From brainstorming concepts to reserving visitors and outlining present subjects, there’s quite a lot of work concerned with planning a podcast episode. Podcast planning templates can assist you retain monitor of sponsors, handle your modifying and manufacturing course of, and even map out promotional content material as soon as your episodes go dwell.
These are a few of my favourite free choices for novices, seasoned hosts, and everybody in between.
monday.com: A podcast planning template for easy manufacturing
monday.com is one among my favourite challenge administration instruments available on the market. It’s an effective way to plan your podcast as a result of it has the whole lot you should keep organized and guarantee none of your manufacturing duties slip by the cracks.
It additionally has an excellent cell app, permitting you to handle podcast planning from the palm of your hand.
You’ll be able to join monday.com’s free plan to unlock entry to 200+ templates, as much as three challenge boards, eight customized column sorts, and seats for 2 collaborators. It’s an excellent place to start out or strive it out however most groups will seemingly must improve to a paid plan reasonably rapidly.
Extra on monday.com: monday.com Evaluation | monday.com vs Wrike | monday.com vs Airtable.
I actually like how the manufacturing circulate is about up with this template. As a substitute of a single card for every episode that shows its standing, each episode has its personal record of devoted duties.
For instance, the preparation section could embody duties associated to getting ready questions for visitors and outlining the episode construction. You may as well have a post-production section for issues like modifying clips to be promoted on social media earlier than the ultimate episode is polished and able to dwell.
This type of setup allows you to get as granular as you’d like with out cluttering the whole lot up.
The template additionally allows you to estimate how a lot time every process ought to take. From there, you possibly can enter the actuals and examine the distinction.
Total, monday.com and this template are strong choices for any podcaster, whether or not you’re working by your self or with a full workforce. It’s simple to make use of, and the truth that you’re getting the total energy of monday.com’s challenge administration platform is a bonus that may’t be ignored.
ClickUp: Podcast planning templates for any kind of present
ClickUp is one other all-in-one challenge administration and workforce collaboration platform. Whereas this would possibly look like overkill for podcast planning, there’s a free endlessly plan that’s excellent for organizing nearly the whole lot.
Every template beneath is extra superior than the one earlier than it.
The fitting one for you depends upon how a lot you need to lean on the device, how many individuals you’re working with, and the way granular you need to be with post-production monitoring.
Extra on ClickUp:Â ClickUp Evaluation | ClickUp vs monday.com | ClickUp vs Notion.
Template 1: A beginner-friendly choice for planning episodes
This template is nice for newer podcast hosts who simply want one thing easy to plan upcoming episodes.
It comes with the entire fundamentals you should keep organized. You’ll be able to create a backlog of episode concepts, categorize episodes, add audio information, and fasten hyperlinks to dwell episodes so the whole lot’s centralized in a single place.
My favourite half about this podcast planning template is its simplicity.
It’s organized into 4 sections that comply with a linear circulate — deliberate episodes, recorded episodes, reveals which were edited, and reveals which were printed.
Due to its simplicity, you received’t should spend a ton of time determining the way it works. It’s only a matter of signing up and including all your concepts. Inside minutes you’ll be extra organized and have way more perception into the place the whole lot stands in your manufacturing circulate.
The largest draw back is that it’s lacking performance for brainstorming, managing post-production duties, and scaling past a single channel.
This isn’t essentially a nasty factor, particularly for newer reveals. However greater manufacturing groups will seemingly must go together with one of many different templates beneath.
Template 2: Added options for managing various kinds of podcasts
This ClickUp template follows the identical core idea of the earlier one within the sense that every one episodes are organized by stage within the manufacturing course of.
However it takes it up a notch if you would like extra granular particulars about every episode.
You’ll see the progress standing of every episode up to date in real-time as you or your workforce completes duties required to get it dwell.
This template comes pre loaded with 17 customized attributes that you should utilize tag episodes and keep organized.
These vary from matter classes to listens, subscriber info, and extra.
You’ll additionally be capable to categorize every merchandise by kind. For every kind, you possibly can outline a set construction that’s utilized whenever you add a brand new episode, so that you don’t have to stipulate all of the steps each single time you add one thing new.
