Podcast Production Checklist

Pull the topic from the editorial calendar and confirm the working title, target persona, and the funnel stage the episode is meant to serve (TOFU awareness, MOFU consideration, BOFU). If the episode ties to a campaign or pillar page, link the brief in the show notes doc so attribution is clear at publish time.

Solo monologues skip booking and intake; guest interviews trigger the booking, intake, and pre-interview brief steps. Panel episodes follow the guest-interview path with a longer prep window.

Send the calendar invite (Calendly or SavvyCal) plus the intake form: bio, headshot, social handles, pronunciation notes, and a release covering use of likeness across audio, transcript, video clips, and social cutdowns. Without the signed release on file, the legal team will block the publish.

Outline cold-open hook, segments with rough timecodes, the mid-roll break point, and the call-to-action. Keep talking points as prompts, not scripts — read-aloud copy sounds rehearsed and tanks listener retention in the first 90 seconds.

Confirm the host mic (Shure SM7B / RE20 / SM58) shows clean signal in the DAW (Logic, Reaper, Audition), gain staging peaks at -12 dB to -6 dB with no clipping, and headphone monitoring is live. Boot the recording software at least 15 minutes early — driver / sample-rate mismatches surface here, not at the take.

Riverside and SquadCast record locally per participant and upload to the cloud progressively — confirm the green upload indicator before starting the take. Belt-and-suspenders: also arm a local backup recording in the DAW. Re-records due to a single dropped track are how a 60-minute conversation becomes an unusable episode.

Slate each take with episode number and date so the editor can sync. Clap on count for any setup that requires manual sync. Leave 10 seconds of room tone at the end of the recording for the editor to use as fill under cuts.

Capture the data the editor and publisher need downstream so nothing gets re-asked at midnight before publish.

Pass one in Descript or Adobe Audition: cut long pauses, ums and uhs (don't cut all — over-edited audio sounds robotic), false starts, and any factual misstatements the guest asked to remove. Leave breath naturals; over-zealous breath removal is a common amateur tell.

Drop in the show's licensed intro and outro (Musicbed, Artlist, or Epidemic Sound — verify the license tier covers podcast distribution). Sidechain music beds under VO so the dialogue stays intelligible at -16 to -14 LUFS.

Place the sponsor read at the contracted slot (pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll) and confirm the read matches the approved copy verbatim — sponsors audit. Include the unique vanity URL or promo code from the IO so attribution lands. FTC disclosure ("this episode is brought to you by...") goes at the top of the read, not after.

Target -16 LUFS integrated for stereo podcast delivery (Apple Podcasts spec) with true peak no higher than -1 dBTP. Run a final loudness scan in iZotope RX, Auphonic, or the DAW's loudness meter. Episodes mixed too quiet get drowned out in playlists; too loud gets normalized down by Spotify.

Include 3-5 sentence summary, chapter timestamps (HH:MM:SS), guest bio with social links, sponsor links with promo code, related episode links, and the CTA. Timestamps double as podcast chapter markers in Apple Podcasts and improve listener retention by giving skim-listeners a way in.

Auto-transcribe in Descript, Otter, or Rev, then human-edit for proper nouns, acronyms, and product names. Transcripts are required for ADA / WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility on the show's website and substantially help SEO indexing of episode pages.

3000×3000 px square cover at minimum (Apple Podcasts spec), brand-consistent with the show's master artwork, episode title legible at thumbnail size. Generate the social cutdown sizes (1200×630 LinkedIn, 1080×1080 Instagram, 1080×1920 vertical) from the same source in Figma.

Upload to Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Captivate, Transistor, or Megaphone. Verify the RSS feed validates in Apple Podcasts Connect and Spotify for Podcasters before scheduling — a malformed enclosure URL or missing iTunes tag will fail directory ingest silently.

Pull 7-day downloads from the host (Buzzsprout / Chartable / Podtrac) plus Apple Podcasts and Spotify for Podcasters. Compare against rolling 4-episode average — a single episode's number means little; trend against the show's own baseline is what to watch.

Look at consumption curve in Apple Podcasts (where do listeners drop?), title and artwork CTR, social engagement, and topic match to ICP. A below-benchmark episode usually signals title/artwork rather than content — test a re-titled version on the next promo cycle before retiring the topic.

Pull new Apple Podcasts and Spotify reviews, episode-specific replies on social, and any direct listener emails. Tag recurring themes (audio quality, segment length, guest fit) for the editorial calendar retro — anecdotal feedback from 3+ listeners is usually a real signal.