Your mission describes how you will provide value to your listeners. Having a clear and listener-focused mission will help you maintain a consistent voice, make high-quality editorial decisions, and help you build your brand. Remember, successful podcasts are relevant, delightful, well-crafted, unique, and have relatable hosts. Your mission statement should reflect these values and serve as your compass. As a host, you’ll find that there are an infinite number of topics and approaches to choose from. Your mission can help you make choices that benefit your listener.
Take a moment to think about what role you’d like to play in the lives of your listeners. Do you want your listeners to learn more about new technologies? Achieve better health with good nutrition? Become better parents? Connect to thought leaders in their field? Once you craft your mission, write it down and stick to it for at least 5 episodes. All podcasts are experiments and must be tweaked here and there. Once you find your eternal mission, it’ll be the consistent foundation for your work. Whether you’re outlining an episode, interviewing a guest, or posting to social media networks, you should ask: “Is what I’m doing right now fulfilling my mission and helping my listener succeed?”.
You can begin to frame your mission statement by filling in the blanks to this sentence: “I want to help ___________ (target audience) _______________ (goal)”. Use your listener persona and topic research as your compass.
Here are a few examples:
“I want to help work at home moms create and sustain successful careers.”
“I want to help parents support their children through the crucial teenage years.”
“I want to help veterans reintegrate and lead successful careers.”
“I want to provide jobseekers with useful resources to help them get hired for their dream jobs quickly.”
“I want to help busy moms keep their children physically fit.”
“I want to help parents coach their child athletes.”
Another way to approach this is to think about a verb that explains what you’ll do for your listeners. Examples include entertain, educate, inform, inspire, elevate, and delight. More than one verb might apply to your program.
Even though you are producing a show that can influence thousands of lives, each listener needs to feel like you care about their needs, respect their point of view, and want them to participate in the conversation you’re creating. Make sure your mission statement reflects the needs, hopes, and dreams of your ideal listener. As you create content, you need to make sure that what you create is aligned to these values.
Case study
Ellen’s mission statement is “I want to help parents coach their child athletes”.
Action items
Come up with 2-3 alternative mission statements using the frame: “I want to help ___________ (target audience) _______________ (goal).”
Choose one mission statement and commit to it for at least 5 episodes. As you learn more about your audience and hone your craft, you might tweak your mission. The core focus should remain the same.