Pod-Crashing Episode 44 Who Is Your Audience

Throughout my forty one years of terrestrial radio, knowing who your radio listener is has always been a huge part of the connection puzzle.
I always saw it as a game of Let’s Pretend. We are reaching our targeted audience of let’s say 25 to 45 year old women. Research shows this is who and how you should be directing every talk break. Do all you can not to step away from this person.
I still remember how we handled it at my last radio station. They actually created a book and a name for this invisible person. Everything was listed. Her favorite car, book, movie, soft drink and magazine. The only thing they didn’t cover was her sex life. Which I always thought was odd because most morning radio shows were open to the subject.
I’ve been doing this podcasting thing for eight years. I’ve never put any thought into who I’m trying to reach. I have disciplined myself to be organic. To be present and have a purpose. I know there’s someone on the other side of the speaker but to physically lay out a targeted audience puts the episodes in a shadowed area of being too niche and not open to every age and generation.
I was with Jamie Mustard the other day. He’s a branding genius. His first words were “Your podcast is everywhere. You’ll talk about any subject and anyone with an idea. You don’t focus on just one thing. That’s why I like listening to your episodes. I’m not going to get the same story.”
I look at every episode with an open view. On any given day a 16 year old boy or girl in 2020 just discovered Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.
To put an age limit on who I’m directing my talk toward totally shuts out anyone willing to step in for 30 seconds or seven minutes.
That’s right. I said willing. I feel blessed that anyone would take the time to show up. I was shocked when a Facebook post passed one of my episodes forward. He said, “Arroe is sage with the lessons he teaches.” Sage? Oh God I pissed someone off. I had to Google it then go back and listen to the Episode from the Podcast called Poetic Elevation The Choice.
I don’t put these episodes on a global front. It’s about God, religion, Spirituality and motivation. Not everybody supports any of these platforms. So I allow the strength of the message to make its own waves.
The targeted audience is anyone seeking a moment of holy shit he’s talking about me. All of this changed a couple of years ago when a long list of creative people in music, movies books and culinary found reason to take their lives. I was deeply injured. Here is this platform and I’m doing nothing to help the creative hiders on the planet. Those who have the gift to be creative but not the personal umph to push their art onto the streets of everyday.
I had to be a different kind of broadcaster. Open my daily writing journals and start speaking the truth about what it’s like to endlessly lay awake at night with ideas and then bringing them to life during the day light only to fall flat on getting support. A creative life isn’t a choice. It’s a monster. I call it an addiction. So I created a podcast that addresses that issue and iHeart Radio leaped all over it.
When it comes to the journals I have one rule: have the guts to enter any conversation not as a Christian but rather a Creative.
I’ve lost a huge chunk of my religious followers. It was time to develop a different connection and I had to be faith filled not faithful to do it. The Spreaker platform is pretty healthy when it comes to providing analytics. What I hate are the moments I hit demographics and it just doesn’t agree with what I’m trying to accomplish.
Men 25 to 44. Where are the women listeners? Forty one years of adult contemporary radio training and the podcast is drawing them in. A good friend. A female told me that it’s because I’m not talking about motherhood, sex, wine and other alcohol and even more sex.
And I won’t. I’m not Dr Ruth. But I love how she located a path to connect with both men and women. She doesn’t fear being real. Sometimes I feel that way when reading from the journals. I do have those days though when being authentic is the toughest part of the journey. I stop. Re-read the journal entry and then give it to a higher energy.
We all face daily fears, hatred, guilt and yes even greed. My goals of building a following aren’t to fix anyone. Just relate. To be present.
Podcasting is still extremely early in its march forward. To say that you’re looking for a particular audience truly cuts your attempt at reaching out to a hit or miss. It reminds me of the conversation I had with Laurens Grant. She’s the creator of the documentary Black in Space. It’s about the first African American astronauts.
She could’ve easily said I only want to focus on a certain demographic. She chose to make it wide open for all to learn something then turn it into a teaching tool for tomorrow’s space travelers.
Three weeks ago I got hooked in to listening to the podcast Slow Burn. I’m a Marc Maron and Joe Rogan follower. To participate with the history of Watergate. Ronan Farrow got me seriously hooked on documentary style storytelling. Journalism has hit a new high and its paying off. I have a feeling though they weren’t sitting around a large table thinking, “Who is this for? Can we land high numbers in the male 50 to 65 year bracket? He has to have long dark hair, drive a Ford pickup, loves his dog, nature and must be able to learn from so much lost information.
So what’s the moral of the story? Stop wasting precious time trying to figure out who your targeted audience is. In a few moments I’m gonna be talking with Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates. He has a story. My goal is to share it with every demographic including the 9 year olds in the back of the car listening to a podcast their parents happened to log into.
Here’s why I do what I do. Russ from the early 70’s Rock band The Association said these very words, “I had to write this book. Everything that’s ever been written about me has been wrong!”