How to Find the True Measure of Your Podcast Success
When we start any kind of marketing effort in our business, it can be hard to know if it's actually working, especially with something like podcasting. And here's the thing: doing it alone and questioning whether you were doing the right things is so, so common, especially as the CEO or solopreneur. It's totally normal to be sitting in front of your desk and saying am I doing this the right way? But you aren't alone!
In this episode, I’m talking through the nuances of podcast success and how to measure it effectively for your business. From defining success based on your goals to tracking metrics like downloads and audience engagement, we break down actionable strategies to ensure your podcast aligns with your objectives. Additionally, we delve into the importance of enjoying the podcasting process and refining your approach to fill any gaps in your strategy.
Start Defining Success by Clarifying Your Goals
In the quest for podcast success, clarity is key. What does success look like for you? Is it achieving a certain number of downloads, fostering meaningful connections with your audience, or perhaps establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry? By defining your goals upfront, you can steer your podcasting efforts in the right direction and measure your progress along the way.
How to Track Progress with Metrics that Matter
As we embark on our podcasting journey, it's essential to have a compass to guide us. Metrics such as downloads, audience engagement, and listener feedback serve as valuable navigational tools. By tracking these metrics, we can gauge the effectiveness of our content and make informed decisions to optimize our podcast for success.
Finding Joy in the Process: Embracing Enjoyment and Iteration
While metrics are important, let's not forget the joy of podcasting itself. Are you enjoying the process of creating content, or has the pursuit of success become all-consuming? Remember, the true measure of success lies not only in the numbers but also in the satisfaction and fulfillment we derive from our podcasting endeavors. By embracing enjoyment and iterating on our approach, we can ensure that our podcast remains a source of inspiration and creativity.
As we conclude our exploration of podcast success, remember that the journey is just as important as the destination. Whether you measure success by metrics or personal fulfillment, stay true to your vision and keep pushing forward. With perseverance and determination, you can navigate the ever-changing landscape of podcasting and chart a course to success.
Want to try out the Strategize & Shine membership? Come join the masterclass MEASURING PODCAST SUCCESS: Is My Strategy Working? PLUS get a free month! Head to wildhomepodcasting.com/class
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
175: How to Find the True Measure of Your Podcast Success
[00:00:00] When we start any kind of marketing effort in our business, it can be hard to know if it's actually working, especially with something like podcasting. And here's the thing doing it alone and questioning whether you were doing the right things is so, so common, especially in business. And when you're running your own business, the CEO, you may be a solopreneur.
[00:00:22] So it's totally normal to be sitting in front of your desk and saying, you know, am I doing this the right way? Is this how it's supposed to be? Right. But you aren't alone. I'm here to help. And today we're going to chat about how to know if your podcast is actually successful.
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[00:01:19] Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. You may have noticed, I took a little bit of a break last week, I'm going to talk about that in my problem that I solved this week, because. Sometimes you just need a break. Sometimes things don't work out. You may have audio fail, especially if you're working with a guest over the internet. Well, we all know that that can be a pain sometimes. And even with all the planning that we do, all the batching, all of the working ahead and trying to make sure that we've always got content ready.
[00:01:52] Sometimes we just don't have an episode. And that's what happened to me last week. I have this really bad habit of [00:02:00] over-scheduling myself. I'm sure that some of you can relate sometimes. I just think that I'm super woman and I can do 5 million things. And I just need everybody who's listening to hold me accountable.
[00:02:10] And next year, when I say I'm going to schedule three events in March, I want you to all be like, no, That's your busiest month of the year. Why would you do that? So I did really good at getting episodes ready before we went on vacation. And then we went on vacation. We came back and that the whole, like recovering from a trip situation happened.
[00:02:31] And I just did not have it in me to get an episode out. So I was looking at, okay, do I, not air an episode, do I try and record one? When I feel really tired and I'm going to be pushing myself to get some content going. And, you know, I never recommend that. So. What I did is I went back through my archives. I looked at my marketing and promotion calendar and I said, okay, what am I promoting right now? What am I trying to sell?
[00:02:59] And, if [00:03:00] you're listening to this episode, then you probably know that out. We're doing a big push for the membership right now. So I wanted something that would kind of relate and lead into that. And I have a ton of episodes in my archive. I mean, I have I'm up to episode 1 75 now, so almost 200 episodes. And when you have that many episodes, like I'm just going to grant you permission right now to do this. If you ever come up on a moment where you don't have an episode re air an older episode. And the cool thing about doing this was I went back even further. Since we kind of shifted the structure of my episodes found an episode that I felt was really good. Reworked it a little bit, re edited it. Uh, ran it through some filters, made it sound better.
