What metrics are you using to measure your podcast’s success?

Podcasting is a fantastic business marketing option. It’s a uniquely transparent and personal way to showcase your thought leadership, your services, and your authentic self—all without having to style your hair. Like any marketing strategy, podcasters inevitably want to see how successful their show is, and it’s understandable that they turn to popular metrics like downloads to figure this out.

In this episode, Mary breaks down why traditional advertising-focused stats might not be the best pick for independent podcasters. Instead, she suggests exploring value-based metrics like evidence of audience trust and indirect benefits to your business. These values, while harder to measure, tend to create a more telling picture of just how successful your podcast truly is.

Discover hard-hitting tips that will reveal your podcast’s full impact:

  • The harder-to-measure values that matter as much or more than “vanity metrics”
  • How building your credibility helps increase your publicity
  • The very real action your calls to action can ignite
  • How to combine traditional metrics and meaningful values for comprehensive proof of your podcast’s success

Links worth mentioning from the episode:

Connect with Mary!

Podcast cover art by Emily Johnston of Artio Design Co.

Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN // INTRO]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hey there. This is episode number 69, intangible values of a podcast. What it means for stats, metrics, and monetization. 

[INTRO MUSIC FADES // NEW MUSIC IN]

As I always say, podcasting is an awesome way to market your brand or business. By having a podcast, it showcases exactly who you are without having to read between the lines. It’s you and your voice. So in some ways, it’s much more authentic than a caption on a social media post or even a video, where we feel the need to look just right. You know, we kind of have to be put together for the video. But when your podcast is an audio-only platform, feel free to wear your sweatpants or just your pajamas. However, when podcasters are looking at metrics, so looking at their stats, their downloads, and figuring out what all those numbers mean for their bottom line, it makes sense to look at your stats to figure out if your podcast is successful. But what is that success that you’re looking for? And if you’re looking at just the download numbers, you’re actually missing out on a lot of nuance and benefits for your podcast outside of those numbers. But let’s first take a look at why even stats exist and how stats have become a beacon for podcasters.

[MUSIC ENDS] 

In the traditional advertising platform. So we’re talking radio, TV. Hey, even social media platforms like today, YouTube advertisers wanted a way to measure consistently how people were consuming their content, so how they were listening. In our case, in order to do that, downloads were used as the main form of measurement. However, depending on where your podcast is actually hosted, those measurements could calculate bots, that are just randomly downloading your episodes,  along with the actual people that are hitting play on that play button and listening. And since podcasting, the whole industry is still so new relative to I was talking about those traditional platforms, that it was only recently the Interactive Advertising Bureau came up with IAB-certified stats. Interactive Advertising Bureau certified stats so that the podcasting industry now has this consistent form of measurement of listeners, if and only if, your media hosting platform is certified to use IAB stats. 

Now, I’m not going to go further down into the weeds on all of this and certain media hosting platforms if they’re certified or not, and all of that, because as independent podcasters like you, we’re not always focused on needing IAB-certified stats. They are actually only crucial for ads and sponsorships, which you could very well have on your podcast. However, for the majority of podcasters, they use their podcasts to showcase their own brand and monetize it through their own programs, affiliate links, or as a way to share their knowledge and gain trust as a form of marketing, to get more clients or customers into their business. So, these are all intangible values of a podcast, and they are often overlooked because we want those vanity numbers to make us feel good and we have something to compare to others, right? Is my podcast successful? Well, how would you know unless you can compare it to something and all those other fraudy feelings, they do come up because we are human, after all. We all want to be liked and in community, and so we want to be accepted. Perhaps in this podcasting world, those are all feelings that we all have from time to time. But what if we look at things we can’t directly measure to then actually measure our success? 

[MUSIC IN]

Now, what I’m going to talk about next is mostly for hosting your own show. But many of these items and values can overlap if you are only looking to be a guest on other people’s shows. So let’s take a look at some of these values. The first one is thought leadership. This is the big one. You get to be the thought leader in your industry, meaning people are always looking to others for their perspective and knowledge, and you get to take the lead on that one. Your point of view on your episodes, or being in the sphere of other notable people in your industry when you interview them, will bring others into your world. You’ve created a platform, your podcast, where your insights and ideas are publicly acknowledged. This way it builds you as the authority in your industry, and especially with your solo episodes. If you have them, you can go deeper into your ideas and challenge the status quo, that makes you unique and stand out from the crowd. Because again, it’s your thought leadership that we’re looking for. We’re not looking for the same old, same old that is tried and true that we can get anywhere else when we google. We are looking for someone with a unique thought to lead us in our industry. So through your thought leadership, you are building credibility. That is valuable. 

[MUSIC ENDS]

So yeah, let’s talk about credibility, which is essentially about trust and respect. Your podcast is your own piece of publicity. Like I was saying, it is your platform. You are creating your own show. It’s creating that star power that comes with being a quote unquote, host before the time of podcasts in order to get the publicity that you want, that trust and respect that others are looking for. You’d have to search for and earn the media’s attention being on other people’s platforms or shows. So, for example, trying to write an article in the paper or being featured in a segment on TV or on the radio. Nowadays, with content creation, you own your media. So with your podcast, you create and control the message. You’re using your podcast to build your brand. You’re actually building your credibility this way. This adds to your publicity, where people’s attention will look to you for your expertise. You don’t have to be the actual expert. I actually have some clients who are like, well, I don’t actually want to be the expert. I just want to bring all these knowledgeable people together and interview them. So, yeah, you don’t have to be the actual expert, but because of your podcast and through it, you’ve gained a lot of experience and knowledge through your podcast that others will find valuable. You can share other people’s knowledge from your podcast. 

