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While podcasting has been around for more than 13 years, the technology is still playing catch up. And if you’ve started a podcast you know there are a lot of moving parts. In an attempt to make every podcaster’s life a little bit easier, I put together this list of 80+ podcast tools. Each section is broken down into the following categories:

Outreach and follow-up

Recording and editing

Podcasting hosting platforms

Marketing and promo

Systemization

Graphic design

Website design

Theme music

Podcast players and WordPress plugins

Podcast list building

Podcast Tools for Guest Outreach and Follow- up

Conducting interviews is a BIG reason why you podcast. You get to build relationships with influencers. You get to gain insights from potential customers. And finally, you get in front of audiences who wouldn’t have otherwise seen or heard of you.

So, reaching out to connect and following up takes work. However, there’s an abundance of tools that will help ensure you’re able to pinpoint your most ideal guest, schedule your interviews and follow-up.

Lead Fuze – Find and connect with other professionals on LinkedIn.

Mailshake – Perfect your email outreach and follow up with these killer templates.

Quick Mail.io – Automate outbound email and follow-ups.

Hunter.io – Find email addresses with any website URL.

Follow Up Then – Setup automated email reminders so you never forget to follow up.

Contactually – Our favorite podcast CRM tool.

Hubspot CRM – A free alternative to Contatually that’s robust and reliable.

Acuity, ScheduleOnce, Calandly – No more back and forth email between you and your guests.

Tools for Recording and Editing Your Podcast

Getting your interviews and content recorded doesn’t have to be a challenge. There are a plethora of recording and editing tools that will cost you little to nothing to get started. Here are a few recording and editing tools I recommend.

Podcast Tools for Recording

ECamm – Record video and audio calls with your Mac.

Skype – Not the best but it works (sometimes). Bundle with ECamm to record calls. Here are some alternatives.

Zoom – A video and audio conferencing tool that can be used to record podcast interviews.

Discord – Designed for use while gaming so there’s minimal impact on your CPU.

Ringr – Connect with your guest, record your interview, and have a file ready to download in minutes.

Zencaster – I haven’t personally used it but other podcast friends have given it a shot.

Zcast – Cool concept. Seems to more for beginners and hobbyist?

Podcast Tools for Audio Editing

Audacity – Free editing software. Available for both Mac or PC.

Garage Band – Free Mac based editing software.

Adobe Audition – A suite of professional recording and editing tools.

Auphonic – Clean up your audio without having to spend a fortune on mixing and mastering.

Levelator – A free alternative to Auphonic.

Save Time! Click HERE To Get The PDF Version or Print

Podcast Hosting Platforms

Hosting platforms are where your media files live. Without them, your show can’t get distributed to podcast directories. That means no iTunes, no Stitcher, etc. You’ll only need one primary host for your podcast and thankkfully there’s plently to choose from.

Libsyn – The industry standard for podcast hosting. Unattractive UX.

Blubrry – Haven b een around for 10 years. Free website included with hosting.

BuzzSprout – Clean UX and helpful content for beginning podcasters.

Spreaker – A complete podcast solution with a wide range of tools.

Acast – Podcast discovery, listening, hosting and distribution all in one place.

SimpleCast – My go-to hosting platform and what I use for MicScience.

Podbeam – Haven’t used them but they’ve been in the game for awhile.

PodOmatic – Have never used them but apparently they’re 2 million podcasters strong.

SoundCloud – Host at your own risk! Nobody’s really sure what will become of SC due to their recent financial troubles.

Tools for Marketing and Promoting Your Podcast

Promoting your podcast episodes is vital to the growth of your show. Marketing automation and social promotion will play a key role. Therefore, having a slew of tools at your disposal and knowing how to use them is essential.

Podcast Tools for Link Sharing

Pretty Link (Lite) – Easily mask episode URLs. For example, yoursite.com/episode001.

Share Link Generator – Create social share links to send in your follow up emails to guests.

Bitly – Create shortened URLs that fit Twitter’s 180 character limit.

Podcast Tools for Social Media

Buffer – Social sharing on autopilot.

Mention – Get immediate notifications when someone shares your content on Twitter.

Click To Tweet – Make it easy for guests to share their interview via Twitter.

Meet Edgar – Build a massive content library that never goes away, ever.

Tweepi – See who follows your favorite influencer and hijack their audience. In a nice way of course.

Social Oomph – If Meet Edgar was an iPhone, Social Ooomph would be an Android.

Coschedule – Bloggers loves it, podcasters should too.

Podcast Tools for Creating Shareable Audio

Wavve – Create social media videos for your audio.

Anchor.fm – Create sharable, bite-sized versions of audio.

SpeakPipe – Get questions from your listeners and make them a part of your show.

Audiogram (Sparemin) – Create a video from a sound file (audiogram), download it, and add it wherever you’d like.

