144 | 12 Days of Podcast Growth Day #2: Defining Your Audience

This is Grow the Show, the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Svetlin. I am your podcast growth coach and this is lesson two of twelve of the twelve days of podcast growth. This is the first time I have ever published daily on my podcast feed so this has been super fun and today we are going to dive further into how to ensure that your podcast has a category of one premise, a cat one premise. That's what I call it anyway. And as a reminder, having a cat one premise is level one of the podcast ladder. The podcast ladder is the four steps that it takes to have a healthy, growing, profitable podcast and we cannot skip steps or at least it's way harder to grow and monetize a show if you skip steps. And step number one is indeed having a cat one premise, which I define as the unique combination between these three things. Number one, your audience, so who your podcast is for, number two, your mission, so what your podcast will do for them and number three, your format, how your podcast will do it for them. So those three things and it all starts with your audience and that is what we are going to talk about today, how to define your podcast audience. Now if you are like most podcasters, when I ask you to tell me to define your podcast audience, you're going to default to old school almost Don Draper style audience metrics. And what I mean by that is you speak in demographics like age, generation, gender, occupation. So my podcast is for women aged 25 to 45 who live in the US, I promise you, it is not because a 25 year old woman in New York City is likely not listening to the same podcast as a 45 year old woman in mobile, Alabama. Or at least I think it's pretty unlikely, but my point is demographics is actually an extremely broad way to describe an audience. And it is the old way to define an audience because it used to be the only way, right? If you think back 50 years, the only thing that anybody consumed was mass media, magazines, television, radio, newspapers, it was all stuff that was extremely broad. It had to be extremely broad because it was one thing that reached tons of people. And so about the most specific you could possibly get was this demographic data. But today we live in a world of extreme amount of data and personalized algorithms. And so because of that, content is not consumed on a demographic level. That approach, that way of defining and understanding an audience falls way short. And so what we need to do is we need to be more specific with how we define and how we understand who our podcast audience is. And so how do we do that? Well, we don't focus on demographics, like old school advertisers. We instead focus on what we call psychographics. That is the new way to define an audience. And so what is a psychographic? Well, psychographics focus on the current psychology of an individual. So it's the here and now of what their problems are, what their hopes are, what their fears are, and what their dreams are. It's all about what they are experiencing today and what they would rather experience instead or what they would like to avoid experiencing or what they would like to keep experiencing, right? What's important to understand is that demographics are fairly permanent. They don't change that often, but psychographics change a lot. And I always say that a belief can change in an instant. So a psychographic could change in an instant. And so that's a little actually a little sidebar pro tip that I like to share with you when thinking about your audience, understand that people tend to consume content based on their psychographics, not based on their demographics. And psychographics change a lot. And so for that reason, you want to understand that the same human beings will move in and out of being within your target audience. And that's okay. That's just the nature of the beast. And actually if you play your cards, right, your podcast is going to push your listener out of your psychographic. But that's a little bit of a sidebar for another day. I'll explain that a little bit more tomorrow in the next day. Suffice it to say, psychographics are about what your potential listener is experiencing today and what they would rather experience instead or what they would like to avoid or keep experiencing. And so what they're experiencing now is called a symptom, right? That's what they're currently feeling. And what they would rather experience instead or what they would like to avoid or keep experiencing is called an outcome using these ingredients is my favorite way to describe a podcast audience because it's so quickly cuts to the core of who you are trying to serve. And by the way, this whole framework is a distillation of me working directly with more than 400 podcasters over the past four years. And so this is a framework that I have distilled. I wouldn't say that I've invented it because it was heavily influenced by learning from others and the work that I've done. But this is my favorite way to describe a podcast audience because in my experience, podcasts big and small find it so much easier to understand who their listener, who their listener and potential listeners are by describing an audience with these ingredients. Okay, Kevin, that's cool, congrats, good for you. But how does this help me know who my podcast audience is? Okay, so here's the answer to that. Here's how we get clarity. We combine the old with the new. And so you take the two ingredients that make up a psychographic, which is the new way to describe an audience, you combine that with one demographic, which is the old way. And what you're left with is an extremely specific description of your target audience. And yes, we do use demographic despite what I said before. Don Draper wasn't completely off. We still use demographics as a tool to help us narrow down our audience. We just don't rely on demographics alone. We get more specific than that. So drumroll, please, here is how you define your podcast audience. This is the equation, demographic plus symptom plus tangible outcome. This is where you and more importantly, your potential listeners get clarity on who your podcast is for. So to repeat, to effectively define your podcast audience, combine one demographic metric with with one symptom that your potential listener is currently feeling or experiencing. And then you add a tangible outcome that they desire, tangible. What does that mean? Great question. A tangible outcome is something that you can actually feel and measure, tangible versus intangible. It is or it isn't. I hear a lot of podcasters trying to describe what their show is going to do for their audience intangibly, saying something like, you will grow your business. You'll get in great shape. You'll be happier. Those are all intangible things. And that sounds great. But the problem with that is it's really hard to actually know and feel when that thing happens. So if you're someone who's trying to get in great shape, at what point have you gotten in great shape, right? If you're someone who's trying to grow your business, at what point has your business grown enough? If you're someone who's trying to be happier at what point are you happier, right? Those are intangible. And so while you can describe what your podcast does and what your listeners want in an intangible way, it's it's allowed, right? It's not illegal to do that. It is way more effective if you take the next step and describe what you want to offer your audience and describe what they want tangibly. So grow your business becomes have your first one million revenue year. Get in great shape becomes reach 10% body fat. Be happier becomes live a life you don't need a vacation from, right? So that is taking