Measuring For Podcasting Success

In today's post, I am answering a question from a YouTube comment that was left a few weeks back. It was a very simple question that gets asked quite a bit. 

Viewer, Jonathan Stubbs, asks, "How do you personally measure for success after a podcast launch?"

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER BEFORE DETERMINING SUCCESS

1. What are your personal goals for your podcast?

2. Which benchmarks do you need to look at when it comes down to having a successful podcast? 

3. Do you have a strategy in place for your podcast after you’ve launched it? What are your objectives? 

4. What are your goals?

Do you have a specific goal in mind when it comes down to the launch of your podcast, and seeing it succeed overtime?

Is your goal to get a certain number of downloads by specific date?

Are you trying to get more clients for your business? 

Are you hoping that you can make some money off of your podcast through sponsorships and ad revenue?

5. Are you looking to gain email subscribers? 

Are you trying to get people that you can stay in touch with on a consistent basis? 

What are you measuring for? You have to ask yourself that question: "What is my goal?"

If you don’t have a specific goal set in place prior to launch, how can you really measure for any type of success if you haven’t figured that out yet?

MEASURING FOR CONSISTENCY

Another way you can measure for success is by asking the question, "Am I staying consistent with my podcast?"

I know you may be asking yourself, "What do you mean by consistency?"

When I say "staying consistent" I mean, are you keeping up with a consistent podcasting release schedule? Are you releasing a podcast every week? Are you releasing a podcast every two weeks? Or, maybe are you releasing a podcast every two days?

Consistency is going to be key here because it’s also going to create a personal habit to create and release a podcast.  In turn,  your audience will expect to see that you have a podcast coming out every two days, or every week, or every two weeks.

Consistency is really going to be up to you. 

Consistency proves success over time.

If you’re creating a sporadic podcast and you’re launching whenever you feel like it, you may not see those results in your statistics later on down the line. You'll definitely notice inconsistencies.

APPEARING ON OTHER PODCASTS

You can also measure your success by trying to show up on other podcast within your niche, so that you can cross promote each other’s podcast or content.

This is a way to give someone else valuable content, insight, entertainment, education or whatever it may be. It's a very common practice within the podcasting space. 

PROMOTION AND MARKETING YOUR PODCAST

Are you promoting your podcast online?

How are you promoting episodes online? Is it through Twitter? Is it by putting something up on Facebook? Are you creating some type of promotional YouTube video that pushes to your podcast?

This will show whether you are staying consistent with actively promoting your podcast. 

Again,  when you come back to the statistics in your Libsyn or Blubrry account, you'll notice your statistical efforts.

THINK ABOUT MONITORING REALISTIC GROWTH

No matter how many online marketers out there tell you that you can get so many thousands of downloads in a certain amount of time, there's no magic bullet to garner wild download numbers if you haven't built an audience.

The difference between you and an online marketer is that they are building content around their business and have planted promotional seeds to see their audience grow.

Don't get me wrong, not all marketers are shady, but the good ones know what type of growth they are getting when they share their podcast to their built-in audience.

This doesn't mean you can't market and promote your podcast.  You will definitely need to learn some tips and tricks to marketing to get people to stick with your podcast.  That's why I'm here to help.  

NETWORK YOUR ASS OFF!

Networking is the key to most anything if you are looking to grow and build an audience of targeted individuals interested in what your podcast has to offer.  By networking with other podcasters, businesses, experts (or whoever fits your podcast style), you're basically marketing your podcast. 

Plus, when you network, you are typically put in touch with someone who might be able to help you or vice versa.  Networking never hurt anyone and only helped them achieve their goal.

YOUR PASSION IS YOUR PURPOSE AND SUCCESS

A rule of life goes:

If you’re passionate about something, you'll do anything to make sure that it works. Click here to tweet this quote.

If you're passionate about the topic that you are talking about and you are making efforts to accomplish all of the pieces that will make your podcast a success, you will see success. 

You may find yourself working on your podcast before or after work.  You may find that you are podcasting on the weekends. If you're looking to see a significant increase in your statistics, give yourself about 6 months to see where you started, where you've gone and where you're going. That’s how you’re going to be able to measure for success.

FUN = SUCCESS

The last way we can measure for success really is, are you having fun?

If you’re not having fun with your podcast and it becomes burdensome, then likely it’s not going to be successful.

Like with anything, whether it’s taking up a hobby like playing the guitar, playing the drums, knitting or woodworking and you’re having fun with it you see the results over time. That's when you know things are going to be successful.

It's gotta be on you constantly chip away at success  everyday until you get better at it.

Make sure you’re practicing with your podcast and building it out every single day.

Don't think that all of these things have to happen at once.  They take time to master and accomplish.  That's why I mentioned above that you should set realistic goals for your podcast. 

How do you measure for podcasting success after a launch?  By setting goals prior to launch. 

Just as my dad always used to tell me, "You gotta work at it just a little bit everyday. If you work at it just a little bit everyday, you get these small wins. And when you see those small wins, they equal one big win."