Q: Are Your Downloads No Longer Growing?
While it’s tempting to blame August and the lazy days of summer, you may have a larger issue connecting with your audience.
This sign was in a restroom at a Sheetz gas station in Pennsylvania.
Your listeners are talking back to you. What are they saying?
The answers may lie in your audience numbers and whether you are really holding your audience.
Monitor these data points and make sure your content is engaging fans:
AUDIENCE DATA
Completion Rates - How long are you holding your audience? Check your consumption data on Apple and Spotify. Ideally, you should strive for 80% completion rates. But the more successful shows I’ve worked on usually exceed 90%.
Average View Duration - If publishing video, this is a tough hill to climb. Your average view duration may only range from three to eight minutes. I’ve heard some video podcasts hold their audiences 40 minutes or more. But they are the outliers right now.
Follower Growth - What are you doing to encourage your listeners to follow your show on Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music? You need to activate casual fans and convert them to every day listeners. So don’t be shy. Ask them to smash that Follow button.
Engaged Listeners - This is one of my favorite metrics on Apple Podcasts. These are your hardcore fans who are listening 20 minutes or at least 40% of an episode. How are you doing with your true blue fans? Is this number growing or eroding?
Heat Map - If you use Megaphone to publish your show, how soon are your listeners downloading episodes? Almost as soon as you publish? Hours later? You should check your data for the first 24 hours and the first 7 days? Do listeners take their time getting to your content? If so, then you need to instill more urgency in your fans. Remind them to download your podcast on the day it publishes or they will miss out.
Got a question? Got something you want me to investigate?
Drop a note to John@JohnWordockMedia.com and use Hey Woodchuck in the subject line.