Does the Audience Really Matter for your Podcast?
I’ll save you some time, the short answer is… not really.
I hope you were sitting down for that one because I know it probably came as a shock. No, I’m not crazy (I say, trying to convince you as much as I am trying to convince myself). When it comes to your B2B podcast, the audience should not be your number one focus.
For those select few who are still reading and would like to learn why and read a nuanced exploration of this topic, I have included the following.
What is the Goal of your Podcast?
Before we can answer the importance of the audience to your podcast, we first need to examine the goal of your podcast. There are many goals that you could have for your podcast and it’s important that what you do with the podcast feeds into those goals. Many podcasters are looking to learn or build relationships while others are looking to get famous or grow their brand. The goals of your podcast will determine the 80/20 split of your attention between the guest and the audience.
For example, if you want to learn more about a certain subject, then the guest will take up that 80% of your focus. This means you can really get into deep discussions with subject matter experts and explore your curiosity. Similarly, if your goal is to build strong relationships with people, you can spend a good amount of time really connecting with people through listening to them share stories about their lives. Now, this of course is not to say that the audience doesn’t matter at all, but they should not be the priority in these cases.
Even when your goal is to create content with value to other people, if your focus is on the guest and their expertise, this will happen naturally. If you’re talking to the right people and they feel comfortable and confident, the knowledge they share will be priceless! Then it’s up to you to get that content out there, lucky for you I went into how to repurpose B2B podcast content here.
Where the audience really comes into play and takes over your focus is when your goal is to become famous or cultivate a following. While this definitely has its place, we’ve seen that it generally leads to poorer connections built between you and your guest.
Included for the visual people among us is this helpful graphic!
Why your Podcast Guest is more important than the Audience
As stated above, in most cases with your B2B podcast you should focus on the guest. And yes, that’s easy for me to… type, but here’s why. The connections that you build with the guests are so much more valuable than a bunch of streams because those guests can turn into revenue directly! You don’t have to constantly check your analytics dashboard to see if anyone bothered to go to the specific link that you shouted out during the podcast because you’re already talking with a lead one-on-one on the podcast!
A weekly podcast means that you’re building connections through fifty-two conversations with guests that fit your ICP. To get the same number of one-on-one conversations with this type of prospect would require enormous amounts of traffic, which becomes extremely expensive for your company. But, by focusing the show on the guest and their area of interest, you are able to lay the foundation of your relationship with them on a base of trust by showing that you care about them. (A small caveat to this is that it really helps to do this when your company has a fairly large average deal size as this makes each conversation so much more valuable.)
Finding the Right Guests for your Podcast and Connecting with Them
So you now know that it’s important to focus on the guest and that the connection that you build with the guest can lead directly to revenue. So, how do you get the right people on and build a great connection? Well, getting the right people on the show could, and will be, the subject of its own blog, but it boils down to being personal and showing you care. Once you’re recording with your guests, it’s important that you make them feel like the rockstar of the show! You can do this by making sure they’re comfortable and confident before, during, and after the show. Ethan Beute recently talked about this very subject on the first episode of Creating The Greatest Show and I wrote about it here. For Ethan, so much of the relationship created is built on trust which you establish with the guest by making sure they are well prepared ahead of time and by following the process and questions that you laid out through that prep. As the host, you should help them craft a great jumping-off point and keep the conversation going by asking very good follow-up questions that show that you’re really listening. If you’ve done your job right, you will have forged a bond with your guest by the end of the recording and both parties will be looking forward to the next time you talk.
Want to learn more? Let’s chat!
I hope that I have provided you with some helpful takeaways that you can use to build better connections and drive revenue with your B2B podcast. If so, please consider subscribing to our blog newsletter using the form on the right. If you’d rather stiff-arm the form and continue reading about ways to improve your podcast, you can check out our last post here that was all about maintaining your interest in your podcast, whether you’ve done thirty episodes or three hundred. Finally, if you want to talk about podcasts you can email me directly at sam@ringmaster.com or you can email Casey at casey@ringmaster.com