The Business Podcast Blueprints
What They Are and How to Use Them.
To have a successful podcast for your business, you have to start with your business goals.
Not podcast goals. Not marketing goals.
Business goals.
Because if you don’t start there, with what you’re business actually needs to grow and be successful, then you stand a very real chance of investing a huge amount of time, money and energy on a large (and public!) marketing project that doesn’t make a bottom line difference to your business.
And you don’t have time for that.
The Business Podcast Blueprints are the best way to avoid it.
The Business Podcast Blueprints are a method of designing and optimizing podcasts to acheive measurable business outcomes.
What are the Business Podcast Blueprints?
A Business Podcast Blueprint is the most important reason it has for existing.
It’s the single goal that, if it does that and nothing else, it will stil be worthwhile to create.
It’s not the only thing your podcast will *do* but it’s the Prime Directive. The non-negotiable outcome.
Over years of producing podcasts for scores of different business owners, and through deep research into the top performing business podcasts, we’ve identified the 5 most common.
It’s important to pick one as yur most important Blueprint to give your show focus, and help you s ee results faster, and that decision should be based on the most important goals you have for your business in the next 12-18 months.
Below, you’ll find a short description of each Blueprint and the goals they are best suited to help you achieve.
Relationship Building Podcasts
A Relationship Building show is a foundation on which you build connections on a one to one basis.
These are all about connecting with new people. These could be people you’d like to work with, experts you’d like to meet, referral or promotional partners, owners of complementary businesses, event organizers, journalists and influencers – anyone that would be, for whatever reason, a valuable part of your professional network.
Goals that can fit: More referrals, more customers or clients, sales of higher-ticket products and services, speaking and other promotional opportunities, guesting on other shows.
Audience Engagement Podcasts
An Audience Engagement show will help you build knowing, liking and trusting with lots of people at once.
This blueprint will help you connect with the audience you already have. These may be people who already follow you, like members of your email or social media community, or they could be people who become aware of you through marketing you are already doing, like paid traffic, speaking or other organic marketing. Finally, they can be people who work with you – your employees, team members or colleagues.
Goals that can fit: Training and onboarding (internal or client), hiring and recruiting, social media engagement, sponsorships, lead nurturing.
Thought Leadership Podcasts
A Thought Leadership podcast is the vehicle you use to get your ideas, insight and intellectual property out there.
Thought Leadership shows exist primarily to increase the influence, authority and reputation of the host and company that create them. These are shows where you are bringing your own intellectual property to the table, engaging in high-level conversations with colleagues and generally setting the tone and topics for what your industry is talking about.
Goals that can fit: Mentions and backlinks, interview requests, invitations to speak and present, brand awareness and shortened sales cycles.
Conversion Podcasts
A Conversion podcast is designed to change watchers and listeners from one tme of relationship to another, through paid or gated content.
These shows are about moving people from one point in a sales or opt-in process to the next one. They exist as a part of or move directly into sales funnels (can be top, middle or bottom for the funnel, depending on how you deploy them!) They often involve some kind of gated content or access to you as the host, or to your guests.
Goals that can fit: Community and email list growth, product and service sales, monthly recurring revenue, increased opt-in rates.
Content Podcasts
Content Shows may or may not be a standalone Blueprint for your business. No matter what kind of podcast you make, content (and a lot of it) will be a side effect. But there are shows that exist primarily to create content that can then be distributed and repurposed, and that is a completely legitimate reason to have a show!
Goals that can fit: SEO, website traffic, content to repurpose, long-term content projects like books, courses and opt-ins.
Choosing the Right Business Podcast Blueprint
The first step is to choose one.
And while that might feel restrictive, rest assured that it isn’t the only benefit you’re going to *get* from your show – it’s just the most important one that is ging to help you make strategic decisions aligned with your most important outcomes.
Ready to go?
All else being equal, choosing a Blueprint starts with your highest-level goal for how your podcast will work in your business.
Does your business most need:
A passionate and engaged audience of people (or specific individuals!) that know, like and trust you? You want Audience Engagement.
More and better relationships with fellow business owners, potential (higher ticket) clients, promotional and referral partners or colleagues? You want Relationship Building.
To have an amazing reputation as a thinker, to be seen as a source of new and innovative ideas, and generally considered an expert’s expert? You want Thought Leadership.
To get more people into your list and community, signed up for subscriptions, or paying for lower-ticket products and services? You want Conversion.
To consistently create a lot of high-quality content for your company, social media, SEO and repurposing strategy? You want Content.
Do you want to go deeper? You can get a free copy of Podcasting For Business: How to Create a Show that Makes a Bottom Line Difference For Your Company that goes into excruciating detail about how to use these Blueprints to optimize your show for 15 different business outcomes, and contains everythign you need to plan your own podcast, from cover art to promotion.
