The power of focus in your podcast marketing

Today I want to share with you the FOCUS POWER.

What does that mean?

Let’s say you want to focus on gardening. OK, that’s a good niche. It is a popular niche. I’m just using that as an example. You can choose boxing or auto repair, whatever you’ve identified as your niche (we talked about that earlier, too).

But “Gardening” is really a general category. It can be specific compared to something else, but the “Gardening” category is a general category.

Your podcast could simply be about “Gardening” and then it could cover different aspects of gardening.

Or you could focus on one aspect and become the expert in that area.

For example, there could be Indoor Gardening; outdoor gardening; rock gardens; orchards; flower gardens; Patio Gardens and I could go on and on.

How can you market this to your specific target audience?

Well, a lot of podcasters want to use advertising. Which is fine, if you do it correctly.

What I see with most new business owners, and podcasters as well, are ads that look just like their competitors’ ads. And they all look almost exactly the same!

They will say things like “Best Service” and there will be your photo on there or your logo. There will be a list of services or products that you offer and then a link to your podcast. They will list things, let’s stick with gardening as an example, they will list things like:

landscape bricks; four different types of mulch; topsoil layer; pre-fertilized soil; fertilizer; bird netting; nets for pets; vegetable seeds; vegetable transplants; planters; etc.

Then there will be your podcast website saying something like “We discuss all these topics and more to help you grow your garden!”

You can put any niche you want in there and put the products and services you would normally advertise for. You may have even tried ads like that.

The problem, since we talked about the archer shooting arrows in the mist, you’re not really aiming at anything!

Here is what you need to do. Choose ONE theme and use it in your ad.

A ONE area, not two. Only one.

For example:

Patio gardening. Have multiple podcast episodes that deal with just that aspect of your niche.

Use that information in your ad.

You might say something like, “We’re backyard gardening experts. If you’re looking to set up a backyard garden, listen to our podcast for great tips on setting up your backyard garden.”

Then, in the podcast, you can have a call to action like “Give us a call and we’ll help set you up for success” or something similar. I’m just doing this on the spur of the moment. You can phrase it appropriately for your niche.

But that would be all! Nothing more. No other product or service.

You can put a picture of a backyard garden in your ad and set it as your episode photo. You can put that photo on your website.

Then, you split test the ad…

If you don’t get responses with the website listing; change it to an email address and run it again.

If you get some responses with a way to post your ad, change the description of the product or service JUST A LITTLE, maybe a word or two at the most. Then run it again…

Change the picture. Then run it again.

Change the colors used. Then run it again.

If the responses go down, change it back and run it again.

Do this until you have the top performing ad for “Patio Gardens.”

Then, you do the same process again with another area. Under Gardening, you can run, Vegetable Gardens. Choose a type of vegetable and start the process over.

If you ran a week of episodes in each area with one small ad each week, by the end of the year, you’ll probably have 8-10 well-tested ads that are getting you great responses.

These can be used over and over again.

If you’re trading in the city, patio gardens are probably the way to go. You can have guests on the podcast to give tips on setting up backyard gardens!

Instead of marketing all the different types of gardens available and hoping someone will listen, talk to ONLY ONE PERSON. And don’t confuse them with too many options. Confusion will equal no action at all!

Talk to ONE Person in ONE Category of ONE Niche and offer ONE Product.

Let your competitors handle the long list of services. Make yourself known as the SPECIALIST, in this example, of “Patio Gardens”. Every time someone thinks about starting a backyard garden, they should be thinking about your podcast!

Like I said, you can offer other services and products as well, but your advertising, at least initially, should be focused on ONE THING: driving traffic to your podcast with targeted marketing to your intended audience.

Take a look at your chosen niche and find out what is the UNIQUE area you will market to. Then start formulating your ad.

By staying focused on speaking directly to that person in a segment of your niche, with just one message, you’ll start to see download numbers start to rise in your podcast stats and possibly drive additional traffic to your website.