Say you’re planning an episode that features a visitor. For those who tag that episode with this attribute, you possibly can have your interview notes and questions obtainable by default on that exact card.
I additionally love the visible parts of this template. If you wish to have a broad vary of subjects in your present, the color-coded matter column clearly signifies whether or not you could have mixture of concepts or too many episodes in a single class.
Whereas you should utilize it to handle some post-production duties, like your social media advertising and marketing plans, it’s a bit extra restricted for this use in comparison with the template beneath.
Template 3: Essentially the most superior choice for managing all pre and post-production duties
When you’ve got a well-established present with a full workforce working collaboratively to document, edit, and promote your present, this template has the whole lot you’ll want to remain organized earlier than, throughout, and after manufacturing.
I don’t suggest it for solo podcasters and easy reveals or should you’re publishing lower than an episode per week. You’ll find yourself losing time filling in particulars that don’t matter but.
However for groups producing episodes at scale, this template is a no brainer.
You’ll be able to arrange a number of boards for various elements of the manufacturing circulate. By default, there’s a brainstorming board, backlog of matter lists, and even a spot to arrange requests out of your listeners.
As soon as reveals go dwell, you possibly can pull in analytics to see which subjects are performing the perfect so you possibly can replicate that success with future episodes.
From managing visitor outreach and relationships with earlier visitors to planning social media posts and placing all episode property in a single card, this template has all of it.
There are a number of views, built-in statuses, collaborative paperwork, and a spot to retailer all your attachments.
Your producers, editors, social workforce, and designers will be capable to hold monitor of all their work in a single place, giving managers and supervisors the whole lot they should monitor progress and repair points earlier than they turn into bigger issues.
Though ClickUp’s free plan is ok to start out, you’ll must improve to a paid plan to make the perfect use of all of the superior capabilities of this template.
Coda: Extremely customizable podcast planning templates
Coda is a relational database and doc creation answer with inbuilt challenge administration options. In contrast to challenge administration instruments, Coda is a clean slate that allows you to construct various kinds of methods to match your wants.
As your wants change, you possibly can replace it to match your new workflows or add on to attach extra items of your corporation.
The free plan is great, particularly should you’re working by your self. However the perfect half is Coda’s reasonably priced pricing construction that solely makes you pay for doc creators. For those who’re the one individual creating and constructing paperwork, you solely should pay for one person. All editors and viewers are fully free.
Extra on Coda: Coda Evaluation | Coda vs Notion.Â
Template 1: A full suite of templates to standardize your processes
Coda’s structure is properly suited to bringing dispersed information collectively in distinctive and artistic methods. Due to that, one among its finest practices is separating your methods into a number of areas and connecting them collectively as wanted.
That’s precisely what this suite of templates helps you do.
Slightly than attempting to cram each ingredient of podcast planning and manufacturing into one dashboard, you’ll have separate areas for every section.
It comes with sections for brand spanking new concepts, episode planning, managing manufacturing flows, monitoring launched episodes, and extra. There’s even an area for protecting visitor info organized.
One of many included templates makes it simple to create SOPs that outline standardized parts for every stage of your manufacturing course of. This ensures that hosts, editors, social media managers, and everybody in between has clear directions each step of the way in which.
If somebody is sick or leaves, anybody can bounce in and comply with the identical SOPs to add a brand new episode to YouTube.
This additionally acts as a guidelines to make sure consistency for each episode — it serves as a reminder for issues like including the constant intro and outro music to every present.
From there, you possibly can brainstorm new concepts, select and plan episodes, monitor manufacturing duties, and see a working record of dwell episodes. There’s a full content material calendar and a spot to maintain monitor of manufacturing duties by section. You’ll even be capable to add present notes and interview questions so the whole lot’s able to go.
The weakest a part of this template is the precise manufacturing circulate monitoring. It covers primary process monitoring, however it’s primary compared to others.
Nevertheless, you possibly can construct out extra granularity should you want it.
