🔭 From Bumper: Success metrics for indie podcasters 🔭
🔭 From Bumper: Success metrics for indie podcasters 🔭
Plus, 52 weeks of podcast growth
Heyo! This week we have a very special guest issue written by Jonas Woost of Bumper. Jonas and Dan Misener run the podcast growth agency that helps enterprise clients increase success in audio. While their clients include SiriusXM, HubSpot Podcast Network, Headspace, and iHeart Australia, today Jonas is digging into what success metrics really matter for independent podcasters.
We asked Jonas to write about this because we think marketing your podcast is only half the task; measuring your success efficiently is other half.
Warning: this might be a slightly longer issue than we normally publish. However, this is an important subject so we wanted to cover it in detail. Feel free to bookmark for later!
🔴 If you only have time for one thing
Let it be Jonas’ words: Podcast measurement today is fragmented. Unfortunately, there are a number of different data sources and not one place where all your important metrics can be found. However, we strongly encourage you to invest the time and come up with a measurement solution that works for you. It will pay off.
Repeating last week’s format and sharing the podcast growth tip before getting into today’s subject. If you hate this idea, please let me know (nicely) in the comments!
💫 52 Weeks of Podcast Growth
This week’s podcast growth tip is: Write a 300-word pitch for your podcast.
You’ll remember that, in previous weeks, we’ve asked you to write a 150-word pitch for your podcast. This was to get your creative pitching juices flowing. Now, that you’ve done that and written about your podcast from a friend’s perspective, you have enough to double the size of your pitch. Best get to it then!
To sum it up, the tips so far are:
Find 10 podcasts that are similar to yours.
Connect with 10 new podcasts on social media.
Join 3 subreddits and/or discords that are relevant to the topic of your podcast.
Write a 150-word pitch for your show.
Time how long you spend on podcast creation and marketing.
Describe your podcast from a friend/listener’s perspective.
Write a 300-word pitch for your show. (Remember to continue timing yourself.)
✅ Success metrics that really matter for independent podcasters
The formula to success in podcasting is easy to explain but hard to execute: make something that’s worth falling in love with and then find the people that will do just that.
Simple, right?
To find that path to success you need effective measurement along the way. It allows you to identify what’s working and focus on the activities that actually make a positive impact. Any growth strategy should be part of a continuous iterative process.
As an industry, we are all obsessed with downloads. It is something relatively easy to measure and there’s even an official definition for it.
Unfortunately, for many independent podcasters the download is not the best way to measure success. It only tells part of the story of any podcast and we have a number of different metrics that we focus on.
We break down podcast measurement into the following categories:
Listen Time
Audience Profile
Marketing Effectiveness
Reach
Let's go through these one by one.
🎧 Listen Time
This answers questions like:
Is anyone actually listening to my show?
Are people listening all the way through or just the first few minutes?
This is the most important number that we look at: are people actually listening to your episodes. Podcasting is an opt-in medium and we can't force anyone to listen. People have to seek out a show and actively hit play. The best way to figure out whether someone enjoyed your show is to measure for how long they've been listening.
After all, they could have stopped at any time so listen time becomes our best proxy for editorial success.
Luckily, podcast apps including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, give you some details around listen time for your episodes. You can find those numbers by logging into those apps directly but, unfortunately, your podcast hosting provider will not give you that metric in an aggregated way. We’d love to see one big number that shows the total listen time of any show and the Bumper team is working on a solution.
👯 Audience Profile
This answers questions like:
Who is my current audience?
Am I reaching the people I intended to reach?
We would all like to know more about our audiences. Unfortunately, those details are very limited and most podcast apps will not give us much information about the types of listeners that your show is attracting. Spotify is your best option to get some demographic information but keep in mind that this data is only applicable to your Spotify audience. Your listeners on Apple Podcasts might look very different.
Most podcast hosting providers will give you a geographical breakdown of where your audience is. Although interesting, it’s not a very actionable insight.
If you really want to know more details about your listeners, there’s an easy solution: just ask.
A listener survey is your best option to get your specific questions answered. You can simply use a free survey tool (such as Typeform, SurveyMonkey or even Google Forms) and ask your audience for input.
🎯 Marketing Effectiveness
This answers questions like:
How are my marketing activities performing?
How many new downloads am I getting for specific growth tactics?
Was my last promo swap or social media campaign actually successful?
We believe it's critical that you know exactly how well your podcast growth campaigns are performing. You want to make sure you learn from every tactic and focus on the successful ones next time.
Podcast marketing attribution tools like Chartable ensure that you know how many new listeners you have gained from any campaign. Tracking can be tricky to set up but it allows you to see amazing insights such as how many people clicked on a specific link and subsequently downloaded one of your episodes.
Ideally, you identify your ‘cost per new download’ that allows you to assess how much money (or time) you have invested to get a new download.
🌍 Reach
This answers questions like:
How many people are listening to my show?
How are my different episodes performing?
How many people are following my show?
Podcast downloads is probably the number most people are familiar with. Keep in mind that this number only gives you information about how many times an mp3 was downloaded but doesn’t actually tell you how many people listened and for how long.
However imperfect, downloads are an important number to keep an eye on. Podcast advertising is sold based on download numbers and it’s a useful way to figure out at what scale your podcast is currently operating. It is also a number that is easily accessible to you: you can get an aggregate from your podcast hosting provider.
In addition to total downloads we like to look at followers on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Getting more followers is a key way to grow your podcast sustainably as those people might download your show automatically or will be notified when new episodes are available.
Thank you, Jonas Woost for writing this valuable piece! Stay tuned for more guest posts in the future.
From the desk of Tink
Ausha is the first podcast marketing platform with all the tools a podcaster needs to launch and grow their show. Beyond just hosting your podcast, Ausha also provides you with a set of tools to help market and promote your podcast. From their one-of-a-kind SmartLink, to a built-in newsletter, social media manager, podcast website, and even a video trailer, they’re ready to support your podcast every step of the way.
🌟 More Magic
The fiction podcast network Realm shared a guide on best practices for promoting podcasts through paid campaigns.
Lauren wrote for Descript: Want to build buzz for your podcast? Try a miniseries.
Couple weeks ago, Devin wrote: How to put your best promo forward.
Wow! This guide is really well done. For podcast measurement I'd add one more category: "Response." For me personally, this is the one I really care about: did any listeners reach and out and respond to the show on Twitter, email, comments, etc. If someone cared enough to send me a DM or email after they listened, that episode must have resonated.
Good stuff as always. I'm always a wee bit wary of using Reach as a metric, purely because it's a hit and hope ("we have 2,000 followers on Twitter so we can each 2,000 people", except that'd mean they'd all need to be on at the time you tweet, and actually see the tweet). It is a bit different for podcasts, since a follower generally does mean a listener, yet there's still no guarantee. Stickiness and retention are also great ones to look at, especially for sponsors.