75: How NOT to Do Your TDE

This is Grow the Show, the podcast to help you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidlin and today, really quickly, I want to answer a question that I get all the time about targeted daily engagement or TDE. Now, if you have no idea what TDE means, targeted daily engagement is our framework here at Grow the Show for really quickly and effectively growing an audience on and via social media. And part of that strategy involves going to what we refer to as watering holes, a term that was coined by Amy Hoy and Alex Hellman over at Stacking the Bricks, which basically means anywhere people go online to talk about an interest, right? So Facebook groups, subreddits, Discord channels, those are what we call watering holes. And if you're a podcaster, watering holes can be a great place to go get listeners because you can go to those watering holes and interact about a topic, ideally the topic that your podcast is about, and then after interacting with people and building a relationship, you can invite them to listen to your show. Now, this is a strategy that has been very successful for many podcasters who are just starting out, but I also see a lot of podcasters run into a very specific issue while performing TDE in watering holes and that is this. They come to me and they say that TDE is burning them out, that after doing some TDE, they are drained. They are tired. It is not enjoyable. So let me just take a moment today to say this, TDE should ideally be something that you enjoy. If it feels like a drag, if it feels like a chore, something that you have to do, then odds are you're probably not doing TDE in the right place. You're probably not TDE-ing your exact target audience. 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Ideally, TDE should be something that energizes you, not drains you. If you're actually interacting with your audience and you're actually delivering value and your building relationships with the people who you most want to serve, at the end of your daily allotment of TDE, you should feel energized. You should feel more excited, not burned out. If you're feeling burnt out after performing TDE, odds are, like I said before, that's your TDE-ing, the wrong people. And so let me give you a couple examples of that. There was a client who joined the Grow the Show Accelerator program earlier this year, and he was just launching a podcast. Now his podcast premise was rather vague, so we did some work to get more specific about what show he wanted to make. After doing some of this foundational work, he honed in on taking his show, which when he joined the program was just vaguely going to be about film, he said, you know what? I want to be more specific and I want to make this show about how dads can teach their children through watching specific films. I was like, wow, that's a really unique premise, that's a great, unique angle, go for it. So that client then started doing TDE, which is what we recommend for shows that are just starting out. And after a couple of weeks, his TDE really wasn't working. But what was really, really alarming to me is that he said it was just really draining. It was a chore, it was something that he really didn't look forward to doing. He had to drag himself to do it every day, he kept skipping it. And to me, that's a really bad sign that tells me that that podcaster hasn't really found an audience that they resonate with, that is their people that they want to spend their time with. And so that podcaster actually decided to take a couple of weeks off, take some time away, life came up, you know, and he decided to do some soul searching. And while doing that, he came up with an idea for a totally different show. And I didn't hear from this client for a couple of weeks while he was away. And when he came back, he looked so excited. He was glowing. He hadn't seen this in him actually so far in my time working with him as his podcast coach. But he joined the call. He looked great. He looked excited. And what he shared with me was this. He said, Kevin, I'm totally redoing my show. I've got a brand new premise that I'm really excited about and get this. I've been doing TDE every day for weeks. And I've already established an audience before even launching the podcast. I said, Holy crap, that's awesome. What's the show? He said, I'm going to do a show about baseball and about the conflicting schools of thought in the world of baseball. So if you're not a baseball fan, just know that baseball has a bunch of fans who like to keep things really traditional and don't like to change anything about the sport. And then there's a bunch of fans that are really new school and want to change things and are about like new technologies and stuff like that. And those fans tend to argue with each other. And so this girl, the show client said, I'm going to do a show about the intersection of those groups and about the people who really like both sides of the equation, who like the old and the new. And I said, that is awesome, that's super unique. And for me, it was a huge relief because I could see in this podcast there's eyes that he had found his target audience just because he was pulled into doing TDE rather than having to push himself to do TDE each day. And so here's another example of a common story that I hear from clients when they're doing TDE that on paper looks like the right audience to go after, but in actuality is not their target audience because TDE is a real drag for them. And this is actually something that's way more common than the story I just told you. If you're a podcaster that aims to support anybody, so anything having to do