Set Your Podcast Up for Success in 2026

[00:00:00] If your New Year’s resolution is to start a podcast, well consider these statistics around New Year’s resolutions. You probably heard these before. Within a month, only 55% of people are still actively working on their goal or resolution, and then after a year, only 19%. So a lot of people give up, and now if you look at podcasting just separately on its own, anytime of the year, pretty similar thing.

[00:00:23] The numbers are not great. Many, many people start podcasts and then they quit. So in light of the new year, this episode, I’ve got tactics and strategies to help you keep your podcast going for the long run. Stay consistent, ultimately leading to the success that you’re looking for as well. At the end of the episode, I’m gonna include some bonus checkpoints of things that I like to look at for podcasts on an annual basis, so at the start of every year is a great time to do that.

[00:00:50] This is profits through podcasting where we help health focused entrepreneurs generate leads and revenue for their businesses through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver.

[00:01:01] Podcasting has always been a game of consistency and and longevity. So whether you are an existing podcaster or you’re starting brand new right now, this month. Let’s look at how we can set you up for a year of success. And that means publishing consistently every week or every other week, if that’s your schedule, whatever your schedule is.

[00:01:20] Uh, and then turning that into what it is that you’re actually looking for, whether it is leads and revenue for your business, making the right connections, building authority, or something else. It could be anything. And in fact, the independent podcaster report 2025, showed a majority of their respondents actually were in podcasting for reasons besides money, like helping other people or just having an outlet to speak, that sort of thing.

[00:01:43] So there are many possible motivations, but of course, in a business context, we do wanna establish an ROI of some sort. But again, it doesn’t have to be just about money, or directly anyway, because you could be making the right connections with people and that. Eventually leads to revenue for you, which is perfectly fine, but however that looks to get any sort of ROI at all, it is virtually impossible to do this through podcasting without a long enough time horizon.

[00:02:09] And that is why I stress this point so much about committing to podcasting for the long haul. If you’re gonna do it like two to three months is not worth doing at all. that’s why it’s important to understand what you’ve got to implement to ensure that you actually can do your podcasts for an extended period of time and avoid the mistakes that I’ve seen repeatedly that lead to podcasts fading away and really wasting your time if you start and you don’t continue and follow through to get what you were after.

[00:02:39] You know, there is no point. So with that in mind. Let’s take a look at these tips to set your podcast up for success in 2026. The first one is delegate. One of the best ways that I know how to help you stay consistent relates to one of the most common reasons that I see podcasters quit, and that is it’s just too much work.

[00:02:59] We all know what it’s like to be busy. You are juggling life and work, and then you run outta time one day and things start going by the wayside, and you have to look at what’s most important. So what do we do about that?

[00:03:11] Well, we delegate. You hire help. Uh, ideally as an entrepreneur with a podcast, the only thing that you should be spending time on yourself is the recording of content. Maybe a little outreach for guests, maybe some preparation, of course, that sort of thing. But whether it’s a solo or an interview episode, just doing the preparation and the recording and then handing it off to a team who can do everything else.

[00:03:34] Is ideal and that team could be doing everything from the editing to the uploading the social media clips, whatever else you might want done with the episodes. Even following up with the guests once the episode goes live and letting them know it’s out there. You know, there’s lots of tasks that can be easily handed off to a team, and if you’re thinking, well, I just can’t afford that, then.

[00:03:55] No problem. I hear you. You know, it’s funny, I, uh, saw a story a while back here in Canada. The city of Winnipeg was taking some heat for spending $35,000 on a relatively small number of podcast episodes. Uh, you know, go governments aren’t exactly known for efficient spending, but I don’t know how they managed to spend that much money.

[00:04:16] so the reason I mention that is to. Put out there that you know the price of delegating, this may surprise you. It might not be what you think. It’s certainly not anywhere near that amount of money but the main thing is you can still get podcast help to fit nearly any budget.

[00:04:31] Okay. Everyone’s situation is unique. Obviously. If it’s a brand new business and you’ve literally got $0 or maybe even a negative balance, then yeah, you’re gonna have to invest more time. Uh, of your own to try and DIY some things, and that is the nature of entrepreneurship. Of course, even still, you wanna make sure that what you’re putting out is of decent quality.

[00:04:51] If you’ve gotta be doing that on your own, you don’t wanna be embarrassing yourself or tarnishing your brand by putting out something that looks very amateur. So keep that in mind. But if you do have some budget, maybe it’s not huge, but you’ve got some, take a look at your options, shop around, see what it would actually cost realistically to get done what you’re looking for.

