Establishing a consistent brand in both audio and visual representations of your podcast will help to build trust with the audience. It is worth investing in a small package of assets that you’ll use again and again. This includes intro and outro music, any sound effects you might need, a logo, cover art, short description, etc.

It starts with the name

The name you choose for your podcast should be succinct and work as a domain name, social media handle and hashtag. Some platforms have character limits. For example, Apple Podcasts limits the title at 150 characters.

Before you commit to a name check the availability as a:

• domain name (you can do this on most hosting platforms that also facilitate the purchase of domain names)
• social media handles

When we launched Tea for Teaching we verified the availability of a domain name but failed to check various social media platforms. As a result, we have used our personal social media handles to promote the the podcast. Establishing a stronger social media presences is idea for getting the word out.

Description

Once you finalize a name, you’ll also need a description. Try to capture the essence of the podcast in a sentence or two. Different platforms have different limits on character counts for descriptions. Our hosting service limits a description to 1000 characters and Apple Podcast limits it to 4000 characters. Know the platforms you’ll be using and use the smallest character count as your guide.

Visual Assets

Visual elements might not be the first thing you think of when considering a podcast, but they play an important role. Most publishing platforms for podcasts request a few key visual assets including a logo and a cover image. It may also mean establishing a color palette (ex. tea for Teaching uses a consistent cream, purple and off-black) and a font to use consistently. Using these visual elements consistently will reinforce the brand and help your audience quickly identify your materials and establish the podcast as trustworthy.

The podcast itself typically has cover art (usually a square version of the logo) and can also have episode cover art. Many podcasts use images of their guests as the episode covers. These images are what populate a person’s podcast feed in whatever app they choose to use. You’ll want a graphic that is highly recognizable, high contrast and low on detail so that it scales well. You’ll want the imagery to work well on mobile devices and scale up to billboards without sacrificing any detail.

Cover art is used to help listeners skim content to find what they are looking for. If you have the resources, you can also consider updating the visual assets each season.

Our Tea for Teaching team includes a designer, so we did not need to hire out. Hiring out is highly recommended for teams without designers. Hiring a designer for the first time can be intimidating—the key to a successful design request is to be clear about what you want. Typically this means knowing the name of the podcast, the required artwork size for the platforms you are going to publish to, and a clear sense of the tone you want to communicate. Student designers can be a much more affordable option  but will likely require you to be more clear about what you need. See Apple’s article on Promotional requests and Podbean’s section on Publishing and Distribution for specifications (or look for a similar section on your hosting platform).

Audio Assets

Podcasts are an audio format, so don’t overlook the importance of key audio assets. The consistent format of the show, the intro music, sound effects, transitions, and outro music all contribute to the establishment of a brand identity. These elements are valuable in establishing trust with your listener. When they hear the sounds associated with your podcast, they’ll know what to expect.

These elements that you can either commission and purchase from a musician or you can hire someone to crate these elements for you. Depending on your resources, these elements can be consistent from season to season, or you could update these each season to reflect the content of the season.

Although you can purchase and license your audio assets (which is what we did), we recommend hiring an audio designer/musician to create you a custom piece. In either case, make sure you have a license that covers the uses you intend. For example, make sure the license includes the ability to publish on the web and perform digitally. You’ll also want to make sure that the license extends through the expected life of the podcast. (Our theme music has a 50-year license, with 43 years left to go.)