The Problem
You decided to start a podcast for your business. You are passionate about the mission of your business and the impact it has on its clients, so a podcast will naturally elevate it. The content will be repurposed for all communication channels, such as your social media and newsletter, and will further position you as a leader in the industry. Your business’ mission matters to many, but your intuition or your strategy (or both) tell you to niche it down. That begs for the question: What about the listeners who will feel left out?
Keeping your podcast general, without a very specific target audience in mind, usually leads to a few things: your downloads plateau, listeners don’t convert, and the show could end up sounding like every other podcast, not standing out or helping you position yourself and your business.
If you decide to keep a more general target audience, then you have to apply one very specific content strategy. More on that later in the article.
Read on to find out whether to niche or not, how far, and how to do it without diluting your mission.
Why Podcasters Resist Niching
Many podcasters worry that if they get too specific in the podcast or in an episode, some listeners will feel left out. Of course, it’s important for your listeners to feel seen and represented in the content. That doesn’t mean everything you publish should be general or address a wide audience. You have a specific target audience for your business, right? That ideal customer you have in mind. Well, it should be the same for your podcast, and if one episode speaks more to one type of listener, that’s totally fine.
Your other listeners will understand. They will still relate to a lot of the advice, the stories, the guests you have on. If not, they have a full catalogue of episodes to go back to and identify themselves with, unless you’re an absolutely brand-new show, in which case, just let them know future content will most likely apply to them if that particular episode doesn’t. Especially if this more niche topic pertains to your experience as the host and the creator of the podcast, own it! That’s how your podcast will stand out.
If you are launching a podcast, download our free podcast launch checklist to get started.
Should you niche your podcast? The short answer
Remember, there are no strict podcasting rules. It always depends. More often than not, yes! Most podcasts grow faster with a clear niche. The niche helps you create a clear listener avatar that will influence your decisions: everything from the content strategy to growth and converting listeners. You don’t have to compromise your mission.
One of the most important elements of a podcast is having a clear promise and delivering on it. That specificity builds trust and conversion.
The Benefits
Niching your podcast will satisfy several pointers in your overall business and podcast strategy:
- Trust: Listeners feel understood, so that encourages them to take next steps to get in touch with you, get involved in a community, etc.
- Positioning: Your mission becomes clear to listeners, potential clients, partners, and fellow podcasters.
- Community: Listeners feel a sense of belonging and can naturally relate to one another through shared background and values.
- Content: Setting the clear promise from the get-go makes content planning and production more straightforward.
When Not To Niche Your Podcast
To give you a clear idea of when not to niche your podcast, let’s look at a podcast we supported in reaching 500,000 plays in its launch season, BestTherapists.com’s #1 mental health podcast What Your Therapist Thinks.
WYTT has a clear format that brought an interesting twist to the popular genre of mental health podcasts. They promised listeners that all guests will be licensed therapists only, combatting pop psychology, and included a storytelling-focused Reddit segment.
The WYTT hosts came to us with a clear concept and a name - What Your Therapist Thinks, a mental health podcasts where licensed therapists discuss different topics, share their expertise, and comment on Reddit-sourced stories. They brought the right ingredients to the table: a strong concept that stands out while appealing to a general audience, a strategy on business to podcast, and a great co-host chemistry.
In the mental health podcasting genre, a show like WYTT stands out through its unique, educational and entertaining format.
If you’re not sure where to start, download our free 360 podcast audit questionnaire.
The Bottomline
Whether or not you niche, keep in mind that the most important aspect of your business podcast is setting a clear promise and delivering on it. For that, you need to have a clear audience in mind. That will influence everything in your strategy from content to growth and conversion.
Need support in your podcasting journey? Contact our team at PodVision, and let’s build the strategy that will get you there!
