A store should consider trying a podcast if customers regularly need explanations about choosing, using, or caring for products, and an employee can give meaningful answers. For a first attempt, we suggest a pilot: a trial series of three episodes. Choose one goal for it, such as receiving consultation inquiries about a particular product category. Before recording, decide who is responsible, set a budget, choose where to publish, and decide how to track inquiries.
Decide whether to continue based on the actual time spent, listeners’ questions, and orders you were able to link to the episodes. Plays, link clicks, and customer responses provide different information. They can help you assess interest in the topic, but on their own they do not prove that the podcast increased sales.
When a podcast makes sense for a store
Start with the questions sales staff hear during consultations. Can you answer them through audio so that customers understand the explanation without a product demonstration? Is there enough material for several separate conversations? Does the store have a specialist who is willing to prepare for recording?
For a hypothetical outdoor equipment store, topics might include choosing a backpack, caring for it, and preparing for a first hike. For a fabric store, they might include choosing material for a particular project and care instructions. These are possible topics to try; assess whether they fit by looking at the questions your own customers ask.
If an answer requires comparing colors or textures, or demonstrating something by hand, add video or photographs to the episode page. If sales staff do not have time to prepare, or customers mostly ask only about price and availability, you could first prepare short written answers and gauge interest in them.
Choose one goal and define your target audience
Describe who you are making the podcast for. “All customers” is not very helpful when writing a script. For example, you could prepare episodes for people buying equipment for a day hike for the first time. Then it is clear which terms to explain and which details to leave for a separate consultation.
Choose one main action to suggest to listeners after an episode. It could be requesting a consultation, visiting a product selection page, or sending a question to a sales associate. If the goal is consultations, count those separately from plays.
Before you begin, the store owner and the person responsible for the podcast should agree on:
- the product category and customer need the episodes will address;
- the main action for listeners;
- the three topics and publication dates;
- the limit on staff time and external expenses;
- the publication channel and method for tracking inquiries;
- the date for reviewing results and the criteria for continuing.
One person can prepare and publish the episodes, while a sales associate with product experience reviews the content. The owner approves the budget and decides whether to continue the podcast. If the owner handles all these roles, include that time in the calculation too.
A three-episode pilot plan
Three episodes are a suggested experiment size that lets you try several topics and calculate costs. It does not guarantee enough listeners or orders. For a first pilot, you could use this sequence:
| Episode | Content | What the listener should take away |
|---|---|---|
| Choosing a product | Needs to consider and features to compare | A list of questions to answer before buying |
| Use and care | Common customer mistakes and how to avoid them | A clear sequence of steps for a specific situation |
| Customer questions | Answers to questions sales staff collected in the store and after earlier episodes | Explanations of details that remained unclear |
As a working schedule, you could plan one episode per week. Before launch, also choose a date to evaluate the results and leave time after the final publication for inquiries to come in. This is your work schedule: if the team cannot prepare quality material in time, increase the interval between episodes.
How to prepare a script
For each episode, write one sentence describing what the listener will understand or be able to do after listening. For example: “The customer will be able to list requirements for a backpack for a day hike.” Then keep only the material in the script that helps the listener achieve that goal.
- State a specific customer question.
- Explain a few key criteria or steps in a clear sequence.
- Discuss an example and explicitly identify it as hypothetical if the situation is made up.
- Explain the limitations: what the choice depends on and when an additional consultation is needed.
- Suggest one action and state how to contact the store.
You can write the script as talking points so the host sounds natural. Check model names, specifications, and care instructions against the relevant product documentation. If you mention a price or availability, check it before publication and provide a link where the customer can see current information.
Make the closing call to action specific. For example: “Message us the word ‘hike’ and tell us what you plan to bring. A sales associate will help you compare suitable models.” Before publishing, make sure the employee who responds to messages knows this plan.
How to record and check the audio
For a trial episode, you can start with an existing smartphone and an audio recording app. Test a compatible headset or external microphone with the specific device first. Connecting a microphone does not by itself guarantee the required recording quality.
Choose a quiet room where customers, phone calls, or equipment will not interrupt the conversation. Make a 30-second test recording and listen to it through headphones. Check that every word is clear, there is no harsh distortion, and background noise does not drown out the voice. If the sound is unsatisfactory, change the location or device position and test again.
To record voice on an iPhone, you can use the “Voice Memos” app. Keep a separate copy of the original before editing. Apple’s instructions cover recording audio and editing a recording.
During editing, remove failed takes, accidental pauses, and repetitions that make the episode harder to follow. Listen to the entire finished file after editing. Check the sequence of explanations, product names, and contact information. For a first pilot, you could make a solo recording without music: this reduces the amount of preparation.
Where to publish an episode and how to reuse it
Start with one main publication location that your customers can easily access. Prepare a clear episode title, a short description, links to the products mentioned, and a contact for consultations. Check the page and audio playback on a phone before sharing the link. To help customers find the episode, you can also add its link to relevant product pages and store posts, and put a quick response (QR) code in the sales area with a short explanation of the topic.
