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Step 1: Make A Listener Persona
Step 1: Make A Listener Persona

Show Design Guide

Amy Domestico avatar
Written by Amy Domestico
Updated over a week ago

The most important question a host will answer while planning a new show is “Who is this show designed to serve?”. Knowing your target audience allows you to craft content they’ll enjoy, select the best marketing channels, and build a community.

We’re going to show you how to create a listener persona (marketers and entrepreneurs often call this a “customer persona”) for your ideal listener. Let’s pretend you’re creating a podcast about sports. Sports is a very broad topic. One way to narrow it is to consider the listener you’d like to reach. Check out the personas below. Each of these listeners enjoys sports content but their needs are different.

If you decided to create a podcast for Joy, you’d probably focus on education, kid’s sports, fitness or community-building and promote it heavily on Pinterest and Facebook. On the other hand, Thomas’ podcast should focus on college sports and have a more youthful voice. Thomas would expect your show to have a presence on Twitter. For Jamie, you could do a podcast about professional sports in NYC and focus your marketing efforts on Facebook.

Case Study

We’re working with a new podcaster named Ellen. She’s an artisan in Ohio who has a few young boys in sports. Her family watches sports all the time and she’s learning how to help her sons become better athletes. Ellen decided that Joy is her ideal listener and that Jamie might also tune-in here and there. 

What does this mean for your podcast?

When creating personas of your ideal listeners, it is important to remember that your listeners might come from a diverse range of backgrounds. Think about a single issue, topic, experience, or trait that unites them.

Action Items

  1. Create 2 personas using the above format. You can use uifaces.com to find images of people. Here are questions to consider: 

  • Which gender is likely to be interested? 

  • What age group? 

  • What’s a good description of your intended audience? (Busy moms? Survival preppers? French chefs?) 

  • What are their unique attributes? 

  • How many people fit this profile?

  • Is the group too broad or narrow?

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