Template 2: A collaborative template that turns inventive concepts into new episodes
Much like the primary choice, this free podcast planning template from Coda combines a number of instruments and assets right into a single house. It comes with dozens of templates, together with a content material calendar, a spot to arrange dwell episodes, an space for sponsor info, and far more.
However what actually makes this template distinctive is the way in which it’s arrange for brainstorming.
New concepts can come from anyplace, together with when you’re out on a stroll, different teammates, your visitors, your listeners, and even different departments in your corporation.
With this template, everybody has a devoted house to take notes. On prime of that, anybody can pitch concepts and work collaboratively to nail down these concepts earlier than transferring ahead to the manufacturing course of.
It allows you to arrange your personal inside approvals course of for episode concepts, and even pull suggestions out of your viewers submitted through social media.
By default, the template comes with a guidelines of 20 duties for every episode. Whoever completes a process can merely mark it as accomplished, and the whole workforce will see it up to date in real-time.
If the default record doesn’t give you the results you want, you possibly can simply replace it by including, eradicating, or modifying present gadgets primarily based in your processes. When you’ve up to date it, all new episodes could have your new record included robotically.
The largest draw back is that this template doesn’t have a lot of a project-tracking ingredient past this guidelines and an editorial calendar.
It’s possible you’ll want to make use of one other template or construct it out additional to have a full end-to-end answer for planning, producing, and publishing episodes.
Stackby: An entire editorial calendar for podcasting planning and monitoring income
Stackby is a no-code work platform that mixes spreadsheets and databases right into a single device. When you could not robotically affiliate such a software program with podcast planning, it’s really an effective way to plan episodes. Particularly should you begin with a template.
It’s free for as much as 5 customers per workspace, making it an excellent alternative for smaller groups with no finances or bigger groups needing a versatile platform to work with.
This template features a full editorial calendar that has the entire key info you want, together with the host, thought, episode quantity, standing, launch date, and extra.
You’ll be able to change between month, day, and week views, permitting you to zoom in and plan granular duties or zoom out to see a excessive degree launch schedule for the month. The calendar is clear and properly designed, particularly in comparison with different instruments which have primary calendar views.
SEE: Uncover extra free editorial calendar templates for various platforms.Â
This template additionally consists of different challenge views, together with record, pipeline, and Kanban for getting work accomplished.
One of many main standout options of this template is the power to trace income from totally different sponsors. You’ll be able to simply hold monitor of your agreements, tag every episode with which sponsors are included, and import listener information to calculate how a lot income you’re getting.
Say one sponsor’s CPM pays $25 for a 30-second advert. The template robotically calculates the full income primarily based on the variety of listens.
That is significantly useful should you’re working quite a few advertisements from totally different sponsors, all with totally different phrases.
The largest draw back of utilizing Stackby is that it limits file add sizes. Many episodes shall be too large, so that you’ll must hold these information elsewhere and hyperlink to the supply as an alternative.
Podcast planning templates for Excel, Google Sheets, Microsoft Phrase, and PDF
Easy manufacturing schedules or solo customers could not want superior software program to remain organized.
For those who desire to maintain issues easy, there’s nothing mistaken with utilizing a spreadsheet or doc as an alternative. These work significantly properly should you don’t must collaborate with lots of people or care about aesthetically pleasing views of all of your episodes.
Template 1: A primary calendar to handle recording and publishing dates
Smartsheet is a robust app builder. It’s just like Coda and monday.com however constructed extra for energy customers. It doesn’t have a free plan, however it does recurrently publish free spreadsheets you should utilize in Google Sheets or Excel.
They don’t provide podcast particular templates, however there are a number of generic choices you possibly can simply adapt to work in your wants.
My favourite Smartsheet template for podcasts is a normal content material calendar template that works for publishing any kind of content material, together with podcast episodes. It’s fully free and appropriate with Excel, Phrase, Google Sheets, and as a printable or digital PDF file.
It’s an excellent choice should you don’t want a lot except for visualizing your publishing schedule and planning at a excessive degree.
Whereas most content material calendars are for monitoring publish dates, you possibly can simply use inbuilt coloration coded tags to schedule recording dates and even social media posts to advertise printed episodes as properly.
