No podcast exists in a vacuum.
No matter how unique your show is, in a potential listener’s mind, your show is defined by—and compared to—other shows and content they perceive as similar.
The most obvious example of this in podcasting is the categories your show is listed under in podcast directories.
But unless you’re ranking near the top of those categories, they’re largely irrelevant.
What matters more are the categories your potential listeners place your show in themselves.
Your category dictates who your show attracts, how they judge it, the competitors they compare it to, and who—if all goes to plan—they will eventually recommend it to.
One of the most important marketing decisions you can make, then, is the category you establish for your show.
Choosing the right category can be the difference between being seen as a generic or uninteresting show vs a fresh and fascinating one.
Between being one of many vs one of one.
Often, this type of re-categorization can be achieved without any significant changes to your content itself, and simply adjusting the framing that is set by your show’s packaging and the lens you apply to your topics.
The simplest way to achieve this is through what I call Category Inversion.
Here’s how it works.
In broad terms, every show can be defined by two components:
- The show’s specific topic
- The larger category the show exists within — Which determines the lens the show explores the topic through
In the case of the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter, the category is podcasting and the focus topic is marketing & growth.
Said differently: A newsletter for podcasters to help them understand marketing.
But with a few tweaks at a handful of key touchpoints (specifically the landing page and welcome sequence) I could invert my category and topic to re-position the newsletter.
The result: A newsletter for marketers to understand podcasting.
Immediately, this re-categorization opens up an entirely different set of potential readers, collaborators, and competitors for the newsletter.
After some careful research, it’s possible that I could reach the conclusion that this new categoriy provides more favourable conditions for growth.
The same could be true for you, which makes it a useful thought experiment if nothing else.
Category Inversion is the easiest type of re-categorization to explore, as it simply shifts the emphasis of two elements that are already a core part of your show.
But the possibilities for re-categorizing your podcast are infinite.
Every topic exists within a multiverse of categories, occupying a different space, importance, and set of associations in each.
These contexts are the soil that your show is planted in. And not all soils are created equal.
Some are more or less fertile, more or less crowded, get more or less sunshine.
Your job is to identify the soil that provides the best conditions for your show to grow.
And then plant your roots.
