Two ways to make your podcast more relevant to listeners
How niche can you go? How niche should you go? And, how do you pull it off?
Niching scares the crap out of podcasters. I think they’re afraid that if they target a smaller audience, they’ll have a small success. If you still think this way, check out the case study in my last podcast. Or, maybe it’s the only thing they’re afraid of is that they won’t become pod-stars with millions and millions of followers.
Okay, if you’re prepared to get over yourself and take advantage of the power of the niche then let’s talk about how to pull it off successfully. In this episode, I outline two easy ways to narrow your podcast so that you can build a more loyal and engaged audience.
1. Niche Down Your Topic
The first option in niching your podcast is to shave a few inches off your topic. Just, trim the fat a little. So, this might look like going from having a podcast about pets to having a podcast about dogs. Or, having a podcast about cars to having a podcast about American-made cars. As you can see, it would be easy to continue to niche down from here. You could take a podcast about dogs and make it a podcast about herding dogs or lap dog. Go a little smaller and do a podcast about french bulldogs or Aussiedoodles. Yes, you can get very small and there may be a rabid audience for it. Oh, sorry bad word to use when talking about dogs.
The niching can get even smaller. You could go with Aussiedoodles in Arkansas, Skipping Rope for Charity, or Fixing Ford trucks built in the 90s. Get specific about the ‘what’ you talk about and/or add in a ‘where,’ ‘why’ or a ‘when’ to get even more niche.
The thing is, if you hyper-focus your topic, you become more of an authority for that very specific thing. And, remember my analogy from last week? Everyone would rather get a pizza from a restaurant that only makes pizza because you know they KNOW pizza!
2. Niche Down Your Target Audience
The second option is to find a subsection of your current or original target audience. Every audience has a smaller group within it. The most obvious way to niche your audience is by demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, location, marital status) but you can also niche down according to psychographics like religion, beliefs, or desires.
Another option is to find a shared experience for your audience like men who went to business school or anyone who loves to bungee jump.
You guessed it, you can keep niching this way too. Maybe it’s men who went to Harvard business school or Christians who love to bungee jump. How about Christian women in their 20’s who love bungee jumping and have an MBA. Too niche?
You Can Niche Too Far
Yes, it is possible to niche too far. Although, if you want to feel really good about hitting your goals, you could create a super nichy niche podcast like ‘podcast for my mom’ and then when you have 1 download per episode you’re crushing it. I mean that is if you’re the kind of person who write ‘make to-do list’ at the top of their to-do list just so they can check one thing off.
So, how do you really know if you’ve niched down too much?
Here are a few ways to check.
- You can’t come up with 50 episode topics.
- You research the new topic or sub-avatar group and there just aren’t enough people who qualify.
- Someone tried before and had to up-niche to make it work.
If any of these are true, you might want to go one level up in your niching. Remove one of the limiters to your audience or your topic.
It is possible to have a very successful niche podcast. It’s hard to focus on limiting the appeal of your podcast but when you get it right, you’ll discover the power of niching and end up with a much more loyal and engaged audience.
Need some help niching? Or, maybe you haven’t started your podcast yet and you’re just realizing that your idea is WAY too broad. I’m happy to help. Hit me up for a FREE 15. That’s a free 15 minute coaching call with me, your podcast performance coach. Access my calendar on https://podcastperformancecoach.com/ and book a time that works for you.
