Defining Your Podcast Audience

If you start by defining your podcast audience, it will help you have an ideal listener in mind that you can aim your show towards, making your podcast more relatable to that audience.

And when your show is more relatable to a specific audience, those listeners are likely to promote it, helping your podcast grow.

Why defining your podcast audience is so important:

Sometimes podcasters create great audio content, but if there’s no target audience that it’s trying to reach, it can make things a bit complicated…

You wouldn’t start a business without determining your target market… and it’s the same for your podcast!

When you are able to define your podcast audience, you have a clear vision of who you are trying to reach, which can make it easier for you to create content on a specific topic, and know where to promote it. 💪

If you try to create a podcast that is aimed for everyone, it will not have the positive effect that you’re intending.

Instead, there won’t be anyone that relates to your show on a personal level, thus making it get lost in the sea of podcasts. 🌊

Basically, when you create a podcast, you want your listeners to feel like you are talking directly to them, and when you’re trying to talk to everyone, no one will find what they’re looking for in your podcast.

Your show should improve the lives of your listeners or help them in some way.

This could be by answering a question or solving a problem that they are facing.

And when your podcast audience is too large, you can’t know which questions to try and answer or which problems to try and solve. 🤔

Defining your podcast audience — Listener Persona Template

Start by defining your listener persona:

Your listener persona is the person that you imagine listens to your podcast. 🧔👨‍🌾👨‍🍳👨‍🚀👩‍🎤

There are some questions that you can ask yourself to try and determine your listener persona:

Who is the listener that I’m looking to speak to? ❓
What motivates them to listen to my podcast? 🎧
What are their barriers to listening to my podcast? ❌
What other types of content is my listener consuming? 🎥
What’s a typical day for my listener? ☕
What are the possible contact points? 📱
How do they use communication channels? 📣

If you want to know more about defining your listener persona, check out this article: How to Define Your Podcast’s Listener Persona?

By defining your listener persona, you will know what kind of people make up your podcast audience.

Be sure to download this online model so that you can start defining your listener persona!

How can you define your podcast audience? 🧐

The tone of your podcast can help you when defining your podcast audience.

For example, if you have a very grim and somber tone for your true crime podcast, it may not appeal to a young student just trying to find something fun to listen to. 👎

But it could be just the thing for an investigative journalist, trying to find a podcast to listen to. 👍

The format can also be telling when defining your podcast audience.

An example could be if your podcast has really complex episodes that are one hour long, it may not appeal to a busy workaholic who doesn’t have the time. 👎

But it may be the perfect show for someone that works part-time or is retired. 👍

Or on the other hand, if your show is short and to the point, it could be perfect for a busy mom, but might be too short for someone that has more time and wants to enjoy longer episodes.

The content plays an important role when defining your podcast audience as well.

I would say that the odds are most people don’t listen to podcasts where the content doesn’t relate to or interest them.

So by having your podcast content being as niche as possible you will be able to find your specific podcast audience. 🔍

And when you have a clear and precise podcast audience, they will be more loyal and want to listen to all of your episodes and share them with others that they know have the same interest.

How can social media help you when defining your podcast audience? 📱

If you already have a community on social media you can check out their profiles.

And no, I don’t mean stalking them on Instagram or Facebook.

I just mean if you notice that a lot of them are in the same public group, join it. See what they all have in common, and use that to help you create content that they will enjoy.

See what other podcasts your audience enjoys, and what other hobbies they have. 🏈 🏊‍♂️ 🎤 🎮

The more you know about your audience, the better… and your podcast will reflect that.

You can also post surveys and polls on your social media stories to try and get feedback from your audience.

This will be very helpful in defining your podcast audience, because the information is coming directly from the source!

And the interaction with your audience is great for your show’s engagement which will make your listeners happy. 😃

And when it comes to choosing where to post your podcast content, find out which social media platform your listeners use the most and make yourself more present on that one compared to the others.

As time goes by and your podcast audience grows, you will likely get more feedback, which will help you see changes in your audience and you can use that to adjust your show and its content, and even increase the quality of each episode.

How the “why” of your podcast helps you define your audience:

For those that need a quick refresher: the “why” of your podcast is the driving force behind your show. 🌬️

It’s what motivates you to create new episodes, because whatever your “why” is, it’s important to you.

Your “why” can help you when you’re defining your podcast audience, because it’s usually aimed for a particular group of people. 👬👭👫🧑‍🤝‍🧑

For example, if you have a podcast about traveling tips, your “why” could be because it’s important to you that you share what you’ve learned throughout your travels with others that like to travel and because you love to talk about it! 🌴 ✈️ 🌎

This automatically helps you define some of your podcast audience, because you know you will be aiming to reach those that like to travel or have hopes to travel in the future.

This brings me to my next point:

What makes your podcast unique? Why should a potential listener choose your show over another travel show?

Well, if you’ve defined your podcast audience well, then you’ll know almost exactly what they want to hear, making your show more unique and appealing to ideal listeners.

Something else to ask yourself here: Who are you writing your podcast for? (Besides yourself of course)

When you think of the exact person that you want to be listening to your podcast, it will help you visualize and target your podcast audience. 👥

Adapting to a changing podcast audience:

You may grow and change as a podcaster… and it’s the same for your audience!

Your ideal listener can grow and change as your podcast evolves, so remember to keep that in mind as you continue your show.

It could be something complex, or something as simple as which social media platform your listeners prefer to use.

Checking your podcast statistics will help you keep a pulse on your show’s success and who is listening to it.

Key takeaways: 🗝️

Determine your listener persona from the beginning. It will help you when it comes to defining your podcast audience.

When you have defined your podcast audience, have that ideal target listener in mind when you create your content, and this will help you make sure they enjoy it!

Understand the “why” of your podcast, and how your show can help your audience answer their questions or solve their problems.

And be sure to download the listener persona template from Ausha to get started with defining your podcast audience. 💜