101: How to Make Your Podcast & Target Audience More Specific

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All right, so if you are at all familiar with what we do here at Growth the Show, you know that we are really big on being more specific about your audience definition and your show's premise. And the way that we do that is through two exercises that we've shared pretty widely over the internet. The first one is what we call the blanks who blank and blank exercise, and that's how you define your podcast audience using three characteristics that every single listener of your podcast must have. So my podcast is for podcasters who have already launched and are struggling at their current growth level. The other exercise that we use was created by Eric Newsom, and it is called the 10-word description. He goes through it in his book called Make Noise, which is really, really good. I recommend it to everybody. And basically the exercises this, you must describe your show using 10 words or less, and in a way that describes literally no other podcast on the planet. If this is the first time you're hearing about these two things, I highly recommend that you go learn about those, implement those, complete those exercises. You can find the link to those in the show notes. But today we want to go a level deeper and understand how we can really, really make our audience definition and our 10-word description even better and even more specific. Now, the reason why most podcasters are struggling with growth is actually not because they haven't found the right strategy or they haven't found the right production process or something like that. It's because they're premise and their audience definition are vague, confusing, and broken. They don't work. And so even if you have the juiciest, most effective, perfect growth strategy, if you don't have your premise and your audience definition locked in, you're not going to grow. You're going to totally spin your wheels and you're going to be wasting your time. And again, the vast, vast majority of podcasters who are struggling with growth don't have a marketing or growth strategy problem. They have a premise or audience definition problem. So for good reason, I have spent a lot of my time on these two exercises, blanks who blank and blank and the 10-word description, just helping podcasters from my clients all the way to just people that are in my Instagram DMs, hone who their audience is and what makes their show unique. And while doing that, I get a lot of common questions. There's tons of people who join the Grow the Show Facebook group and probably five out of every 10 posts is, here's my 10-word description. Is this specific enough? Here's my audience definition. Is this specific enough? I'm struggling with getting more specific. Can you help me? So today, we are going to help with that. Before we dive into the advanced tactics on having a great audience definition and having a great 10-word description, we first have to attack the question that I get all the time, which is, is this specific enough? And a lot of people who ask me that, again, from clients all the way to people I've never met, never worked with, they're asking kind of for my permission to move forward, right? Because you need to be more specific guy and they want to know if I think what they're doing is specific enough. The reality is, I am not the source of truth here, I am not the judge and jury. What will determine whether your show is specific enough? It doesn't matter what I think, it's what results you get. It's, do you achieve resonance with your audience? And is your show unique enough that it's their favorite podcast? They're super, super excited about it. Now, I know it's hard to tell that early on. However, I have indeed helped literally hundreds of podcasters with their audience definition and their 10-word description from the more than 200 clients in the Grow the Show podcast accelerator, the 10,000 folks that listen to the Grow the Show podcast. And again, several other people just in life. And I have noticed patterns in what descriptions and audience definitions are specific enough in which ones aren't. And so here's what I've learned through doing this hundreds of times. There isn't a line that says, if you're over here, you're specific enough and if you're over here, you're not specific enough and you need to be more specific. Instead, it's more of a spectrum, right? How specific are you? And I've noticed, and what has helped me and other folks that I work with here is to think of that spectrum like a traffic light, like there's red, yellow, and green, right? Green means this is extremely specific. We know exactly the listeners that we're targeting and we know exactly what the really specific value proposition of the show is. Red is something is where most podcasters start out super vague. I want to have conversations about success. I want to help people with their finances, right? Things that are just totally vague. I want to help entrepreneurs or moms or business owners or something, you know, whatever it is, super vague, just not specific enough, isn't going to resonate with anybody. That's the red zone. And then the yellow zone is where it's like, this could be specific enough, but you also could probably get more specific with it. And so that is the zone that we're really going to target today. And so if you're in the red zone and you know, your show is just something totally vague and just is totally not unique, then just go back to the resources that we provide that go through these exercises and do them again. And you'll probably get more specific. If you're in the green, you're good to go. You know that your show is really specific. You've got those three characteristics that your audience and bodies and your, you know, your 10-word description actually is descriptive specific and makes the show unique. But for everybody that's in that yellow zone where it's like, I'm not really sure this is going to be for you. And we're going to get you