Your Podcast Needs a Mission Statement
Anyone can make a podcast. Right? Just pull up a microphone, hit record, and then publish it out to the world. Well, it can be that easy. It's not always that straightforward, particularly if you're looking to use your podcast as a source of revenue or to grow your business. If you're not considering who you wanna reach and what would actually help them, you're just a person on a microphone shouting into the void. With just a little attention to your intentions, you won't just have a tuned-in active audience, but you'll also have an easy pitch for sponsors and affiliates. And that's what I wanna talk to you about, today.
Welcome to Podcasting Workflows where you get daily tips to improve your process, grow your show, and maybe even make some money. Each week, I also do a deep dive into the process of the world's most successful podcasters and reveal their tools, processes, and systems to help you simplify the production of your own show and reclaim hours in your day. You can improve your own podcast production process by seeing how the pros do it. I'm your host, Joe Casabona, and today, I'm going to tell you for Day 4 of Podcast Advent, how you can come up with a mission statement.
There are 3 basic questions you need to answer to make sure your podcast is hitting the right target. These three questions will help make your podcast profitable. They are:
1. Who are my listeners?
2. What problems do they have? And;
3. How can I help solve those problems?
This will help you structure your mission statement into a format that long-time listeners will know I talk about a lot. My podcast helps the audience solve problems with the goal of each episode. And look, I know mission statements from a stuffy corporation sometimes get an eye roll. But in podcasting, they're non-negotiable.
You can think of your podcast mission statement as your growth map. Point A, is your starting point, and Point B is the ultimate goal of your show. Make money, grow your business, whatever. A whole lot has to happen in the middle before you get to Point B, and that's where your mission statement will help.
Using this framework to develop your podcast mission statement leaves no room for fluff and drives home exactly what you intend to do. If at any point you lose your way with your content, you can come back to this mission statement as your north star. And if this topic is making you panic and say, Joe, I have a mission statement and it's not workflow, fear not. You don't need to burn the whole podcast to the ground. Instead, look for which parts of your mission statement you need to tweak. What key elements are you missing? Is the audience too general? Or maybe the problem you think they have isn't their problem.
Another common issue I see with podcasts not providing value is that they're not giving actionable advice, and your mission statement will help with that too. Sure. It could feel good to vent. I vent a whole lot. But more likely than not, your audience is already well aware of the problems they face, and they want to know how to fix their problems.
I've rejected potential podcast guests on my other show for just wanting to self-promote and not give actionable advice to my listeners. Make sure that what you're providing is actually adding value, not just talking around the problem.
So let's dive a little deeper into those three parts of the mission statement. Here's a breakdown of how to satisfy your audience and how to start making money from your podcast.
1. Who are my listeners? Who do you think you’re talking to? This is the ideal listener for your podcast. The answer is not allowed to be everyone.
For Podcast Workflows, my audience is podcasters who don’t spend too much time on their show but don’t know how to improve their process.
For How I Built It, my podcast audience is busy solopreneurs and creators.
These are two separate podcasts for two separate audiences, and they have two separate mission statements. So you need to think about who your niche audience is.
2. What problems do your listeners have? Think about what they need. What are their daily struggles and pain points? It's fine if they have many pain points. That's fodder for future episodes. You could even break down different issues into different seasons and use the topics more effectively. I've even found that the interview format works best for extracting key insights for guests. Two people simply speculating on a problem isn't particularly helpful to your audience, but having thought-out questions prepared for a guest keeps listeners coming back for more.
3. How can I help my audience solve those problems? This is where the rubber meets the road. Break each problem down into bite-sized chunks. Consider the solutions that you or your guests have to offer your audience. Each solution you can think of is a potential new episode for the show, and the first 10 to 20 episodes of your podcast can be born from this thinking.
Now, if you've listened this far in and you're still not sure why your podcast mission statement is important, let me drive it home with a further thought. If you have a well-defined audience with a well-defined problem, You can also attract sponsors who help solve that problem. The lead-ins are easy. I help you solve this problem. This is how the sponsor of today's episode helps you solve this problem.
Let's say your podcast helps people learn about new varieties of apples. A sponsor who might be attracted to your show's audience would be an apple orchard that ships unusual varieties of apples directly to customers' homes. Because the audience is primed for wanting to try new apples, the orchard would be a natural fit for sponsorship helping you and them make money on the podcast.
This applies to services or products you provide as well. Here's a prime example. My friend, Sam Munoz, who was on How I Built It, shared how she used her podcast as a sales funnel for her mentorship program. How does she get people lining up to sign up for her program? Sam knows her audience and the problems they face well. By talking about those issues on the podcast, she helps new customers find her mentorship program, and she directly sells on the podcast. Whether your goal is connecting new customers to your services or gaining sponsorship and affiliate program income, your mission statement is your secret weapon. When you keep your audience, their problems, and the solution in mind for each episode you create, you'll be well on your way to leveraging your podcast to grow your business.
If you like this episode, you can get every entry in Podcast Advent 2023 delivered directly to your inbox by going over to {podcastworkflows.com/advent]. You'll get daily emails with tips and tricks, of course, recommended tools, and giveaways from now to December 24th. You'll also be able to view the archive over there.
Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, I can't wait to see what you make.
Hey. Before you go, I want to tell you about a free resource I have called my podcasting process templates. They are a set of Notion documents that give you a full podcast planner, a show planner, and even some AI prompts to help you get the creative juices flowing. You obviously want to improve your podcast workflows and save time and these templates will give you a basis for all of your other processes. Through my Notion and Airtable templates, I am able to automate a number of things as well as stay organized so that I am using my podcasting time more efficiently.
If you wanna get your hands on these templates completely for free, you can head over to [podcastworkflows.com/templates[. That's [podcastworkflows.com/templates] to get your free podcasting process templates today.
