122. How to Create a High-Impact Podcasting Content Planning System

If your podcast content often feels scattered, rushed, or like it’s missing the mark...you’re not alone. In this episode, we’ll break down how to plan a high-impact podcast content calendar that feels strategic, aligned with your business, and most importantly, doable. You'll learn a powerful monthly framework, 3 key questions to guide your strategy, and simple ways to stay consistent without burnout.

Check out the Podcast Growth Collective: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com/collective

This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey, hey, and welcome back. This is your podcast teacher, Julia Levine, and you're listening to Podcasting for solopreneurs, the show that helps online business owners grow their podcast to get more listeners, leads and sales. Have you ever sat down to record your podcast episode and thought, what am I even talking about this week? Or maybe you do have a bunch of ideas, but. But they are scattered between sticky notes, random voice memos, and half finished outlines. You've got to publish something because you know the power of consistency and showing up every week. But strategy takes a backseat to just putting something out there. And so you record the quickest and easiest episode that you can think of. If that's you, I get it.

That was me for most of last year. And to be honest, it is still a work in progress. Some weeks I am more strategic and some weeks I last minute Lucy over here. It's something that I am currently and intentionally working on. So today we're going to talk about how to plan a high impact content calendar for your podcast. Now, this is not just about being more organized simply for the sake of being more organized. It's about building a podcast strategy that aligns with your business, supports your sales, and actually makes your content creation feel easier, not harder. A podcast content calendar is not just a productivity hack.

It is a strategic business tool. And it's one that gives every episode that you create a purpose and a plan. When you take the time to map out your episodes in advance, you're not just simply staying on top of things. You are stepping into the role of a visionary, someone who knows where their podcast is going and why their content matters. And when your podcast episodes align with your business goals, they don't just educate your audience. They convert them into buyers. They nurture trust, they create desire, and they move those listeners closer to working with you. But before you start plugging episode titles into a calendar or brainstorming new ideas, I want you to pause and zoom out a little bit.

Because strategy does not begin with your calendar, it begins with your intentions. And the best way to set an intentional direction for your podcast is by asking yourself three questions. The first question is, what is my audience struggling with right now? This is how you make your episodes feel like they were made just for your listeners. Think about common pain points or mindset hurdles that your ideal clients are facing right now and address them. When your podcast makes someone feel understood, you don't just gain a listener. You are building trust with them. And if you are unsure about what your ideal clients are facing, there's guidance on how to figure this out inside of the Podcast Growth Collective so you can check it out at the podcastteacher.com/collive okay, the second question is what offers am I planning to promote in the next 60 days? That calendar will help drive your content calendar. So for example, if you know that you're launching a group program in six weeks, your episodes leading up to that should build desire and create readiness for that particular offer.

So think about what mindset shifts people need before they are ready to say yes, and what objections you can preemptively address and overcome through your content before you even launch. When your podcast becomes part of your funnel woven in naturally, it works smarter, not harder. Which you know by now is my favorite thing. All right, and the third question is what do I want my listeners to do after this episode? If you did not catch last week's full episode, I suggest that you scroll back to episode 120 and give it a listen. It was a good one. I talked a lot about CTAs and and how every single episode should have just one meaningful call to action that is mentioned at least twice within the episode. Think about the next logical step between the episode and whatever your upcoming offer is. Maybe you have a free resource that will help move them along in their journey, or maybe you'd like them to hop on a wait list.

The clearer your next step is, the more momentum that you build. And that clarity helps you to structure the episode more effectively from the beginning. And you're not just tacking on a random CTA at the end. All right, so to recap, the three questions are what is my audience struggling with right now? What offers am I planning to promote in the next 60 days? And what do I want my listeners to do after this episode? These questions, and of course their answers are your compass. They transform your podcast from being simply just content to strategically leading folks to your offers. So before you begin to fill out your content calendar, start here. This is the foundation that makes your content plan a high impact content plan. But once you have that vision and that strategy in place, you still need to implement it and turn that into content.

We humans do most things by habit or routine, so I suggest building a routine for your episodes. I'm going to break down a sample four week content framework. You can use this exactly as I'm going to share it, but you could also play around with the options mix and match, switch things up. This is just to give you an example of a framework that you could repeat month after month. I want to give you a starting point. So with this sample four week framework, week one can be your teaching week. Solve a small but meaningful problem that your audience faces. And the goal here is to show that you are the go to expert and you want to give your listeners a quick win that builds trust fast.

These are the episodes that often get saved, get shared, and get re listened to. Which means that they bring in new listeners and they deepen the relationship with your existing ones. Quote unquote. How to Episodes are perfect for this. And for an example of what this looks like, you can check out my episode 114, how to Make Podcasting Edits in Easier and Faster. Then week two can be focused on connection. Here you can talk about the mindset blocks, messy moments, or internal doubts that your audience might be facing. You can still teach here, especially if this is something that you have struggled with yourself and you have some tips to help them handle it.

