Drill Deep with your Topic
When starting a podcast, whether for business or pleasure it's very important to find a topic that can go the distance.
Selecting a niche for your podcast means you want to find something that's not too narrow and not too broad.
This is important in order to make sure that you podcast has depth but also some breadth.
For example Westport Studios' own show "Recruiting Hell" covers all aspects of the job hunt that somebody might have when they're looking for a new or better opportunity.
The best part of this is that there are literally hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of episodes that we can make on the various job hunt strategies needed for different careers.
We've even expanded the show format to include new guests; listeners who have had a successful job hunt to help other still unemployed listeners. This is called drilling deeper into your niche.
We've stayed very well within our niches helping people find a job however by drilling deep by making sure that we are consistently hitting the same note over and over again with our show we make it more popular we make it more focused on the topic.
The same thing goes for your business when you're selecting a podcast topic make sure it's something that brought enough to allow you 100-200 maybe a good 500 episodes but at the same time don't be afraid to drill deeper into that topic. Additionally selecting a well defined, but slightly broad niche allows you some flexibility when it comes to selecting your actual show topics.
You want something that is narrow enough to be a clearly defined show. Something you can explain to someone in 20 words or less and have them get excited about.
----"Recruiting Hell is a podcast about helping folks get a new or better job, because job hunting sucks!"
(Yes I had to count those words...)
A show about job hunting, a show about Star Trek, a show about Dungeons & Dragons. You want to be something that you can continually digging deeper on when it comes to creating content.
Think about how much there is to talk about with Star Trek with 9 different series, God knows how many movies over the past 60 years, and all the fan created content out there! It's a great niche, but it's a crowded niche too. Your niche might be much smaller, but also much deeper.
For example, to keep the sci-fi train rolling here, Star Trek has a ton of podcasts based around it and its huge library of content, but so does FireFly, a show that was much less successful on television and shelved half way through it's first season back in the 90s. However it's universe is just as deep and there remains a near limitless fountain of topics from that smaller sci-fi property.
You can also create branching content within your niche. Niche media is not only the way to go for podcast; even many years ago it was also the way to go for things like magazines websites; all the places that your clients consume their media!
Now despite the fact that we say continue to drill on your current topic there is a point at which you may choose to end a show or end a season of a podcast.
That's a different article, but suffice to say, if this is the case you need to decide what your next direction is for the show or if it's time to actually wrap it up and call it quits for that particular media. When to do this is important, I'm listening to your audience is the most important ways you can tell whether or not your show has run its course.
Note, you generally don't want this to actually happen. You want your show to be as different on episode one as it is on episode 100 and keep building that listener momentum. Covering a huge range of topics within a niche is the key to running a successful show and getting your audience to come back time and time again.
There's a whole lot more to talk about on selecting a niche for your podcast to learn more Westport Studios LLC. Book a free strategy session, can chat about how to define your Niche for your company and of course make sure that your show shines.