A unique value proposition (UVP) is a clear statement that describes the benefit of your offer, how you solve your customer’s needs, and what distinguishes you from the competition.

When starting a new company it’s important to break down your UVP. Why should customers choose you over other offerings? This also applies to podcasts. Why should listeners tune into your podcast over others with similar content?

Before every client project we sit down and figure out what the podcast’s UVP is. There are so many active podcasts out there right now covering every genre and topic imaginable. So if you’re just starting, how can you stand out?

It’s important to identify your UVP prior to starting any pre-production since it can change the way you produce your series, the topics you cover, or the people you talk to. If you’re overwhelmed with finding your UVP, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

We’ve broken down how to create your podcast’s UVP into three steps:

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1. Find Your Competitors

The first step is to find out who your “competitors” really are. The reason I put competitors in quotation marks is because I truly believe there is space for everyone, and if produced well, your podcast can have an audience that also listens to “competing” podcasts. Because of this, I don’t entirely agree with calling other podcasts competitors. They should instead just be referred to as “similar podcasts.” For ease of use though, I’ll refer to them as competitors for now.

How do you find competitors? Searching for similar podcasts on Google or streaming platforms can be pretty time consuming. Thankfully, there are some tools that can help. Our favorite? Rephonic.

Rephonic has an amazing Podcast Audience Graph tool that allows you to search for any podcast and generates a visualization of other podcasts that listeners of the show you searched for also listen to.

Here’s our typical process:

1. Think of one key podcast that is the most similar/relevant to the series you’re looking to produce;

2. Search for the series in Rephonic;

3. From the results, note down the podcasts that also seem to match your future series;

4. Repeat with other podcasts (if needed).

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2. Analyze

The next step is to analyze the podcasts that you’ve found. This is the most time consuming step since it involves actually listening to all of the shows. Now, I’m not suggesting you listen to every single episode, but definitely check out a handful.

When we’re analyzing a series, the elements we typically consider are:

1. Audio Quality;

2. Average Length;

3. Format;

4. General Notes

a. This is where you take note of any elements from the series that you like. How does the host sound? Are there transitions? Good sound design? What sort of topics are covered?

Make a spreadsheet and start writing down your notes about each podcast.

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3. Pick Out Key Elements

Finally, after you’ve analyzed your selected podcasts, you need to pick out elements that you know you can set yourself apart with.

These include:

1. Format;

2. Length;

3. Sound Design;

4. Guests;

5. Topics

The list is pretty much endless. For example, if all of your competitors have interview style format podcasts, maybe it’d be a good idea for you to try a multi-story or documentary format. Or if you really like the sound design of one podcast but the format of another show, you can bring those two elements together to make an even stronger podcast.

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4. Get Creating!

And the final step is to start creating!

Now that you have identified what your UVP is compared to other podcasts in your space, you can start working on bringing it to life. Just remember the key elements you identified and make sure to include them in your show.

If you have any questions around bringing your podcast to life, chat with our team of podcast experts.

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