Turn your mic on, start sharing your message and you are good to go, right? That could be the simplest way to describe podcasting, but it’s not quite true. We need to take a step back and answer this question. Who are you talking to? Who’s your Podcast Target Audience?

Who is it you’re trying to help, who really needs to hear your message and cannot spend another minute of their life without hearing what you have to say? And why does that matter so much? Why can’t you just turn on the mic and go?

That’s what we’re talking about in today’s episode. 

Hey, Hey! And welcome to the second-ever episode of the just keep podcasting podcast. I am so excited to be here and share another episode with you guys. What I’m doing today and what I’m doing actually for the first handful of episodes is going over setting foundational type practices.

The best practices for either starting your podcast, if you haven’t started yet or as you continue to grow and continue to develop. Pause, have you done these already? Have you done all this foundational work? If your answer is no, obviously you’re going to maybe just pause and go back and try to work the foundations of your podcast. Work those foundations back into what you’re doing into your message into your motivation.

But if you have done the work, if you have done the foundational work, take this time to reflect, take this time just to pause. 

We’re getting close to the end of the year now. And I guess in a way, no matter what time you’re in, you can still just pause to reflect, to figure out is this still good? Is this still right? Are my foundations still solid? Have pieces of my foundation kind of come off and over time, just kind of fallen away or eroded or been forgotten. 

So this is a great chance just to either pause, make sure your foundations are good, or if you haven’t done it yet, let’s get into setting a firm foundation for your podcast because I believe that if you do not have these handfuls of pieces in place, your podcast is not going to last. Or it’s not going to be reaching the right people, or you are going to burn out like a candle in July. It’s 10 times harder if you do not have these foundations in place.

So let’s get into that today. 

Creating an Avatar???

We are actually talking about who you are talking to and how to build your podcast avatar (or your podcast target audience) the right way. Now, before we dive into that, let’s just define what I mean by avatar and no, we are not talking about the movie here, (but in a way, in essence, it could be kind of like that)

Another word people might use instead of Avatar is Persona. It is also known as ICP, your ideal consumer profile. Some others call it “Customer Avatar” as well. Or your podcast target audience. So there are just some words to describe what people mean. And what is an avatar? What is a consumer profile? What is an ICP? 

A consumer profile is a way of describing a consumer categorically so that they can be grouped for marketing and advertising purposes.

It represents the person that you are specifically talking to whenever you’re giving your message. So before we dive into the, how: “how are we going to create our avatar?” “How are we going to create our persona?” “How are we going to create that person?”

The first thing we’re going to do before we get into the nitty-gritty of how… I love jumping into the Why.

I’m a very practical step-by-step person, and I want to take you through and teach you why we need to define who our customer is, who our people are, who our tribe is. And I want to go through and teach you how you can go about and very easily figure out who it is you’re talking to step by step by step. 

So let’s jump into the why’s.

1st – Why Do You Need to Know Your Podcast Target Audience

Why would you even care about setting a persona? Why would you care about figuring out who your podcast target audience is?

1| Direction

Because when you know who you’re talking to, you have a direction with all of your conversation. You know exactly what to say to your podcast target audience.

You’re never left thinking. Hmm. Okay. What am I going to say next? I’m not too sure what to address. Maybe I need to tweak what I’m saying a little bit. No, you don’t need to do that when you have who you’re talking to clearly defined. 

It also gives you the direction of how you’re going to teach your people.

Are you going to teach them like classroom style and do live videos with a whiteboard behind you and teach your people? Which you maybe wouldn’t do because you’re a podcaster, but maybe rip off the audio of that and put it on your podcast as an episode.

Are you going to inspire people with your message? Are you going to try to inspire people to take action to transform their lives? And if you know who you’re talking to, it’ll give you the direction of how you’re going to inspire them, for sure. 

Also, when you know who you are talking to, you are never ever going to run out of social media post ideas. You will always have something to say on Instagram, whether it’s the stories or your feed or IGTV. You’re always going to have something to say for Facebook. You’re always going to have a message to give on Twitter. There will always be proper context around what you are saying because you know exactly who you are talking to.

2| Clear Focus

Also knowing your audience gives you a clear focus on their pain point and how you’re going to solve it. It will define and refine your message. If you don’t know exactly who you are talking to, then your message may be all over the place because you’re trying to help them solve problem A and problem B and problem C, Oh, and you forgot about problem H. 

