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Happy Valentine’s Day. Dear audience. I’m so glad we found one another.
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Hi, guys. Hello, Janet. I’m not sure why we’re here after that intro. We are here to talk about finding our niche and finding our ideal audience. Falling in love. Falling in love. No. Audience. Yes. With our audience. In brackets. With our audience. No, seriously. We are talking about how important it is to identify for yourself what your niche is as a podcaster or content creator.
Um, and how the ideal audience will naturally follow. Yeah, I think it’s a combination of passion, skill, and I guess, profitability. Okay. What are you super passionate about? What can you speak about for hundreds and hundreds of hours without getting bored. Skill. What are you actually good at? Mhm.
Um,
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you know you you can’t. You got to be passionate and good at that. Yeah. Um, and then what do people actually want to listen to. So like that’s the profitability side of it. Okay. So that’s how I identify somewhere my niche. But sometimes okay. Sometimes you might not have it all together when you start. Right.
And the audience quickly tells you what they’re interested in. Not interested in. Yes. And then you refine your topic or your niche. Yeah. Okay. So maybe start more broadly. Well, I think that happens anyway. Okay. I think you’re going to do this thing. You think it’s going to be popular. You think it’s going to be x x, x.
And maybe sometimes that’s true. But over time it kind of goes this way. Then it goes this way and then it gets onto track. And then you find find your audience and then you grow. I do think it would, it would refine itself, but I think you would generally find something that you’re passionate about. Just start with that passion where you have a skill or at least access to some kind of knowledge or expertise in a certain area.
And then from there, you probably will like my favorites, like, um, trending videos these days, which you’re going to laugh at me is these guys that do the lawn mowing. Yes. Oh, clean up people’s versions. Yes. Like, yeah. On Instagram. Why is that so addictive? SB mowing. I don’t know what the. There’s lots of guys.
That guy Zach is that guy. Oh my gosh. That’s a guy. You’re in love with a guy. Yeah but but my point is, anything can be a passionate skill. And let’s say let’s also just be specific about how niche that is. Yeah. We don’t all have to be that niche, but so generic at the same time because it’s it’s so niche that so many people can watch it and appreciate it.
Okay. So it’s it’s maybe not that niche because it’s about cleaning up transformation. Okay. We all know from TV. The most addictive thing to watch is a transformation story. Yeah. So after the before and after. Actually, it’s not that niche. It appeals to a broad. Well, I think, in fact, he’s cutting lawn is quite niche.
Yeah. The fact that people want to see before and afters. Yeah. Not niche. It doesn’t really matter what they do. So it’s a niche topic packaged in a very traditional way. Very addictive, formulaic thing. Yeah. I also think that that guy didn’t decide to start mowing lawns to become internet famous. No, that guy was already mowing lawns.
That’s that’s his. That’s his passion skills and his skill. His skill is. And it turns out there’s profit to be made. Yeah. So why not turn your day job? Yes. And amplify it. Yes. Into content. And I guess it’s just the clever way of doing that that some people can pull off and obviously the timing. Yeah. And yeah.
And the consistency. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. I also think a good podcast is a level of um solving a problem. Mhm. So whether that could just be pure education, it could be entertainment. Those are all serving a purpose. Yeah. So find what that is. And then again what is your USP. Because your unique your unique selling point.
Mhm. Um you know have some kind of angle then it can be anything really. I also think this is where niche starts to come into play because, you know, we can be talking about podcasting here in our South African context. There can be another group of people that look like us with their podcast about podcasting in the US and maybe another in Australia, and all three of those podcasts will have a different angle.
Exactly. Purely based on geography. Yeah. And opinion and opinion and experience. You can have a podcast about podcasts that focuses on equipment. You can have a podcast about podcasts that focuses on individuals trying to monetize. Right. Ours is not a show about podcasts, necessarily. It’s a show about podcasts for businesses.
Right? And brands and brands. Yeah. For brand building. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what do I do if I am a person with an idea or a brand that wants to build a podcast and I’m worried about, am I going to find an audience for this? So it’s an interesting question. The boring answer is what nobody wants to hear.
But it’s if you plan it out like a business and put a plan together, business case, a business plan, whatever you want to do. If you think about it from that point of view, then you also put the thinking and thought of. Where is my audience? What is my audience look like? And once you’ve done that exercise. If you can’t identify an audience, then maybe you should change something.