[00:05:09] What we do at East Coast Studio is a little on the higher end, but like I’m saying, there are other ways to go about it. Maybe you use your, your virtual assistant if you have one for some of the tasks, or you only delegate certain things for the time being. But really one thing I love about podcasting is how simple it is to delegate.

[00:05:28] You don’t need to onboard an employee and mess around with hiring and creating a bunch of SOPs. You know, almost literally overnight. You can have a team in place to do it all. ‘ then you’re just responsible for your recordings. Everything else is running like a well-oiled machine. That means you have a much better chance at success over the long term since the process is not such a burden. Then, and I think it’s great too that you’re also kind of feeling accountable to the team for getting your recordings in on time and getting them done.

[00:05:56] If not, we come knocking and asking, what’s going on? Let’s, let’s get this next one going and try to encourage and motivate you. But yeah, making that workflow a lot easier and handing it off is definitely a key to setting your podcast up for success in the long run. And now this brings me to the next point of how we can set you up for success in this new year 2026.

[00:06:21] work ahead. Okay, so you’ve got a team in place to handle the production. You’re gonna let them handle that, and you are going to get your recordings done well in advance.

[00:06:30] Why is this important? Oh, it’s because when it comes down to the wire every single week, it takes away from the joy. It adds stress to your life. And again, like I mentioned in the first point, when you get busy and stressed, you’re just gonna end up skipping it altogether. You’re gonna look at what’s really important, what do I have to get done today?

[00:06:47] And then everything else gets pushed aside. You skip one episode, then that becomes two. And before you know it, a month has passed. And when you do, if ever, if you eventually publish a podcast episode, again, your audience will be smaller. So you need to have momentum on your side, and that is why consistency is important.

[00:07:04] You can’t just come and go, it’s gotta be there week after week. And when you work ahead and you’ve always got a queue of recordings, it’s much easier to be consistent. There are different ways to go about this. Some people like to take a day or two a month and record a month’s worth of episodes all in one go and just get it done.

[00:07:21] Others prefer to be more topical and really up to date, or maybe their content depends on it and they perhaps feel more inspired to record on a whim. And that’s their method. Whatever works for you is fine, so long as you are on top of things and never feeling a crunch to get something done. Because I’m telling you, one of the biggest signs to me that a podcast is going to the graveyard is when the host starts struggling to get episodes into us on time where we have to keep reaching out to them and asking where that recording is.

[00:07:50] Once I see that start happening, I know I better step in and try to help. Otherwise, it’s the beginning of the end. And this podcast in soon enough time is going to be dead. There is no need to have a missed episode or be stressing out because a guest canceled and now you’ve got nothing to air for this week. Okay? We don’t wanna be too far ahead, but three to four weeks is pretty reasonable these days, right? And so as we get into 2026 here, if you are not working ahead, I’m telling you, get on that now.

[00:08:19] Put in some extra hours, get ahead on your episodes, and uh, stay ahead. From there, we don’t do this so that you can stop recording and run out of episodes Again, I’ve seen that constantly as well, where we do start out the podcast ahead or we get someone caught up and you know, they have some in the queue and then they get busy.

[00:08:37] And before you know it, the gas tank is empty. There are no episodes again or right back where we started. So whatever you decide your workflow is gonna be like if it is, uh, setting aside a couple days, a month, or a day, whatever it takes, put that in your calendar. And stick to it.

[00:08:53] Getting ahead is going to help you tremendously in keeping the podcast going and, uh, end up with those benefits that we talked about there at the beginning, whatever it is that you’re looking for, the goal from your podcast.

[00:09:04] Next tip to help set your podcast up for success in 2026. Do not focus on download numbers. We wanna see a podcast grow over time. Absolutely. But it does take time. And if your sole metric of success is download numbers, you’re not really gonna have the motivation required to do this for a long time. It is interesting as well. The independent podcaster report 2025 highlighted that by far the independent podcaster’s biggest challenge was growing an audience. But even as audience numbers went up, that remained the, the biggest challenge. So someone with 500 listeners, their biggest challenge was, uh, how do I grow my audience?

[00:09:43] Someone with 5,000 listeners, their challenge was, how do I grow my audience? So it can be a bit of a trap. And depending on what you’re doing, the, the nature of your business as well. You know, you don’t necessarily need thousands and thousands of downloads. It can be possible to build a sustainable business through a smaller audience. But don’t check your stats every day or obsess over them.