The principle draw back of this template is that it’ll ultimately begin to really feel cluttered, particularly should you begin including a ton of things.
It additionally doesn’t have any process monitoring capabilities for managing manufacturing work.
Nevertheless, it’s place to start out should you don’t publish usually.
Template 2: A printer-friendly choice for jotting present notes
This template, additionally from Smartsheet, provides a easy method to set up handwritten present notes to make use of throughout recording. You’ll be able to open it with Microsoft Phrase or Google Docs and print out as many copies as you’d like.
There are quite a lot of methods you should utilize this template, from mapping out content material pillars to noting totally different speaking factors for various segments of your present.
You may additionally write down questions, plan episode construction, sponsorship info, or key factors you don’t need to neglect. Positive, it’s extremely easy. However that’s what makes it so versatile for individuals who get pleasure from writing issues by hand.
It may also be tremendous useful throughout recording because you received’t want a pc.
Find out how to create your personal podcast planning template
For those who can’t discover something that matches precisely what you’re in search of, you possibly can modify an present template or create your personal. Relying on how detailed you need to get, there are dozens of parts you would possibly contemplate including.
At a minimal, I like to recommend the next.
An space for brainstorming
New concepts can come up any time. It’s essential to have a straightforward method to word them down and hold monitor of them with out an excessive amount of problem.
It’s additionally a good suggestion to have some method to flip these into full plans so you possibly can monitor every thought by to completion, mark them for later, or write them off as concepts you aren’t going to document for some purpose or one other.
Episode particulars
Every episode seemingly has a ton of particular info you should hold monitor of, together with the subject, audio system, questions, construction, sponsors, backtracks, and extra.
Ideally, your template has an space to maintain monitor of the whole lot. This must be hyper-specific to the kinds of info you care about. For instance, you could need to even have a subject for the season or theme should you set up that manner.
Lastly, you possibly can arrange an inventory of duties, an overview, or different notes for various episode constructions so that you don’t have to start out every one from scratch.
Manufacturing workflow
Other than episode info, it’s useful to know the place every episode is in manufacturing. That is significantly essential should you’re working with a workforce, however even solo customers have quite a bit to achieve from staying organized like this.
Your setup could be as easy or complicated as you’d like. For some, a easy circulate with a backlog, in progress, recorded, modifying, and printed is greater than sufficient.
Others might want extra in-depth challenge administration capabilities like due dates, process assignments, progress monitoring, and extra.
Monetization and sponsorship particulars
Whether or not working advertisements, mentioning sponsors, or promoting your personal services and products, it’s a good suggestion to resolve this up entrance earlier than you begin recording.
You may additionally plan to pre-record snippets and add them in throughout modifying. Nevertheless you resolve to do it, protecting monitor of all these particulars alongside your episodes and different information can assist hold the whole lot organized.
Publish-production advertising and marketing
What occurs as soon as an episode airs? Do you publish a couple of social media posts, ship out an electronic mail, or submit about it in your weblog?
Publishing these kinds of content material is not any totally different than publishing a podcast so it shouldn’t be too difficult to determine hold monitor of different parts in the identical place. You may do the identical should you publish the identical episode on a number of platforms.
Podcast planning finest practices
Planning a podcast is quite a bit simpler stated than accomplished.
Listed here are some professional ideas to bear in mind should you’re struggling, working by your first few episodes, or in search of a little bit of steerage:
- Keep organized and constant.
- Don’t overcomplicate the inventive course of.
- Brainstorm as many subjects as doable.
- Get snug throwing out concepts you don’t like.
- Define the circulate of an episode, however don’t write a script.
- Determine on episode size earlier than you begin.
- Schedule visitors upfront and at all times have a backup.
- Give your self loads of time for modifying and post-production.
- Doc the whole lot.
The principle purpose is staying organized and protecting monitor of all of the transferring items. If you are able to do that, you’ll study the remaining as you go.
Your first 20+ episodes received’t be excellent and you could really feel fully scattered — each are fully regular. Over time, you’ll discover vital enhancements in your supply, banter, concepts, sponsorship plugs, workflows, and modifying capabilities.
