Morgan Franklin: One of the most important lessons I've learned
in business and podcasting and probably life, is if there is no
way to measure it, there is no way to manage it. And on the
surface, this seems like a grossly capitalistic cliche,
basically, if we can't measure the growth of something, it
isn't worth doing, but I really don't see it that way. The way I
see it is, if we can't quantify what we're doing and try to find
ways to improve and grow and get better, we're always gonna be
stuck in that endless loop of questioning, and for me,
questioning is the most anxiety inducing activity that will
completely suck the excitement out of anything. So when I say
if there's no way to measure it, there's no way to manage it,
what I really mean is, if there's no way to measure it,
there's no way to stop the endless questioning and fear of
wondering if we're succeeding or doing enough, or any of those
other anxiety fueled questions we ask ourselves over and over
as podcasters, hello and welcome to podcast for profit. My name
is Morgan Franklin. I'm a Podcast Producer, strategist and
educator. This podcast will help you create and grow a podcast
that cuts through the noise of social media and speaks directly
to your target audience. If you're ready to create a podcast
that will align you with the experts in your industry,
position yourself as a trusted leader and create another source
of revenue for your business, you're in the right place.
Measuring the success of a podcast is gonna look different
for all of us, and that's something that I learned really
quickly as a Podcast Producer. Even success for a host and the
producer and the editor of a same podcast, those three people
working on the same team could look really different. So
imagine from podcast to podcast, how different success is going
to look for all of us. Over the past year, I put a lot of work
and time into trying to figure out how to help podcasters
achieve their goals on a much broader scale. And as I said, I
realized very early on this was not going to be easy. We all
have such different goals and plans and ideas and
expectations, but one thing early on that we all have to
focus on is knowing our listeners. Know who your
listener is. You have no idea how often that I get on a
discovery call with a podcaster, and the first thing that I
usually ask on a consultation like this is, who listens to
your podcast? Just a very easy question, right? But so often
that is just met with a blank silence from both of us, where
we're both just looking at each other and realizing neither of
us knows who is listening to this podcast. In this episode,
I'm gonna walk you through not only why you need a solid,
written out listener profile, but what it really looks like,
what you need to know going into every episode and why it
matters. Oh, and I have a little treat for you, once you get it
all sorted out, I've made a tool for podcasters that uses your
listener profile and information about your podcast and a little
bit of magic for me, and it will email you five ideas for brands
you should reach out to, to partner or sponsor your podcast.
When I used it for myself, I was so excited because it actually
recommended two brands I'm currently working with to set up
partnerships with. So make sure that you finish your listener
profile and then go check that out. It will be linked in the
episode description. So why do you need a listener profile?
Let's start there. If you've listened to any of my previous
episodes, you know, I'm a stickler for figuring out why we
are doing what we are doing. If you don't know where you're
going, any road will get you there. So what road are you on?
Why are you making a podcast? Who are you making it for? Why
are they listening? This has so many moving parts to it, and I
think we want to completely gloss over all of them, because
it makes us question too much about ourselves and too much
about this process. Like I said earlier, living in a state of
questioning is hell it is. But we don't have to feel that way
all the time. We don't have to be constantly questioning. We
can know exactly who we're talking to, why we're talking to
them, and what we want to talk about. That gets me to my next
point. What is a listener profile and why should you take
the time to figure out who your ideal audience is a listener.
Profile is a detailed outline of the intended audience of any
podcast. So basically, when you're creating anything for
your podcast, you can consult this profile to figure out,
Okay, do I think this would serve the person I'm making all
of this for, or am I just making something. That I want to make,
or that I think is a cool trend, but is not actually going to
move me towards the outcomes that I'm working towards. In my
opinion, this is why so many podcasters stop podcasting and
are never able to make any money with their podcast. They start
the podcast trying to serve a topic, something they're
interested in and not a listener. And that never works.
