If you are still struggling to understand why your audience is unable to relate to your content, then this episode on a podcast listener profile is for you. Read on to learn more.
My journey with affiliate marketing started off like, a lot of the other affiliate marketers. I would pick any product and promote it to anyone and everyone. The posts were all over the place without a real goal. In fact, the only goal was to make the reader buy the product and make money.
The result – I was making money, but the conversions were real low. I was building an email list from the visitors who were coming in. There again the conversions were pretty low.
I continued that way for some time. But all this time, I was learning copywriting, conversions, and content writing from some of the well-known names in the industry.
That’s when I learned more about mass marketing Vs targeted marketing and this completely changed my outlook.. (I will be talking about mass marketing and targeted marketing in another episode of mine if you are really interested in it).
And it is at this point I learned about a customer avatar.. and I was like avatar.. like the movie avatar! jokes apart.
When I read through the article, I wanted to get a little deeper into it and deeper I went to learn more about why I should even spend the time to do one of that..
And like what all of us will do, I kept that entire thing safely gathering dust in my hard disk and never looked back.
I used to send out regular emails to my subscribers and again these too were just mass emails sent to all subscribers. It was a reply that I received to one such email that really knocked me out.
The reply read, “Dear so-called amazing marketer, You send out these emails to me every week that sits there in my inbox telling me that I haven’t read it. And since I am driven more by my habit of not keeping anything unread, I open your email and skim through it.
And guess what! I find that there isn’t anything that is even remotely relevant to me in the email.
Who are you writing these emails for?
How do you that these are things I would really like to know?
I know you are an amazing marketer or, so you call yourself. But a simple advice from a not-so-amazing marketer but a real human being. Please put in a little more effort and try to understand what my problems are. And then send emails that can help me with those problems.
Else, please stop sending these emails. (I am sure you can see me yelling!)”
Now that was hard. The sarcasm was a little too much for me to take.
But I knew I had to change. I knew there was a problem.
That’s when I dusted the materials that were gathering dust in my hard disk and went through it again.
It was that day that I decided that my emails and my marketing strategy would never be a mass one..
It was that day that I really understood the importance of creating an avatar – a reader profile, a buyer profile, a listener profile.
You can call it in many names, but the essence remains the same.
So, from a podcasting perspective, it will become a listener profile.
You have to decide on who your ideal audience is going to be even before you have launched your show. And this is to the point of identifying the age group that you are targeting!
Now, I have to put this disclaimer here.
This is only applicable if you are looking at serious podcasting and planning on building it as a business. if you are into hobby podcasting and are not that serious about it, then this is something you can skip.
Anyways,
How do you identify the right audience for your show?
I had written a complete blog post on this, on my other blog at dkspeaks.com which I will link in the show notes. You can check it out at the podcasting university .com
You will need to put in some time to identify your audience. Here are 2 ways you can do it –
Research competition – Pick a few of blogs in a similar niche and check out the content they are producing. Who are they targeting? You can use something like Alexa.com or, such free tools to evaluate the demographics of the audience and use it to create your profile.
Writing it yourself – You are the content creator. So it will make absolute sense to sit down and write about your ideal listener. Who is it that your content will be the most attractive to?
- Who will benefit from it?
- What is the age-group?
- What are their problems?
- Where do you find them the most? etc.
Once done, you can survey a similar audience especially the people around you.. your family, friends etc. and that will help you further refine the listener profile.
This 2nd one is the easiest.
That’s a lot of work. Isn’t it?
It indeed is.
And that is what makes your show different from any other in the market. What’s your USP?
If you are looking at considering podcasting as a way to monetize, then this effort would be just worth it.
But then the real question is, why would you need a listener profile?
It helps you generate better content.
Content that resonates with your audience. Content that your audience will engage with. Content that will help them solve a problem they have always been facing and have never got a real solution for.
Better content, Better engagement means repeated listenership and that is what will help grow your show.
It gives you a direction.. in fact, it will give you show a direction. You will know what you want to create and why. That reason to create will act as the fuel to continue producing episodes after episodes and to stay consistent.
Better prospects of monetization – Advertisers and sponsors are keener on understanding who their audience is and if they are their target market. If you have that figured out and can show it to your prospective sponsors, you have a better chance of getting them to sponsor your show.
So, that was a lot of information to digest. Isn’t it?
I can understand. But please don’t get overwhelmed with all of the information.
And if you need any further information, book a free discovery call with me.
Thank you for joining in
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