Podcast Tools for Repurposing Content

If you’ve already done the hard work once, why do it over again? Or better, why not maximize your ability to reach a wider audience? That’s why repurposing your content can go a long way.

Medium – Repurpose transcribed episodes to Medium.

SlideShare – Why not repurpose your podcast episodes into presentations?

Prezi – Slide Share’s older brother, but just as cool.

LinkedIn Pulse – This isn’t optional if you’re selling B2B.

YouTube – Upload your audio with a still image and BOOM, you’re on multiple platforms.

Podcast Tools for Systemization, Collaboration, and Outsourcing

Recording episodes are easy. But anyone on the backend will tell you this undeniable truth: a lot of hard work goes into creating a remarkable podcast. Thus, you’ll need to ensure your processes and procedures are in place when you’re working with your team.

Podcast SOP creation tools

Workflowy – Create checklists and more all in one place.

Process St. – Systems don’t fail, people do. Start creating systems.

Google Docs – A free alternative to Process St. and Workflowy.

Podcast file sharing tools

DropBox – Share podcast episodes with your behind the scenes team.

Google Drive – A free alternative to DropBox.

Podcast project management tools

Slack – Ditch email between your editing and content teams. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Jing – Record instructional videos for anything you need to outsource.

Droplr – Send screenshots on the fly to your team.

Base Camp – A great project management tool for organizing your podcast.

Trello – We’ve been using it from day one. Stay organized by keeping everything in one place.

Asana – A similar alternative to Base Camp that gets me thinking about yoga poses.

Podcast Tools for Graphic Design

Clean design and branding are paramount to having a professional polished look. Like it or not, perception is a reality. And if you show up looking like an amateur, that’s what you’ll attract in your business. Please, please no Fiverr.

Podcast Logos – Get sweet podcast cover art designed for your show.

Kapa99 – Done-For-You design at a fair price.

Canva – Create podcast episode art on the fly without hiring a designer.

Design Pickle – Unlimited graphic design for a low monthly price.

99 Designs – Need to hire a designer? Why not have them compete to earn your business?

Upwork – A bootstrappers dream. Get everything you need from design to copywriting.

Save Time! Click HERE To Get The PDF Version or Print

Podcast Tools for Web Design

Arrr!! The dreaded website design question. Keep it simple for now. Aim to have the basics. At the least, you’ll need a way of capturing leads and pushing them to your email list.

Podcast Websites – No more guesswork. Here’s the all-in-one website solution.

Lead Magnets Fast – The fastest way to get professional lead magnets with zero design skills.

Appendipity – Plug & Play podcast WordPress themes.

Square Space – Sleek looking designed sites without having to hire a designer or coder.

Lead Pages – A must for collecting emails and content upgrades.

Click Funnels – Geek out on landing page optimization and upsells.

OptimizePress – Create awesome landing pages and membership sites.

Podcast Sound Design and Theme Music Tools

Your beats need to be on point. Nobody likes boring, cheesy theme music. When listeners tune-in you want them to have high energy levels and ready to engaged. Not snoozing at traffic lights. Either get it right the first time and they’ll love you forever or your grandma will be your only subscriber.

Music Radio Creative – Trusted by some of the tops names in the industry. Mike and his team do great work.

Audio Jungle – Everything you’ll need from the theme music to corporate indents, bumpers and more.

Podcast Players and WordPress Podcast Plugins

The default players available for hosting platforms haven’t caught up to the times. So investing in a podcast player shows you’re a professional. Most of all, they’ll also give your listeners an optimal in-browser listening experience from mobile.

Smart Podcast Player – The podcast player we use here at Pod Parrot HQ designed by Pat Flynn and his team.

Seriously Simple Podcasting – Broadcast multiple shows from the same WordPress website.

Simple Podcast Press – Another great player that makes it easier for visitors to tune-in.

Blubrry Powerpress – The #1 podcast plugin with 50,000+ active installs and tons of features.

Podlove – Open source plugin that provides a cutting-edge listening experience for your audience.

Social Subscribe & Share – Easily add social icons for your blog and podcast to encourage your visitors to subscribe.

My Podcast Reviews – See international iTunes reviews for up to 155 countries.

Podcast Tools for List Building

One of the biggest assets we have in businesses is our email list. Since podcasts are an audio medium and listeners are usually consuming content on the go, we have to get creative to capture emails. So here are a few tools I recommend for building your list.

Textiful – An affordable solution for collecting emails via text message.

Mobit – Robust mobile messaging beast with interactive landing pages and integration with InfusionSoft.

ManyChat – Chatbots are the future. Do yourself a favor and start integrating them into marketing.

So what are your thoughts on this list of podcast tools? Did we forget to mention a tool that you use? Share below in the comments.

P.S. You can download the PDF print-friendly version of this article to keep handy for reference.