Get your copy for Free at PodcastingForBusiness.com
How to Use the Business Podcast Blueprints
Now that you’ve chosen your blueprint – its time to use it.
Your Blueprint is your decision-making filter.
If you’re ever wondering, “Should I…?” Your Blueprint will help you make that decision in a way that doesn’t conflict with your ultimate goal.
This is important because it’s really easy to work at cross-purposes. There are so many ways to get value and benefits out of podcasting, but they don’t all mesh or overlap perfectly.
Here are a few things your Blueprint can help you decide:
- What style and format of show you should create.
- What style of show notes you should make.
- Whether or not you should have guests.
- Whether or not you should have ads or sponsors.
- What kind of promotions you should create for your episodes.
- Where you should invest most of your time and money.
This isn’t an exhaustive list.
Any time you need to make a strategic decision about your podcast, your Blueprint will help you do so.
If you have a question that starts with: “Should I…” you can find the answer by asking if it will help you achieve your Business Podcast Blueprint.
- Will this help me Build Relationships?
- Will this help me Engage my Audience
- Will this help me achieve Thought Leadership?
- Will this help me get more Conversions?
- Will this help me create Content?
Below are each of the Blueprints, a reminder of their purpose, and answers to each of those questions.
Strategic Relationship Building Podcasts
Relationship Building Shows exist to help you, as the host, connect with other people. These might be potential clients, referral or promotional partners, colleagues—anyone who could be an important part of your professional network.
Show Format: Interviews. A Relationship Building show will be all about the interviews. You can’t network if you’re not talking to people, although many shows add the occasional solo episode. They tend to perform well, and your listeners will enjoy the odd “just you” episode.
Show Notes: Show notes for this style of podcast should focus on the guest, the great things they said, their links and key moments. Since you’re working on nurturing relationships, consider the show notes (and other assets) a chance to do exactly that and roll out the red carpet in terms of what you provide.
Guests: You should have guests at least 80% of the time in a Relationship Building podcast.
Ads or Sponsors: Avoid ads and sponsorships for this kind of show. You don’t want anything that detracts from the relationship you are building with your guest. The only possible exception might be promoting your own or the guest’s products or services.
Promotions: Focus on the guest: who you’re speaking to, why they’re an expert, what else they’re working on, and the insights they shared.
Investment: Spend the majority of your budget and bandwidth on showing your guest a good time before, during and after the show. Run paid promotions to their episode, send a thank you gift, invest in great booking software, and spend the time following up.
Strategic Audience Engagement Podcasts
Audience Engagement Shows exist to let you connect with the world at scale – usually to people who have discovered you through a means other than your podcast itself. They might be an email list, on social, members of a community or just general fans – but wherever they are, you want to nurture them in a scalable way. One of our favorite type of Business Podcast Sprint is create a audience engagement podcast seasonto nurture leads towards faster buying decisions!
Show Format: You can get creative here. For an Audience Engagement Show you can do Q and A style episodes where you answer questions your audience has, you can teach content in solo episodes, you can have information-style interviews where you talk to someone who has knowledge you don’t, you can do coaching or audits, really anything you can think of. The key is to be very responsive to what your audience wants, needs, and is interested in.
Show Notes: Focus on actionable information for your show notes: key takeaways, tips, steps instructions, and of course, opportunities for your audience to respond and share their own ideas and experiences.
Guests: Totally optional for an Audience Engagement show. Guests can be a great addition, but they’re not required.
Ads or Sponsors: This blueprint is the best fit for ads and sponsors. Just make sure you don’t have so many your listeners get irritated!
Promotional Priority: Make sure your podcast episodes are available where people can easily access them, and where you can easily refer people to them. You also want to make sure you have clear and abundant CTA’s, so once people like you – they can do something about it!
Investment: Invest in a lot of planning and understanding your customer journey, quality production and making your content available in different formats like written, visual and video. Paid traffic and promotion might also be a good idea for an Audience Engagement show.
Strategic Thought Leadership Podcasts
Thought Leadership shows exist primarily to increase the influence, authority and reputation of the host and company that creates them. These are shows where you are bringing IP to the table, engaging in high-level conversations with colleagues, and generally setting the tone and topics for what your industry is talking about.
Show Format: Solo episodes or conversational style Interviews. If you want to establish thought leadership, you need to BE a thought leader, and that means putting the ideas out there for the rest of your industry to respond to, reference, and report on. You can do this by creating solo episodes with your own content or by having high-level conversations with fellow experts in your field.
