Mistake 4: Focused on a large audience vs niched audience
Hey, this is Annemarie, and welcome to another #ListenerIntoLead tip. This is tip #5, I'm still covering some of the mistakes that I made 13 years ago when I started my very first podcast.
It was a co-hosted podcast that started in 2008. Go back to a couple of tips. And I share a little bit more about why I started back in Tip #2, I believe it is, but today, I'm covering tip #5. And that mistake is focusing on building a large audience versus a niched audience. Now previously, I've mentioned that we used to compare our podcast to mainstream radio, it really was the only thing that we can compare it to. We think an audio radio podcast is audio obviously now there's a video as well and live to stream. But back then it wasn't. So we only really could compare our podcast to audio and radio. And we know that radio typically finds its monetization strategies on the back of sponsorships and advertising. And so we thought we needed to create a large audience to be able to monetize through sponsorships. And in actual fact, that was one of the reasons why we stopped our podcast we couldn't get sponsors and advertisers because we didn't have a large audience and they would compare our podcast audience to mainstream radio.
I know even over the number of years that I've continued podcasting, one of the questions that I'm often asked, is do you have sponsors on the show? And I would say 99.99% of the time, I say no, we don't because I recognize the value of a highly niched audience.
I know that the know, like, and trust that I have built with my community, with my listeners, I do not want to break because all of a sudden I've got these random ads from organizations that have paid me pittance in comparison to if my audience steps into my programs, VIP coaching programs, but training such highly niched audience is much better than a large audience.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, I would much rather have a high niche, more highly engaged, a smaller audience of my ideal clients who love what I talk about, who are benefiting from it, who are hiring me, who are sharing my content, and recommending me to their colleagues and people that they know that would potentially need my services, than having a huge audience of people that maybe are enjoying the content, however, they're not really taking action, they're not hiring me, they're not generating any leads for me or even referrals and recommendations of my ideal clients.
I talk a little bit in my masterclasses and so forth about focusing on vanity numbers. And as we know, vanity numbers mean nothing. Rather than trying to focus on building a larger audience, have you identified who your ideal client and that audience is? Are you speaking specifically to his or her need so that you're consistently building an audience of highly niched, highly targeted individuals who could become paying clients for you? That's what you should be focusing on.
I always say to speak to an audience of one. And when you really are speaking, beautifully cutting through the noise for that audience of one. That audience of one and will become four, become eight and 16, and so on and so forth.
So, mistake number five, focusing on building a large audience versus what you should be doing, focusing on building a niche audience. And that means it could be a smaller niche audience. But a smaller niche audience that is more highly engaged, is ultimately going to allow you to monetize your own message, which I talked about in tip #4, rather than monetizing someone else's, which is something that you should be focusing on to monetize your own message.
So hope that tip was helpful. Don't focus on building a large audience. Vanity numbers are not bankable. Rather focus on building a niche audience that is far more highly engaged and more likely to hire you. As you continue to build know, like, and trust.
I'll see you in the next tip.
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To staying ambitious, Annemarie
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