We are all selfish consumers, and when we aren't getting what
we're looking for, what we signed up for, we're gonna move
on and find someone else that is giving us what we're looking
for. If you ever wanna make money podcasting, you need to
have a listener profile. And it doesn't have to be perfect, but
it does have to be as specific as possible. If you want someone
to give you money seriously, if you want someone to give you
money to talk about their product on your podcast, you
better have a crystal clear view of who is listening to your
podcast, why they're showing up every week and how this product
is gonna speak to them. Because imagine you're on the other side
of this. Imagine you are a business owner, and some little
podcast comes to you, pitching their show to you to advertise
on, and they say, Okay, we have 30,000 downloads every week. We
talk about all kinds of things. It's kind of about everything
and anything that we want to talk about. This is the standard
pitch that I get from podcasters. Well, it's about
anything I want to talk about. Okay, okay, I just know, as a
business owner, I'd be like, This is a hard pass, because if
you can't tell me what this podcast is about or who is
listening, why would I ever think that this would be a wise
marketing decision for me? You need to know exactly who is
listening and why they're listening, and it can be a silly
reason. It doesn't have to be like I said. This doesn't have
to be perfect, but it does have to be specific. You need to know
who is listening. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it,
and if you can't measure it, you can't make money off of it. That
being said, let's go ahead and start phase one of your listener
profile. If you already have a podcast that is live, that has
episodes, go ahead and go onto Apple podcasts or Spotify
podcasts, or wherever you have a platform login, log in, make
your login information and look at who is listening to your
podcast. Write down what is their age, what is their gender.
Are they subscribed to your podcast? Get every bit of
information that you can from these websites. Go ahead and put
that aside. Now after that, whether you have a podcast or
not, I want you to write down what your ideal listeners, age,
gender, location, language, education, level and income
range is. This is so important, and it might feel strange. It
might feel very strange, but it is so important for you to know
who you want to be listening to this podcast, and if you already
have a podcast live, who is already listening to it. So if
you already have a podcast that's live, I want you to go
through and compare what you wrote down. If you're making
content for women ages, let's say 25 to 35 but you see that
men ages 18 to 25 are listening to it. You need to dig into it
and see what's going on. Should you keep making content like
this and kind of shift towards a different demographic. Should
you rebrand yourself? Because if your target audience is women,
let's say ages 25 to 35 like we said earlier, you're trying to
get advertisers that would speak to that demographic. You're
trying to create content that would speak to that demographic,
but if it turns out that young men or who is listening to it
that is not going to serve you or your advertisers, so make
sure that not only do you know who your ideal listener is, you
know who is actually listening to the podcast. Phase two of the
listener profile, whether you have an active podcast or not,
is going to be digging a little bit deeper into your listeners
preferences and their objectives. I want you to write
down these five questions, what are my listeners interests and
hobbies? What is my listener doing on a daily basis, and how
will these activities align with my podcast content? I think that
this is something that we kind of pass over because we're not
really thinking about the knowledge that our listener is
coming from. So let's say, for example, I do have that podcast
that's geared towards women aged 25 to 35 I'm going to be making
references to things and talking about different pop culture and
relevant like, you know, different things than I would be
talking about if I was talking to even. A 65 plus woman, you
have to know what the interest of your listeners are, so that
you can speak to them in more ways than one, so that you can
speak to them at every level of the content that they're
consuming. Number two is what problems are my listeners trying
to solve that the my podcast addresses. Now, this sounds very
professional, right? It sounds like, Okay, I have to know the
problem, and I have to solve the problem, but the problem can be
as personal as loneliness. Maybe you are someone that that person
listens to while they're going on a walk, that maybe they're in
a new city and they don't have a friend to listen to. This can be
something that is very different for everyone. And by you just
addressing, okay, what could some of my listeners problems
be? Like I said, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be,
oh, they're looking for a new job, or they're trying to figure
out how to improve their profit and loss or something like that.
