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Podcast Playbook: Helping Coaches & Advisors Convert Podcast Content into Clients
You Keep Hearing You Need to Niche Your Show, But How?
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I kept hearing the same advice over and over. The more niche your show is, the easier it is to grow. For the first three years of hosting my first podcast, five Minded, I ignored that advice until I got fed up with flat downloads month after month. So I finally decided to follow it and make my show more niche. I narrowed the age range. I said my show was mostly for men, although women could listen too. And I focused on working adults, although I honestly that didn't eliminate many people in their late 20s and 30s. I had a little bit more clarity, but deep down I knew I hadn't really nailed it. There were still millions of people that could fit into my quote ideal listener. It wasn't until two years later that I revisit that exercise in a completely different approach. After that, everything clicked. My content, my language, and my examples started really resonating with my audience. And sure enough, the show took off. It's grown three times larger in just six months. And in today's episode, I'm going to share the exact exercise I use to find my true niche. And not just a list of demographics, but an audience I could truly serve. If you've been struggling to niche your podcast, this one's for you. If you're working on improving your podcast and enjoy topics like this, you'll love our email newsletter. Each week I answer reader questions, share upcoming podcast events, and highlight tools that make podcasting easier. Actually, this episode about niching came straight from a newsletter topic. So if you want to get more content like this, I'd love for you to check out our newsletter@simplepodstudios.com newsletter or just use the link in the show notes. Now let's get into today's episode. Since I started podcasting in 2019, I listened to broad shows like Tim Ferriss that interviewed anyone from all walks of life. And now I've noticed that those shows are kind of giving way to niche shows with very clear audience and goals. And I'm not surprised because I've noticed niche shows are thriving right now. So yes, the generic advice would be to get more specific with your show, but anytime I heard that whenever I was podcasting and many of my clients, whenever I ask about this, always struggle with how to actually do that. I often hear a list of demographics like age, gender, occupations, and although that is helpful, it's missing some of the core elements that really define a niche. So today I'm going to share two additional filters that coaches and advisors can use to define their show Niche and Listener Avatar and really help get unstuck from this mindset around, I'm not sure who my ideal listener really is. Before we get into the two filters, though, let's address a couple of common concerns I hear around niching. There are three things that I often hear from most people whenever I challenge them on niching their show. The very first thing is they'll say something like, I'm afraid that I'm going to lose listeners if I narrow my focus. So they fear that by being more specific, they're going to scare people away or shrink their audience. And I'm going to be honest to some degree, that's probably true. Whenever you go from a general show for business owners to a show for a very specific group of business owners, there's going to be a large part of people that no longer really fit your listener avatar. There might even be people that are listening to your show right now that are business owners that are no longer in your new category. So they might tune out and stop listening to your show. But I think that's actually a good thing, because when new listeners are finding your show, it is very hard to stand out, and it's very hard to win over somebody becoming a new listener of your show unless they know your show is made specifically for them. There are thousands of shows that are just generic business shows, but there may be a very limited amount of shows that are for a certain category of entrepreneurs. So yes, you might see some attrition whenever you immediately change your niche, but I think that's gotta be a good thing for you. And ultimately, I have seen none of my clients get a little bit more niche in their show. And actually their show shrinks more times than not. Thirty days later, 60 days later, 90 days later, they are taking off because now their show resonates to a specific person versus not landing with anybody. The next common concern that I hear is that they don't want to box themselves in. They worry that by niching their show, they're going to limit the topics that they can talk about and the creative freedom that they have around their podcast. And yes, if you're a show that can talk to anybody about anything, you're definitely going to box yourself in a little bit more by becoming more niche. But once again, I very rarely find that true. Let me paint an example here. Let's say that you are that general business show and you want to interview a productivity expert. You're probably going to talk about things like how to organize your day for maximum efficiency, or tips for managing distractions, or how to balance multiple projects. But let's say that you niche your show from this general business podcast to a business podcast for course creators, specifically for business owners who are creating courses. So I still believe that you can interview that productivity expert, but you're actually going to have more focus and more specificity to your questions now. And I think this is going to land better with your ideal listener because of that. So instead of how to organize your day for maximum efficiency, instead you're probably going to talk about how to organize a day that's filled with recording content, group coaching calls, and marketing your new digital products. Something like tips for managing distractions now becomes time blocking for course launches or balancing multiple projects is now balancing new