Why Downloads Aren’t The Best Way to Measure Podcast Success

I hear it all the time - "How do I get more downloads on my podcast?", "How can I make it to the top of the charts?"

And I get it - these metrics are the only measures we're automatically provided with when it comes to podcast hosting platforms and the public perception of how successful your podcast is doing.

But with nearly three years of podcasting experience, I can tell you that from a business perspective, the download numbers and chart position aren't the crux of having a successful podcast that works for your and your business.

Sure, exposure is good - the same way getting a radio interview, "going viral" and having an article written about you can all raise awareness of you and who you are.

But we're in the business game - not the podcast sponsorship game, which is prediominantly run on download numbers.

We're here to make our podcast work as part of our nuture sequence, of building our authority and enabling people to get to know and trust us, as well as teach them something they didn't know before.

Which is exactly why I'm gonna share with you why the podcast download numbers aren't the most important measure when deciding if your podcast is succesful and doing well or not.

What You'll Learn In This Episode:

- The difference metrics for measuring the success of your podcast (that aren't just the download numbers!)

- Understand the customer journey and sequence behind the podcast, and how the podcast fits into nurturing leads and creating a pipeline.

- What it really takes to make a "successful" podcast, beyond making it in the Apple Podcast charts.

Best Moments:

- "The success of your podcast can be looked at objectively... but the charts are not going to tell you the data that only you know, which is how many leads is it bringing in and how many leads are you able to nurture through that process."

- "The next time you feel like you're panicking about the downloads on your podcast, take a step back and think, instead of worrying about trying to grow this thing, how can I connect better with the audience?"

- "So when it comes to considering the success of your podcast, you can spend each week looking at the numbers, stressing over the numbers and thinking. The numbers are what it is. But my question to you would be, especially if you're a podcast that's already out there, if you are getting a thousand downloads per week, putting you in the top 5% nearly of all podcasts out there, where are those thousand people going?"

Want to start a podcast? Download the FREE Podcast Starter Checklist, a 15-point guide created specifically for entrepreneurs, life coaches and course creators.

Music by Kadien: Instagram | Spotify | SoundCloud

Transcript

Chantelle Dyson: 0:00

People will continue to find you through your podcast even without promotion, so then think about how they can find you With promotion. It's the system behind the podcast that is going to make your podcast a success or not. What are you doing to actively keep people listening? What are you doing to bring people into your world? What are you doing to connect with the people in your podcast community? Hello and welcome to the Big Vision Business Owners Podcast. This is the place for business owners that have a message that they want to share with the world, and we'll be talking on this podcast about how to get seen online, how to raise your visibility and actually get your message out there so that you can have that impact on the world. We are all about creating a true connection with your audience, building a community around your podcast, what you do that feeds in to your business. That can lead to growth leads and more sales. And, finally, we're all about changing the world changing the way the world thinks, by helping you to share your message so you could have that impact, leave that lasting legacy and be part of greater change in the future, and I'm your host, sean Tildyason, who's here to do it with you along the way, I'll be sharing my expertise and experiences with being a Big Vision Business owner, with being able to create content online the clever way, which means not having to spend hours on your phone, and together we'll be looking at how we can raise your profile online to get your message seen and heard. And with that, let's get on with today's episode.

Chantelle Dyson: 1:38

Welcome back to another episode, and we are obviously sticking with the topic of podcasting. That's what we're here for, but today we're looking at the ways that you can measure the success of your podcast. This is something that people worry about, whether they're just starting a podcast or they're well in, because you're getting statistics, just like you have a following on Instagram, just like you have views on Reels and TikTok videos. There is the old download count that you see on your episodes every week, and if you use Buzzsprout, like me, then you also get access to all the other stats that they provide, whether that's in the last seven days, 30 days, 90 days, all time, as many of these other platforms do. And so you start to look and you go well, what does that even really mean? And download numbers are the most obvious thing to look at, and if you want to know some of the stats around downloads. I'm going to go straight to a Buzzsprout article when I prepared earlier To make sure that we get the information right, as I share this.

Chantelle Dyson: 2:42

So, in terms of popularity, if that's the route we're going down, then popularity wise, if you want to know what percentage you're in, if you get in the first seven days of your podcast, if you get 31 downloads on your episode, it's in the top 50%. It doesn't take a lot to get in the top 50% of podcasts that are out there, does it? And to be in the top 25% you've got to quadruple that 120 downloads in the first seven days After that. Oh, that's interesting. From a mathematical point of view that really is interesting. Times it by four again and you get to 480 and that means you're in the top 10%. Not quite times four this time it's about two and a half-ish. Top 5% is 1,120 and top 1% of podcasts is just under 5,000 downloads in the first seven days of that episode. So not collectively. So the Single Girls Guide to Life used to sit somewhere between the top 25% and the top 10%. That was where it was at most of the time.