Yeah, but
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generally, if you’ve got some value to add to a sector or to a niche group or a subculture or something, you will find an audience. Would you agree that if you are already doing some marketing and have an audience there, that you automatically would have a podcast audience potentially? I think that, you know, if you or you’ve already got an engaged audience, you’re just giving them more of what they want.
But but I think also you can look at podcasts that cover similar topics to yours and identify gaps. So what are they not talking about? Hmm. So you could add value that way. You can even do really. You can also find out where you’re like, where are the people who you feel would be interested in your podcast?
Where do they live? Where are they? Where they’re hanging out online? Yeah. And you can go and look at what questions they ask on the forums are a fantastic way to get you can. I mean, we say since we say this for just traditional website SEO, which is you do keyword research so you find out what people are actually searching for.
Uh, you can do that through Google. Um, and there’s a couple other free services and you can find out what people are actually searching for, and then you can solve those problems. We do that with blogs for for our clients on their blog posts. Um, you can go to our forums and stuff things like Quora. Uh, I can’t think of another one now.
It’s Reddit’s whatever, and you can actually see what people are looking for and you can answer their questions. So, uh, if that aligns with your passion and your skill and you can just sort of steer your passion and skill to answer those questions. And sometimes passion and skill is improved over some time.
Um, you know, um, Because creating content for your audience in your niche might drive you to become more skilled. Hmm. To get better at what you’re doing so it’s hand in hand. But yeah, and passion is sometimes learned. Yeah. Because you get good at it. Yeah. I also feel like if you are already in business, that means you have already identified a gap in the market and you are producing something or selling a service to a defined group of people.
Yeah. If that isn’t already happening and you’re looking to market a business, I feel like you are, you’re missing a step. So for me, I feel like adding a podcast is then about identifying what is my existing audience, you know? So worrying about finding a new audience is, in my mind, a little bit the wrong way around.
Yeah. You know, thinking about your existing customer, thinking about your frequently asked questions, you know, the things that as a business person, you answer every single day, You think? Well, if I had a rand for every time I answered this question, I’d be on an island somewhere. Yeah. Does marketing work?
I think that’s a valid point. I mean, if you are a business starting a podcast, you already kind of are in your niche, right? Like if you if you’re a business, a web design business, and you try and start a brand building exercise podcast that focuses on treehouses, yeah, you your podcasts adding no value yes to your business.
So you already are in your web site niche building umbrella. Yeah, I wouldn’t say that’s a niche. I would say that’s just that’s quite broad. Yeah. And then you could focus in on something. So you could be do a podcast about WordPress websites or Shopify or whatever the case may be. You could also be quite tactical.
If you’ve got a specific objective, like growing a new audience for your business, um, you could do some weird and wacky things like a plumber’s take on web saving or websites or whatever. Wow. That was a bit of a stretch, but I was thinking it’s still in the construction era because, you know, down the line, you, you, you’re considering, uh, diversifying that that as a service offering.
Yeah. And a podcast. Um, and to talk about that could be really great research for yourself. Never mind putting yourself out there as as already, uh, building that brand before you even launch. Yeah. So there’s some tactical things you can consider. Yeah. But in general, if if you’ve got a business, you’ve got a website, and maybe if you’ve got a blog even more, then that means you’ve got something to say.
Yeah. And you should be saying it because why not take advantage of this platform and this kind of content. Mhm. Um, you know, I remember back in the day people would scramble over each other to get spots on talk shows, right to, to promote their like morning shows, you know, those morning shows and to get a slot on there.
You, you were a rock star and did huge things for your business. Now you can do that and own the show, right? So why not?
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Okay. In terms of a niche, how deep should a person go? Is it wise to be extremely specific in your podcast about one topic? Is it better to be broad? Well, I would say this goes back down to that business plan and that market research. Mhm. Um, even to where you geo located, where you’re where your customers are coming from.
Mhm. If you’re a global worldwide business it’s probably much, much easier to be super super niche. Okay. But if you’re in a market like South Africa that’s um not a huge disposable income country for example. Um, and your niche is only for those very few. You’ve just got to adjust your expectation of how many of those people are you going to reach?
