How to Define Meaningful Goals as an Audio Creator

Becoming a successful audio creator can seem like a daunting journey. The first steps you take can be your most important actions. Landing on this blog is a good start to being a fantastical audio creator. But what does being fantastical mean to you? How and where do you even start defining that? 

Start with the end in mind

Be it a project or a vision for your career, starting with the end in mind is crucial to staying on course. Start with clearly defining what success means to you. While the definition of success varies greatly from person to person, we can help get you thinking in that direction. 

Here are some broader goals, as an audio creator, that you can pick from and personalize to suit your vision: 

• Grow your audience number: increase your content’s overall reach. 
• Increase audience engagement: increase engagement from your existing audience. 
• Monetize your content: earn income from the content you create. 
• Create a platform for a meaningful story: amplify a story that you feel more people need to hear. 
• Build brand affinity: establish a positive reputation for your brand that aligns with its overarching goals.
• Add content to an existing marketing ecosystem: leverage audio content to increase the quantity, consistency, and quality of your existing content calendar.

While these are just some of the common goals we’ve found audio creators to have, yours might be unique to you. However, having a broad goal is just the beginning. 

Next comes translating it into action items.

Make your goals SMART

Goals become more than dreams when we attach action items to them. The most common and effective way of doing that is by converting your broad vision into SMART goals. We’ll dive into what that means and follow it up with an example to demonstrate how it’s done. 

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. In audio, this would mean that your goals are: 

• Specific to the story you want to tell, the type of content you’re creating, and the platform(s) you’re releasing on. 
• Measurable by metrics that you can define, know where to find, and can track over time. 
• Achievable with the resources you realistically have access to; monetary, personnel, and time to name a few. 
• Relevant to your audience, you, and the purpose you want to achieve with your content. 
• Time-bound by deadlines that respect your resources, including and especially time. 

Let’s jump into an example. Consider the final, yet broad, goal of monetizing your content. To make this a SMART goal, you can ask questions that set you on the right path. 

Get specific by asking: 

• What is the monetary milestone I’d like to achieve to consider my monetization attempt successful? 
• How much money would I like to make? 

Make it measurable by considering: 

• What platform(s) will I be using to track my goal’s progress? 
• What sources of income do I feel comfortable starting with? 

Make it achievable by asking: 

• Is this doable considering where my audio content and the resources I put into currently stand? 
• If I don’t have the resources myself, am I able to source them (hire someone, pay for software, etc.)?

Stay relevant by considering: 

• Is my audience willing to pay for my content or part of it? 
• What value to my overall purpose will monetizing my content add? 

Make it time-bound by asking: 

• By when am I going to achieve the first milestone? 
• Are my timelines respectful of my boundaries and commitments outside of this goal? 

Find inspiration

The importance of a community and a guide cannot be understated when setting meaningful goals. There are a few ways you can go about this:  

• Inspiration is the best form of flattery. So if you’ve identified a brand, whether a person or a company that you wish you were like, study what you think they’re doing right and how you can learn from those successes.  
• If you’ve found someone you’d like to engage with but don’t know where to start, begin by meaningfully interacting with their content online. This will help them feel encouraged and seen while giving you something to start your engagement with. 

Exclusive for the Recordheads

For all the Recordical members–as your partners in sound, we’re here to support your journey to becoming a goal-achieving audio creator. Here’s how we can help:

• Recordical Studios are set up for creating high-quality audio so that you can focus on your story and tell it meaningfully.
• The community over at Recordical Digital can help you find peers, mentors, and accountability buddies to keep you on track with your goals.
• Recordical Digital also houses member-exclusive content if you’re in need of new skills and resources to support your objectives.
• When it comes to technical skills, Recordical Engineers are here to support your growth by managing your studio sessions and providing in-person or digital training. 

Pardon the preaching 

While we’re all about creating pristine audio and achieving those goals, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention: 

• Set your boundaries to maintain a work-life balance. 
• Always, always, always remember the end you’re working towards. 
• Be kind to yourself.
• Allow flexibility for mistakes.
• The rate of growth should always be higher than the rate of success.