1 Concept and Audience

There are millions of podcasts currently in the world (see How Many Podcasts are There? by James Cridland), many of which have very small audiences. How do you make sure yours is successful? The key is identifying what your objectives are, who your audience is and what you value. These three things will help you define what success will look like. Spoiler Alert: a typical podcast measure, like downloads, may not actually be the measure that is most meaningful for your particular project.

Defining Objectives

Start with clearly articulating what you hope to achieve by launching a podcast. What will the mission or purpose of the podcast be? What need(s) is the podcast filling?

We decided launch Tea for Teaching in 2017 to share professional development opportunities with our faculty and staff that we historically had not been reaching with in-person workshops or the video recordings of those events. Our campus offers courses that run continually from 8am until 9pm on most weekdays, making it impossible to find a time good for everyone. Like many campuses, we have contingent faculty who teach at multiple institutions and spend time commuting between campuses. We also have a number of faculty and staff who commute. We saw podcasting as an opportunity to provide professional development in an alternative format that was asynchronous and could be combined with every day activities like commuting, working out and household chores.

Defining Audience

Knowing who your audience will be is important to making planning decisions from the name of the podcast, to format, duration, release schedule and content. It can be easy to say your audience is everyone, but the reality is that not everyone who has access to the podcast will be interested in it.

Demographics are one factor to consider. For example, location might be relevant if your content is about the local area. This might mean your primary audience includes people who live within the area and a secondary audience might be folks that visit. Age or generation might be relevant so that examples and content stay relevant. What you include in a podcast would likely shift if primary audience was young children compared to an adult-only audience.

Listener characteristics beyond demographics are worth considering. For example, consider the level of experience or expertise your listeners have with the subject matter. Value systems within relevant domains might also be important to consider. For example, as a teaching podcast we can assume that our audience values education. The role a person has within an organization may help you better define your audience—in higher education you could consider roles like student, parent, faculty, staff, or administrator.

Tea for Teaching’s primary listeners are faculty, instructional designers, and teaching center staff in higher education within the SUNY System and beyond. We will always put this segment of our audience first when making decisions about content and guests. We do know, though, that we also have a significant secondary audience that includes teachers in secondary education, and folks within higher education globally, including administrators and staff.

Don’t underestimate the value of taking the time to understand who your primary audience will be. Casting your net too wide when defining an audience often leads to scope creep and content that is unfocused or sprawling. Focus on your primary audience and be delighted that other audiences are along for the ride.

Core Values

Putting parameters in place that define the boundaries of the content you’ll include in your podcast from the start of the project is important. You’ll want to consider what criteria you’ll use to choose what content or guests to include and what to exclude.

Content considerations might include how to handle guests who are sharing false or incorrect information or are speaking in racist or otherwise undesirable ways. Will you correct, redirect, edit, or just not release particular clips or interviews? Tea for Teaching is committed to not spreading or promoting neuromyths. We choose guests with this in mind. We also try to address neuromyths with evidence when it makes sense within a conversation.

Related to content choices is determining whether or not you’ll want to use advertising, sponsored content or sponsors to financially support your show. If you do, will you limit who or what can be promoted on your show? One of the decisions we made for Tea for Teaching from the start is that we do not use advertisers or sponsors of any sort. We’ve also had to navigate what to do when agents, businesses or individuals approach us with potential guests. This wasn’t something we considered initially, but have had to as our podcast has grown.

Explicit language and sensitive content are also issues to consider. For example, will you sensor explicit language or will you allow it? If you include explicit language or sensitive content will you provide a warning to listeners? Will the warning be at the top of the show and/or right before the included content?

This is just a sampling of things to consider, but it is worth identifying what is most important to you. These are the things that are deal breakers or things you are unwilling to compromise on.

Differentiation

One of the most critical questions to ask when establishing a podcast is to ask how yours will be different from others in the field. To do this well means becoming familiar with other podcasts with similar subject matter or audiences. Your goal should be to find ways to offer something different rather than replicate what is already out there.

There are multiple ways to approach identifying your unique proposition value. One approach is to identify what is missing from the field. How will or could your podcast fill the gaps or expand the field? There is often room for what already exists and what you have to offer if you plan well by not duplicating what already exists.

Another approach is to consider what you bring to the subject. What is your unique perspective, skill set or experiences that you plan to leverage and share? For example, if most podcasts in the genre you’d like to enter are in an interview format maybe you consider more of a storytelling approach or focus on case studies.

One of the differentiating factors of Tea for Teaching has historically been showcasing the work of our campus and within SUNY to provide our primary audience (our campus) local and relevant examples with colleagues they already know (or could easily meet). Our podcast also has two co-hosts from different disciplines and expertise, different experiences, and different generations. We complement each other well and in a different way than other co-hosts would.

There is enough room in the podcasting landscape for each of us to identify our own niche. Bring your own flavor and expand the options available.