Morgan Franklin: One of the biggest mistakes that I've made
as a podcaster and producer is trying to make a show that
everyone will love. Now, that seems like a harmless crime,
right? Why wouldn't you want everyone to love your podcast?
Why wouldn't you want to make a podcast that speaks to everyone?
And the answer, of course, is that nothing speaks to everyone.
If you're trying to speak to everyone, you'll end up speaking
to no one. In this episode, we're going to talk about the
most important strategy that we as podcasters can use moving
forward to grow and monetize our podcast. 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. Here is a question for you to think
about, why do people listen to your podcast? It's a really
simple question, right? But it's so hard to answer. That's
because it's not a fill in the blank question. It's not black
and white. There are 100 different correct answers for
why someone might be listening to your podcast, but in this
episode, I'm gonna help you figure out the most important
one, one of my favorite episodes of this podcast, is how to pitch
your podcast to anyone in 30 seconds. It's episode eight.
It's one of the episodes that I send to people who are asking me
what they need to know before they start a podcast. And I
think that this always kind of confuses people, because they're
thinking, why do I need to know how to pitch my podcast before I
even have one, and that's exactly the point. Think about
how much easier your entire podcasting journey would have
been if, in the beginning, before you press record for the
first time on that first episode, you had such a clear
vision and audience and purpose for this podcast that you could
have pitched it to anyone in 30 seconds. Most podcasters
struggle to explain what their podcast is about, even when
they're years into it. This is why you figuring out why people
listen to your podcast is so important. This is why you
should niche down. It took everything in my soul to not
name this episode, How To Find your podcast niche, or why you
need to niche down. And the truth is, because I didn't think
that you would listen to it, or maybe it's just that I wouldn't
listen to it. Explaining the importance of a niche is so
played out. In my opinion, we all know we do, but I want to
offer you in this episode as someone that has made all the
niching down mistakes and more that niching down does work in
podcasting, and it might be one of the only strategies that
actually works, and why it works might not be for the reasons You
think. Let's talk about three totally made up podcasts. One is
about traveling. That's all. It's about travel. This is how
so many of us explain our podcast. We just use a few vague
words and think that people will know what it's about. So the
first podcast is about travel, all things travel. The second
one is about travel in the United States, so coast to
coast, traveling all over the United States. People obviously
travel in the USA all the time. The third made up podcast is
about tips and tricks for families on a budget going to
Disney World, Orlando. That's all it's about. Every week is
just new content on how to travel on a budget with a family
in Disney World Park in Orlando, Florida. So many of us think
that if we niche down, we are going to lose the opportunity to
reach new listeners or to create a bigger audience. And every
client that I've ever worked with and myself has had this
same thought. And you know what? It's just it's simply not true.
Let's look at the three podcasts that we just talked about. The
first one being just about travel. Think about the last
time you wanted to find content about just a general category.
It's probably never happened. When we're looking for a podcast
or even a YouTube video to watch, we're looking for very
specific things that we want to see. Unless this host has built
up content in another way or through another podcast, someone
that has a podcast that's just about a generic topic is going
to have a much harder time finding an audience, because who
would be looking for that? But what about. The third Podcast,
the podcast about how to travel on a budget with a family to
Disney World Orlando. There is probably somebody looking for
this podcast as I say that sentence. See what a huge
difference that there is, from a listener perspective, for
someone to find this podcast versus a podcast that's just
about travel, or even just travel within the United States.
See how every time we go a little bit more niche, there
would be a person who would want to listen to that podcast. You
aren't losing listeners if they were never going to listen to
your podcast in the first place. And that is the hard truth that
I think all of us need to hear your podcast isn't for everyone,
and that is okay. It's more than okay. You need to be clear and
proactive about telling people what it is about. There's
currently about 3 million active podcasts. So how are you going
to set your podcast apart and start making a name for
yourself. I remember a workshop that I went to early on as a
photographer. I was working full time in digital marketing. I
knew that I wanted to go into photography, but I was just so
all over the place. I was doing newborn babies, I was doing
families. I would do real estate and weddings, and I had no
style, and I had no real goals. I didn't know what was going on,
but what I did know is that I wanted to leave my corporate
job. I knew I had to figure out a plan. So I went to this
conference, and of course, most of the educators were there to
sell you something else you know. So I unknowingly go into
this class about branding yourself as a photographer. The
presenter is talking about how you actually get clients and how
you actually make money and all this stuff. And she said, if you
can't figure out what your niche is, you are never going to be a
successful photographer. And of course, I am freaking out over
this. I am hanging on to every word. And so she says, imagine
if you need a liver transplant. Are you going to go to a family
doctor or a general physician that does everything? No, you're
going to go to a specialist that does liver transplants. People
who care about their photography and are willing to invest good
money are the same way. They want a wedding photographer for
their weddings. They want a family photographer to do their
family photos. You have to be a specialist, and that's what I
want to share with you today. You have to be a specialist
because people are giving you the most valuable resource of
all, and it's not money, it's their time. It's their
attention. We live in an attention economy. That's the
most valuable thing that you can ask from someone, and it's non
renewable, so someone is taking the time to listen to your
podcast. The least that you can do is understand why they are
listening, and with intention, give them what they came for.
