4 Ways to Make Podcasting Easier Through Automation

Podcasting is a time consuming effort, which is why many podcasts fall victim to the dreaded podfade¹. It can sometimes feel like you need a herculean effort to get it all done. Come up with topics, find and book guests, coordinate schedules, do the tech checks, record, post production, then publishing and promoting. That’s why putting a process in place and moving things off of your plate is a must. Here are 4 tasks you can take off your plate thanks to automation.

Using a Scheduling Link

I’m going to mention this right off the bat because I think it’s underrated and underused. Sure, perhaps mine is a little more complicated than is necessary, but there are lots of things you can do with something like Calendly besides picking a time that works for both of you.

In fact, you can manage all of the communication, including:

1. Scheduling a time.
2. Setting up a call link with Zoom or one of several other services.
3. Sending all the info the guest needs to know (how it will work, how to be prepared, questions, and tips).
4. Reminder emails.
5. Follow-up post-interview emails thanking them / wrapping up.

This process has helped me keep my guests informed without me needing to remember to email them at specific times. Calendly’s redirect function allows me to send them to a guest notes page, as well as auto-create Zoom links and more. Plus, the Zapier integration is fantastic.

Use a Service like SquadCast or Zencaster to Record and Combine Audio

The biggest hiccup in my process is I have each guest record their audio locally. While I do send instructions (and it work most of the time), I still need to remind guests to hit record. I also need to make sure I have backups in place.

I did improve the process a bit by using Calendly to send them a follow up email with a Dropbox upload link, but still – there’s a better way for most people.

With something like SquadCast or Zencaster, you can easily send guests a link and the service takes care of the rest. You’ll have two locally recorded audio files that they can even combine for you. And during the pandemic, Zencaster has taken limits off of their Hobbyist plan, so now’s the perfect time to try it.

The benefit of this is you have a higher quality recording (uncompressed, unaffected by potential blips in internet connection), that you can either just release, or hand over to your editor.

Use Publer or Social Web Suite to Handle Social Media Posts

One post-production task that’s time consuming is sharing everything on social media. If you can automate that process, it can be a big time saver. Here are two methods I use.

The first is using a CSV and Publer to schedule a week’s worth of posts all at once. I have a template I use (3 posts about the episode, 1-2 questions, sponsor posts, CTA for newsletter), and I reword / rework them each week to fit in with the latest episode. One auxiliary benefit of using episode number redirects is it’s easy to increment the links from week to week as well.

Publer can also watch RSS feeds and schedule shares based on when a new post comes in.

The second is using the WordPress plugin Social Web Suite to to schedule multiple tweets when I publish the post. This is a nifty way to mix up the tweets but not have to worry about going somewhere else to share on social. You do it all right through the WordPress dashboard.

Using both tools also allows me to use one to share to the podcast’s Twitter account, and the other to share to my personal account — you know, if that’s something you’d want to do.

Use Zapier and a Spreadsheet for Outreach

OK this one is my favorite because I use it a lot, for a lot of different things. It’s probably worth doing a separate video or post on, but here’s the idea.

I have a spreadsheet of potential guests for my podcast. It includes their first name, their email address, and the topic I’d want to discuss with them. There’s also a field for an additional “personal note.” There’s one more field: “Ready to send.” The magic happens when that’s set to “Yes”

Using Zapier, I periodically check the spreadsheet to see if “Ready to Send” is set to “Yes” for each row. If it is, I have Zapier build an email that’s mostly pre-build. The fill-ins are:

1. Name
2. Topic I want to discuss
3. Personal Note

The email is short enough the that stuff I want to repeat is there but it’s still mostly a personal outreach email to each guest. The only difference is I don’t have to open a new “Compose Email” every time.

This automation saves me hours of work. I can reach out to 20 or so people in seconds, and start conversations. I usually have a full stack of interviews within a few days.

The key here is that the email is still pretty much personal. The “personalization” fields in the spreadsheet mean I’m still thinking about each guest. I’m just not composing dozens of separate emails.

Couple that with the fact that both my assistant and I add rows to the spreadsheet and my outreach process is a pretty well-oiled machine.

Bonus: Use Castos or Repurpose.io to Send Your Podcast to YouTube

Now, if you really want your podcast to be everywhere (which I strongly recommend), that means you’ll want it over on YouTube too. You could use the great Mac App FusionCast to convert your audio into a video with just a few clicks, then upload it. Or you can automate the process.

Some hosts, like Castos, offer this in their higher tier plans. It works very cleanly – you upload an image, decide which playlist to have the videos added to. The only thing I’d like to see there is more control over the description.

