Successful podcasters know the importance of making content your audience loves.
Speaker:But your podcast has more than one audience - audiences with different needs.
Speaker:Are you making content for all of them?
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Speaker:I work with a lot of businesses to help shape their podcasting strategy, sometimes
Speaker:just on a purely consulting level, and it's up to them to do the implementation.
Speaker:But some continue to become clients of mine, either production
Speaker:clients, or they put me on retainer to keep the ideas flowing.
Speaker:One of the biggest disconnects I see from a lot of the short-term
Speaker:clients or prospects who failed to become a client, has to do with how
Speaker:they see the audience, the listeners of the podcast they want to have.
Speaker:See, for many of these business-minded clients, a listener is a binary object.
Speaker:They either listen or they don't.
Speaker:And I suppose that's demonstrably true, but it's not really a helpful heuristic.
Speaker:I think it's too simple.
Speaker:The problem is that's how they're used to thinking about their customers.
Speaker:Someone is a customer, or they're not a customer.
Speaker:But this approach, I think, leads to some pretty poor podcast planning, as well as
Speaker:implementation, in my experience because in reality, it's helpful to bucket people
Speaker:into three groups, not just those two.
Speaker:Group one is people who haven't yet listened to your podcast.
Speaker:Group two are the people who do listen to your podcast, almost without fail.
Speaker:But group three is a new one, and that's made up of people who change state, if
Speaker:you will, from listener to non-listener and they go back and forth at that.
Speaker:Now, all three of these groups need some attention.
Speaker:That means having not just one audience engagement strategy, but three.
Speaker:Not just a handful of tactics that are applicable only to one of those
Speaker:groups, but a slate of tactics that roll up to those three different
Speaker:audience engagement strategies.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a lot of work.
Speaker:But also, when you break down the needs of those groups you'll see there's
Speaker:really not any other way to do that.
Speaker:Group one, the never-have-listened-to-you group, they need content from you that
Speaker:lets them know that your podcast exists.
Speaker:This is not your podcast episodes.
Speaker:Remember, these people have never listened to your show.
Speaker:They need content from you that makes it quite easy to sample the
Speaker:kind of content that you make.
Speaker:And easy for them to say, "Yes, please, I would like to have some more."
Speaker:For this group, you have to create content - again, not your podcast episodes - and
Speaker:support the content with the marketing budget that it deserves so that this
Speaker:never-have-listened-to-your-podcast group is not only exposed to your
Speaker:content but they can actually get a taste of what you have to offer.
Speaker:Let's go to group two, the dedicated listeners.
Speaker:These people still need content from you that makes them never,
Speaker:ever, ever want to leave.
Speaker:They need content from you that makes them want to tell all
Speaker:their friends about your podcast.
Speaker:And yes, this is the podcast episodes that you make.
Speaker:But it's more than that because you need to create content where your
Speaker:dedicated listeners live, which may not be just at your podcast.
Speaker:You have to create that content and support that content with community
Speaker:building and an engagement budget that it deserves, keeping those people
Speaker:well-fed and reinforcing the fact that you do, in fact, have the goods and will
Speaker:always have the goods that they desire.
Speaker:Let's move to group three, those who dip in and out of your podcast.
Speaker:They also need content from you, but the content needs to give them
Speaker:a compelling reason to listen.
Speaker:They're busy.
Speaker:They need content from you that fits their purpose, not just fit for your purpose.
Speaker:So yes, your podcast episodes, of course, but also your social shares,
Speaker:your newsletter, your videos.
Speaker:You've got to create that content and then you have to support that content creation
Speaker:with some decisions and some research and measurement tools that let you
Speaker:know that your efforts to make all that content are actually worth it for them.
Speaker:Again, these three groups are very different and you can't do audience
Speaker:engagement the same for all three.
Speaker:Being ultra-responsive in your show's Discord server is not going
Speaker:to help anybody who's not a listener.
Speaker:And unless it's packaged in a compelling way, it'll probably miss many of
Speaker:those who dip in and out of your show.
Speaker:Of course, you will need to be ultra-responsive in that community
Speaker:in service to your most loyal fans.
Speaker:A properly funded and executed marketing campaign won't have any impact at
Speaker:all on your most loyal listeners or even those who listen to you just
Speaker:off and on because they're already.
Speaker:A properly funded and executed marketing campaign is warranted
Speaker:if there are huge segments of the population that you've not yet reached.
Speaker:And analyzing the listener experience journey to your show,
Speaker:that's not going to impact anybody who doesn't know about your show.
Speaker:And it probably doesn't even matter to those who listen to every single episode.
Speaker:But, devoting the time to create formats that are more easily consumed by the
Speaker:occasional listener can move them towards that loyalty I know you want.
Speaker:So all of these audience engagement initiatives, and so many more,
Speaker:are important, they're just important for different reasons.
Speaker:So focus on not just the audience, focus on the audiences, all of
Speaker:them, and the rest tends to follow.
Speaker:With that I shall be back on Monday with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
Speaker:Cheers!
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
Speaker:He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
Speaker:Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
Speaker:section of your podcast listening app.
Speaker:A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
Speaker:podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
Speaker:transcript, both created by Allie Press.
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.