into the green zone now. And we're going to use two little tricks, little hacks that I have developed and uncovered again through working directly one-on-one with more than 200 podcasters over the course of the last year and a half. And several more via the Facebook group and just, you know, blah, blah, blah, I've already said. And these two tricks are this, the five-wise tests and inversion. So let's start with the five-wise test. This is the one that helps podcasters who just feel like, I don't know, I really don't know how I can get more specific with this. Get more specific and really uncover what's underneath what they're doing, right? Because most times the podcaster that I'm working with has something really unique and special at the core of what they do. They just can't see it. Or the things, you know, their vision is just muddied by trying to reach as many people as they possibly can right here. And now they can't even recognize what their unique value proposition is. Or in many cases, the podcaster is so good at this one specific thing, but it's not clear to them because that thing is just obvious because it comes so naturally to them. So this is what I help people uncover. And so I get people all the time that are like, can you help me? I don't, I really don't see how I can get this description more specific. And then I say, okay, what's your description? And they say, interesting conversations with amazing people. I'm like, I actually don't think I could make that any less specific, like it's literally the least specific thing I've ever seen or heard, right? And so the way that you get out of it, but you know, again, this person is truly trying and they're like, I don't really see how I can get more specific with this. Totally fine. The way that you can do that is take the description that you've written or the audience definition that you've written. And for literally each word other than like the, right? Each word in the description and the audience definition, you ask why five times and write it down, right? So if the description that we're working with is interesting conversations with amazing people, right? You take the first word and say, why is it interesting? And then you go, well, because we talk about things that aren't really said anywhere else, right? Okay, why aren't those things said anywhere else? Well, because they're taboo. Well, why are they taboo? Well, because our parents raised us not to talk about them. Ah, so we, you talk about things that your parents raised you not to talk about, right? So that's a totally contrived example, but you can see how just by asking why three or four times we got to something more specific to take it to the next level, you could say, well, why did your parents teach you not to talk about that? Well, because, you know, they were afraid of what it would mean for us. I don't know. And then you could say, okay, these are conversations about things that are parents feared for us, right? Again, totally contrived example, but I think you get the point and you would be able to do this for your show. You could do interesting conversations. Well, why are you having these conversations, right? Well, because we really need to talk it through. Well, why do you do you need to talk it through in this way? Well, because the conversation has has more nuance than you can have in a video. Okay, great. Uncovering the nuance in the things that our parents were afraid of for us, right? Again, just totally pulling this out of you. You know what? But you can see the example of how you're able to uncover what you're really getting at here with your podcast. The same thing is true with your audience. So I get audience definitions all the time that are like, okay, Kevin is this audience definition specific enough. And I'm like, let's hear it. And it's like, parents who want the best for their children and listen to podcasts. And I'm like, I'm like, nope. So listen to podcasts is implied, right? We can't use that. So the first one, why are they parents? That doesn't really work. But the second one, who want the best for their children, right? Why do they want the best for their children? Well, because they want their children, they really, really want their children to succeed. Well, why do they want their children to succeed? Oh, because they don't really feel like they succeeded in their lives. Whoa. Okay, that's interesting, right? So parents who don't really believe they reach their full potential blah, blah, blah. Again, that's just two wise. If you really want to take it all the way through, do the five wise tests all the way through and write down the answer to all five wise for every word in your 10 word description and every word in your audience definition. It's going to take some time, but I promise you that if you don't shortchange it and you truly sit down and you think about this, you're going to uncover some stuff that's really deep, really unique. And that's really exciting to you. It's going to get to the core of why you're doing this. So that's the five wise tests. The second test that sometimes the five wise, sometimes we run into roadblocks, other times it's just even more valuable to do the inversion test. And I heard this originally from Alex Armoso, who I think got it from Charlie Munger. Basically, it's like, okay, it's way easier to figure out what something is by figuring out what it isn't, right? So sometimes I'll be coaching a podcaster and they're just really struggling with, you know, who their audience is. And I actually get this a lot with the women podcasters that I help who have shows for women, right? For women is A, there's a lot of competition in this space and podcasting and B, it's just super vague. That's half the planet, right? That's not specific enough. It's great that we have these specific resources for women, but we need to get more specific around what kind of woman that we're looking to, you know, impact positively here with our podcast. And so there's a lot of women podcasters that I work with