Defining your podcast audience: Maximize your impact with buyer, amplifier, and attention personas

Once an organization starts a podcast, marketers typically switch their focus to growth. They ask questions like, “how can I get more podcast downloads?” or “how can I get more views?”

But I believe these questions focus on the wrong things. They focus on numbers, not the target audience.

As a marketer, it’s important to understand your podcast audience and how to effectively market your show to them. One way to do this is by considering the different types of listeners that make up your overall audience and tailoring your marketing strategies to appeal to each group.

In this blog post, we cover the three key audience personas for podcasters:

  1. The buyer persona
  2. The amplifier persona
  3. The attention persona

Most marketers just focus on customers. But, understanding all three of these podcast audiences can help you get your podcast in front of your best customers and increase its impact.

“How can I create content that enables a collaborative relationship or that can be mutually beneficial in a way that doesn’t have to involve exchanging money?”

Amanda Natividad

VP of Marketing

SparkToro

The Buyer Persona: Understanding and reaching your most valuable listeners

What is the buyer persona?

The buyer persona is your most valuable listener. And for most of the podcasts we produce for companies, the buyer persona is based upon the company’s ideal customer.

You produce a podcast for your ideal customers for several reasons:

  1. To engage with customers on a deeper level: A podcast provides a more personal and immersive experience than other forms of marketing, and can help a company connect with their customers in a more meaningful way.
  2. To establish thought leadership: By producing a podcast, a company can showcase their expertise in their industry and establish themselves as thought leaders in their field.
  3. To drive traffic to their website: A podcast can be an effective way to drive traffic to a company’s website, as listeners may be interested in learning more about the company or their products after hearing about them on the podcast.
  4. To generate leads: By offering a podcast, a company can attract new leads and potentially convert them into customers.
  5. To increase brand awareness: A podcast can help a company increase their brand awareness and reach a wider audience.

Why is the buyer persona important to your company’s podcast?

The buyer persona represents a very specific audience for your company’s podcast and this is the group most likely to engage with the show. The individuals in your buyer persona audience segment are more likely to take action based on the content of the podcast, whether that means purchasing a product or service from your company, signing up for a newsletter or email list, or sharing the podcast with their own network.

By understanding and targeting the buyer persona, you can tailor the content to the needs and interests of this audience.

  • Direct feedback from your buyer personas can help shape the theme of your show
  • Frequently asked questions can help drive specific episode topics and create a loyal fan base
  • Content resonating with your buyer personas can be repurposed for paid advertising campaigns
  • Relationships built with your actual customers can help identify guests for the podcast

The buyer persona is a crucial audience for your company’s podcast. When you build out episodes and tailor content specifically for them, you naturally align your company’s show with revenue.

The Amplifier Persona: Expanding your reach with influencers

What is the amplifier persona?

According to Amanda Natividad, the amplifier persona “represents the people who might amplify your content and/or your brand. So an amplifier might be a creator in your niche, a reporter, or an analyst. Those are all potential amplifiers.”

Most companies don’t factor in their company’s amplifier personas when producing podcasts. But including bloggers, celebrities, influencers, or other thought leaders in your field provides a better understanding of your ideal podcast listener and is an important component to growing your company’s show.

Why is the amplifier persona important to your company’s podcast?

The amplifier persona is a listener who is not necessarily a direct customer, but who helps to promote and spread the word about the podcast to their own network.

This type of listener might do the following to help support your company’s show:

  • Help spread the word about the podcast: By sharing the show with their own network, amplifier personas can help to increase the reach and visibility of the podcast and attract new listeners.
  • Drive traffic to the company’s website: By sharing links to the podcast or the company’s website, amplifier personas can help to drive traffic to these platforms and potentially generate new podcast subscribers, leads, or sales.
  • Build a loyal and supportive audience: By actively promoting the podcast to their own network, amplifier personas can help to build a loyal and supportive audience for your company’s show. Amplifiers typically have a loyal audience of their own, so when they share content there is trust already built-in.
  • Increase the credibility and authority of the podcast: By sharing the show with others, amplifier personas can help to increase the credibility and authority of the podcast and establish it as a go-to source of information.

It’s important to consider the user experience when targeting and appealing to amplifier personas. Make it easy for listeners to share your episodes on social media, and consider providing social media share buttons or links on your website or in your podcast feed. Additionally, be responsive to feedback or questions from your amplifier personas, as they can be an important source of ideas and insights for your show.

The Attention Persona: Understanding and reaching potential new listeners

What is the attention persona?

An attention persona is a listener who is open to discovering new content and is willing to give a show a try. This type of listener is important for your marketing team because they represent a broader audience beyond those who actively promote the show (such as the amplifier persona).

In many situations, your attention personas will never be customers for your company. And they might not publicly endorse the podcast. But they will help give a lift to the distribution of your company’s podcast through word-of-mouth referrals (dropping links in a Slack community, sharing in a DM, etc.).

Why is the attention persona important to your company’s podcast?

The attention persona within your podcast audience may include journalists, analysts, investors, industry creators, peers, and competitors who can influence purchase decisions but are unlikely to become customers themselves.

This type of listener might do the following to help support your company’s podcast:

  • Provide access to a broader audience: By targeting the attention persona, a company can reach a wider audience and potentially capture the attention of new listeners who may not have discovered their podcast otherwise.
  • Drive highly relevant traffic to the company’s website: By sharing direct links to the podcast or the company’s website, attention personas can help drive “the right people” to your company’s show.
  • Influence purchase decisions: While they may not be paying customers themselves, attention personas, such as journalists, analysts, investors, and industry creators, can influence the purchase decisions of others and contribute to the success of the company’s products or services.

It’s hard to monitor the direct impact of engaging with your attention persona, but you should consider this group when producing your company’s show. Even if you don’t see a public endorsement or a retweet on Twitter, the attention persona can help build your show’s audience and get you connected with your ideal customers.

Want to see how other B2B marketers get the most from their podcasts?

Recorded Content is a show for small, scrappy marketing teams who are looking to launch & grow a successful B2B podcast. In each episode, we provide stories on how to overcome the challenges of launching, running and growing a show. We tackle issues with technology, content marketing, distribution and more. We help you become a B2B podcasting hero with an amazing show.

Reaching your podcast's full potential: A recap of the three key audience personas

Your ideal customers are important to your company’s show. And the bulk of the content you create focuses on helping your buyer persona.

But when you are looking at defining your podcast audience, it’s important to factor in these three segments:

  1. Buyer persona
  2. Amplifier persona
  3. Attention persona

Involving these audience groups opens up opportunities for creative collaboration and increases the chance your ideal customers subscribe to your show. If you want to take a closer look at the details of podcast distribution, check out How to distribute your company’s podcast and get the most ROI.

Written by Tristan Pelligrino

Tristan Pelligrino is the Co-Founder of Motion. He’s a serial entrepreneur who started his career as a consultant with large IT companies such as PwC, IBM and Oracle. After getting his MBA, he started and grew one of the fastest video production companies in the country – which was listed on the Inc. 5000. Tristan now enjoys leading the content marketing strategies of some of the most innovative B2B technology companies in the country. You can find him on LinkedIn and Facebook.