[00:10:05] I know some people it is a motivator. They get really excited to publish those first episodes and see that real people are out there listening.

[00:10:12] So in that sense, it can be a good thing, but don’t obsess over it. And most importantly, don’t, don’t take it to heart when you’re not getting a ton of downloads right away and give up because of that. Because it’s just gonna take time. You’re not supposed to get download numbers right away.

[00:10:26] Like anything. It takes time to build a podcast.

[00:10:30] Now. The next and final tip for setting your podcast up for success in 2026. Do not overcomplicate. The KISS method. Keep it simple, stupid. Make this nice and easy. As easy as possible.

[00:10:44] I had a client come to me and say that the podcast was getting to be a lot of work. They’d done it for several years and wanted to continue, but it was just getting to be a lot of work. Or rather, the amount of work the these days for them was just too much. There had a lot of other things going on, and uh, they’re already working with us, so it was easier to some extent, but they wanted to know how could it be even easier.

[00:11:05] Now, the problem with this situation was this podcaster had been going over every episode with a fine tooth comb, so we had a discussion about. Getting the results that she wanted from the podcast and if she’s willing to make a minor trade off for that. ’cause she was putting in hours and hours on every episode, going over each one and making these tiny little changes to timing and adding extra spaces here and there, and requesting that I do that work and.

[00:11:32] What I pointed out was, you know, you’re really not getting anything from these hours. If we could do this episode and you not go over it like that, let’s say we get it to 98% of perfection, of where it is. After you spend three to four hours on everyone, would that make more sense? Because you’re gonna get the exact same results from this podcast.

[00:11:51] You’re just gonna save a ton of time on every episode. Right? So she said, yeah, that’s a great point. So. That’s how we’ve been working ever since. She saved a ton of time and the podcast again, has now been able to continue on consistently. And, uh, she’s getting the, the benefits that she always was. So if there are friction points like that in your workflow, if there are things that are taking too much time, things that you don’t enjoy, how can we resolve those?

[00:12:18] Are there tasks that you can remove entirely? You could delegate, you can streamline, simplify. You know, the new year is a great time. For these types of things just to evaluate because, until you take a step back, sometimes you don’t notice these things. You might just be doing it, you’re in the grind, you’re not thinking about it.

[00:12:33] But then when you really take that, uh, that bird’s eye view and evaluate, you can see, you know, I don’t really like doing that. Or Why am I doing that part again? Is that even getting me any results? And you can, uh, refine your workflow that way. We had another client that we did, uh, a launch for, and when she was talking to us initially about doing a launch together, she really wanted to pick apart the service package and get this, not this, get this and not this.

[00:13:00] And I said, listen, we don’t work like that. And trust me, you’re gonna be very thankful if you just do the whole thing. And she was, she, she ended up proceeding with that, and she felt really good to have it all done. We got it done in a timely manner. You know, she wasn’t sitting there till one in the morning watching YouTube tutorials on her own, or realizing a year later that something was set up completely wrong.

[00:13:21] So. It’s an important to keep in mind, that type of thing, right? Same goes with your workflow, whether, whether it’s a launch or an ongoing workflow. If you’re analyzing your budget and trying to decide is it worth outsourcing this or, or just this or not that, you know, consider the impact it will have if you don’t, because we talked about that in the opening of the show.

[00:13:42] That not everyone has a budget to delegate everything, and that’s totally fine. But if you do have a budget, but you’re maybe trying to pinch pennies ’cause it’s just a habit or whatever the case, consider the impact that it’s gonna have on your workflow. If you’re gonna pay a certain amount of money to have most of the workflow, delegate it, but then you’re saving a few bucks by, you know, having a couple things that then you still have to have your hands on.

[00:14:06] Well. That’s gonna cause friction. That’s really not gonna get you the full benefits that you could have by outsourcing the entire process. So don’t, uh, don’t make that kind of mistake either when you are designing your podcast workflow. And that’s why that’s this point in summary, is to keep it simple.

[00:14:23] The simpler, the better. It’s gonna allow you to focus on what’s important, not hit any friction, and keep this podcast going for the long run.

[00:14:32] So I feel like a broken record when I talk about this stuff, but it’s very important and it’s these points that I’ve just run over that are going to help you breeze through 2026, get an episode out every week, and be another year down the road in podcasting and have another 52 episodes under your belt and all of the benefits that come with that.