You owe it to your listener to niche down. You owe it to the
community you build around your podcast to niche down. Some of
my favorite communities online are built around podcasts, and
that would have never happened if the host was lazy or sloppy
or didn't know why they were making the podcast. Having a
niche is a courtesy to your listener, so I want you to
reframe it as I'm not losing out on listeners by broadening the
scope of my episode niche. I'm honoring the listeners I have
and building a strong audience by giving them the targeted
content that they actually want and they're actually looking for
at one point or another. Every host that I have worked with has
said, I want to go bigger. I want to change my audience. And
the thing that I always tell them is that we can go quote,
unquote, bigger, but you will lose what the original audience
came for, because let's go back to our made up podcast about
Disney. What about when the host says, I want to cover all of
Orlando, or I want to cover all the Disney parks. Think about
the original audience that they were serving, that were coming
for that specific reason to learn about Orlando Disney and
how to travel with a family, you've completely dissolved your
audience, and you're basically starting a new podcast, because
that's not what the people expect from your show, and your
audience didn't come for that information and that Content
most of the time, going wider isn't the answer, because you're
gonna lose the audience you put so much effort into creating.
Because the wider you go, the less relevant it is to everyone
listening. Instead, you should dig deeper into the topics and
guests and series and. Would serve your current listener. Why
do they listen to your podcast? How can you provide them with
even better content that would reinforce why they are listening
to your podcast in the first place? I've also heard
podcasters say again, including myself, what if I run out of
things to talk about. And let me just tell you that simply will
not happen if you are truly invested into something enough
to make a podcast out of it. There are always gonna be new
things. There will always be topics to cover and opinions to
give. You will never run out of things to talk about. And I know
you're probably thinking, Morgan, you don't know what my
podcast is about, and I don't care, you will find more things
to talk about. The more time and energy and thoughtfulness that
you put into your podcast and your podcast audience, the more
that you will get out of it, I promise. Finally, and not least
significant of all is getting sponsorship deals and monetizing
your podcast. The thing that we're all here for, the more
specific that you can be about the content of your podcast, the
more niche opportunities that you have to advertise, the more
of an authority you are in your niche, and the more valuable the
brands see you as to advertise whip. So let's go back to our
three made up podcast examples. So let's say that the podcast
about the United States and traveling in the United States
versus the podcast about Disney World, let's say the one about
travel in the USA has 10,000 weekly downloads, and the Disney
World One has 3000 weekly downloads. And I am a boutique
Mickey ear business in Orlando, who would be most valuable for
me to spend my money with the podcast about Disney World,
right? I mean, they're both about travel, but I have to look
at where my target audience actually is, and when you have
such a vague topics, it makes it a lot harder for a business to
know if you're the right person to partner with or not. And
again, we think that we're taking away opportunities by
niching down, but really we're just creating new ones that
would have never been there. So what can we do? What steps can
we take this week to start niching down our podcast in a
meaningful way. The first thing is ask yourself, why people
listen to your podcast? It's so simple, but it's gonna be so
informative for you. Please do that second, ask yourself, how
you can better serve the listeners of your podcast with
the content that they actually want to hear. And lastly, ask
yourself how you can differentiate and define your
podcast to be even more specific. So when someone asks
you, Hey, what's your podcast about, you know exactly what
it's about. You know exactly what to say if you want to
listen to that episode eight, how to pitch your podcast in 30
seconds or less. It is going to be linked in the episode
description. If you want one on one, help from me on finding
your niche and learning how to speak directly to your target
audience. I have one hour consultations made exactly for
this purpose, to help you with this kind of strategic planning.
The link will be in the episode description, and as always, I
can't wait to listen to your podcast. Hey, thank you so much
for joining me on this episode. If you enjoyed the podcast and
you'd like to hear more episodes like this one, go ahead and
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