For example, many of my clients use their podcast as a way to showcase their speaking skills, which leads to paid speaking gigs or invites to present at conferences or events. So because they had their own podcast, that gave them some clout, and people knew that they can listen to their show and figure out in that moment what their speaking skills were like and invite them to that conference or event. 

[MUSIC IN]

This takes us next into influence. Once you have that credibility down, your influence can grow. Others will look to you and then they will take action on the questions you ask or the points of view that you make. Many podcasters take action because they trust the host and what they have to say. And even research on frequent podcast listeners in the US and Canada, uh, this was done by Acast. It highlighted a significant increase in the number of listeners taking action after hearing an ad. In the US, 95% of listeners say they took action, while 88% of Canadians said the same thing. So that is a lot of trust. Okay. And while this research is for ads specifically, I’m also wondering what that could mean for nontraditional ads. Like when a host is talking about something they love or suggest a product or service that they use themselves. More like influencer marketing. These types of ads weren’t directly measured in that podcast research. However, I would guess that the results would be the same, if not even higher, because they come from the host themselves, versus a traditional ad which could be produced somewhere else with someone else’s voice. 

Now, usually the recommendation for podcast ads is you do it yourself anyway. But there are the traditional ones out there which listeners still take action on as we’ve seen with the research. So what I’m saying is that the key to all of this is your voice. That your voice matters, and it is the number one instrument you have to market yourself. There’s no better platform than one that highlights and spotlights the voice itself, like in podcasting, where you can hear intimately all the emotion, the sarcasm, and the vulnerability that no other platform can provide. How many times have you rewritten a caption or added so many emojis to let your reader know what you’re trying to say? Or maybe you’re recording a video or doing a reel and you’re like, I don’t really feel like myself, but I’m doing this anyway. So, when you are podcasting and you’re behind the mic, it is just you, your voice, and your listener. And through all of that, your listener will hear all your joy as well. Because podcasting is a passionate thing to do, and it is so fun to do. 

[MUSIC ENDS]

And that’s the last piece I’ll leave with you today. One of the values I hear a lot through my client work and listening to other podcasters is just how much fun it is to do that. The podcast also becomes so much fun that they don’t want to give it up. I’ve had a couple of clients now where the podcast also becomes their main form, if not only form, of marketing. And that joy is immeasurable. Being able to bring light into your day and where marketing doesn’t become just another task that you have to check off and do. Looking forward to interesting interviews or deep diving into your chosen topic for a solo episode can be so, so much fun. So start asking yourself if you’re thinking about the level of joy you have to your podcast. What can you do to streamline to make this more enjoyable? What are some tasks that you wish you can offload so you can focus on the fun parts that you like? You know, some people do love the editing. Some other people only want to plug in the microphone and talk, others interviews only. So what parts of the podcast process do you love the most? 

And if you’re not having fun, it’s really time to peel the layers back to find the joy in it again. It’s always helpful to have someone come in from an outside point of view to rediscover the joy for podcasting again. So I’d love to be that person. If you feel like you’re in that fishbowl and you’re not quite sure what’s going on with your podcast, but you know you need some support. I’m always an email away. You can schedule a complimentary 30 minute strategy session. Find the link on my website at http://www.visiblevoicepodcast.com, or also, as always, the links are in the show notes, as you know. 

[MUSIC IN]

So to sum up, although you might not be able to directly measure these values like in your stats, but you can start to pinpoint some of these values alongside the stats of your podcast. So, for example, did you get any spikes in downloads after a talk or event that you participated in? What type of feedback did you get when you chatted with a potential client? They might say, for example, oh yeah, I heard you on your podcast, talk about XYZ, or maybe even an indirect connection, say, to a social media post that you made from promoting an episode. So, as an example, I was a guest on someone else’s podcast, and so we were connected through LinkedIn. But months, months later, they saw one of my posts about one of my solo episodes and connected with that content. So then they scheduled a strategy session right away because they’re like, wait a minute, I need this on my podcast. So, although your podcast might not be making money for you directly, these intangible values grows your brand. And from there, people are more likely to trust you and eventually work with you, because you have that thought, leadership, credibility, and influence. And you know what? Sounds like you’re having fun, so they want to work with people who have fun, too. 

Marketing is not easy and so isn’t podcasting. But when done with, intention can be the perfect match to grow your brand. So whether you are looking for more joy, or want to know how these intangible efforts are paying off for you, I’d love to collaborate with you on an audit for your show or to see where else we can tweak and level up your show. So let’s see what’s working, what needs improvement, and to line these all up with your goals for your definition of success. Again, as I said, you can get a complimentary 30 minute strategy session. You can find that on my website, http://www.visiblevoicepodcast.com, or drop me an email, visiblevoicepodcast@gmail.com. Alright, until the next episode, I’ll talk to you then.

[MUSIC ENDS // PAUSE A BEAT // OUTRO – SHOW CLOSE]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

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