How To Measure What Actually Matters When Podcasting

What’s the purpose of a compass if you don’t know your destination? Do you know where you’ll be with your podcast a year from now? How about 3 months from now?

These are the questions that I’ll help you answer by walking you through how to measure what actually matters when podcasting

Jump To It:

00:15 - Being aware of our podcasting purpose.
01:22 - Things to measure that actually matter.
05:13 - Considering quality over quantity.
05:47 - Reviewing download numbers as a goal.
06:35 - Reviewing social following as a goal.
07:27 - Reviewing opportunities as a goal.
08:20 - Reviewing monetization as a goal.
09:55 - Effective time frames for measuring the success of your podcast.
12:25 - When to evaluate your podcasting efforts.
12:37 - Episode 11 teaser!
13:02 - Fun notes and facts.

Measure What Matters To You

What do you want for your birthday? When we’re asked this question so many exciting present ideas comes to mind. You have a long list of present ideas, but which ones are the ones that will truly make you happy? To get the ones you really want, you start the process of elimination.

The same goes for our podcast. What do you truly want out of your podcast? Because next thing you know, you look at the calendar and realize you’ve been podcasting for a year. Then the next observation you make is the results or lack there of.

This is why it’s important to consider what actually matters to your podcasting efforts and measure them. Let’s review some common things to measure when podcasting, but remember that no podcaster is the same, so when considering what matters, it can be a lot different. Also, think of what you can control when it comes to getting results.

Common Things To Measure

Happiness - how happy are you planning, recording, and publishing your show?
Content - do you feel your content is it getting better? Still enticing your audience?
Downloads - how many download numbers do you want?
Audience engagement - how many individuals have you interacted with that listen to your show? It’s one thing to have download numbers, it a whole other experience knowing your listeners.
Social following - how much has your social following grown on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and your email list?
Opportunities - how many opportunities have you received as a result of your podcast?
Money - how much money have you made as a result of your podcast?

Please add or eliminate the list to reflect what matters to you. Personally, think most of those things matter. It’s the downloads and social following numbers that I feel are more of a vanity factor than anything. I don’t really care for them, but I’m aware and try to grow them.

Quality / Quantity

When it comes to measuring what matters, we have to consider quality over quantity. Both are subjective, which is why I ask that you (that as we go through this episode) reflect your goals and measurements to what matters to you. Let’s review some of those common things through this quality over quantity…

Downloads & Engagement

Quality over quantity: Your download numbers are humble, but the audience you’ve attracted to your podcast are those of a high caliber. Attracting some of the top people in your niche that wouldn’t even have known of you if it weren’t for your podcast. To top it off, they engage with you.
Quantity over quality: You have a lot of downloads, but no engagement, sense of the wrong audience, can’t seem to connect with them.

Social Following

Quality over quantity: Social media and email list numbers are humble, but it’s growing and you’re engaging with your ideal listener.
Quantity over quality: Social media and email numbers are huge, but you keep getting spam, weird direct messages, and tags.

Opportunities

The obvious opposite of quality is no opportunities, but here are some great opportunities that can happen as a result of your podcast:

Invited to be a speaker for a big event or conference.
Get invited to be interviewed on other podcasts.
Book deal
Movie deal

Monetization

Quality over quantity: humble download numbers, but sales are a direct result from your podcast.
Quantity over quality: huge download numbers, no sales and no returning advertisers, because your audience does not connect with you or your content.

Quality & Quantity?

Is it possible to have both? YES! In order to make this happen, we need to be intentional of attracting your ideal audience to have your podcasting dreams come true.

Timing

Now we have a great idea of what we want to measure, next we have to put a time frame…

Three months, six months, and one year.

An effective way of doing this is by reverse engineering the time frames. Write out what you want a year from now, then break that down into the sixth month, and do it again for the third month.

It’s also important to write these goals/measurements as statements.

For example: