Guide to Planning and Launching a Podcast

You’ve identified your goals; now it’s time to consider your audience. Who do you want to listen to your podcast? Who is your target market?

One of the biggest mistakes podcasters make is targeting too broad an audience. Start with a niche topic that you can be the best at. It’s better to be the big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

It might seem daunting to niche down so specifically, but it enables you to make sure that your content is hyper-focused and of high value to your audience.

Another benefit of targeting a specific audience is your wide range of topics. It may sound counter-intuitive, but the smaller your audience, the more you can talk about because you can deep dive into the topics that other, broader podcasts can’t.

Here are several ways you can niche down your audience:

• Industry
• Specialism
• Competency
• Seniority
• Values
• Demographics
• Location

Industry

The industry is the first and most obvious way to niche down. For example, is your target audience in SaaS, retail, manufacturing, or education? You can take this further by looking at the type of business. What is the size of the company? Are they a micro-business, small business, or an enterprise? Are they B2B or B2C?

These are big broad strokes. We'll hone in closer to our target audience the further down we go.

Specialism

What do they specifically do within their industry? For example, if you target marketing agencies, are they full-service or specialists? Are they experts in organic search and SEO or paid media and social? Do they have a specific niche within the industry that they work in?

This is usually as far as most podcasters go, but there are still many ways to niche your audience further.

Competency

Are they experts on a particular subject, or are they just starting? Let’s say you sell online courses for designers; you might want to target beginners instead of industry experts working in the industry for the past 30 years.

Another way to think about competency is to ask yourself the questions, “what do they know?”, “what do they not know?” and “what do they know they don’t know?”. There is no point in teaching SEO experts about the basics of SEO, so what do they not know? Perhaps recent updates in the industry or highly detailed experiments which require a lot of knowledge and understanding about search.

Seniority

Are they a senior in their field, at management level, or junior? A business owner faces different challenges from an entry-level employee at a company. Suppose you want to target managers within the logistics industry; you’ll want to include topics that are relevant to management, such as improving the efficiency of staff and hiring talent in logistics.

Looking at the other end of the spectrum, someone new to the industry would perhaps be more interested in topics relevant to everyday tasks, how they can continue to develop within the industry and how to strive for more senior roles.

Values

Do they have a particular set of values? For example, are they a sustainable company? Are they vegan? Do they sacrifice profit for a social cause? Do they believe in minimalism? Companies and individuals with different values will have different challenges and needs; you’ll want to cater your content to help the challenges they face.

Demographic

How does your ideal audience identify? Are they Gen Zers, Millenials, or older? Do they have a large disposable income, or are they from lower economic backgrounds? Do they have any hobbies or specific character traits?

Your target demographic will play a big role in identifying the topics you cover in your podcast, the tone, and how you deliver the content.

Location

Are they in a particular country, region, or even city? For some niches, the location of your audience might not be relevant. But for others, it could be vital. For example, legal systems can drastically vary between countries. If you are a law firm, you’ll want to make sure your podcast content is specific for the country you operate in.

By identifying your target audience, you can ensure that your content provides real value to them and addresses the challenges they face. Download our worksheet for this chapter to start identifying your target audience.