course launches with building your next course along with managing your old ones. All the top line topics are still the same, but it's going to come with more specific examples, language and tips that are relevant to your niche audience. Now, finally, the last common concern that I hear around niching is that they don't want to exclude potential clients. This kind of go hand in hand with excluding or losing listeners as you narrow your focus. I think some of this is actually a good thing. You want to turn off a certain kind of person, most of those people are going to be distractions for you. If your business is focused on a certain demographic, you don't want 10 other potential prospects that are outside of that demographic because you've built your product, your services for a specific kind of person. And in return you you're building your podcast to attract that kind of specific person as well. And along with how your podcast is probably going to grow because it is actually now resonating with specific listeners. I honestly think your client conversion from your podcast is also going to grow because now they know that prospect knows that you are the expert in their niche, and they are going to know that they need to work with you because they you have worked with a lot of other people that are just like them. So I would not be afraid about some of these common concerns around niching. I have very rarely seen any of these play out and more times than not it's actually going to grow your audience and it's going to grow your prospect pipeline. So let's get into the two filters. Now. I'm not saying that demographics aren't important. I do think demographics are a good thing to start with. Really. Consider the age, the occupation, the gender, location, anything that could be relevant in terms of demographics. That's a great thing to include in your ideal listener avatar. But the next two filters are really going to help you get narrow and niche with your audience. And the very first filter that I want you to consider is the pain point. I want you to double down on specific pain points that your show helps a listener solve. You can focus on somewhere between three and five core pain points. And by doing this, your show is going to feel so much more niche. Let's give an example here. Let's assume that you are a leadership consultant and that you have a leadership based podcast. The concept of your show is to help people become better leaders, which is fine, but that comes with an endless list of pain points. You could be talking about a million different things on how to become a better leader. What if instead you focused on remote work and your show served middle level managers that are learning how to manage and motivate their remote teams? How much more specific does that now make your content and your show? That's also probably going to resonate now with middle level managers that are managing remote teams. I still believe that you can talk about a lot of the same topics, but they are going to be through the lens of managing a remote team. Consider this podcast that you're listening to right now. There are a lot of potential pain points that I can talk about in the world of podcasting. I could talk about how I could help people land sponsorships and ads. I can talk about industry news. I can talk about audio engineering problems. But my core pain points that I really want to talk about and that I want to help people with is audience growth and engagement, content strategy and lead generation and conversion. Those are the three pain points that I'm doubling down on in helping my audience here on this podcast really solve. So let's talk about a couple of questions that you can use to brainstorm what your core pain points are going to be. The first one is what problems do your clients hire you to solve? What things are you paid to actually solve for your clients? These are probably pain points that they're experiencing and pain points that you're capable of talking on right now. Number two is where do your clients struggle the most in their business or life? So if you're talking to individuals, it's probably gotta be more life focused. If you're talking to business owners, it's probably gonna be more business focused. But. But what are their struggles? What are they currently struggling with? Number three is what questions do they ask me the most? So what are those frequently asked questions that you're getting in your discovery or sales calls, in your client meetings, Questions that you see most often on Facebook groups or in Reddit threads. Start making a list of some of those questions. And more times than not, those are core pain points that you can focus on. Number four is what mistakes do they make without even realizing it? These are almost kind of a build on of the last question here. It's almost the questions that you wish people asked you. But what are those things that people are currently struggling with or making mistakes upon and they don't even actually know it's a mistake yet? And finally, number five, what outcomes do they desire the most? This is kind of the flip to the actual pain point. What are they hoping to get? You know I want to help you with audience growth and I know you want to grow your podcast. You want to see your audience double, triple, quadruple in size right now. That's your desire. What are your ideal listeners desires? So by brainstorming on those, you're going to probably land somewhere between three and five, four pain points. And those are the topics that you want to be talking about and positioning in your content on a routine basis. But one final thing that I'll mention here is that you can follow the 8020 rule. 80% of your topics need to be centered around your core pain points that you set out, but 20% of your topics can fall outside of that. Have fun, explore other topics and pain points, see if they resonate with your listeners and give yourself some of that creative freedom to go out and explore other things. All right, now that we talked about pain points, let's talk about the second filter. And that's to