You just have all these things you’re trying to fix. All these things you’re trying to go for. All these things that you are trying to be an expert in. That won’t work. That’ll drive everybody away because nobody is understanding what you’re talking about, nobody is understanding what you are clearly here for and what your clear message is.

And you need to have a very defined, very specific message for your very specific person. I truly believe that. All the experts keep saying 2006, 2009 was the time to be a blogger about anything. Now’s the time to niche down. 

People are not going to their Google search bar to type in “weight loss” for example, no, they’re going to be typing in “weight loss for the busy mom with two kids that has no time” or “weight loss for the mom who has no time” or “weight loss for the entrepreneur” or something like that. Like it’s not just a general lifestyle type idea that we can do. We have to get very specific and very focused.

Also, it’s a service to your people, your podcast target audience. 

Whenever you have clearly defined yourself, you put it right on the front of your website, you put it right on the description of your podcast show, you have it in your imagery for your podcast, you have it in your imagery for your website. Somebody lands on your podcast or your website and boom, they know exactly who you are and who you are talking to.

And it does a great service to your people because instantly it will attract the people that you want around you and you want to keep in your sphere of influence. 

And it will also tell the people that are not for you to go away because they will be wasting their time if they stuck around and listened to what you have to say. This is a wonderful thing for all the people because we are all so busy, we don’t need our time to be wasted.

When you have a clear focus of who you’re talking to you’re going to know their pain point. You’re going to know what you’re talking about to give them the transformation they need. 

And sometimes your people may not know what they need exactly for the transformation. 

Like, finances, for example, they think that if they just fix their business finances, all their finances will be fine when, YOU know (because you’re the expert) that if they started with their personal finances and got all of that under control, their business finances would fall into place and it would be so much easier for them.

So you will be teaching them and bringing them along and giving them step-by-step instructions to get them from what they think they need to actually what they really need. But that is because you know the transformation.You know who you are talking to and you know exactly how to get them from point A and what they think they need to complete their transformation – point B.

3| You’ll Be The Expert

Also whenever you are figuring out who you are talking to and the transformation that they need, you are also labeling yourself the expert. But what does that expert look like? You will be defining that position for yourself whenever you are defining their transformation.

Are you going to be the Inspector expert?

Picture you are hovering above and you see their problems, you see their pain points, you see their need for transformation, and you are like just speaking into their lives and disappearing and speaking into their lives and not really having any personal connection, contact, or anything. You are the inspector you are above, they are below or far away. There’s a distance between you.

Or are you going to be the Advisor expert? 

Are you going to be the expert that comes at them by the front door knocking on their home saying, “Hey, you need to open up because you need to hear what I have to say because it will help you and change your life”?

Or are you going to be the Mentor expert? 

The mentor expert is the person that will come alongside the person that needs the transformation, hold their hand and walk them through. Walk them through where they are right now and walk them to the point of where they need to be for that transformation to be had and say, “yes, we have arrived. We are here, you are done. You do not need me anymore.”

And these are the three things that I just wanted to quickly walkthrough because this is a way of transformation actually in marketing.

We used to be talked to and just told what to do. The inspector, you are told what to do – go and do it right.

Then we moved on through the last couple of decades into the advisor expert. The one that is kind of untouchable, but they’re there. They’re telling you, and they’re just advising, advising, advising. 

Now we’re at the point where we need to be, I believe, the mentor expert. We need to walk alongside our people. Hold their hand empathetically through what they are doing right now. But also be the coach and hold the line. Coach them through what they need to go through to get to the transformation at the end of what you are teaching them – what they need and want to improve in their life or change in their life. You’re going to be there with them the entire time. 

That’s, I think, where we are at right now. And that’s what I think we need to do to draw people to us in order to draw our tribe to us. Right? 

So if we know who we are talking to, we know who our podcast target audience is, we know how to be that friend. We know how to be the mentor expert. We know exactly the words to say because, most of the time, it’s who you were five years ago. It’s who you were two years ago. You’ve been in their shoes. You know what they’re going through. Or you’re just an expert in your field and have lots of education behind what you do and lots of years of experience and that is fine too. 

But a lot of the time, as an expert in your field of genius, you’ve gone through what they have. You’ve gone through the whole thing. Usually, that’s how this goes, you know exactly what they have gone through. So you can approach this as a mentor expert with them. 

So these are our “Why’s”. This is why we need to dig deep and spend the time. Because it is going to take a little bit of time, and that is okay. It’s something to think about a mull over and just let it kind of simmer there, like a pot of chili that just gets better as it just gets older in the fridge. Maybe that’s a bad analogy, but you get where I’m going with that. 

