How to find your perfect podcast production agency
Once you’ve decided you want to make a podcast, you have two options: either make it yourself, or find the perfect podcast production agency to make it for you.
Podcasting is an accessible and forgiving medium, and so the DIY approach is definitely doable, but the best-case scenario is tying up some of your team’s time away from their core tasks, and you both risk wasting time and making a show that is of such poor quality and poor strategic alignment that not only are you left with the idea that podcasts aren’t right for your brand, but that you’ve actually damaged it in the process.
Finding your ideal podcast production agency partner can be tricky, though, especially if you haven’t produced media like this before, or even worked with an external agency support, and so we’ve put together this guide to the things you should be considering when finding a partner to make your podcast for you.
Of course, we’d be delighted to hear from you if you’d like to explore how Message Heard is a great fit, [CTA]
But let’s jump straight in with the 10 things you should consider when choosing a podcast production agency!
Track record in making excellent podcasts
Of course you might encounter an experienced freelance producer or small startup which comprises folks who have built up lots of skills but who nevertheless haven’t yet made a single show as a company, and they may be brilliant, but there’s nevertheless no substitute for finding a company with a few dozen shows under its belt.
This doesn’t just give you something you can listen to to see for yourself whether their claims of producing high quality podcasts stand up, but also it gives you reassurance that the team had worked out robust internal processes for making shows to deadline and to budget. Look for a page listing at least some of the podcasts the podcast production agency you’re vetting has made, and if you have time, take a listen to them too so you can see how they sound.
Happy customers
You also want to make sure that the team not only has a track record and ultimately delivered the podcast, but that they were a joy to work with. Look out for customer testimonials on their website and social media – and if you’re feeling especially cynical, it’s not a bad idea to look up the people giving the testimonials on LinkedIn to reassure yourself they’re not figments of an AI’s imagination!
Proven success
It seems at first counter-intuitive, but merely making a beautiful and compelling show on time and on budget isn’t enough. It has to answer the strategic challenges you set for it at the outset. Are you trying to get more customers? Position yourself as a thought leader? Build a closer relationship with your existing audience? Something else?
Lots of podcast production agencies will do well at the actual recording and editing bit, but won’t help you figure out your strategy or help you find an audience through podcast-native advertising to help you hit your KPIs.
It’s usually the case that you want a comprehensive full-stack agency as your partner to take you all the way through from understanding your goals and your business, format creation, pre-production, production, post-production, distribution, amplification, analytics and more in order to make sure your company podcast is the success it deserves to be, and you want a company that will be able to support, advise and execute all of these stages.
(That’s Message Heard, by the way, and you can get started [CTA].)
The right range of services
Most people looking for a podcast production agency partner will want that full-stack service, so make sure the company you’re looking at can supply it, but your needs may be different, and you should ensure their capacity is aligned with your needs.
Even full-stack agencies like Message Heard can usually break apart their services too if you have some areas of production already covered in other ways, we can still help.
Just want us to consult on your format? Run a content or technical audit on your show? Need support on launch? Want us to run a paid audience development campaign? Where do you have a skills or resource gap? Get in touch and we can help.
Technical excellence
This should go without saying but we’ll say it anyway: the podcast production agency you retain should be able to deliver broadcast-quality results which adhere to industry specifications and best practice.
Feel free to grill your prospective partners on how they record, what their audio engineers can do, and what their quality control procedures are. Be cautious about people who use inappropriate tools such as Zoom to record, or who rely exclusively on AI to process recordings.
A great team and strong project management
Even if you get the strategy right and ultimately get a successful show out the door, if you choose a podcast production agency which hasn’t implemented good project management, then it’s going to be a stressful experience for everyone involved.
Message Heard, for example, assigns a Project Coordinator to oversee the smooth running of every project we undertake, who supports your dedicated Producer, and there’s a phalanx of folks behind them including audio engineers, video editors, marketing and content experts as well as a strong corporate leadership to ensure we always deliver.
Audience development
The best show in the world is useless if nobody listens to it, and while it’s likely you’ll have resource and channels available to promote your show, or perhaps even entire separate agencies to handle PR, social and other marketing activities, it’s often a really good idea to put some allowance in place for audience development within the podcasting ecosystem itself.
Message Heard, for example, has close relationships with the major podcasting directories, and is experienced in running campaigns to gather an audience through a range of channels; one of the most successful is creating and running ads in other podcasts which are likely to be listened to by your ICP.
Convincing people who already listen to podcasts to listen to your podcast is always going to be easier than convincing people to try yours as the first podcast they’ve ever listened to!
Marketing and distribution support
Most specialised podcast companies won’t actually run marketing or PR campaigns for you, but good ones like Message Heard will align with you to ensure you have the best chance possible to make your podcast succeed. Whether that’s just using our decades of experience to advise on best practice, creating clips from your show to pass to your social team to use, or a dozen other things, pick a podcast production agency which is enfranchised in making your show as much of a success as you want it to be.
And when it comes to distribution, you want to make sure your partner will ensure you appear "wherever you get your podcasts”, and can make good recommendations and choices for you about where to host your podcast.
Cost
Of course, you also want to make sure that the partner you choose fits within your budget. It can be hard to give a specific cost up-front since there are so many variables in making a podcast, but responsible agencies who’re committed to excellence should be able to give a reasonably accurate cost having done a little initial work with you to scope and propose some solutions to help you get started.
With Message Heard, for example, we would usually do that initial research with you in our Discovery phase, after which we can give an indicative cost, and then we’ll refine that with you in our Foundation stage before providing a final cost for us to agree on before pre-production begins.
Alignment in values
And if you’ve gone through all that, and are still trying to decide between a handful of podcast production agencies, then one way you can decide which one is right for you is to check their values align with yours.
Message Heard, for example, makes ‘podcasts with purpose’ and we always want to bring strategy, technical excellence and a strong ethical sense in choosing which projects we work on.
So if Message Heard sounds like a partner you’d like to work with, then reach out for a Discovery call below.