I’ve had this happen with clients quite a few times over the years. They’ll record an episode that’s a little different to what they usually talk about and, while they’re recording it, they’re completely into it. You can tell they care about the topic. They’re passionate, the conversation flows and they’re not struggling to work out what to say next because they genuinely have something they want to say.

Then they finish recording and suddenly they’re not so sure. Is this too different? Will people actually want to hear this? Does it fit with everything else I’ve been talking about? What are my listeners going to think?

It’s always interesting to me because five minutes earlier, none of that mattered. They weren’t sitting there trying to work out whether they were allowed to talk about it. They were just talking about something they found interesting. Then the recording ends and all that confidence seems to disappear with it.

I’ve seen different versions of this enough times that I think there’s something bigger going on. We spend a lot of time trying to work out what our audience wants from us and not always enough time thinking about what we actually want to explore.

I don’t think niching is the problem

I should probably say this before I sound like I’m about to tell you to throw your entire podcast strategy in the bin. I don’t hate niches. They have their place.

If you have a podcast about marketing and one week you’re talking about creating better content, the next you’re talking about growing a team and then you’re digging into morning routines and personal habits, people might start wondering what they’re actually listening to. They’re not completely random topics and you could absolutely find a way to connect them, but if that connection isn’t clear, your listeners are left to figure it out for themselves.

Unless that’s literally the premise of your podcast, in which case, carry on.

There needs to be something connecting the episodes. Where I think we get stuck is assuming that connection has to come from making the subject smaller and smaller.

Marketing is too broad.

Okay, so maybe it’s social media marketing.

Still broad.

Instagram marketing.

Instagram marketing for service-based businesses.

Instagram marketing for left-handed service-based business owners who only post on Tuesdays.

Obviously I’m taking the piss now, but you get where I’m going.

But we can also go the other way.

Marketing is a massive umbrella. You could talk about SEO, email marketing, launches, websites, copywriting, lead generation, sales, PR, advertising, customer experience, partnerships or pricing. They’re all different topics, but they still sit comfortably under marketing.

That’s the part I think gets missed when we’re so focused on making a niche smaller. Sometimes clarity doesn’t come from cutting things away. It comes from understanding how much room you actually have to explore within the bigger idea.

When you keep making the idea smaller and stripping things away, eventually you can strip away some of the things that made you interested in talking about it in the first place. And when you’re the person who has to keep finding something worth saying episode after episode, that matters.

I’ve watched podcasts outgrow their original idea

Almost every podcast I’ve worked on that’s been around for more than a year has evolved in some way. Some quite dramatically. I’ve seen shows change names, their focus shift and hosts become interested in completely different areas from where they started.

One of the biggest changes is usually the host themselves. They’re more confident. They’ve recorded enough episodes that they’re not thinking about every little thing they’re doing anymore. They start to recognise which conversations bring something out of them, which topics they naturally want to dig deeper into and which ones they’re only returning to because they think that’s what their podcast is supposed to be about.

Over time, they start trusting themselves a little more. They follow the interesting tangent. They ask the extra question. They let the conversation go somewhere they might not have planned for in the early days. The podcast starts feeling less like something they’re trying to get right and more like something that’s actually theirs.

I don’t think that’s a planning failure. I think that’s what happens when you actually make something.

You can sit down before launching a podcast and map out your audience, content pillars, format and first 20 episodes. All of that can be useful. But you can’t completely plan for the person you’re going to become after you’ve had 50 conversations or 100.

Your podcast is allowed to change because you’re going to change too.

Your niche and your point of view aren’t the same thing

You could have two hosts talking about the exact same subject and their podcasts could feel completely different.

One might be interested in the practical side of it. Another might be more interested in the people behind it and why they make the decisions they do. One might challenge the accepted way of doing things while another brings years of experience and stories from being right in the middle of it.

They could interview the exact same person and I reckon we’d end up with two very different episodes.

They’d notice different things. They’d ask different follow-up questions. Their experiences would shape what stood out to them and they’d naturally pull on different threads in the conversation.

That’s the bit I’m interested in. Not just what do you talk about? but what do you bring to what you’re talking about?

Your niche can help someone understand what your podcast is about. Your point of view is part of what makes them want to hear you talk about it.

The branches are where things can get interesting

I’ve also seen the other side of this. When a podcast stays very tightly focused on the same small area for a long time, the episodes can start becoming rinsed and repeated versions of each other. Different title, different guest, slightly different example, but underneath it we’re having the same conversation again.

That isn’t automatically bad. Some listeners are there specifically for that message and they’ll happily keep coming back for it. If the podcast is doing exactly what you want it to do, you don’t need to change it because I wrote a blog post telling you to.

But if you’re getting bored with it, that’s worth paying attention to. You might not have run out of things to say. You might have run out of room to say them.

A topic like marketing has a trunk, but it also has all those branches coming off it. Sometimes following one of those branches is exactly what keeps the podcast interesting, for you and the people listening.

Maybe “does this fit?” isn’t the best question

When a client asks whether an episode fits their podcast, I’m much more interested in why they wanted to talk about it in the first place. What was it about that topic? Why did it get them fired up? What does it connect to? Is there something underneath it that links back to the bigger conversation they’ve been having all along?

Sometimes the answer will be no. Maybe it really is completely random and better suited somewhere else. Fair enough.

But sometimes there is a connection. It just isn’t obvious if we’re only looking at the surface-level topic. That’s when I think it’s useful to stop looking outside for a minute. Not at what other podcasts are doing, what seems to be trending or what you think you’re supposed to talk about. Come back to your own show.

Why does it exist? What are you curious about? What conversations do you want to create? What do you want someone to think about after listening? What do you keep coming back to?

If you’re not clear on any of that, it’s very easy for numbers and other people’s strategies to start making decisions for you.

You can hear when someone gives a crap

You can tell when someone is talking about something they genuinely care about. You hear it in their voice. You can see it in their body language if you’re watching. They go off on tangents, get specific, remember things and ask better questions because they actually want to know the answer.

They’re not trying to get through the content. They’re in it.

And if two people are making podcasts about the same subject, that’s the person I’m probably going to remember. Not necessarily the one with the cleverest niche, but the one who made me see something differently. The one who went down a branch I hadn’t thought about before and brought their own experiences, questions and perspective with them.

So, do you need to niche down?

Maybe. Helpful answer, I know.

But that’s kind of the point. I’m not interested in replacing you must niche down with niching is dead, talk about whatever you want. Neither is particularly useful.

If you’re struggling to make all your ideas fit, I’d resist cutting half of them away straight away. Put them all on the table first. Look at the topics you’re interested in, the questions you keep asking, things you’ve experienced, opinions you’ve changed, advice you don’t quite agree with and conversations you find yourself having over and over again.

Then look underneath all of it.

Is there a thread?

You might realise your idea genuinely needs more focus. Or you might realise you’ve been trying so hard to find the perfect box that you haven’t noticed what was connecting everything all along.

I’d much rather you build a podcast with enough clarity for people to understand why they’re there and enough room for you to still be interested in making it a year from now.