Right. Yeah. Um, the size of your audience, universe or the universe that you can reach is limited. Mhm. Um, and, and I think that’s why this kind of content exploded in the US because they’ve got massive. Just what I was going to say. And then in the US you can have the most niche offering in the world. And there will still be a huge market for it.
It’s enough volumes of people with money. People with disposable incomes. So their middle class is still the driver of those economies. Where in South Africa it’s a little bit more challenging. Mhm. Um, because the majority of our population don’t have access to this kind of content. Yeah. So I think that really has to be considered when you’re putting your podcast together.
So I think there’s that point. And then I think there’s the, um, understanding of what that landscape looks like in terms of other people that are going after the same customer with the podcast in that particular niche, because I do think that there are a few categories that there’s a there’s a lot of competition there.
Well, that’s actually kind of identify what they’re not doing. Yeah. It’s in there. Yeah. But again because because you’re a business starting a podcast, assuming your business is making money and has something to say. Well, if you’re making money, it means there is a there is an audience for what you have to say.
Yeah. So it’s not quite like you’re an individual doing a super niche. Yes. Podcast about. Yes. That’s true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the, the risk about the Uber, Uber super niche is that you run out of content and you, you’re so niche. Even the niche that watches your first video got all the info in the first year, you know.
Yeah. Could be stupidly extreme. Yeah. Um, and that would defeat the point. Yes. I would maybe say as a suggestion where a podcast is almost not feasible due to the the niche that you’re in, either it’s completely Desaturated, or you don’t have enough to say about that topic or the audience base that’s too small is.
Then just make yourself available as a guest within others as podcasts to grow so that you can actually grow your own customer base. That is the the flip strategy is make yourself available for other things. So say you make pins, you make a pin size, but then you could appear on multiple hobby podcasts that use those pins in different uses instead of trying to podcast.
Yeah, no one’s going to follow a pin. Well,
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nobody. But there might be a big niche shot that I don’t know about. When you say pins, what do you mean, like a metal pin? And now we’re going super Nisha. Like, what did you call it? A super, super Uber niche. Yeah, something like that. Like a sewing pin? No, not a sewing pin. Like a pin. Pin like you pinned to a board.
Like a tech. It’s a drawing pin. Drawing pin. There we go. Okay. That’s the. You do also use pins and sewing
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pin. But we’re just talking about one type of pin. Okay. So do you think we’ve gone off topic very niche in this episode. My point is yes, you can get so, so niche that you do yourself harm. But
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um, so you just have to consider it, do your research, think about how many episodes you could possibly do. Um, it’s funny, I, I used to do analysis on creative concepts for television and need to be able to display how how much depth a show has and how much lifespan do we foresee this concept of. So in other words, will it die out of the three seasons?
And I did a show where I did the analysis and I thought three seasons were going to be done. Guys. Yeah. There’s just not enough type of this content to continue. Well, let me just tell you, that show is now on season nine. Wow. Because what I didn’t consider in that analysis was how the show has an impact on that industry sector, to encourage more people to do all of that, did the job so well.
It does the job. And then over time, the content increases because there’s more people. There’s more people doing it. Okay. It wasn’t something I was expecting, even though I was telling the client, that’s what it’s going to do. Yeah. So it had tremendous market impact. It had tremendous market impact.
So sometimes you do make errors in your assumptions. Yeah. You know. Um. Not me. Okay. Unless you’re rich.
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That was it was one of the biggest learnings in my career. That that one. Yeah. Um, and I often talk about it because it was such a big learning point for me, but. And that was a niche, niche, niche show.
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Um, so, so, yeah, I think. Go for it. Yeah. We’ll find out very quickly if you run out. Yeah. So I think there’s a lot of content and there’s probably a podcast already in your niche or whatever you’re trying to do. So then I think it is quite important to focus on quality, production value, good audio because you can you can you can beat them off that way.
Yeah.
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Well you obviously think you’ve got something better to say as well if you’re going to. Well yeah, you can, you can, you can be better not just from a content perspective. You can be better for a production. Well, I mean, is there classic marketing saying either be first or be better? Yeah, yeah. And often second to market is wealth.
Correct. Yeah, yeah. The first person’s made all the mistakes ahead of you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you guys.
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We have gone super, super Uber deep on the niche topic. But if there are any questions you have about identifying your ideal audience, please let us know in the comments. Cheers for now.
