It’s hot.
You’re lying on the beach trying to enjoy your well-deserved (and long-overdue) vacation…
But you’re distracted by the never-ending beads of sweat running down your arms, your back, your face.
One drips off your nose onto the open book you’re trying to immerse yourself in, leaving a splotch in the center of the page.
You knew it would be hot.
That’s why you splurged for the beach chair with the umbrella. And the sea breeze’s caress across your skin certainly helps.
But it’s not enough.
What you wouldn’t give for a frozen margarita and a giant bottle of water right now.
Speaking of which…
You look up from your book and see what appears to be a drink vendor pulling a cart with a cooler up the beach toward you.
You’re saved!
You fish your wallet out of your beach bag, ready and eager to pay whatever audaciously inflated price your savior has the gall to charge.
As he pulls up and opens his cooler, however, you’re quickly disappointed.
Instead of ice-cold frozen drinks or water, the vendor is using the cooler to keep his freshly brewed pots of coffee hot…
“Only coffee?”
“Everyone loves coffee.”
“But on the beach? In the middle of the afternoon? On a day like this?”
“It’s really exceptional. I buy my beans from an artisanal family-run coffee plantation in Costa Rica and roasted the beans myself this morning. You’ll love it.”
“I’ll pass.”
Bewildered, you watch the same scene play out again and again as the vendor wheels his cart of steaming hot disappointment among the beachgoers laid out across the pristine stretch of sand.
Eventually, you lose sight of him, certain he hasn’t made a single sale.
You wipe a bead of sweat from your brow and turn back to your book, still hot, still uncomfortable, still desperate for relief, and still willing to pay a premium for it.
Finally, you abandon your post to seek ou search of a beach bar which is sure to have the refreshment you now find yourself craving:
A frozen coffee with a shot (or two) of Bailey’s.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about marketing is that it’s about making people want your thing.
But there’s just one problem:
You can’t.
People want what they want.
Which means the real job of marketing is creating something that aligns with the market’s existing interests, needs, and desires, and communicating that connection clearly and compellingly.
This concept applies whether you’re selling drinks on the beach or trying to find listeners for a podcast.
This is an essential lesson to understand, so I’ll repeat it again for emphasis:
It is impossible to make people want something they don’t already want.
Which means the growth potential of your show is capped by the amount of existing interest or desire in your topic or category.
Of course, interest in your topic or category, alone is not enough.
Big, high-growth shows are big and high-growth for exactly three reasons:
- A large number of people are hungry—voracious, even—for content like theirs — Not their exact show, but content in the same general category.
- They have some obvious differentiator that gets people to give them a chance — High demand categories mean heavy competition. Winning the first click from a listener in this environment requires a distinctive, compelling, and refreshing angle, show concept, specific audience, or sub-topic.
- Their show does enough of the technical things right to not turn off those listeners who stumble across and click into it — ie. they have legitimate cover art, SHARP episode titles, solid production quality, and average or better value density.
That’s it.
That’s not to say these shows haven’t done any marketing.
Most of them do a lot of it.
But that marketing is more about accelerating existing growth than trying to kickstart it.
In other words, they’re not dependent on hustling on social media or throwing money away on ads in order to eke out a few new listeners each month.
Because the real marketing has already been done when they:
- Identified an audience that had an existing interest, need, or desire that their show could fulfill.
- Learned (probably through a lot of experimentation and 1:1 audience conversations) how to communicate how their show aligned with those interests, needs, and desires.
- Showed up regularly where that audience was already congregating.
- Consistently created a show that met or exceeded their audience’s expectations.
When it comes down to it, these four tasks are the heart of successful marketing.
So if you’re struggling to build an audience, the first question worth asking is always:
“Do I have verifiable proof that the people I want to attract are already engaging with shows or content similar to what I’m creating?”
If not, there’s a good chance your show is doomed. People want what they want, after all, and you won’t change their minds.
If so, a second question:
“Is my show at the same (or better) level of production quality, insight, humour, entertainment, and value per minute as the similar shows people are already listening to?”
If not, there is no reason people should listen to your show…which means you know exactly where to put in the work.
If so, on the other hand, one final question:
“Am I showing up consistently in places my audience is already gathering, with messaging that unmistakably conveys how my show aligns with their existing interests, needs, and desires?”
If not, you need to talk with your existing and ideal listeners to find out where exactly to show up (podcasts, newsletters, communities, forums, etc) and how to better communicate your show’s 1-sentence pitch.
They have all the answers you need.
If so, well, I hate to say it, but there’s a good chance you might be lying to yourself about one or more of your previous answers.
Which is to be expected.
It’s where we all start out as creators, before we’re forced to confront the hard cold truth:
That what we want to create matters a whole lot less than what people want to consume.
In most cases, there’s a balance to be found between the two.
But it’s rare indeed that the thing we most want to create is the thing with the highest potential for growth.
We can rail against this and resolutely forge ahead with our art, attempting to sell steaming hot coffee to an audience who’s looking for ice-cold refreshment.
Or we can do our homework to understand what the market wants.
What people are already seeking out and engaging with.
What people are willing to pay an audaciously inflated premium for.
And we can find a way to align our work and our craft with that.
Frozen coffee with a shot (or two) of Bailey’s, perhaps.
The choice is ours.
