What Will You Podcast About?

You want to start a podcast, but what will you talk about on it? That’s an important question to answer before you get started! Otherwise you’re just throwing spaghetti on the wall and creating content that your audience may or may not need and that may or may not help your business.

We’ve talked about content strategy on the podcast before, but we’re going to do it again. It’s that important.

On this episode, I’m sharing how to determine exactly what to talk about on your podcast, why you might need to let go of the idea of having the perfect flow, and how to figure out what order to have each topic appear on your podcast.

Of course, I also share the ultimate answer to the question, “What will I podcast about?” but you have to listen in to hear that! Tune in now.

Mentioned In This Episode:

Transcript:

Welcome to episode 195 of the Content Experiment Podcast, a podcast for podcasters that supports the idea that content and marketing are ever-moving targets in any business, and it’s okay if you don’t feel like you’re doing it all right, all of the time.

This is the fifth episode of a 10+ series all around bringing more ease into your podcast. Podcasting CAN be time consuming and it can feel really challenging, especially if you’re DIYing most or all of it.

I had some help when I started this podcast, and that allowed me to launch with some confidence. But it was the weeks and months early on where I really struggled. I didn’t feel like I had a go-to resource to help navigate some of the early challenges. Thankfully, I have a background in content marketing so I was able to work through a lot of the challenges with ease…but I know not everyone is in the same situation.

So I wanted to bring you this series to help, leading up to the three-year anniversary of the podcast AND the 200th episode.

But there’s only so much I can cover on a single podcast episode. AND I know that your business and your podcast are unique. You might have more questions after listening. So I’m inviting you to my weekly Podcast Ease Q&A sessions. We got started on July 28 but it’s not too late to join us because we’ll continue through late September. We get on a Zoom call and you can ask me any questions you have about podcasting for the next hour. All calls will be held at 8 a.m. Pacific and they’ll be recorded if you can’t make the call life or want to go back and re-listen.

Are you in? Want to make your podcast feel a little easier? Join me for only $99 for the entire 10-week series at thecontentexperiment.com/ease and you’ll get access to the recordings of previous sessions too.

This week, in the fifth episode of the series, we’re going to focus on what in the world you’ll podcast about. I’ve said before, you can’t just sit down and pull a topic out of the air. There should be a strategy around it, if you want to both serve your audience what they need and want and make an impact in your business.

So how do you decide what to talk about on your podcast, or what guests to invite?

In the show notes, I’ve linked to a few good episodes I’ve shared around creating a content strategy. These are definitely worth a listen as they’ll give you more background that relates to what I’m going to talk about today.

Know what your goals are for your podcast
Ultimately it’s to nurture your audience, the people who have found you already
Educate your audience about what it is you do, what they need to know or be able to do before making a purchasing decision
Guide them to either sign up for your list or take an action
You also should have an idea of what you want to share. Otherwise, why are you starting a podcast in the first place.
What are your zones of genius? What are the things that you’re a pro at and can talk about over and over again without ever running out of things to say?
Choose 4-6 big, overarching ideas for this.
Therapist helping parents of special needs kids
Working with the school system
Supporting child’s behavior
Siblings
Medical visits
Boundaries
Health coach for women
Exercise
Nutrition
Mindset
Whole body wellness
Then brainstorm as many ideas as you can think of that your prospective clients need to know or be able to do – form them into questions to help you – what are you getting asked

It’s also important to know what your audience needs and wants. You know what you know; you don’t know what they don’t know. You can guess, but it’s better to ask
Survey your audience – find out what they’re looking for – ASK them
Episode 57, 134 (with marcus sheridan), 144,
I’m not going to go really deep with this today because you can listen to the other episodes for more depth, but…
Survey a select group of people who are your ideal clients – people who have bought from you before or who you’re building your products and services for
Do not survey your entire audience because you don’t know who those people are – you don’t need their input because you don’t really need to reach them
Ask them what challenges they’re having around whatever it is you do – if you’re a therapist who helps people struggling with finding their identity in midlife, ask what challenges they’re facing with their identity in midlife. If you’re a nutritionist helping people repair their gut health, ask what challenges they have with their diet or overall feeling of wellness.
You can find out more about surveying your audience – and get templates to swipe and make yours – at thecontentexperiment.com/ask.

Once you know your goals and you know what your audience needs and wants, add those ideas to your Zones of Genius document. Build out your ideas some more.

Okay, once you’ve done that, it’s time to figure out what your actual episodes will be about. Sure you have a massive list of ideas (which you can and should add to over time), but what about an actual strategy?

Again, I’ve linked in the show notes to a number of episodes that talk about content strategy. I’ll go over it here too.

As you start determining what your content strategy will be what topics you’ll cover on the podcast, what guests you’ll have and so on, think about what you have coming up in your business.
What are you launching in the next 3-6 months?
What area of your business do you want to spotlight?
What’s going on in the industry or on the calendar? If you have a business that’s seasonal or that fluctuates with the time of year, that’s important to consider

Then think about what your potential clients need to know or be able to do in order to make a good purchasing decision. Then work backward from there.

I like to try to create a logical timeline and teach concepts in order, scaffolding the ideas. That’s not always possible, but it’s just good teaching practice.

If you have guest episodes, it’s important to keep their schedules in mind. As much as it would be nice, we can’t control our guests and their schedules. Sometimes calendars won’t align and you’ll need to move guest episodes around. That’s okay! I would recommend not getting really set on having a specific guest episode release on a specific day unless you record a month or more in advance. We’re constantly rearranging episodes for clients and sometimes they have to fill in with solo episodes if they’re not recording ahead.

And that about rounds out the answer to the question, what will you podcast about.

It’s about delivering content that will help in your business and balancing that with what your audience needs and wants (and what you know they need, to be clear).

Feel like you need help creating a strategy for your podcast? I’m currently helping two clients launch brand new podcasts and another one relaunch one she put on hold for a while. We’re starting with all the little minute details that are important in a podcast, then moving on to strategy. There’s a lot of moving parts and it helps to have help!

If you found value in what you learned here today, be sure to share it on social media. Take a screenshot of the episode on your phone and share it over on Instagram stories. Tag me at thecontentexperiment. The more you share, the more we can get the podcast into the hands of more business owners, just like you, who need to hear the message that they are not alone.