Downloads do not define success.
And I’ll say again for the people in the back, downloads do not define success.
We think about podcasting all day, every day. Not just the audio experience side of the production, but we think about how to tie success to a business outcome.
And a business outcome is rarely if ever, connected to a download number.
Yet, downloads do matter. They are a metric of performance.
Think about it like this, if you put on a show and you can’t fill the room, there are typically two reasons (1) no one knows about it (2) the experience isn’t great.
Defining Success
Before we get into the metrics to pay attention to for tracking performance, let’s start with the crucial question, “how will you determine if your show is a success?”
This question is answered based on the desired outcome you want to achieve. For us, we bucket B2B shows in 1 of 3 pillars.
Podcasts for building community. The business outcome here is for driving connection between listeners advancing a cause and ideology. These types of shows look at downloads much more intentionally and likely will spend additional budget for advertising and specific marketing opportunities for the show.
We like to think of these of high concept podcasts and they rarely fit the mold of your traditional interview led show.
Podcasts for training and culture. The business outcome here is based on driving recruiting and retention. Practically speaking it’s used as a way to feature voices of employees or key culture stakeholders.
We’ve had some cases where a show replaces the company ‘town hall’ allowing people to get their internal communications on demand. We’ve also seen success for using the show as a resource for ongoing training purposes — your travel warriors they’re your ideal listener.
This style of show can be unlisted for internal access only.
Podcasts for growth. This outcome is for brands looking for ways to feature voices of subject matter experts and often part of their ABM campaign. Another voice for this podcast style is sharing the voices of customers.
To put it simply the focus is to connect strategically to a prospect, partner, or someone they want to learn from.
When you choose an outcome of success, suddenly, the definition of how you’ll achieve it becomes more clear.
Here are some examples
- Podcasts for building culture = employee engagement
- Podcasts for building engagement = new community members, increased interactions, etc.
- Podcasts for growth = relationships earned or renewed
Metrics of Performance
If you want to understand how your show is performing, then you look at metrics of performance.
Based on the data, you can make smart decisions to help improve performance but it doesn’t mean your show is failing if your success outcome is defined separately.
I like to keep things in perspective. Now to the data,
Stats to Track:
- Downloads: How many people accessed your show by downloading an episode from a podcast client? (i.e. Apple Podcasts, Spotify).
And yes, for purposes of clarity, a download is a stream, listen, play, etc. Look specifically at 1-day downloads. This number shows how eager people are to get the show then look at 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day timeframes to see long term trends. Rather than look at absolutes (how many listened or didn’t), we track variations off a baseline, while monitoring growth overtime.
2. Subscriptions: To an email list or offer, which will be the call-to-action in the show. All shows should offer listeners something outside of “listen to my podcast” to drive insight into who their fans are.
3. Consumption: We look at how much of an episode was consumed, looking for improvement over your own baseline. Internally, we have a goal of all cleint’s shows at an average of 75% of consumption. If we are trending below that line, we might have an editorial problem (or we are marketing the show to the wrong persona).
4. Total Interactions: When you share the show’s content whether intentionally or buried in other content (i.e customer newsletter or general thought leadership post with a link to podcast), do we see an increase in engagement? How many views did our videogram promoting the podcast get? Did we get people to take the call to action? You get the idea. Total interactions are part of the data landscape.
Now what?
If you’ve not been tying your show to a success outcome, do that. If you have been, refine it. Then track the data based on the four buckets above.
Overtime, you may add to the metrics of performance (for example, add in tracking reviews, earned media opps etc..) but starting with the bases covered will equip you for longterm podcasting (and content) success.
