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(By Kim Komando) Knowing your audience means looking beyond demographic data. I’ve learned this by listening to my audience. What questions do they ask? What interests them? What do they care about? What drives them crazy?
I love what I do, helping people navigate today’s digital lifestyle. So it only makes sense that I use all channels of modern technology to keep my listeners, viewers, and readers informed. And that’s why podcasting is such an integral part of my business. It has been for years.
Define Your Podcast Audience
I don’t podcast just to podcast; anyone can do that. Just like any other business, you have to have a strategy. Start by defining your audience.
The fact is, a lot of podcasts are very niche. Take my podcasts, for example. They cover technology, but they’re not about troubleshooting your computer or general tech support. I talk about what my audience needs to know: How to digitize their photos, the best smart TVs, the latest email and phishing scams, and other consumer-related topics that everyday people like you and me care about.
Whether it’s the podcast of my show or Komando On Demand or Consumer Tech Update, I’m speaking to people already living a digital life.
So when you have a space filled with podcasters looking to attract the same, very specific listener, the key to a successful podcast isn’t about marketing or buying expensive equipment with all the bells and whistles. It’s not even just about the content. What’s important is listening to your audience and understanding who they are.
Listen To Your Audience
Knowing your audience isn’t based on the number of listeners you have; it goes beyond that. It’s about relating to the listeners you have so they’ll keep coming back. Growth will happen on its own. Think to yourself, if I were the consumer, is this something I would listen to? I could talk all day, but if listeners don’t think what I’m saying or what my guests are talking about is relevant to them, they’ll go somewhere else.
Part of knowing what your audience wants means interacting with them; speaking with them directly. Always take their feedback into consideration. Find out what they like and what they don’t like. What strikes a chord? What questions are they asking? You may be the most knowledgeable person in the world on the subject at hand, but if you come across as cold, detached, or distant, you’ll know as much about your audience as they know about you. And that won’t be much.
Don’t Kill Your Audience
Once you really establish who your audience is and what they want, stick with the formula and stay focused on your specialty. If you ask Rob Walch, Vice President of Podcaster Relations at Libsyn, he’ll tell you one thing that kills a lot of shows is that they go off-topic too often. So if it’s a podcast about iPhones, touching on Androids as a relevant comparison isn’t going to be an issue. But your listeners aren’t there to hear you talk about your love of riding horses, or how much you enjoyed the latest hit show on Netflix. That’s not why they’re here.
But knowing your audience also means looking past demographics. Yes, it’s an important metric to know a general range of who you’re seeking out, and who’s actually listening. But don’t base your show solely on overall demographics. Walch says it’s not about who the audience is — male, female, 65 or 25 — it’s about their interests. What did they come here expecting to learn and will you be able to deliver? Again, it comes back to you. Make your podcast something you would listen to, something you would enjoy and cause you to look forward to each episode. Once you establish that connection, you’ll never have to wonder what your listeners want.
Yes, you’ll still need to keep an eye on the overall impact of your podcasts, even down to individual episodes. Check metrics, such as:
- Total downloads and listens within the first seven days
- Listen time (do they listen to the end?)
- Click-throughs from podcasts
- Website traffic generated from podcast episodes
- Comments, likes, and shares
- Subscribes and unsubscribes.
Look for trends. If you see a big shift in numbers, swinging either way, ask yourself what changed. Did you lose the connection with your audience, or did you establish one? For example, my team just looked at the most listened-to Komando on Demand podcasts in 2018 and found that my audience likes it when we talk about brand names like Facebook and Amazon. They also like consumer warnings.
Just remember, your success as a podcaster isn’t based on how many subscribers you have. You may have 100 or you might have 100,000. They’re yours to lose if you don’t provide content that helps them, educates them, or simply entertains them.