Chantelle Dyson: 3:44

I do get the summary email that it gets somewhere between. The last week's one was a little bit lower, which I would expect. I don't promote it at all 300 downloads. We get some peaks around Valentine's Day. It's much stronger in winter because people are searching those terms. That's always there.

Chantelle Dyson: 3:59

Please remember that your podcast, if you put it out there and you've optimized it well enough, it will be found forever. People will continue to find you through your podcast even without promotion. So then think about how they can find you with promotion if you've optimized it, gone for the right topic, called it the right things, etc. So that's just one way to measure the success of your podcast and most people think, okay, that's it. Someone asked me bless them. They launched their podcast and they were like well, what kind of numbers mean it's doing well? And I was like well, actually for a starting podcast, really hard to say because, should you compare yourself to the first seven downloads is something that's been around for years when you're on week one and so you don't have as big a following in general, and this person is commanding and demanding. You know, follow, ship, loyalty and therefore downloads. It's different. So that's a comparison model and the other comparison model that a lot of people Head towards.

Chantelle Dyson: 4:56

Are the charts now the chances a nice place to be? If you listen to last week's episode, you'll remember that I mentioned that if you do a hard launch You're more likely to get to the charts at the top, which in itself just gives you a little bit of sight, to say a little bit of status around it, and then people are gonna pay more attention to it because it's a an Apple 100 top podcast. So that in itself has a little bit of leverage and it is exciting to see your name up among there around people that you're like oh my god, that's mad, like I'm up against these names in the charts. But the charts are constantly moving so you can look at how well you stay up there. You can look at that, but it is comparative, so certain charts are easier to get to the top of.

Chantelle Dyson: 5:35

I believe the business chart is the hardest Because it has the most podcasts. So you choose something different and and it's not the same Level of difficult to get to because there's less competition in it. So those are the two external ways to measure your podcast that I would say you might even have thought of while sat there. You're thinking number of downloads and if I can get into the charts. However, it's not the only way and not the most effective way to measure the level of success of your podcast in In the context of a business.

Chantelle Dyson: 6:10

If you are looking at your podcast to be something that gets a lot of sponsorship all the time although downloads are not the biggest thing, but they're a requirement for many companies to consider a sponsorship they're looking for a thousand downloads for each episode and that would take you in the first seven days if it were. That takes you into the top 5% of podcasts, which is not unachievable at all. It's something that takes time and you'll also find that some people, some companies, don't care about that number. They're purely there for the niche market that you're in, that they don't care if it's literally 20 people, but actually just getting in front of those 20 people for a reasonable medium amount of money is Directly targeted because of the a thousand people it might be. Unless you're niche down, that could be a thousand random people and they really want to just find the people that they're looking for to build brand Awareness with, with their brand. So if you do want to sponsorship model, don't think it's all numbers, but your numbers are gonna make it more convincing when you're trying to cold kind of pitch to a company.

Chantelle Dyson: 7:15

It's obvious why people think that this is the way to measure the success, because you're given all of the stats on it. You see everyone sharing that they're in a particular chart, especially on launch day, in few weeks after launch. But the reality is is that, from a business perspective, none of that matters. If it's not working in your business, if it is not Enabling you to bring the leads into the business, then you're missing a trick. And if it's not bringing in leads, then it needs to be nurturing the leads that you do have coming in through whatever means tick, tock, instagram, facebook, networking, in person, anything you like. But the idea is is that you aren't doing all of this work to get in the charts and get download numbers. It's not the right number to be measuring. The number that you want to be measuring is how many people is it bringing into my business or how many people is it doing? The Touchpoint work of that I would otherwise not be able to do.

Chantelle Dyson: 8:16

I don't know about you, but I find that when I have a powerful conversation with someone where I get to ask questions, get to listen to them and understand them. My conversion on that their willingness to come to Warsmusell and I work with you is incredibly high. Yet if you're doing that in person, it's not really scalable. Yet. When you have a podcast, okay, I can't ask them questions specifically, but I can very much understand the position they're in and Start creating content around the problems that they're facing in the way that I would if I were in person with them.

Chantelle Dyson: 8:50

Pretty much every podcast Episode that I come up with, in whatever context, is always thought of from. What conversations did I have this week in the DMs in Person? What was it that people said to me that they felt they needed help with or needed to have solved for them? That's a big influence on the content I create, because I'm thinking well, if you're experiencing that, there's got to be someone else out there that I've never met there also is experiencing that too, and if my podcast episode can help them and start to connect with them, then one great for them. If that then helps them and they're on their way, fabulous. And In the second line as well, if it then makes them go yes, that is something I need help with and actually you knew that then they're going to be more inclined to potentially work with myself for being able to connect with them in that way, even from afar, and go from there.

