Why You Need a Niche for Your B2B Podcast

Why You Need a Niche for Your B2B Podcast
Photo by Amr Taha™ / Unsplash

The most important part of developing a B2B podcast is identifying your niche and positioning. You can identify your niche - or begin developing it - by answering the following question:

What audience does your podcast speak to better than anyone else?

You might want to answer with things like:

❌ Marketers

❌ Financial Professionals

❌ Entertainment Fans

But that isn't nearly specific enough.

A good answer sounds like:

✅ B2B Enterprise SaaS Marketing Leaders

✅ Self Employed Accountants

✅ Indie Movie Fans

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"When thinking about the niche... it's GOOD for you to feel a little uncomfortable, to feel that you are missing a large chunk of the people that you could sell too. This means that your podcast niche is uncomfortably narrow." -Tom Hunt

Why Your Podcast Niche is Critical

Why so specific?  Because in order to be the best, you have to be better than all the others at something. And that's much easier to do when you know exactly who your podcast is for and what needs it meets.

Podcasting is a saturated market. Winning a category means winning big. By tripling down on a category, you'll be able to leave the competition in the dust.

It also gives you a strong foundation from which to work. Think of it as your home-base. You can deviate from it at times, but you'll always be guided by this identity. Your niche focus will also help you determine the type of content you need to produce, who you need on your show, and how to distribute it.

Now, you might be thinking, "Won't that reduce the number of potential listeners I can reach?"

Podcasting is not a spray and pray medium. The goal here is not to distribute generic content in the hopes that someone clicks on it. We're looking to build a dedicated audience that deeply trusts your brand.

If you run an SEO agency that primarily works with large software companies, you may have thought about launching a marketing focused podcast. As we said earlier, a better focus would be B2B Enterprise SaaS Marketing Leaders.

"But Ryan! Think of all the other marketers I would be excluding! I wouldn't want to drive away product marketing associates at SMBs if they're interested in my content."

That's a reasonable reaction to have. We're building an audience, so excluding potential listeners sounds antithetical to our goals - but it's not. Simply put, product marketing associates are not going to be coming to you for SEO services. B2B SaaS marketing leaders will.

By refining the niche, you're able to engage your target audience far more effectively. Yes, the number of total listeners may be reduced. But the number of relevant listeners - that is, listeners who may actually become customers – is increased.

Which would you rather have?

Option A: 5,000 listeners, 1,000 of which fit your ideal customer profile

Option B: 2,500 listeners, 2,000 of which fit your ideal customer profile

Option B is clearly better.

This logic may not apply to narrative driven entertainment podcasts where the goal is to sell ad space, but this is the winning formula in B2B.

At Podsicle Media, we're less interested in total impressions. Instead, we focus on relevant impressions and interactions.

Once you've identified your niche, proudly name and market it.

You can't become #1 in a category without making sure people know what that category is.

Drift is a great example. They've created multiple categories across their five shows, named them, and talked about them long enough to became the category leader. How can you lose a race that you not only invent, but start before anyone else has even had a chance to join?

Those new to your category – and those who are looking for support - are going to google with specifics in mind. In the case of our B2B marketing example from earlier, the Google search might look something like: "enterprise SaaS marketing podcasts".

If your show is built around general marketing, I've got bad news - Google is going to ignore you.

But if your show name and marketing copy reflect your niche...

✨ There you are at the top of the page for the world to see ✨

You'll also stand a better chance of getting mentions and all-mighty backlinks in content written about your category.

Hopefully it's clear now why leaning into your niche is far better than generalizing. It can be the difference between a podcast that massively impacts your organizations success, or one you'll want to forget about.

So what's your next step? Refine your niche focus and start planning ways to market it and measure success.

Still have questions about this process or want help developing your strategy? Schedule a call with our team.