[00:03:46] Very exciting. And then I wrote some new show notes, a new marketing content for it. So even though I still had to do a little bit in the post production, it wasn't as much as I normally would do when I actually sit down and record entire episode. [00:04:00] Now I will say this. I did not have video of that episode.
[00:04:03] So I did not post that episode on YouTube and you know what I'm actually okay with that. I R really wasn't like beat up about it. Uh, you know, I am trying to establish a strategy on YouTube. But that's something that hasn't quite made it into the content calendar just yet. So it was like, you know what?
[00:04:19] It's okay. I'm going to give myself grace and permission and post this episode. And I think it was a pretty good episode. The download numbers on it are pretty high, actually. And so that's exciting for me to know that you know, that content still aligns with everyone. And that I was able to reuse it in that way. Uh, because sometimes those episodes way back in the archives, you know, they're not, they may not get listened to again.
[00:04:43] They may, they may not, depending on, Your episodes and your audience and all of those things. So. Anyways. Just wanted to like, share that with all of you, because one thing that's really important to me is transparency. And, you know, I am a podcast coach. I'm a [00:05:00] podcast strategist, but believe me, there are days where podcasting still feels hard. And there are solutions for when that happens. And so that was one of them.
[00:05:09] And that is a problem we solved this week.
[00:05:13] Questioning and wondering if you are doing something right, is the worst, I just think in general as somebody who has anxiety, I can tell you it's no fun. But especially as a business owner, One of my biggest goals is to empower female podcasters and business owners. So they feel confident every time they sit down to record an episode. And that can be really hard.
[00:05:36] I talk about recording in a silo, right? Like you're by yourself. You're in your office. Most of us work from home. We may have an office space, but we're working by ourself, right? And sitting down and knowing, okay, am I doing the right things? Can really start a spiral that can be really unhealthy for content creators. We've talked a lot about podcast metrics [00:06:00] on this show and just how they're super hard to know if they're successful, especially when you have no context, no reference.
[00:06:08] You're not in the podcast world. You're going to look at those numbers and you may misinterpret them, or you may see them differently than. Let's say I would write. And so. I'm seeing all this and we're, we're thinking to ourselves. Okay, great. But how do I actually measure the success of my podcast? And not just like the success of my podcast, but like the fact that I want to feel really good about what my podcast and I want to feel good about it being a useful marketing tool for my business. And so that's what I really want to talk about today because. At the end of the day, podcasting is great.
[00:06:44] Podcasting is fun. But it needs to serve you and it needs to be successful. So let's dive in. The first thing is that we need to define what success means. For our podcast and for our business and all of this is around our goals, [00:07:00] right? Our business goals, our purpose, why we have this podcast in the first place and that's. Usually the big question.
[00:07:06] I always ask my clients when we start a strategy call is why a podcast? You know, why are you starting a podcast? Why do you want to have a podcast? And this is something that's really important to define as your business evolves and grows as well. And to keep asking yourself. Why do I have a podcast?
[00:07:22] Why is this the thing that I'm going to be spending my time on? The next ask that we're going to do some, soul searching on, and this is a big one. Is, are we doing activities within our podcast that align with that goal? So, if you have a goal for your podcast, let's say I want to get more members into my membership. I want to use my podcast as long form content to drive leads for my membership. But you never talk about your membership. Maybe you're constantly pushing other things on your podcast.
[00:07:56] Maybe you're interviewing guests that have nothing to do with your membership. [00:08:00] Right. All of those activities are not helping us achieve our goal. This is a huge piece of podcast strategy is taking that goal that we have, and then aligning all of the tasks, all of the things that are happening with our podcast to that goal.
[00:08:16] Right. And so that's really the first place I want you to start because. One of the issues I find with a lot of business owners that come to me is they started a podcast. It didn't really set any goals for it. Or maybe the goal was just, I want to have a podcast because I think this is going to get me more reach.
[00:08:34] This is going to get me out there. This is how I'm going to get in front of more people. This is how I'm gonna make more money. Right. It's very vague kind of goals. And, uh, when you get to like where I am at worth like 175 episodes, 200 episodes, and you start to go. Am I actually seeing results? Like, am I actually seeing. The fruits of all of this time and energy and money that I'm spending on this [00:09:00] podcast. And usually we can. Change that by tweaking the strategy and that all starts with goals and activities. But how do we actually track this?