If you don’t use Castos, you can look at Repurpose.io. Their interface is not as clean, but it’s very powerful. In-fact, Audio host to YouTube isn’t the only automation they offer. It’s worth checking out for the suite of tools they have.

Hopefully You Have Some Good Ideas Now!

Now your process might be different. Maybe you don’t have guests or you don’t want to be on YouTube. But I hope this post has at least given you ideas for how to take time consuming parts of your podcast and automate them.

What is the most time consuming task for you and your podcast? Let me know in the comments below!

1. The idea that a podcast only lasts a small number of episodes then fades away. On average, that number is 7.

Automate Transcription and Show Notes with Descript or Otter.ai

Transcribing every episode by hand is a massive time sink, and honestly, it’s one of those tasks that gets skipped more often than it should. That’s a shame because transcripts help with SEO, accessibility, and repurposing your content. Fortunately, you can set up automatic transcription that runs after each recording session without you lifting a finger. Descript and Otter.ai are two popular options that integrate well with podcast workflows. Descript goes a step further by treating the transcript as the editing interface, so you can cut filler words or awkward pauses by deleting text. Otter.ai is simpler and cheaper, and you can connect it to Zoom or your recording tool so a transcript is ready within minutes of wrapping up.

Once you have the transcript, you can automate the creation of show notes too. Using Zapier, you can send the transcript or a summary to a Google Doc template, automatically pull out key quotes, or even generate a rough draft of show notes with an AI tool like ChatGPT. I’ve found that the first draft doesn’t need to be perfect — you’ll still want to add your own voice — but having 80% of the work done automatically saves a couple of hours per episode. That’s the kind of automation that directly fights podfade.

Use Auphonic or Alitu to Handle Audio Cleanup and Leveling

Post-production is often the least fun part of podcasting. You have to normalize loudness, reduce background noise, remove long silences, and make sure your intro and outro music don’t blow out anyone’s eardrums. Doing all that manually in Audacity or GarageBand is doable but tedious. Instead, you can push your raw audio file to a service like Auphonic or Alitu and let it handle the heavy lifting. Auphonic is a web-based audio post-production tool that applies loudness normalization, noise reduction, filtering, and even automatic leveling between multiple speakers. Alitu goes further by combining recording, cleaning, and publishing into one platform, so you can literally record in a browser and get a finished episode back.

The automation part comes in when you connect these tools to your cloud storage. For example, you can set up a workflow where your recording from SquadCast or Zencaster automatically drops into a Dropbox folder, and Auphonic watches that folder for new files. Auphonic processes the audio, applies your preset (like a 15-second outro with a fade), and exports the final mp3 back to another folder or straight to your podcast host. I recommend spending an hour setting up your preset once. After that, every episode gets the same professional treatment with zero manual editing time.

Set Up Automated Email Notifications with Mailchimp or ConvertKit

You probably already know you should email your list every time a new episode drops, but actually remembering to do it is another story. Automating this process means your subscribers get notified the moment your episode goes live, without you having to open your email platform. Most podcast hosts, like Libsyn, Buzzsprout, or Castos, have built-in RSS-to-email features, but if you want more control over design and segmentation, you can use Mailchimp or ConvertKit with a Zapier trigger. When your RSS feed updates, Zapier can create a new campaign or add a subscriber tag, and the email goes out automatically.

You can also automate a drip sequence for new subscribers. For instance, when someone signs up for your podcast newsletter, they could receive a welcome email with links to your top three episodes, then a follow-up a few days later with a behind-the-scenes note. None of that requires you to hit send. I’ve set up a simple system in ConvertKit where episodes tagged as “interview” get a different email template than “solo” episodes. It’s a small touch, but it feels personalized, and it runs on autopilot. The key is to use an RSS-to-email trigger that works with your host — most Zapier integrations support this natively.

Automate Guest Research and Follow-Up with Airtable and Zapier

Finding and prepping guests is one of the most repetitive parts of running an interview show. You research their background, pull links to their work, draft questions, and then chase them for a bio and headshot. A lot of that can be automated with a simple Airtable base connected to Zapier. When a potential guest fills out your scheduling link, you can have Zapier create a record in Airtable with their name, email, and scheduled date. Then Airtable can automatically look up their Twitter profile, latest blog post, or recent podcast appearances using integrations or simple scripts.

After the interview, you still have to follow up, but that can also run on autopilot. Set up a Zap that triggers when the episode is published. It can send the guest a pre-written email with a link to the episode, a thank-you note, and maybe a request to share it on social media. You can even include a few pre-made social images for them to use. I’ve found that guests are much more likely to share when you make it effortless. The whole system — from booking to follow-up — takes a couple of hours to set up, but after that, each guest interaction runs on rails. That’s a huge win for your sanity and your show’s consistency.