who should really struggle with this. And also I see a pitfall here with shows that want to be inclusive, right? Because you know, there's a lot of folks that that really focus on making the world more inclusive, which is a great thing, right? However, when you're defining your podcast audience, you actually really don't want to be inclusive in terms of like the social justice type of meaning of inclusive, right? Because if you take that into what you're doing and saying this show is for everyone, come on in, then it's not going to resonate with anybody, right? So you can absolutely be inclusive in the, you know, more social progressive way, if that's important to you, while still making your audience really, really specific and saying this is who this show is for. And so if you try to make it for literally anybody, you know, come on in, we're totally inclusive. Again, you can be inclusive with the way that you operate your show, but you really need to be exclusive with your audience targeting. And you need to be able to say who this show is not for. And so in both of those examples, which I encounter all the time, what I usually go to is inversion. It's like, okay, I understand your show is for women. Okay, got it. Which women is your show not for? Like this show is not for these types of women, right? That is something that usually unlocks something, right? Or I understand that your show is inclusive, you know, we're not trying to exclude anybody based on their race or upbringing or preferences or whatever it is. But that aside, who, what types of people is this show not for? Right? Who do you really not want to serve? What type of people are not going to enjoy this podcast? So as an example, let's say I'm dealing with a podcaster whose show is for entrepreneurs, right? Super broad business owners, whatever you call it. I'll say, okay, what type of business owners is this show not for? Is this show not going to help? I'll be like, oh, I don't know. All entrepreneurs. I'm like, okay, is this show going to help a pizza owner who has been who is 80 years old and has been in business for 40 years, who owns a pizza shop? No, probably not. Why? Well, we kind of focus on, you know, strategies for, you know, growing a business online. Ah, so the show is for online business owners, right? Again, a bit of a contrived example. But you see how saying who the show is not for makes it easier to understand who the show is for, right? So those are two exercises that can help you get more specific with your podcast audience and your 10-word description. The first one is inversion, right? So if you're really struggling to get specific at all, who is the show not for? Who are the people that this podcast is not there to serve, right? For your description, what is this show not about? What are you not going to talk about? The opposite of those answers is what your show is. Then you can take it the next level and then for each word in your 10-word description and each word in your audience definition exercise, you can ask five wise and usually by the second, third or fourth, you get to the core of it. Sometimes it takes five, but that's how you can get more specific with these things. Another thing that you can do if you're really struggling with your 10-word description, your audience definition is, and your show has already launched, it's been around for a certain amount of time, you can just actually observe your listeners and your episodes. Just truly observe them because this is another thing that I see all the time. I see a podcast that's not growing, the economy for help, their show is super vague, they don't know who their audience is, their show kind of covers literally anything and everything. And the truth about that is there's almost always a core thing that you're talking about or that you're really good at or that you're really well served to resonate with that's hiding within this really vague broad show. And so by observing your listeners, you can very often discover what that is. And so everybody that joins the Grow the Show Podcast accelerator, we have go through an exercise called the 12 OGs exercise, where we have you interview 12 listeners or potential listeners and your force to ask them questions. You talk with them for a half hour. And by doing that, you start to notice patterns in your listenership in the way that they think that they talk, the things that they like, their episodes of your show that they really enjoyed. And you know, sometimes you'll have a conversation with 12 listeners and 10 of them all have certain things in common or all really loved certain topics that you covered. And you're like, oh, this is my target audience. Those other two people are cool, they listen, they're fine, but that's really not who the show is for. And the same thing can be seen if you look at your episodes. So if you go into your podcast host and sort by the number of downloads and the highest retention rates on your episode and see which ones performed the best, I'm willing to bet you will encounter a pattern and see, oh my gosh, my listeners really love when I cover this topic. So those three things are what you can do to improve the specificity of your audience definition and your 10 word description. Number one, inversion number two, the five wise tests. And number three, just if you've already launched, observe your listenership, see what they actually listen to, what they like, who they are, and you'll start to notice patterns. As always, if you would like more support with this, join us in the free Facebook group. There's thousands of podcasters in there who have already completed these exercises with success. I would love to help you there. So that's it for this one. My name is Kevin Schmidland. Let me know if you have any questions. I can't wait to hear your more specific audience definition and your more specific 10 word description. Be sure to follow us so that you can get more podcast growth tactics all the time here at Grow the Show. And I'll catch you in the next one.