To submit a podcast to Apple Podcasts, you can use a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed from a third-party hosting provider. An RSS feed sends the catalog information about the podcast and its episodes. The submission process is described in the official Apple Podcasts instructions. Check file and publication requirements separately for your chosen channel: submitting to one catalog does not mean the podcast will appear on every platform.
You can create a short social media clip, a written answer to a common question, or a customer handout from a finished episode. If you recorded video, you can cut a clip explaining one question. For an audio recording, prepare a short excerpt with a caption that explains its topic.
Each clip should make sense on its own. Keep the conditions and limitations of the advice, even if that makes the excerpt longer. Add a link to the full episode and check that it works. Include the time spent on these materials in the podcast budget.
How to calculate the pilot budget
Record the actual time spent planning the series as a whole, preparing, recording, editing, publishing, promoting and reusing the material, responding to listeners, and reviewing results. Track work shared across the series separately if it is not already included in the time for each episode. Separately record external expenses, such as hosting, an editor’s services, or equipment, if needed. Include the cost of the owner’s or staff member’s time as well, so you can see the project’s full cost.
Hypothetical example. A store prepares three episodes. In this example, assume that all work on the series will take 12 hours—an average of four hours per episode. This includes planning the series, preparation, recording, editing, publishing, promotion, short materials for other channels, responding to listeners, and reviewing results. For the calculation, assume an internal hourly cost of 200 Ukrainian hryvnias (UAH) and external expenses of UAH 600 for the entire pilot. These are assumptions for the example, not standard time or service rates.
| Cost item | Calculation | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Staff time | 3 episodes × 4 hours × UAH 200/hour | UAH 2,400 |
| External expenses | For the entire pilot | UAH 600 |
| Total cost | UAH 2,400 + UAH 600 | UAH 3,000 |
To assess cost recovery, count the amount that remains from an order after the cost of the goods and variable costs associated with that order. Revenue is not suitable for this calculation because the store spends part of the money received on making the sale.
Continuing the hypothetical example: if one additional order leaves the store UAH 150 after these costs, it would take UAH 3,000 ÷ UAH 150/order = 20 additional orders to cover the budget. This is an arithmetic scenario. It does not forecast the podcast’s results or prove that orders where a customer mentioned an episode were additional.
How to track inquiries and orders
Give listeners a separate link to a consultation page or a code word to use when contacting you. The code word can be used without offering a discount. Ask sales associates to find out how a customer heard about the offer and record the customer’s answer rather than guessing the source themselves.
For the trial series, keep a summary table with the episode number, topic, and number of inquiries and completed purchases during the chosen period. Separately count responses from people who named the podcast as their source of information. Do not put names, phone numbers, order numbers, full messages, or other data that could identify a customer in this log. Use aggregate totals when deciding on future episodes.
Keep the results separate:
- plays—the number reported by the chosen service; before comparing episodes, find out exactly what the service counts as a play;
- clicks on a unique link—interest in the page;
- inquiries mentioning an episode or code word—customer requests that were recorded;
- orders resulting from those inquiries—purchases you were able to link to a request.
Do not add these metrics together into one overall count of “customers from the podcast.” One person may listen to an episode, click a link, use the code word, and make a purchase. Count inquiries and completed purchases separately. Agree with sales associates on who records a completed purchase in the aggregate count so the same purchase is not counted twice.
A customer’s response can help you understand which material they noticed. It does not show the entire path to a purchase: the person may have visited the store before or seen other messages. Likewise, a customer may listen to the podcast and not mention it to a sales associate.
Customer surveys in Torgsoft to track the source of an inquiry
Torgsoft’s customer survey system lets you ask customers how they heard about a promotion and later count their responses. If an episode talks about a specific store promotion, you can add “podcast” as an option in that survey. The setup process is described in the Torgsoft guide to customer surveys.
Agree with sales associates on using the same question and recording responses the same way. To compare episodes, use aggregate counts without information about specific customers. A survey collects what the customer reports; it does not automatically determine the source of an order and is not an integration with podcast platforms.
How to decide whether to continue the podcast
On the agreed date, the person responsible compiles the time spent, external expenses, inquiries, and orders linked to them. The owner compares these figures with the pilot’s goal and budget. It is also useful to review listeners’ questions: they show which explanations were helpful and what was missing.
Before starting, you can set a target number of inquiries, how much you are willing to spend per inquiry, and how much staff time you will allocate. Agree on these limits in light of the store’s budget and the amount an order leaves after the cost of goods and variable expenses. If there were inquiries, divide the full pilot cost by the number of recorded inquiries linked to the episodes. Agree in advance that repeat messages about the same request will not count as new inquiries. If there were no inquiries, do not calculate an average cost per inquiry; report the expenses and zero inquiries in your summary.
If the topics generate meaningful questions and the team stays within budget, you can prepare another series. If customers are interested in the material but do not take the suggested action, check whether the action is clear, whether the link works, and how sales staff handle requests. If the pilot takes too much time and does not meet your criteria, you can end it and use the explanations you prepared on product pages or during consultations.
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