with overall health or support, if that's the case, then there's a really good chance that when you go to seek out your target audience online, you're going to find yourself in support groups. So I've had podcasters in my accelerator who have shows about supporting Alzheimer care givers. I've had podcasters in my accelerator who are supporting doctors who are burnt out. I've had podcasters in my accelerator who are there to support single parents. I've had podcasters in my accelerator who are there to support blended families and many, many more supporting recovering alcoholics, supporting those who have survived cancer. You name it something that I see in common with all of those types of podcasters is that when they go online to find potential listeners who would be interested in listening to their show and bettering their lives and getting support from their show. What they often find is that they join online forums that aim to support these people and all they come across are complainers. People who are there to moan and complain and vent about their issues in life. And a lot of those people aren't even really looking for help. They're not looking for support. They're just looking to complain and they don't want to change anything about their lives. What I notice though is that a lot of podcasters don't see that distinction and they spend tons and tons of energy trying to support people who really aren't interested in taking any action to improve their situation. They just want to vent about it, which there's nothing wrong with that. If that's you, that's totally fine. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I'm not hating on those people. I get it. Life is hard. But if you're somebody that's aiming to provide ways to improve somebody's life and you're trying to deliver those improvements to somebody who doesn't have any interest in making changes to their life, you are going to get burnt out real fast. And so this is another case where podcasters who are really passionate about making an incredible impact on people go and seek people and don't understand that people who need their help but are not ready to accept it are not their target audience. And so they spend tons of time doing TDE on people who are not looking for the type of value that they're looking to provide. And then they come to me and say, I hate this, TDE is draining. All these people do is complain, I try to help them and they don't listen to me. And what I try to explain is that those people, even though they are in this situation that you aim to help with, they are not your target audience because they are not somebody who is willing or able to accept that help. Your target audience is people who are actively seeking your support, who are open to trying the things that you recommend and who are looking to make changes to their life to get the improvements that you can help them get. That distinction is subtle but it's missed by a lot of podcasters. And so if you are a podcaster who aims to support any sort of group that is going through something difficult and you try to do TDE and you find that it drains you and that it feels like you're trying so hard and nothing is happening. That I'm here to tell you that your target audience is not anybody who is in that situation. But only the specific people who are in that situation and are actively seeking and looking for and willing to implement help. You have to get good at finding out who those people are and looking for signals that indicate you have reached someone who is open to being helped. You can't help the people who are not willing to be helped. So those are two different scenarios where I saw podcasters who were getting themselves totally burnt out on TDE and it was because either they were going after an audience that they really weren't that passionate about or they were going after an audience that they were passionate about. But the specific human beings that they were reaching were not willing or able to receive the value that that podcaster had to provide. And so in both of those cases and in your case, if you find that TDE is a drag, it's not fun. You don't enjoy it. It's a chore. Then that means that you have not found the right target audience to engage with because once you do that, TDE is addicting. It should be something that you actually have to work to pull yourself away from because you have so much fun interacting with your dream target audience. So that is it for today. If you're somebody that has been doing TDE and it really isn't something that you've enjoyed, then I'm here to tell you that you haven't found the right audience podcast fit, right? You haven't found the right persona that you are there to help. And while you might be finding people who yes fit in your target audience, you might have to get a little bit more specific. Like those who are offering any sort of support who need to be specific that their target audience is people who are willing and able to accept and implement support, subtle, but important. So that is it for today. If you've never heard of TDE before and this was all gobbity-gook for you, why are you still listening to me? I'm impressed that you're still listening to this if it didn't make sense. But you can listen to episode eight of the Grow the Show podcast to learn about what TDE actually is and how you can implement it. And just remember, TDE should be fun. If it's not, we need to adjust something about your TDE system. So my name is Kevin Schmidland. I am your podcast growth coach. Definitely check out other episodes of Grow the Show for more podcast growth and monetization strategies. And I will see you in the next piece.