6 Steps to Setting Up a Professional Services Podcast

Podcasting has become an impactful and popular medium to communicate and connect with individuals and communities across the globe, and has led to an increased demand for more podcasts. Research by Podnews reports that the number of monthly podcast listeners continues to rise, with 23% growth over the past three years. In fact, in 2024, 44% of the U.S. population reported listening to a podcast within the past month.

Additionally, the report stated:

People who listen to podcasts while traveling to and from work are 22% more focused, 10% more likely to engage with ads, and 15% more likely to incorporate and make time to listen to podcasts during their day. 

With podcast popularity continuing to grow, professional services firms have a clear opportunity to engage audiences in this fast-expanding space.

In 2021, we started the CMO Series Podcast to share insights from the brightest minds in professional services marketing and business development. As we developed the CMO Series Podcast, we expanded it to include CMO Series REPRESENTS and CMO Series Digital Masterclass. At the end of last year, we celebrated surpassing 650,000 listens across our channels.

We’ve often been asked about how we set up, and continue to grow, the CMO Series Podcast, so we thought it would be useful to share a breakdown of the 6 steps to setting up a successful podcast in the professional services space. 

1) Podcast Concept: Aligning It With Business Goals

First and foremost, your podcast should have a clear why. 

This step is the foundation of how you will build your podcast. Avoid setting up a podcast just because everyone else is; align it with the business goals you are aiming to achieve. For example, you may want to share relevant industry updates with your clients every week or establish your experts as thought leaders in their space. 

Here are a few legal podcasts that demonstrate this and may inspire you: 

• Lewis Silkin’s Podcast 

Lewis Silkin’s podcast, ‘The Agenda’, features lawyers and guest experts discussing business and legal challenges, offering insights on how firms can stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry. Including focus episodes, Adlaw Insights, featuring industry updates from their Co-Heads of Advertising and Marketing Law. 

• The Linklaters Podcast

Linklaters is a global law firm that puts its clients first by supporting and investing in them when they do business. The podcast explores creative strategies to help clients navigate the changing industry by addressing the opportunities and risks. 

• Dentons Podcast

Dentons is a global law firm specialising in corporate, banking and finance, technology, media and telecommunications, and real estate. Dentons have a range of podcasts that cover key areas such as; Real Estate Litigation, Family Office Intel, Business Bites, and more. 

By having a clear goal that aligns with your business objectives, it will allow you to ensure you reach the right audience. 

2) Target Audience and KPIs

Selecting your target audience is a crucial step in setting up your podcast. Defining who you're speaking to helps shape the topics you cover, the tone you use, and the value you deliver through each episode. It’s not just about who’s listening - it's about what value you want your audience to take away from the episodes.

Once you define your audience, consider what your measurements for success are: 

• Is it about engagement rates?
• Is it the number of completions of the podcast?
• Is it the download numbers?
• Is it about growing client outreach?
• Is it about driving action?

These are just some ideas to get you started. Knowing how you want to measure your success will help you track how your audience is connecting with your content and allow you to refine your approach over time.

At Passle, we create LinkedIn video ad snippets as a way to reach our audience, and to see who is viewing the clips, clicking on the link to the podcast, and who is going straight to our website to learn more about what we do. 

However, tracking your KPI should always refer back to the podcast goals. Here are two examples demonstrating this:

1. If your goal is to grow brand awareness, metrics like episode downloads, subscriber count, and social media engagement (including ad completion rates) will show whether your content is reaching and resonating with your audience.
2. If your goal is to deepen listener engagement, then average listening time and episode performance (e.g. which topics drive the most listens) can help tailor future episodes to hold audience attention more effectively.

By ensuring that your KPIs refer back to the podcast goals, it will help measure the success of the podcast but also how to improve the podcast as you grow.

Remember: KPI indicators are not just focused on numbers, but assess the value and impact your podcast has on your audience.

3) Recording: Choose Your Format

When you have done the groundwork, and you are ready to record your episode, think about whether you want your podcast to be video or audio only. This will help with how you set up your podcast recording session. Now let’s discuss the practical set-up and the pros and cons of video recording and audio recording.