Chantelle Dyson: 9:44

So the success of your podcast can be looked at objectively From the outside through all of these charts, but the charts are not going to tell you the data that only you know, which is how many leads is it bringing in and how many leads are you able to nurture through that process. That latter one is very, very difficult to measure, but what I can tell you is that people will come to you and tell you I've been listening to your podcast and this, it's a very Terrible way to be able to measure it, unfortunately, a really naff way, because people can listen Without being known to you. They can listen to every episode you've got, they can subscribe, and you don't get a subscriber list, and it takes them to make a forward action at some point and tell you that they have listened to the podcast. Now you can obviously encourage and tease that information out of people. You can add it to your Instagram stories and ask them, and then you might get some reveal about did you listen to the episode this week? Yes, no, or it's on my list.

Chantelle Dyson: 10:54

You find out who the listeners are, who the knows are, and ultimately you're like, oh, is there any reason you didn't listen to that episode? Or what episode would you have listened to? What should I do? An episode on next? Like all of that data you can create conversation on, do further market research of and decide if those are the kind of people that you want to try and cater to or not. But either way, you don't know them until they tell you it's immeasurable, whereas the leads it's not fully measurable either. But you can do some things to increase that, such as placing lead magnets on and having them come through the system in a way that you would be able to measure how many come through from that.

Chantelle Dyson: 11:31

Ultimately, whenever you're having conversations with people that come into your world, you can say to them how did you find me? And if someone says, by your podcast, fab you less and again it's not clear cut. But when you do start to get these leads, they will become followers Over time. If your content is compelling enough, establishes you as an authority enough and understands the person on the other side enough, then you're going to find that people will naturally follow on Spotify and Apple subscribe. They will then come across to Instagram and they will then want to download a lead magnet at some point, whether it's straight from the podcast. I mean, you're gonna possibly get instant buys if you set up your funnels well enough.

Chantelle Dyson: 12:15

I know that everyone talks about funnels, but ultimately, podcasting is like tier two of your funnel it can be tier one, it's just that they might not find you. It's more like they found you and then you had a podcast that they felt compelled to listen to. They were interested in what you had to say and wanted to learn more about you. In some ways, we can get them to come to us as the attention piece. But this podcast any podcast is about the getting to know you, getting to know your methods, getting to know your energy, deciding if you're someone they want to work with and if you can help them in the first place, and all of that. They get to do that decision making before they ever maybe have a conversation with you, and that conversation may not even be to do with working with you initially, but they get to make all of that decision and ultimately, we want our clients to make decisions before they get to working with us. We want them to think do I wanna work with that person? Do I want that person to help me with that problem? What problem is that person gonna solve for me? And they need to decide enough to come towards you. It does so much work in that sense.

Chantelle Dyson: 13:26

Now you don't at that stage get to qualify them in or out. That's very much them deciding if you are the right person for them. You've gotta do your due diligence through whatever means, whether it's through filling in a form, whether it's through actually having a call and talking to someone. You have to get to know them and you're on the back foot. But the fact that they potentially have listened to your podcast have decided that and then made some movement towards you. If they have indicated they listen to the podcast or that they're even a subscriber and they listen all the time, that's gonna give you a better energy because you know they've come to you knowing plenty about you. They've not just met you briefly at networking and they've got trying to establish trust. They've already built up some level of trust. That's there.

Chantelle Dyson: 14:10

So when it comes to considering the success of your podcast, you can spend each week looking at the numbers, stressing over the numbers and thinking. The numbers are what it is. But my question to you would be, especially if you're a podcast that's already out there, if you are getting a thousand downloads per week, putting you in the top 5% nearly of all podcasts out there, where are those thousand people going? Because we can try and double that, triple that, quadruple that I don't know what comes after that but get you in the top 1% by getting to 5,000 downloads a week. But what's gonna happen if you couldn't convert the thousand or a good proportion of them, even when we double those In part? I want to make sure that people are ready to take on a podcast for the right reasons. If you want to grow the podcast, let's grow the podcast, but be at the right stage that we've made sure we've converted all the leads that we can out of the pipeline prior to trying to grow it even more all the time. Who are those thousand people? We don't know. How can we encourage them to make themselves known in our world? And then let's bring them properly into our world, and that's what makes a successful podcast.

Chantelle Dyson: 15:30

It's not the podcast itself that makes the podcast successful.

Chantelle Dyson: 15:33

It's the system behind the podcast that is going to make your podcast a success or not?

Chantelle Dyson: 15:40

What are you doing to actively keep people listening? What are you doing to bring people into your world? What are you doing to connect with the people in your podcast community? That's what determines the success of your podcast how many people you're bringing in, how many people you're taking through and how your system sits behind the podcast. So the next time you feel like you're panicking about the downloads on your podcast, take a step back and think, instead of worrying about trying to grow this thing, how can I connect better with the audience? I've already got to a point at which they want to take a step towards me and that I've got all the systems in place behind that, with lead magnets, nurturing sequences and outreach to be able to communicate with them, see if they're a good lead, a good fit for the business, and actually convert some of these people. Then, once I've mastered that, let's focus on the growth of the podcast. Until next time, everybody keep changing the way the world thinks, one podcast at a time.