[00:09:11] Like, how do we measure this? How is this something that we can quantify? And so we're going to talk about downloads for a minute. You all knew I was going there. Downloads with podcasts is very hard because. The analytics for podcasting just isn't great in general. And this is something that I think the podcasting world really needs to work on.
[00:09:31] I think I've talked, I've talked about this in a couple episodes with guests that I've had on. I know that I talked about it in the episode. With Megan, when we talked about Facebook ads. Because it's so hard to know just based on download numbers. Okay. Is my podcast actually working for me? Now I do track my downloads.
[00:09:51] I do track those numbers, but I'm looking at them a little bit differently. There are a couple things that I like to look at specifically. One is growth. [00:10:00] So over time, are my episodes getting more downloads? Right? Am I seeing that number go up over time? It can happen quickly. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to get momentum and the apps, especially. But over time, am I seeing growth?
[00:10:16] The second thing is how are my episodes aging? So when we think about our podcast episodes, You know, the first seven day number, how are they doing that 30 day number? How. How are they doing? And so I do use those numbers to help gauge, you know, how is the health of my podcasts, but those numbers I really love to use for more of a long-term forecast, less of a today thing. Right? So this is an Instagram. I'm not going to pull it up and see my insights. And help that. That's to help me create a real, the next moment.
[00:10:50] Now I can look at my downloads last month and that can help me create episodes. The other thing about downloads is. There are averages. And [00:11:00] they are usually when I show my clients, these averages, they're a lot lower than my clients thought. And so that's something too that is really important to keep in mind. I believe that the top 50% of all podcasts are getting like 32 downloads and up. So like that tells you right there, that number right there should tell you, like, we need to. Adjust our expectations of what we consider successful downloaded numbers to be. The other part about measuring and tracking, that's really, really important and understanding.
[00:11:32] Okay. Is it successful? Is it not, is that you have to have a specific objective for your podcast? So for me. And my objective is. That I'm using this to build my email list. I'm using this to get more people into my programs. And how do I actually measure that? Right? How am I tracking this? And there are a couple ways you can do that.
[00:11:57] You can do that with special links. You can do that with [00:12:00] forms. So whenever anybody comes into your world, they fill out a form. If you may ask them, if they heard, you know, where did they hear from you? Did they select podcasts? A lot of this though, I'm actually at using, like when I sit down and talk to people and they say, they've heard me, they've listened to my podcast. I have people inside my membership and inside like my other programs. Who were listeners for a long time before they actually hit the buy button.
[00:12:29] And that really is the power of podcasting because it is a longterm warming thing. It's a brand builder, right. We've talked about how long form content does this for your business. And so those are some of the ways that I will measure and track. Okay. Is it actually successful for me right now? Uh, you can get very, very specific with this.
[00:12:50] So for example, I can run dynamic ads and I can have a special link just for podcast people, which I have done. And I've been able to track how many people [00:13:00] click that link and how many people converted. And so you can do very, very specific things like that as well. One thing about podcasts though, that I really want to emphasize is like, we're not getting a ton of clicks from podcasts.
[00:13:12] Anyways. What we're getting are relationships, connections. And then those will convert. And so I really like for me, those inquiry calls those calls where I'm sitting down with people and they say, I heard you do an episode about that recently. That to me is gold because that tells me. That people are listening to my show.
[00:13:35] They're looking for my show because they have a problem that I can solve and then they're coming to me. So it really is like this mix of things. I'm looking at my downloads. I'm thinking about my objectives and I'm putting those all together and that's really helping me determine, okay, is this working for my business? A lot of times when a client comes to me and they say, I don't think this podcast is doing anything for me, [00:14:00] you know?
[00:14:00] And I have people come to me and say that with 270 downloads per episode, which is, which is really good by the way. And I'm always shocked because I'm like, but look, how many downloads you have? You know, you've got, you've got 270 people showing up listening to you each week. And so if you are listening to this and you're you feel that way, and I know a lot of people do, I know a lot of people do about their podcast. Then the question that you need to really ask yourself is have I set objectives and are those activities. Supporting those objectives.
[00:14:35] So I can actually measure something important. Like before you stop podcasting. That is the first thing I would recommend you do. And this kind of brings me into my next point too, because when we're defining a successful podcast, we also need to get into some other things here. We need to get into our feels. We need to, we need to sit with our podcast, right.
[00:14:58] And we need to ask ourselves. [00:15:00] Do I enjoy podcasting? Is it fun for me? Because this is a time-consuming thing. I mean, this is how I feel about YouTube, you know, for me, Sitting down and doing YouTube videos is probably how some people feel about sitting down and recording podcasts episodes. Like it's just not fun to me.
