Most of us in the podcast industry are very focused on content, for good and obvious reasons. That’s the beating heart of podcasting. But a content-centric mindset can actually be a barrier to audience development.

While it’s true that audiences pick shows based upon the content, the factors driving this choice are much more complex than just being into news, true crime or comedy. We know that hosts, tone, production and sound design, and other semi-intangible ingredients add up to a recipe that appeals to certain audiences. That’s why you can’t simply substitute one true crime podcast for another. 

Instead, it’s valuable to adopt an audience-centric mindset, where you look to understand the audience you have, or the audience you want to serve. 

The need for this mindset shift became clearer to me at The Podcast Show in London where the Signal Hill Insights team consulted with dozens of attendees to explore insights about their current or desired audiences. 

To help we piloted a dashboard aggregating demographic and psycho-demographic data from more than 26,000 podcast consumers, based on our research across Australia, Canada and the United States, including our partnership with Triton Digital’s Demos+ and the Canadian Podcast Listener. Starting with their target genre, gender mix and primary age group, we were able to uncover stats well beyond what’s available from most hosting and distribution platforms, from an audience’s tenure with podcasts and podcast platform preferences, to the split between watch and listen time and what other kinds of podcasts they consume.

From there we could identify opportunities for marketing a podcast to fresh ears and eyes. While nearly everyone we consulted with was able to clearly pitch their show and the significance of their podcasts, they also remarked that they were learning something new from our data, and getting a fresh perspective on their shows.

Embracing the Audience-Centric Mindset

But to really get the most out of this data and the opportunities, you need to embrace that audience-centric mindset, which means thinking like a listener, not a creator. As a creator, you tend to be passionate about your topic, and it’s easy to assume that the audience shares your passion in much the same way. But this assumption may be very limiting.

Let’s say you make a true crime show, which means you’re probably living and breathing true crime content. There’s a strong tendency to think your fans are also as immersed as you – and no doubt some are. With that thinking, if you want to grow your audience it seems natural to market in the places where true crime aficionados are, particularly by running promos with other true crime podcasts. 

That’s not a bad move, but it’s leaving a lot of stones unturned.

The thing is, people are complex and multi-dimensional. While some listeners may have a queue overfilled with true crime podcasts, others might only listen to yours, because that’s all the true crime they want, and they also have other interests and needs. Plus, even the true crime superfans likely listen to other genres, too. The real trick is to find out what those are. 

Understanding your show’s audience, as well as the audience of shows like yours, unlocks avenues for growth. So let’s dig into some of the audience data you should know, and how to put it to use. 

Escape the Genre Trap by Knowing What Else the Audience Likes

Going back to the true crime example, we know from our research that the two most popular genres with this audience (besides true crime, of course) are comedy and society and culture. Overall, these genres have bigger audiences than true crime, so this immediately opens up many more opportunities for promo swaps or running ads.

If you only stick with promos on the same genre of podcast you risk hitting some of the same people over and over, or reaching listeners whose queue is already full. Learning what other podcasts your audience is into broadens your scope and helps build awareness with fresher ears.

Use Demographics to Sharpen Your Strategy

However, you’re going to want to be more precise than just running promos on comedy podcasts. Just like there are many different takes on true crime, comedy is a broad and deep category. You want to work with shows that share more audience characteristics. 

Knowing your audience’s gender and age composition will help narrow things down. As a genre the true crime audience leans female, aged 18 to 54. So if your show’s listenership matches that, then you’ll first want to consider promoting on other shows with similar demographics. 

But, even if the average true crime listener fits this profile, it doesn’t mean your audience does. So it’s important to get this data for your own podcast.

Find the Platforms Where You’ll Grow

Although YouTube has become the podcast platform used most by a larger share of the audience than any other platform, it’s actually the second most popular among the true crime audience. They’re actually more likely to say they use Spotify most often, and compared to the overall average more true crime listeners say Apple Podcasts is most used.

This means it may be less important for a true crime show to double-down on YouTube promotion, and instead you could be better off going with an audio-focused strategy. You might also consider pitching the Apple or Spotify editorial teams. 

There is also awareness to be built outside of podcast platforms. Where else does your audience congregate? Facebook groups, Reddit, Pinterist, Discord, Bluesky, or even IRL? Those can be places to be seen and heard.

Knowing your audience’s actual preferences and habits, and how they may differ from the average, can help you zig when everyone else seems to be saying you should zag.

Unlock the Motivations for Choosing Your Podcast

Here’s most powerful step in shifting to the audience-centric mindset. Rather than asking what does the audience want to hear, ask this: why would they listen to your podcast?

Everyone listens to podcasts for a reason, and not everyone’s reasons are the same. Some listen to pass the time, while others want to stay on top of current events. There are listeners who primarily want to laugh, and still others who want to learn something new. 

Our research shows that these motivations vary for different audiences. For instance, we’ve written about how business executives value self-improvement and inspiration more than the average listener. Not surprisingly, comedy fans value getting a laugh. 

On the other hand, true crime listeners are more likely to say the ability “to keep my mind engaged while doing mindless tasks,” and “to have a mental escape” is what draws them to podcasts.

Knowing why audiences pick podcasts like yours means understanding what needs yours should fulfill. In turn this helps to inform your pitch.

Getting the Audience Insights You Need

These are just four datapoints that can drive a more effective audience development strategy – there are lots of other questions you can ask. But your next question might be, how?

The simplest answer is, survey your audience. Though you can get some basic demographics through creator and hosting dashboards, to get the kind of actionable data I’ve outlined, you need to go to the source. And it’s not as hard as you might think.

Having done this for a dozen years, I’ve learned podcast listeners are some of the most cooperative and supportive people, eagerly willing to help their favorite shows and hosts when asked. You can run a survey yourself, or work with a team of experts like we have at Signal Hill Insights. We can also mine our large audience dataset to uncover insights for shows you want to produce and the audiences you’re hoping to reach.

Networks in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands should really consider subscribing to Triton Digital’s Demos+. Many of the insights I’ve shared here and that we’ve shared in other blog posts come from the large nationally representative surveys we run to support Demos+.

I’ve seen first-hand how audience data can be leveraged to grow podcasts, and the Signal Hill Insights team is glad to help you embrace the audience-centric mindset. Get in touch to take the first step.