So to recap, our “Why’s”

Why do we need to know who our podcast target audience is? It gives you direction. It gives you direction with your conversation and it gives you direction on how you’re going to approach that conversation. Whether it’s through teaching or inspiration, it also gives you direction on what you’re going to say on social media and how you’re going to market yourself on emails.

And also when you know who you are talking to and why it is so important, it gives you a clear focus of their pain point and how you are going to solve it. It gives you a clear focus on their transformation and how you are going to try to help them. 

You will do your best to be their mentor expert friend walking along beside them, not as an inspector, not as an advisor, but you are their mentor, their friend, and their coach. And you can act like it because you know exactly who you are talking to

2nd – How Do You Identify Your Podcast Target Audience?

So now let’s dig into the “How’s”. How are we going to do this? And I love, love, love how simple this can be. 

What NOT To Do

I know a lot of people will preach it. “Let’s get into the hair color. Let’s get into the eye color. Find a picture on the internet. Let’s put a face to that lady. Let’s give her a name. What’s her a fake family. Let’s go five levels deeper and give her a van and the van make number. And the model number for her van.”

No, no, no, no, no, no. Hold the phone. Hold it, hold it. I really don’t think we need to do all that. 

I’ve done that exercise a couple of times before, wrote down all my details, found the picture. I put it away and I never thought about it again. 

Why? Because it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter what her hair color is. Just grab a picture, smack it on your computer, call it your podcast target audience. But what does matter is knowing who you’re serving and what their pain point is. And why. Why do they have that pain point?

1| So Ask Yourself “What Do You Do?”

So let’s back this up. Back it right up to the beginning. Let’s do a bit of an exercise, a fill in the blank. So I’m going to say a sentence, there’s going to be some blanks in there, and I want you to jump in your mind, and fill in the blanks. 

I help ______ by _____ so they can _____. 

• So you help______? Who do you help? Who’s that blank. Don’t just say ladies, don’t just say dads. Give me a specific person that you help. “I help busy moms with young kids.”

• By _____? How do you help them? How do you help the person that you just said, how do you help that person in their transformation? 

• And the transformation is: So that they can _____? I help “who?” by “how?” so that they can have “What transformation?”

So an example of this would be:

“I help busy moms with young kids by teaching them time management strategies so that they can become more peaceful moms.” 

So if you followed along and you’ve got that part of the exercise done. Awesome. That is great. You’re on your way to identifying your podcast target audience. If you’re having a little bit of trouble with that still, and haven’t thought about it, or it’s been a long time since you’ve thought about it, that is totally fine.

If you could even just sum up in one sentence, what is it you do? What is the transformation, the promise that you have that you are giving to your people? What is it that you will help them do then you can just put it into a quick sentence? Don’t add fluffy words, now is not the time to get fancy. Just say plain and simple what it is you do. 

3| Ask Yourself “Why Do They Need That?”

And because you know what it is you do, and the transformation you’re trying to get people to. Why do people need that? Why do people need what you have to give?

Let’s use the example of a financial advisor or financial expert that is going to help people get out of credit card debt. 

• So who are you talking to? You were talking to people with credit card debt. 
• Well, why do they have credit card debt? They have credit card debt because they do not know how to manage their money. 
• Well, why do they not know how to manage their money? Because they do not regularly check into their bank account. They do not log on. They do not check. So they do not know where they are in their finances. 
• Why do they not log on? Because every time they think of logging on, they feel guilty about the out-of-controlness in their credit cards and their debt and all the things they owe and they’re paycheck to paycheck. 
• Well, why do they feel guilty about their credit card debt and not opening it and everything else that we just said, why do they feel guilt? They feel guilt because they feel ashamed. Ashamed that they have all this credit card debt. They feel ashamed that they’re grown adults and they cannot manage their money properly. They feel ashamed because they should’ve learned this all in high school and they should have known better whenever they signed onto the credit card in their early twenties. They’re thinking they should have known they should have been more responsible with their money.
• And why do they feel shame? Because….

So you just keep backing it up. You just keep going on down the rabbit hole of why. So I hope you followed along. That was a long example. I hope you heard that you can just keep asking why. 

So don’t just say “because they want to get out of credit card debt” or “they want to be financially free.” No, it’s not really. You keep digging down the layers, right? 