intangibles and putting them into the tangible. Now I'll note that something intangible like grow your business when you make that something tangible, you actually get more specific in your audience, right? Because pretty much every single business owner on the planet wants to grow their business. But only a certain amount of business owners are in the right place where they're looking to have their first one million dollar revenue year. A lot of business owners are looking to have their first $10,000 revenue year. Some business owners are looking to reach a billion for the first time. Those three business owners are going to listen to different podcasts. And that is why this is important. So let's bring this all together. You want to define your audience by naming three things. Number one, one demographic metric, go beyond age or generation. My pet peeve is that everybody wants to make their shows for boomers or for millennials or for Gen Z. That is too broad. There are so many different people under that umbrella. It's not helpful. So go beyond age or generation, think profession, lifestyle, fitness level, parenting status. Those are demographics and those are things that take a really long time to change. If they can be changed at all, then identify a symptom. What are those people currently experiencing? What are their current challenges or feels? What are they feeling? Then describe the tangible outcome. Make sure it's something that you can feel. It's measurable or you can hold it or it's observable. It either is or it isn't. This is what your potential listeners want. By the way, this is going to come in handy tomorrow when we talk about your show's mission. Let those three things together, demographic, who has symptom and wants tangible outcome is my favorite way to get clarity on who your podcast audience is. So here are a few real examples from podcasts that I have worked with and worked on. Example number one, nine to five workers who aren't fulfilled and want to leave their W2 to build a life they don't need a vacation from. So demographic, nine to five workers. Are not fulfilled. Tangible outcome want to leave their W2 job that is tangible. You have either left or you haven't and build a life they don't need a vacation from. You either want a vacation or you don't. Example number two, women who are overworked over achievers and want to achieve work life balance. Women demographic who are overworked over achievers, symptom overworked and want to achieve work life balance. Damn, that could be more tangible. Okay, how can we, okay, exercise? How can we make achieve work life balance be more tangible? Let's say want to limit their working time to eight hours a day, right? So there you go, I just live did a real example. Okay, let's do another example. Men who have no spare time but want to see their abs for the first time, right? That's better than saying men who want to get in shape. Because again, what does get in shape mean? Are you more flexible? Are you stronger? Do you have lower body fat? Whatever it is. So men demographic who have no spare time symptom but want to see their abs for the first time. Tangible outcome. Finally, one more example for you that I think you'll be able to understand. Podcasters, demographic, you have a podcaster or you don't? Who are seeing no downloads growth symptom and want to reach 10,000 downloads per month? Tangible outcome, you either have or you haven't. Now, before I let you go, I want to call something out. So when you define your podcast audience in the way that I just described, you are not niching down. So many podcasters ask me if they should go broad or if they should niche down. And while if you listen to earlier episodes of the Grow the Show podcast in my early days as a podcast coach, you will hear me say, gotta go niche, you gotta niche down, you gotta niche down. But after doing this for four years, working directly with 400 podcasters, helping thousands more via my free stuff, what I've learned is that my answer to should I go broad or should I niche down is neither because that's not the point here. You see, if you are trying to take a photograph and you look into the camera and your image is really blurry, you don't fix it, you don't get clarity by zooming in or zooming out. You get clarity by adjusting the focus. This is what provides clarity, not how much or how little you're looking at. So it's not about how many listeners you could potentially have or how big or small your potential audience is. It's about which type of potential listeners you focus on. That's what we're doing here. There have been a couple of big time podcasters that I've managed to interview this year who have more than a million downloads per month. And when I interviewed them, I was actually surprised at how specific they were with their audience definition. They had this level of focus on the demographic and psychographic of who their listener is, even though their audience is in the millions. It's the same amount of focus that a podcaster who does have a super, super niche audience, a smaller audience has as well. And so the amount of focus that you have on who your potential listener is, the amount of clarity is completely unrelated to how big or small your audience size is. So it's not about niching down. It's not about going broad. It's about the level of clarity in who your show is for and what it is going to do for them. So what I want you to do right now is take a crack at defining your podcast audience in this way, demographic who has symptom and wants tangible outcome. Tomorrow we're going to take our Cat1 premise a step further and we're going to talk about how you can clarify the mission of your podcast. So your audience is who your show is for. Your mission is what your show will do for them. And spoiler alert, you've already begun doing that work here today. But once you do that work, it's going to make your show your podcast way more attractive to your target audience, meaning it will attract them. That is what we want. That is tomorrow. I will see you then. By the way, if you want to get the written versions of these lessons in your inbox every day for the remainder of the 12 days of podcast growth, go ahead and go to 12daysofpodcastgrowth.com or you can also click the link in the show notes, I'll ask you for your email and the remaining lessons will be in your inbox every single day. Also I have actually heard from a bunch of you who have reached out to express thanks for this free course. I've actually been really surprised and blown away by the response for this so far. So if you're somebody who has reached out, thank you, my email, I'm a little bit behind on emails because so many people are reaching out. But a lot of you have asked, what can you do in exchange, what can you do to pay it forward? And so if you want to pay it forward for this free course, the number one thing I ask you to do is to help other podcasters. So bring them into the fold, spread the word. And so in the PS of today's email, I added a template that you can use if you want to post on social media to spread the word of the 12 days of podcast growth or if you just post something that says like, hey, I'm two days into Kevin Schmittland's 12 day course on how to grow podcasts and I'm learning so much. If you want to join me and get access to this totally free podcast growth course, simply go to 12daysofpodcastgrowth.com. You absolutely don't need to do that totally, totally optional. I don't expect that. I truly am giving you this information so that you can meet and exceed your podcast goals in 2024. But for those of you who asked, that is what you can do to return the favor. So I will see you tomorrow when we talk about your show's mission. Until then, keep growing those shows.