But the main priority is to make your audience feel seen and understood. For an example, you can check out episode 116, planning, perfecting and Confessions of a Podcasting Solopreneur. Then in week three, address an objection that your audience may have. This is where strategy meets the psychology. What are the silent objections your ideal client is thinking, but they're not saying out loud necessarily? Pick one and build an episode around it, teach through it, reframe it. Offer a shift in perspective that kind of squashes the objection before they even reach your sales page for your offer. This kind of episode positions your offer as the natural next step without you needing to give a super hard and aggressive pitch for it. For an example, you can check out episode 110, how podcasting fuels your Online Business Growth.

This episode addresses the silent objection of an aspiring podcaster who may be thinking that, well, a podcast sounds cool, but it can't really do anything for my business and so it's not worth starting one. And finally, in week four, expand their perspective, challenge assumptions, introduce a new mindset, or share a hot take that gets your listeners thinking in a different way. You might bust an industry myth, share a bold opinion, or reflect on something that you have learned during your own journey. This builds authority while also creating space for a meaningful conversation with your audience. For an example, you can check out episode 106, the Hard Truth About Taking a Break from Podcasting to recap this four part framework. It is Teach, Connect, address an objection and expand their perspective. And I will pause and clarify that I am identifying the primary purpose of each episode. Episodes will usually accomplish more than one of these things but identifying the primary purpose can help you with your strategic planning.

Again, this framework is just an example. As the podcast teacher, I find myself leaning heavily into the teaching episodes, and I rotate through the others less frequently. You can definitely experiment and find something that works for you, but I gave you this framework as a starting point because it balances education, connection, and subtle conversion. Now that you have a solid structure in place, here is the final step that brings it all to life. You want to organize everything in one place, and I know that sounds so super obvious and simple, but this is where most people get stuck, myself included. So my advice is not to overthink it. And definitely don't trust your brain to remember all the brilliant ideas that you had. They need to be documented somewhere.

And don't wait until you find the perfect system. Just pick a method, any method that you will actually use. So that could be your Google Calendar, it could be a project management tool, it could be a simple spreadsheet, or even just sticky notes on your wall. The tool itself doesn't really matter. The action of putting everything in one place is the important part. Now, I personally use a spreadsheet and I have two tabs. One is my running list of episode ideas. I have a column for each type of episode, teaching, connecting, overcoming objections, and expanding perspective.

Then, using the questions that I shared in the beginning, I jot down episode ideas within each category. One piece of advice from personal experience here is that you can write the episode title if you have it. Sometimes a genius title just pops into your head and you don't want to lose it. But more importantly, write notes about the content itself, like a mini outline and any takeaways that you are envisioning. I cannot tell you how many episode titles are on my list and I have no idea what I meant to cover specifically within the episode. Also, the more notes that you have now, the easier easier the episode will feel to tackle later because you've already done a lot of the work. Okay, so on my spreadsheet, the first tab is brainstorming and the second tab is scheduling. I write out the episode numbers and the dates that they will air and then I also have a column to note any upcoming events or promotions that I specifically want to lead people to.

Then the job is to take the brainstormed ideas from Tab 1 and plug them into the schedule. On Tab 2, you want to do this strategically, being mindful not to cover the same subtopic multiple weeks in a row and keeping your promotion schedule in mind. I recommend planning a minimum of one month out, more if you can. Like I said in the beginning, sometimes I'm really good at this, other times not so much. So set a goal and work towards it. It doesn't have to be perfect. And to keep it simple at first, you may want to follow the framework exactly as I have laid it out here and just rotate through these four things in order. Or if you feel ready, you can mix it up.

I definitely teach multiple weeks in a row, as long as they're on different topics. Or if you feel ready, you can mix it up. I definitely teach multiple weeks in a row, as long as they are on different topics. Or if you are heading into a launch, you may want to lean more heavily into addressing objections. So once you've done all this, then you have a strategic plan to follow. When it is time to record an episode, you can just pull up the spreadsheet and get to it. You have eliminated the need to figure out what you're going to talk about, which is usually the hardest part, at least for me. This also makes it easier to batch record multiple episodes at once if that's your style.

But remember that this is not carved in stone. Plans can change and you can always swap episode placements or eliminate them altogether if needed. So if your podcast has felt scattered, inconsistent, or like it's always being pulled together at the last minute, you are not alone. I encourage you to start by asking the three questions, using the four part framework and organizing it all in one place. And if you want more help building a podcast that actually grows your audience and leads to aligned sales, that's exactly what we do inside of the Podcast Growth Collective. So if you're ready to stop winging it and start playing planning with purpose, I would love to support you inside. Check it out at thepodcastteacher.com/collective. Until next time, Happy podcasting.