[00:14:51] With all that said at the start of every year, it’s a great time to do it. I like to check on things with my podcasting clients annually and and our own podcast as well, because there are things that can fall through the cracks, things change, and I do highly recommend that you do this with your podcast once a year as well.

[00:15:08] So, being January, let’s go over four things, four checkpoints that you should be looking at with your podcast right now. First of all, check all the directories, apple, Spotify, YouTube, if you’re on there. And if you’re not on there, you should be on there. But those big main ones, uh, any other that are significant to you, have a look.

[00:15:29] Make sure that everything is still there and updating properly that every new episode that you’ve been posting is showing up. Look at the description of your podcast. Click play on an episode. Make sure it’s actually working. Look at some of your show notes. Check all of the links in your show notes, and on the podcast page, look at your podcast artwork, all this stuff.

[00:15:48] Is it all working and is it looking good? Should anything be freshened up, like the cover artwork? Did you get a new photo? Has your business changed direction? That can happen commonly where your business shifts. Uh, you’re, you’re serving a different client now and not another maybe, but your podcast description is a bit out of date or you change direction of the podcast, whatever it is just good to look everything over once a year.

[00:16:10] Make sure it’s all working. If you have call to action links in your show notes, you wanna be clicking those, you’d be shocked at how many times I test those and it just goes to an error page. They, they deleted their landing page or didn’t realize that their web designer deleted the landing page. It’s not working anymore.

[00:16:25] So this, this might sound like it’s not important and silly, but I see it so frequently. Broken stuff, outdated stuff. So that’s a really important thing to do annually, if not more frequently. Same goes there with your podcast website, and this is the next point. Again, you’d be surprised at how often I see stuff is just broken on people’s websites.

[00:16:48] Uh, again, lead magnets. You sign up, it doesn’t work. The episode players don’t work. When I click play broken pages, all that sort of thing, test out your website. As a user. So from, from the directories we just mentioned, click onto the episode link, see if that brings you to your website properly or where is it bringing you.

[00:17:07] Sometimes it’s not bringing you you to your website, it’s bringing you to a hosting page that you didn’t know existed, and there’s no back links to you so people can’t find you. All this sort of stuff. So go through your website, check it out, and not just the podcast on your website, but look at everything else as well.

[00:17:21] If you’ve got popups for lead magnets or other things on your site, promotions. I see that commonly too. Stuff is months old and saying the deadline is tomorrow, and it’s like it’s way outta date. We don’t want any of that stuff. That’s not good for your, your image and your brand. So take this time to go over the website as well.

[00:17:39] Next thing that I like to check once a year for podcasts, look at your data, dive into those statistics a little bit. Make sure you’re getting enough of a sample size here to actually give you some insight, but look and see what episodes perform the best over the past year, and why might that be? What can you learn from it?

[00:17:57] Which ones had high download numbers? Was it because you had a famous guest or was it a certain topic? Do you see consistently that discussing a certain thing gets people to download more than usual, whatever it is, try to learn from that. And also, as you’re reflecting, you’re in a new year now, you could be recycling content, and I don’t mean necessarily publishing the new the, the same episode again, but reusing it as inspiration.

[00:18:22] So if you talked about a certain topic that got a lot of downloads last year. Talk about it again this year. Maybe there’s some new insights you can add to it or you can iterate on that and, uh, see if you get the same results, same success, and hire a number of downloads from doing it this time. And then finally, fourth point, fourth thing I like to check every year on podcasts, How is the content now fitting overall the content that you’ve been publishing? Is it targeted towards your ideal client? And we just talked about looking at the episodes that perform the best. On the flip side, look at the ones that didn’t perform so well or maybe aren’t relevant to your audience and try to figure out why didn’t those.

[00:19:03] Perform well and who is my target audience right now, and is every episode that I’m putting out relevant to them? The more you can focus on that niche, the better. You don’t wanna be putting out irrelevant content, and they will definitely be, uh, giving you some, some data there. By not downloading episodes.

[00:19:20] If you can see clearly a pattern in, in the lowest downloaded episodes, that will help you. Hone in as well and focus on that best performing content that is the most fitting for your current ideal clients. Okay, so there you go. Four things I like to check on, uh, all my podcast clients once a year. Now is the time to do it, and we’ve summed up.

[00:19:42] The tips that are required to keep you going successfully all throughout 2026. So cheers to another year of podcasting and if you need help with something, you wanna streamline your workflow delegate. You always know where to find me. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time.