It sounds very professional, but it doesn't professional, but it
doesn't have to be. Number three, when and how do they
listen? This is so important, and I very rarely hear podcast
producers talk about this. People listen to podcasts on a
schedule. So is this person listening to this podcast while
they're commuting or while they're exercising. This
matters, because if someone is listening to your podcast when
they're exercising, let's say they exercise for an hour. Well,
if your podcast is only 20 minutes, then that doesn't
really fit into someone who normally listens to your podcast
while they're exercising. So I need you to think about, okay,
what is the person doing that is listening to my podcast. Are
they on a short commute? Are they on a long commute? Do they
listen to this when they're doing the dishes? This is so
important because you know how some podcasters make the three
hour long podcast? That's really for when people just have it on
in the background and they're kind of coming in and out and
watching it, versus a podcast more like this, where it's
usually under 20 minutes, and it might be a quick just commute
listen. You need to know when your listener is listening to
your podcast. Number four, what other podcasts does my listener
enjoy? This might be the most important question of all, even
though it might not seem like it, you need to know what other
podcasts that your listener is listening to that way, not only
can you diversify, but you can give them what they're looking
for. Most of the time, we aren't looking for something new. We're
looking for something like the things we already like. I mean,
think about when you're finding a new podcast, are you looking
for something totally new that you've never listened to before?
Probably not. You're looking for something like the other
podcasts that you like. So you need to find out, okay, what are
the other podcasts that someone would be listening to, my
podcast be listening to, and then number five, to follow up
on that, what sets my podcast apart from other podcasts in
this category or topic? Because, yes, while people want the same,
they also want different, right? You wouldn't listen to two
podcasts are giving you the exact same information. So know
what sets your podcast apart. This is going to be very
valuable for you. It's going to be valuable for your
advertisers. It's going to be valuable for your listeners. So
know what sets you apart. By the way, all of these questions will
be available in the blog post that is associated with this
episode and that will be linked in the episode description. So
don't worry about having to write down every single one of
those. I will have them in the blog post and that will be
linked in the episode description. All of these
questions are going to help you better understand beyond the
superficial, age, gender, education, who is my listener?
Because data is just data. At the end of the day, data is just
data. We need to put meaning behind our research, and that is
where phase three, creating a listener persona comes in. I
want you to create a listener persona, name them, talk about
them. Maybe it's someone that you know that listens to the
podcast already. Maybe it's an influencer that you follow that
you think, wow, they would love this podcast if they listen to
it. Maybe it's a fictional character. Maybe it's somebody
that you just make up. Take the time to name this person. Write
down what city they live in, what their age is, what their
occupation is how much money they make, what their education
level is, what they do on Saturdays, what they do on
Sundays, what they believe in, what they want out of life. You
cannot go too far with this, because this is the person you
want listening to your podcast. It is so meaningful and it is
going to be so powerful to you, because now, every time you have
a question about, Oh, should I host this guest, or should I
make an episode about this? Or what should I do next? You're
going to look at your listener profile and you're going to
think, would they listen to it? Would they want it? What do they
want? What do they need? Now, when you're thinking, who is
going to be the first sponsor for my podcast, now you aren't
just thinking, well, we talk about everything. I don't really
know who listens to the podcast. You're approaching advertisers
and sponsors and you're saying, This is who listens to my
podcast. This is why they listen, and this is who they
are. Every podcaster needs a listener profile for multiple
reasons, as we talked about in this episode, but a big one is
your own sanity. Like I said, podcasting can be overwhelming,
and when you have these tools to tell yourself, okay, this is who
my listener is. This is who I'm doing all of this for. Then from
there, it will make everything so much easier. If you need help
putting together a listener profile, please book a discovery
call with me. I have a one hour consultation that would be
absolutely perfect for this. The link is in the episode
description, and don't forget to use my new tool. Like I said, it
is absolutely perfect for after you figure out your listener
profile, it takes all the information about your ideal
listener and your podcast and some magic from me, and
instantly emails you five brands that could be perfect to partner
with your show. And as always, I can't wait to listen to your
podcast. Hey, thank you so much for joining me on this episode.
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