Show Notes: Should contain action steps and key ideas people can take and run with. Many people like to have timestamped bullets of important ideas or quotations, and this is also a good opportunity to provide a transcript, both for your listeners and for later repurposing.
Guests: Optional. You don’t need guests for a Thought Leadership show, but if you have them, make sure the conversations you have with them ARE conversations, not you running down a list of questions or exclusively making them look awesome. You’re sharing the spotlight in a Thought Leadership show, not shining it solely on your guest (like you would in a Relationship Building one).
Ads or Sponsors: Either none or those promoting your own content or personal recommendations of companies you know and trust. A Thought Leadership style podcast is no place for a pile of pre-produced ads. Be selective, promote your own content, and always do host-reads if you are going to have ads.
Promotional Priority: For promoting a Thought Leadership show on social media, focus on the ideas you’re sharing, the questions you’re answering and the conversations you’re going to have with other experts. Consider reaching out directly to journalists and influencers who work in your industry and may want to comment on what you are saying.
Investment: The highest quality recording equipment, space, and post-production as you can manage. There are a lot of shows out there, and people are selective about what they’ll listen to. Two shows can have the same basic kind of content, and the one with better production value will win every time. This doesn’t matter for every type of podcast, but if you’re trying to be a thought leader, the quality of your sound has to match the quality of your content. It’s also wise to invest heavily in content repurposing. You’re putting out IP – make sure it’s distributed on all of your channels and in all possible formats.
Strategic Conversion Podcasts
Conversion shows exist as part of, or leading directly to, sales or opt-in funnels, usually with some kind of gated or privileged content level. These are a little tricky because podcasts are notoriously difficult to convert from, but it can be done!
Show Format: You have a lot of flexibility around the format for a Conversion podcast. As long as it is designed as part of a sales funnel, it passes muster. Some particularly useful formats are case study style interviews if you’re looking to make client sales, episodes that include clips or references to paid or premium offerings, and having multiple instances of podcast episodes – some free and some paid, like ad-free or extended versions.
Show Notes: Focus on actionable information for your show notes: key takeaways, tips, steps instructions, and of course, opportunities for your audience to respond and share their own ideas and experiences.
Guests: Totally optional. Guests can help you achieve the goal of getting your listeners to do something, or you could have solo episodes that do the same thing. A Conversion podcast is more about the framing and where it exists in the customer’s buying journey.
Ads or Sponsors: Ads and sponsors do not belong in a Conversion-style podcast unless they are ads for what you want people to convert on!
Promotional Priority: Show growth. There is a direct line from listeners to sales or opt-ins, so you want to get as many new listeners to your podcast as possible and should promote any and all elements of the show that will be intriguing, spark conversations, or get people excited to take another step in your direction. This might mean sharing clips, teasing what you teach, direct, 1:1 outreach to potential listeners or promotional partners, and paid promotions.
Investment: This is a type of podcast where you might consider paying for marketing help or show growth (but avoid those folks on Instagram who guarantee you thousands of downloads. They will be bots). SEO, Pay Per Click and other content marketing experts can really help you get your numbers up, however.
Strategic Content Podcasts
Content Shows may or may not be a standalone Blueprint for your business. No matter what kind of podcast you make, content will be a necessary side effect. There are shows that exist primarily for content that can then be distributed and repurposed, however, and that is a completely legitimate use of one!
Show Format: Absolutely anything goes. Follow your creative heart to the ends of the earth. 😉 One idea to consider is outlining a course or book you want to create, breaking it into episode-sized chunks, and recording it over the course of a year. That can be a great way to tackle huge content projects and build your repurposing right into the process.
Show Notes: As detailed and expansive as you can manage. Since your main goal is content, make sure your notes are standalone pieces that can be referenced, reused and shared easily.
Guests: Go for it! You can take a content platform and get extra value out of it by also networking, shining a light on clients and case studies, or expanding the areas you can speak about by bringing in other experts.
Ads or Sponsors: Absolutely any kind you like. Or none if you prefer.
Promotional Priority: Promoting isn’t necessary for all Content podcasts – particularly when your main use of the show is internal communications, or feeding other content channels. If you do want to promte your podcast – follo your heart and your metrics to the channels that work best for you.
Investment: Your main investment here is going to be in formatting, presenting and then repurposing your podcast. That might mean transcripts that get organized into a book or course, that might mean episodes that get sliced and diced into a world of social media posts. The sky is the limit, but it will be the best use of your resources. It’s also not a bad idea to invest in recording and post-production quality so your content stays more evergreen.
Using the Business Podcast Blueprints for Other Decisions
These are the high-level best practices for each of the Business Podcast Blueprints, but podcasting is and will remain a constantly changing and creative practice.
