget for launch and then an ongoing cost per episode, things to factor in include - how it will be recorded, hosting and distribution, a podcast host, a producer and an editor as well as general expenses such as travel (for staff and guests).

🎙️ Sound Quality

The biggest factor is sound quality, people won’t listen to a podcast with bad sound issues. Outside of city center recording studios, some universities offer up their studios at reduced rates or you can research the best microphone to invest in and record remotely yourself. The benefit of using a studio is often they will include a sound engineer to monitor sound quality for you.

📣 Hosting and distribution

There are free hosting platforms, such as Podbean, that give you a limited amount of free streaming, but work out if there’ll be ongoing costs you need to factor in. Make sure you know upfront where you plan to host each episode and how you will push these out to your audience.

🗣️ Promotion

Having a strategy to promote your podcast is essential, so get this nailed down from the very start. Making sure you get photos of guests during recording, creating videos that tease topics and using not only your social network but also encouraging your guests to share episodes is a great start.