Establishing Your Brand and Finding Your Niche as a Podcaster
Guest Post
Marketing yourself in the world of entertainment is no easy feat. Youtube channels, artists, influencers, and others attempt to curate their brands as entertainers on the internet to outperform their competitors. Those same people often try to utilize niches, or specialized categories of content, to tap into an audience that needs entertaining material.
The same can be said for podcasters who try to successfully speak to their audiences on topics they find interesting or informative. In this guide, we will be exploring the ways to successfully establish your brand, find your niche, and curate a successful user experience in the world of podcasting.
Vision and Mission Cultivation
Creating a mission and vision will give your podcast purpose, which will be beneficial to the ears of your listeners and motivational to you, the creator. Picking the right name for your podcast will also go a long way in helping its popularity. Establishing these foundations will allow you to grow your show as it transforms and takes a new shape over time.
Marketing your podcast will become a much easier task, as your audience will begin to take subconscious notes of your commitment, what you are trying to accomplish, and why it is important enough to broadcast to the world.
Give the Spotlight to Your Audience
Your audience is the most critical variable in the equation of podcasting. Without listeners, your podcast is broadcasting to nothing. This is why podcasts that focus on their audiences are the most successful, as the most important thing at the end of the day is bringing them back to listen again.
Some helpful questions to ask yourself when considering how to curate your material to a specific audience are as follows:
● Who is your target audience?
● Why is your message important to that population?
● Who is an ideal listener who keeps coming back to your podcast? What are their habits, lifestyles, and values?
● How can you aim your message and marketing strategy toward those people?
By following these steps and honing in on what is most critically important for your audience, you will significantly improve the success of your show. While these are just the foundations, following the suggestions of analytics and data surrounding your podcast will be much easier down the line. The more you learn about your audience through their behavior towards your show, the more you will be editing and evolving your idea of the perfect listener in your head.
Prioritize Specialization Over Generalization
One example of ways that podcasts find themselves lost amongst the crowd is by creating too broad content. This is a common pitfall because it is precisely what numerous other podcasts are doing. When many shows are both generalized and specialized on a subject, adding yourself to the list of generalized shows will not encourage people to start clicking.
Adversely, choosing to specialize in one particular area within your subject of interest will prove beneficial as fewer people make podcasts on that specific specialization. A smaller, less populated niche will bring a new, more refreshing point of view to the audience of whatever topic you are covering.
What Can You Offer That Others Cannot?
There are plenty of things to research when looking for a specialized niche to discuss on a podcast. It is worth asking yourself what you can offer that others cannot. As unique individuals, everyone has something that someone else is not able to offer.
Some examples of what could set one podcaster apart from others could be:
● Their affinity for books on poisonous plants.
● Their status as a foreign relations student at university who has the inside scoop on arms deals between foreign militant players.
● Their position as an employee of a technological company working on cutting-edge software development projects.
By identifying the reason for getting into whatever field you will be getting into, you will better understand what you can offer due to your unique circumstances. Not only will this help you better identify the specialization that you will be podcasting on, but add “filter” to your podcast as you communicate that specialization from your point of view.
Market Your Content and Launch a User Experience Initiative
Now that you have established your mission, target audience, specialization, and personal additives that will be used for your podcast, you can now begin to create an online marketing presence that reflects them. Use templates to create a name, pleasing visuals, and a general “mood” for your podcast that will enhance your ability to reel in your audience. This presence should be kept consistent across all platforms, each connecting to and referring to the next.
Keeping the audience engaged will be centered around the user experience. Allowing the listener to feel like more than just another number on your screen will make them feel like part of your team. Your job is to recognize that they are a part of the team, as otherwise, your podcast would be unable to survive. Giving your community/followers a name, allowing them to comment, call in, or email you, or giving them the option to vote on the next topic you will discuss are all strategic ways to keep your listeners buckled in for the long haul.
About the Author
Dan Matthews is a writer, content consultant, and conservationist. While Dan writes on a variety of topics, he loves to focus on the topics that look inward to help develop one's self, in turn developing mankind to make the surrounding world a better place to reside. When Dan isn't working on new content, you can find him with a coffee cup in one hand and searching for new music in the other.
Image Source: Pixabay