Your specific situation, needs and priorities could result in a different way of designing your podcast.
And that’s amazing.
It’s why the Blueprints are designed to help you make strategic decisions of all kinds, not just the ones mentioned here. They will help you verify that anything you want to do is aligned with your most important goal.
Here is how to use the Blueprints for a strategic decision not on our list:
Step 1: Identify the strategic decision you need to make.
Step 2: Formulate a question that includes your specific situation and/or constraints.
Step 3: Answer the question to find out if the decision is aligned with your goals or might conflict with them.
Here are a few examples how how this works:
Should My Podcast Have Guests?
Blueprint: Thought Leadership.
Q: Will having guests help me establish thought leadership in my industry so our brand awareness increases?
A: Yes, IF they are conversations between experts – not interviews where I just ask someone else to share their expertise.
Should My Podcast Have Guests?
Blueprint: Audience Engagement
Q: Will having guests help me create a better relationship with my existing audience so they trust my brand more?
A: Yes! There are lots of things I don’t know that would be helpful to my audience, and bringing them that information will improve our relationship.
Should My Podcast Have Sponsors?
Blueprint: Audience Engagement
Q: Will sponsors help me serve my existing audience?
A: Maybe! There are lots of companies offering services that could be useful to them, and they take my recommendations seriously. It might be worth a shot if I can get a high enough rate.
Should My Podcast Have Sponsors?
Blueprint: Conversion
Q: Will sponsors help me get more conversions to my products, services or community?
A: No. Sponsorships will take valuable airtime and attention I could be using for my own content.
Always format your questions in relation to your business goals, and in your answer include any restrictions you might be working under, like time, budget and bandwidth.
It’s how you choose to use the Blueprints for your specific show and business that will make your show unique and profitable.
What works for you works for you may or may not work for anyone else.
You’re the boss of your podcast. The Blueprints will help you be a good one.
And if you’d like some help being a good one, than lets talk! You can book a complimentary strategy session right here, where Megan Dougherty, One Stone Creative’s co-founder and the creator of the Business Podcast Blueprints, can help you decide on the right direction for your show.
Below, you’ll find some more resources that will help you make your podcast effective, efficient and profitable.
Business Podcast Sprints
The easiest podcasting you’ll ever do.
We learn about your business, design a strategic 12-episode season, outline every episode, record with you, and handle all of the production. You provide your unique expertise, we take care of the rest.
Perfect for: Solo experts and small partnerships in coaching, law, consulting, and finance.
Great for: Nurturing leads, improving sales cycles and the next step after reading your book or hearing your keynote.
Learn More
Podcast Kickoffs and Action Plans
Start your show off on the right foot, or fix one that isn’t doing what it should.
Kickoffs: If you have an idea for a company podcast, make sure you’re approaching it strategically, and have a blueprint for succes, book a podcast kickoff and get everything you need to start strong. Learn More.
If you’ve been publishing consistently but aren’t seeing the results you expected, there’s a reason. We audit your show, uncover what’s missing or could be improved, and give you a clear, detailed plan to get better ROI, fast. Learn More.
Podcast Production
Professional, reliable podcasting (seasons or ongoing) without any micromanaging.
We handle editing, publishing, strategy, and promotional assets so you can focus on hosting and connecting with your listeners. Designed for teams who need expert production with minimal oversight.
Perfect for: Small teams in legal, PR, HR, and business consulting
Great for: Podcasters who need a strategic, white-glove production partner they can count on.
Learn More
White Label Production
Sell podcasting services and let us deliver them.
If you have an audience that *should* be podcasting, but you don’t want to add a new arm to your business – let us be your delivery partners, and bring the same level of professional, reliable and profitable production to your clients and community that we give to our own clients. Wholesale and affiliate-based programs available.
Perfect for: Agencies, publishers, and expert coaches
Great for: Generating revenue, extending client relationships, creating podcast networks.
Learn More
Are You Ready for the Spotlight?
Small business owners know that podcasts can be a powerful marketing tool—but turning a show into a profitable asset is another story. The Business Podcast Spotlight bridges that gap, showing you how to transform a podcast from just another marketing channel into a revenue-generating strategy.
Each episode is a behind-the-scenes, strategic consultation with real business owners, exploring how they leverage their podcasts to drive results. We focus on actionable insights that help you make your show more efficient, effective, and profitable. Guests who implement changes and see measurable results return to share their success, giving you clear, revenue-positive strategies you can apply to your own show.
Would you like to be a guest?
If you have a podcast for your company, or you’re planning one in the near future, then we want to feature you!
Let’s highlight the good work you’re doing – and take your podcast to the next level.