How to Streamline Your Video Podcast Production

The podcast industry is massive, and it seems to keep growing bigger. If you want to satisfy your audience and find more opportunities to reach people with your most important messages, you'll need to find ways to streamline your video podcast production, saving time and money in the process.

How do you do it?

Hire Professionals

The best way to expedite your video podcast production is to hire professionals. Professional video production teams already have the niche experts and experienced leaders necessary to produce your video content in a highly efficient, polished, professional way.

Obviously, this is going to cost you some money. Whether you hire a video production agency or build a team internally, there are costs associated with bringing professionals under your video podcast umbrella. However, this investment is usually worth it in the long run.

Professionals understand their craft, so they work much more efficiently. They're much less likely to encounter problems, and they're much better at handling problems that do arise. They're also capable of producing much higher quality, more attractive final products.

Segment Your Specialists

Even if you choose not to hire professionals, it's a good idea to segment your specialists. Teams work much more effectively when individuals on those teams play to their strengths. Instead of having five people working on every stage of video production, consider making each of those five people a specialist, with a respective area of expertise.

For example, one person can focus on filming, while another focuses on editing, and another focuses on distribution. This way, you can develop genuine niche experts on your team and allow each person to spend most of their time on a process they know well.

Batch Production

Most video podcasts can be produced much more efficiently through batching. In other words, your goal is to produce multiple episodes of your video podcast simultaneously. This can be as simple as filming multiple episodes, back-to-back, then releasing them once a week for the next few weeks.

Create a Schedule (and Work Ahead)

You should also create a schedule for your video podcast, and plan as far ahead as possible. This will give you much more flexibility on timing and ensure that you never miss an episode in your regular schedule. It will also help you stay organized and prevent mix-ups that could otherwise cost you a lot of time.

Create a Repeatable Process

Repeatable processes are key to efficient video podcast production. For each stage of video production, you should have a clear standard operating procedure (SOP) in place. You should follow the same sequence of steps, in the same order, every time. It's going to take a while to solidify these processes, especially if you're new to the field, but once they're in place, you'll have a much easier time completing these processes quickly. As an added bonus, documenting your standard procedures means you'll have an easier time replacing any team members who leave or are no longer available.

Use the Right Tools and Equipment

Your job as a video podcast producer will be much easier if you're using the right tools and equipment. Some cameras, microphones, and lighting accessories are much more reliable and much easier to use than others. Do your research, read reviews, and purchase the best quality equipment you can afford if you want to have a better overall user experience.

Be Ready and Willing to Delegate

Be ready and willing to delegate tasks to other people on your team. There's a lot that goes into professional video production, including low-level and menial tasks that can overwhelm your task list if you're not careful. Consider hiring more assistants and entry-level people to help you with these burdensome tasks.

Repurpose as Needed

You can get more value out of each video produced for your podcast if you're willing to repurpose that video content. Creating shorter clips for social media, writing transcripts, and even changing the medium can help you reach more people in more ways - without adding a ton of new work to the process.

Track Your Time and Analyze

If you aren't doing so already, start tracking your time and encourage everyone on your team to do the same. After a couple of weeks, you'll learn where you're spending the most time, where you're wasting the most time, and which areas are in most need of efficiency refinement. Try something new, track your time again, and see if you can make an improvement. With enough iterations, you'll be able to produce your videos in far less time.

Video podcast production isn't easy, but it doesn't have to cannibalize all your time. With proper strategizing and streamlining, you should be able to save significant time and still produce the quality video podcast episodes that your audience wants to see.

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