focus on a specific stage of their journey so you have the pain points. But now where in the journey do you want to serve? You want to be thinking about where your ideal audience is and their experience or development so that you can create content that really resonates with that. This was the huge mistake that I made with I minded I would have an episode come out about how to save your first $1,000 and then I would follow that up with another episode about how to convert your investment accounts into retirement income. I was serving someone that was at the very beginning of their wealth accumulation journey and then serving someone that was at the very end of their wealth accumulation journey. And that might have served one listener well for an episode and then another listener well for one episode, but it never converted into ongoing subscribers, followers, listeners of the show. People would tune into that one episode and then never return. Instead, what you want is someone to land on your feed and see a bunch of topics that is relevant to their current stage of the journey, then they start clicking on the download button, then they listen to multiple episodes and then they realize how much you focus on the current problem and stage of, of life that they're in right now, that they just start binging your whole catalog. That's the ideal listener, that's the listener that's got to turn into a super fan, and that's really the listener that's got to turn into a client. So let's back out of this again. Let's assume that you're a wellness coach and you created an episode about dieting. If your podcast is for anyone that is trying to get healthier, a conversation or a piece of content around dieting is going to sound very high level because you have to serve a lot of different people at different stages of their health journey. But what if instead you focused on advanced level athletes, people that are at the peak of their athletic abilities right now and they're trying to push the boundary even further. How does that change how you would approach an episode about dieting? You can still talk about dieting, you could still probably give a lot of similar tips, but the specificity, the examples for your advanced level athletes is going to be so much different than trying to serve everybody. So similar to the pain point exercise, here are four questions that you can brainstorm on to help identify what stage that you want to serve your ideal listener in. Number one is how much experience do they already have? Is this listener going to be a complete beginner? Are they somewhat experienced or are they advanced in your topic area? Number two is what goals, achievements or milestones are they actively working towards? Back to my five minded example. Am I serving the person that's trying to get out of debt for the very first time or save their first thousand dollars? Or am I at the very end of a wealth accumulation stage? Serving somebody that wants time freedom. They have the money, but they want time freedom. Now really think about the goals, achievements, the milestones that your listener is actively working towards. Get specific about that and that's going to guide you to the stage that you're going to serve. Number three is what problems are unique to their current stage now? What problems are they actually facing right now? Early stage listeners might need some guidance on fundamentals, while advanced listeners are probably looking for like optimization or growth strategies. And depending on which problems really call you, is probably going to give you some guidance on what stage you really want to serve. And finally, what assumptions or misconceptions might they have about the stage that they're in? Beginners are going to feel overwhelmed or you might need to debunk misinformation. While advanced listeners may be struggling with scaling or consistency, by picking a lane, you're really going to be able to focus in on some of those assumptions or misconceptions and make your show feel more niche to the audience that you're trying to serve. So as we're finishing up this conversation here, a quick recap. First, we talked about how niching doesn't box you in. I actually think it's going to help you serve your listener better and grow your audience. I think you can still cover a broad range of topics, but you need to tailor it now to that specific niche by focusing on specific examples for them that make it really relevant for them. Then we dove into how to move past just a list of demographics and really define your podcast niche using two filters. Filter number one is pain points. You can focus on three to five core problems that you really want to solve for your audience. You don't need to solve every single problem for them. And number two is stage of journey. What stage of experience do you want to serve? Beginners? Intermediate? Advanced? Have they hit particular milestones right now? Are they working towards their very first milestone? Getting more specific on the stage of their journey is going to help you create a more niche show. So by combining both of these filters, you're going to start creating content that makes listeners feel like your show was made specifically for them. This is going to turn a casual listener into a super fan, and it's going to attract clients that are best fit for your business. One final suggestion about niching. Don't feel like you have to decide and then immediately go all in. If you have some inclination about what pain points and stage that you really want to serve, try that new niche on for five to 10 episodes and see how it feels. If it feels right, then you can start updating your name, your show description, and any other show elements that are going to attract your niche even further. And if you found this episode helpful, of course, go ahead, subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next episode. That's it for today. I hope you go away and start to apply some of the information that I shared in this episode. I know your audience is really going to appreciate it. I'll see you guys all in the next episode.