[00:15:17] I get that YouTube is a great search engine and all this stuff, but. I have not found comfort in sitting down and recording those videos yet. I I'm going to get there. That's that's a goal of mine this year is to get there, but I just want to drive that point home because. You know, there are people who have built their businesses without Instagram.
[00:15:37] There are people who've built their businesses. Without LinkedIn, you know, all of these things when you're looking at your marketing. A very important question you need to ask is my audience there. And do I enjoy doing it? Do I feel that it's enhancing my marketing? I know that for me, sitting down and creating a podcast episode every week adds so [00:16:00] much to my marketing because it gives me so much material to use. But it also is my long form piece of content than I am creating.
[00:16:07] It's my main. Cornerstone piece of marketing that I am doing every week, even before it was a podcast coach, guys, like I knew this, I knew that it was the thing. That was going to be the driver for other things. But I have put energy into it. I have made sure that all of the activities and the strategy around my podcasts support what my objectives are.
[00:16:31] So I can see the fruits of all the work that I put into it. So, it really does come down to when we're measuring and tracking, is it fun for me? Is it working? Do I have a strategy and a purpose behind my podcast? And then from there. What you can do is start identifying the gaps. Where are things not working? Sometimes it can be the process, the actual like [00:17:00] process of creating the episode is where the gap is.
[00:17:03] And that can actually be a huge, huge piece. Of causing the podcast not work the way it wants to really a great example is a problem that we solve this week. Right. Let's say that I had tried to push through and gone ahead and recorded an episode. And I knew that I wasn't gonna be able to record a great episode.
[00:17:21] And I knew that whatever I came up with was going to be great. And it probably wouldn't have. And I probably wouldn't have gotten him as many downloads as my other episodes because I didn't put the same time, energy, and effort into it. Right. That's the other thing too, like where are these gaps happening?
[00:17:37] Is it in our call to actions? Is it in the actual content? Do we need to rethink the content? Do we need to shake up the structure? You know, you have to become. Uh, detective. And you also have to be okay with saying, you know what? I tried that this way, it's not working. Let's try something else. And until you land on that thing, that feels so great [00:18:00] that every time you sit down to record. You know that it's working for you and the way that it's supposed to.
[00:18:07] Nine times out of 10, nine times out of 10, I am.
[00:18:10] I'm not even making this up. When someone says to me, their podcast is successful. It's simply because we need to reframe it. We just need to reframe how we think about the podcast, how it's working for your business. And then we need to look at what's working and what's not those gaps again. And so I really want this to be an encouragement to you.
[00:18:29] I want you to hear this and I want you to be like, okay, there are things you can do. If you feel like your podcast is not working. This is such a huge piece of what I do inside the strategize and shine membership. And this month, in fact, we are actually doing an entire masterclass. On is my podcast successful, how to measure and track. All the things.
[00:18:54] And I'm really excited about this masterclass because I think that it fills the gap [00:19:00] between, okay, I've created a podcast. And that end result. And then what's in the middle. And this masterclass to me is what's in the middle. And because I love my listeners. Because. I want to help more people feel confident about their podcast.
[00:19:16] That is my purpose. That's why I'm here. My goal is to help you shine, right? Like that is why that is everything I do is about helping you to feel good. When you sit behind this microphone that not only is your content going to be good. But the end result is going to help you in the long run. And that's why I created the strategize and shine membership. And so this month, if you want to come and try out the membership, I am opening up our masterclass to the public.
[00:19:47] You will also get a free month. And the membership with that, if you come. To the masterclass. And again, in this masterclass, I'm going to be expanding on what I talked about in this episode, even further and [00:20:00] giving, my members and whoever else comes tools and resources to use to help them feel really good about it. One of the things about my masterclasses is I want everyone to come and to talk, have a conversation, comment in the comments, get help, get feedback.
[00:20:15] That's what that time is for. And so if you would love to join us, I would love to have you. You can head to wild home podcasting.com/class. And I'll put that link in the show notes. So you can see that. And I would love for you to just come and try out and see what the membership is all about, because I have made some huge improvements to it and we are going to be raising the price. As of May 1st.
[00:20:39] And so if you want to lock in. For life. The rate that the membership currently is at, this is the moment to do it, but first come try the masterclass, come and meet me, come and meet my amazing members and come and see what we're all about and how we work together to help each other shine in our podcasts. I hope you have a great week and [00:21:00] I'll be back next week with another episode.