Video Recording

The set-up for video recording 

For high-quality video, use a camera (phone or professional), an external mic to ensure you get clear sound from your speakers, and record in a quiet space. It's easy enough to record over Teams or Zoom, but the visual quality will be impacted.

Audio Recording

The set-up for audio recording 

• In-person: Record with mics on, then remove the video during editing.
• Online: Use Teams or Zoom to record remotely, then edit as you would with in-person audio. (Cameras do not need to be on) 
• Voice Recording: Guests answer pre-approved questions on their own, send in their recordings, and the host records their part separately. Final editing involves stitching audio, adding music, and other elements.

4) The Editing Process

This part can take time. However, there are lots of tools that harness AI to make this process quicker.  

Here’s a snapshot of some of the editing platforms, for both audio and video editing, available today. 

• DaVinci Resolve (used for audio or video editing)
• Descript (used for audio editing)
• Shotcut (used for audio or video editing)
• Audacity (used for audio editing)
• Adobe Premiere Rush (used for video editing)
• Director Suite 365 (used for audio or video editing)

We recommend trying and testing them to see which one you prefer. A good deal of softwares uses AI to remove filler words (um’s and uh’s) and to make editing more efficient.  

At Passle, we use Descript which cleverly removes filler words with the power of AI and generates a decent transcript.

We also add our own sting music to the beginning and end of the podcast. This can help build your podcast brand and give it a unique sound your audience will listen out for. 

After editing, we recommend sending the edit to your guest(s) to review and approve. This builds trust and creates a nice touchpoint to help deepen the relationship. 

5) Podcast Post and Artwork

After completing your editing, you will need to create the artwork for your podcast. Compelling visuals will help you promote your podcast wherever you decide to distribute it (i.e. LinkedIn, company website, social media, email newsletters, or the podcast platform).  You need to make sure that the podcast aligns with your firm’s brand but has its own visual identity to make it recognisable as it grows. 

At Passle, we use the image of our podcast guest on the cover, their name and job title and the podcast logo, which is used for the advertising post. 

Here are a few things to consider when creating your podcast artwork: 

The Dos: 

• Ensure the visual is clean, professional and on-brand.
• Make sure that the design reflects the podcast concept.
• Use a specific colour palette that fits with the firm’s branding.
• Have a versatile version of the logo (e.g. a white version that works on a coloured background).
• Include photos of the guests and/or hosts

The Don’ts: 

• Don't overcrowd the design - keep it simple, smart and professional. 
• Don't use stock imagery - authentic photos of your guests or hosts will add personality. 
• Don't use colors or typography outside of your firm's brand kit.
• Don't change the artwork style each week - create a template and update it for each episode.

We recommending using Canva - it’s user friendly and has an incredible range of graphics, animations and effects to choose from.

In your podcast post we suggest you include the following info:

• The transcription for the episode (it's important to consider accessibility for your audience)
• We recommend using  Descript or Podbean to upload your podcast and download your transcription. It is important to listen and read along so you can tweak the transcript and ensure it's accurate.
• Add short and concise captions to summarize the theme covered in the episode.
• Pull out some of the episode highlights to help those wanting to come back to listen later get a quick look at the conversation.

6) Distribution

Finally, your podcast is ready to share far and wide! When distributing your podcast, consider the channels your audience uses. At Passle, we use LinkedIn Campaign Manager, which allows us to measure views, clicks and completions.

Now that you are ready to upload your podcast, here are some recommended platforms for distributing your podcast:

• Podbean
• BuzzSprout 
• RSS
• Simplecast
• Podigee

Some of these platforms will automatically distribute your podcast onto Spotify or Apple Podcasts when you publish it on their platform. 

At Passle, we use Podbean as the main distributor for the CMO Series Podcast. Podbean automatically pushes our episodes to Apple and Spotify, making it easy to manage and track download numbers. 

To promote the episodes distributed on Podbean, we always include an embedded link to our Passle posts. In addition, we also distribute our podcast via Lexology and JD Supra to gain maximum reach.

After publishing, be sure to track your podcast's performance. Use engagement data to refine your style, format, and content, and continuously improve your approach based on what resonates with your audience. 

And those are all six steps to getting your podcast up and running! 

We hope this guide has inspired you and given you the confidence to launch a successful podcast for your firm.