Is my PODCAST doing WELL?

Amber Beels 0:00
I have had my podcast for a few months, and I have X amount of downloads. Is that even good? Let's talk about that. You're listening to Practical Podcast Tips. My name is Amber Beels. And today I'm going to cover tip number 36. Is my podcast doing? Well. It can be hard to know if your podcast is doing well in comparison to others. So what can you do to gauge where you are at? Alright guys, so podcasting is an amazing medium. It's really cool because it's something that's long form. But you also have a really, really loyal audience, because you have their attention for 1530, sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours long, depending on how long your podcast is. Podcasting is just a different animal than YouTube, or Instagram. You can't really compare views on YouTube, or likes on Instagram to listens or downloads on podcasting. It really it's like comparing an orange to like a monkey, like they are just so different. Okay? It's really hard to kind of gauge where you're at. So say, you're an influencer. Okay? And you have like 500,000 followers on Instagram, and you get on average, like, I don't know, 30,000 likes on a post. That's, that's pretty good, I think. But when you have a podcast, and you only have like, 20 downloads an episode, or maybe you have 500 downloads an episode, how do you know if that's good for your podcast? You know, podcasts tend to be super super niche they can be, I would argue that Podcasts can be more niche, then videos on YouTube or a channel on YouTube or an Instagram account, just podcasts tend to have like, super niche sub niche groups, and audiences. And that's what's amazing about podcasting is that, maybe you only have like an audience of 30 people, but you know what, those 30 people are going to be diehard for you. They're gonna love your podcast, they're gonna listen to every episode, and they're gonna look out for every new episode that you put out. And, you know, maybe you have a podcast about true crime. Okay, there's so many true crime podcasts. So if you want to gauge yourself in the true crime podcast genre, then you're going to want a bigger number than if you had a podcast about, I don't know, embroidery with a specific floss like, that is super, super, super niche. But you know, there's going to be people out there that want to listen to it. Now, I know you're like, Okay, that's nice amber, but like, how do I know if I'm doing well, I'm going to give you some numbers. And I'm going to link an article that I had found where I got these numbers from. So if you want to go to the show notes, and check out that article, then you can read it for yourself, it's a really well put together articles super easy to understand. And it just puts a lot of really good just statistics for you to look at. So the top 1% of podcasts, get around 3994 listens, a month. That's top 1%. You know what the top 50% is 3030 listens a month. So if you're getting over 30, then you're in the top 50%. If you're getting around 93, that's the top 25%. If you're getting 335 listens or downloads a month, that's 10% top 10% of podcasts. If you get 795 listens or downloads a month, that's top 5%. So you can see the different range of numbers like top 50 percents, only 30 downloads, like if you think about that, you're like, wow, that's not it's not a whole lot of downloads, like if you compare that to YouTube,

if your YouTube video only gets 30 views that's that's pretty, pretty sad, right? But in podcasting, if you get 30 listens or 30 downloads, then that's pretty good. That's top 50%. So you can see that podcasting is such a different medium. It's so different from video or photos on Instagram. It's just you have to have a different mindset and a different perspective. So the thing about a podcast on Anthony, I mentioned this a little earlier is that it's going to be more committed to your show, this audience is going to be diehard for you, they're going to be listening to your episodes, and they're going to be looking forward to them. If you have a show that's really niche, and you have a consistent 10 listener, or download rate, then that's amazing. That's a really good rate for a podcast to get consistently that many downloads or listens a month, especially it the more niche your podcast is. I knew this one podcast that was bad yard carding, do you even know what that is? Yard carding is those signs that you put outside that say like, Hey, my student graduated 2022, or whatever, it's a six that you put out in the in the lawn, that's called yard carding. I had no idea I learned something new. And there's a podcast about it. And that podcast grew pretty quickly. Because it's so niche, like, there was no podcast about yard coding. And your coding became very popular during the pandemic, because, you know, people weren't leaving, and they just wanted to decorate their house. So yard guarding a, but you know what I mean, it's just, you can have a super niche podcast like that. And if people find you, they're going to be and they're interested in that niche, they're going to be super committed, and they're going to be there every week that you post. Also, if you're looking for more of like an analytics, like, how is my podcast doing, most hosts have a basic analytics page to see the progress of your episode. As long as that line is trending up, it's good. Even if you have little dips, or plateaus, it's kinda like losing weight, your you know, as long as the line is just, well, if you're losing weight, you want the line to go down, not up. But you know what I mean, as long as you are trending in the in the direction that you want to go. Overall, then you're doing well. And say you hit a plateau. Like I said, if you have a super niche podcast, and you only have 10, committed listeners, that's 10. People that depend on your show, to come out every week, or bi weekly, or monthly, or however often that you post. And having that loyal audience is a super great feeling. Like, it's really nice to know that people depend on you, they look forward to your content. And you can know that you are providing value to a certain group of people, above all, if you are trying to do even better on your podcast, so you're doing well. But you want to do better consistency, consistency is key. If you have a schedule, stick to it. And I'm preaching to myself right now, because I know we didn't have an episode on Tuesday. But one is going out today, I promise so and just consistency is key. So always posting, sticking to your schedule. If you have seasons, stick to your seasons, take the breaks that you need to, you know, you don't want to burn out either. But consistency is always going to be your friend in podcasting. So I hope this really helps. And just remember everyone is different and every podcast is different. Don't compare yourself to super popular True Crime podcast when you have a super niche one. As long as you have your loyal listeners and you're growing little by little keep going. Because you're doing great, the fact that you have a podcast and the fact that you're sticking to it and you're staying consistent. That's a great, great feat that you are accomplishing. Most podcasts, seven out of 10 podcasts quit after three months. If you've been sticking with your podcast for longer than three months, then Yay. I applaud you because that is something that most people 70% of people don't do. So just know that you're doing great. Keep going at it keep being consistent, and you will grow and you will be appreciated by your target audience. Alright guys, that's it for me. I really hope this helped. I'll see in the next up. So hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please feel free to leave us a review. It really helps out the show. And I'd love to hear how it helped. Also, if you know someone else that could benefit from it, go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and I'll see you in the next episode.