It’s not just about that. It’s also a layer deeper. It’s because they don’t log on, they don’t want to know. A layer deeper: because they don’t budget. A layer deeper: because they feel guilt. That’s why they don’t want to budget. They don’t want to check-in. They’re in denial. Why are they in denial? Because a layer deeper they feel shame. They feel embarrassed. They feel like nobody should have to look at this because it is terrible and it is awful.

So that is the place they are in. That is their pain points. That is who you are talking to. This is your podcast target audience. You are talking to the person that feels exactly like that. That’s six layers deep of credit card debt. That is the person you are talking to. All those why’s you listed.

That is exactly who you are talking to.

How Do You Use These Pain Points?

And in our later episodes, we’re going to talk about how we’re going to put together our podcast show description. But you can literally take all those “Why’s” that are listed out. 

You know, grab a scrap piece of paper and start asking yourself those questions and go layers and layers deeper. Sometimes when you start out and you are chugging along in your podcast creation, you maybe don’t have the words that people say about the pain points they have. Maybe you haven’t taken the time to survey your podcast target audience. Maybe you haven’t taken the time to ask some questions on Instagram and get engagement so that you know exactly what their pain points are and exactly the transformation they’re looking for.

So if you haven’t done that, you can start by using this copy. These words of why they’re doing what they’re doing, their pain points. And you can put that in your podcast show description notes. You can put that on your website, on your podcast, in your titles. This is like the starting point. It’s like the birthplace of everything that you create.

The content creation can start from here. You can start addressing the core “Why’s”. The core pain points that your person has. When you start from here you know how to put it into your email titles, you know how to put it into your email body. You can word it in a way that you are their friend, their mentor, their coach that will come alongside them in this pain. Because you understand it, you know what they’re going through because you dug through it. So this is something that you can do step by step, dig through those whys.

I would strongly recommend… In fact, don’t do this unless you’re ready to write it down. (Like you can, if you’re driving the car, just keep thinking through those whys. Because when you get to your pen and paper, it will be super easy just to write it out and just it’ll free flow.)

But if you just only ever think about this and you never write it down, then you are going to forget. You’re going to forget your layers. You’re going to be in the moment and you’re like, “Ah, what is it? That thing again?” 

This is the part you want to write down. Not her blue eyes, blonde hair, whatever name she has.

And the picture of the model that you picked from some random website. That’s not the important piece. If that all makes you feel better. Sure. Go do it. 

But I would just focus on this piece: get into the head of your person, get into their pain points, get into what they’re looking for to change in their life. And then ask why, and then ask why again and just keep digging. Keep going through and dig deep. 

That way, whenever you talk, your person’s going to be like, “Oh my goodness. She is in my head. She knows exactly what I’m talking about.” or “She knows what I’m thinking.”

That’s what they’re going to be thinking. This is what they’re going to be feeling, and that’s going to have them like you, know you, and trust you all the faster. That’s your podcast target audience. And they will be coming back to hear more of your message.

To Sum Up

I hope you found this really helpful today. I want to just encourage you. Take the time to do a fill in the blank. 

I help ______ by _____ so they can _____. 

That is your promise of transformation. That’s who you serve, what you do, and how you help them. This is your podcast target audience and that is what that sentence is for.

So you can fill that out. And then once you get that started, it’ll get your brain rolling thinking about what their pain point is, what transformation it is that they are looking for. And then you are going to start asking your why’s. This is their pain point. Awesome! Now ask why and why again, and you’re going to write this out on a piece of paper.

Then have that paper super handy when you are creating your email titles, your emails, your social media copy, your website, your sales page copy, your tripwire copy, your product page copy, your podcast show description, your podcasts episode’s descriptions. They can have pieces of these “Why’s” in all of these different places. 

And whenever someone lands on your site in those three seconds that they look at you and look through what you have and see if you are for them or not, they’re going to say yes, this person is in my head. They know exactly what I’m talking about. I am sticking around.

~Or~

You’re going to do a service to everybody else that is not your person and send them away as fast as you can. They can look and say, no, she is not for me. And they’ll be running away. Which is a really good thing, and we want that.

I hope you found this helpful, and I’ll see you again next week. 

Thanks for reading today. I hope you found it helpful. You may also like the backlist of episodes, as well as my FREE PODCAST PROCESS CHECKLIST, all the things you need to do to bring your podcast episode from idea to published. It has all the steps laid out for you of how to bring each of your podcast episodes from ideas to life.

So print it off. Check off each step as you go through and create your weekly show. That way you’re going to know at a glance what’s left to do and where you left off.

So until next week, Just keep podcasting.