This is, in some sense, the point of podcasting only more so!
Wait, what??? Don’t we need a bazillion listeners to a “success”?
We’ll see….
If we think of television and radio as broadcasting then podcasting is narrowcasting. Not everyone will want to hear what you have to say. Your topic will be of no interest. For those who do like your topic not everyone will take to you. This is a good thing.
We attract the people who will support us.
Small niches, detailed, deeply understood areas of interest draw the listeners for whom this is of interest. The deeper the area of interest and by definition, the narrower the field, the more loyal the listener base.
Of course we’d all love to have a million downloads a day but that’s probably not going to happen. The world is now made up of many individual markets of ideas. For those looking to monetize their shows, the old media notion of numbers equals income no longer holds. This takes some getting used to, as an idea.
The numbers equals income model worked on the theory that with enough people some would be interested in buying whatever the advertiser was selling. A shotgun approach. With narrowcasting we gather a concentrated group of people with a particular interest. Goods and services targeted at that niche are more likely to make sense to the people who have already have demonstrated a connection with the niche. These all seems circular but that’s the point.
A concrete example might help. A great outdoors TV program might have some people watching who are interested in say, fishing. Throw enough advertising money at that audience and some might buy. But a fishing podcast, say a fly fishing podcast already has people listening who love fly fishing and might even be ready to invest their hard earned cash in a new fly rod. That audience is far likely to buy than the TV great outdoors audience.
Takeaways:
- Find your niche.
- Focus on serving your niche.
- Remember it’s not a numbers game.
- It’s an engaged numbers game.