November 24, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode, I look into the many ways you can measure the success of your podcast beyond just download numbers. Too often, new podcasters get fixated on stats that might not actually reflect their true goals, whether that’s growing their business, building a community, or simply having fun. I share 12 alternative metrics—including email list growth, audience engagement, speaking opportunities, and more—so you can assess your progress and celebrate wins that go way beyond downloads. I also mention some valuable tools, companies, and podcasts to help you along the way. This episode (as all of my recent episodes) uses chapters.
Apple and Spotify Completion Rate
When you go into the dashboards of Apple and Spotify, you can see how far people listened to your show. I'm an old teach so for me 70% is a C. 80% is a B, and anything above 90% is an A. The beauty of both these platforms is you can click and listen at any point that shows a drop of so you can see if it was something you said that cause the dropoff.
Listeners: The number of unique devices that have played more than 0 seconds of an episode.
Engaged Listeners: The number of unique devices that played at least 20 minutes or 40% of an episode within a single session. Pausing or stopping an episode does not count as starting a new session.
Spotify shows People You reached (people who have seen your show), People who Showed Interest (they interacted with your show, which may be an indicator of episode titles o artwork), People who consumed (so they listened to your show).
Unprovoked Audience Feedback
This is my favorite. You put out an episode, and 24 ours later you've got emails in your inbox, DMs on social giving you feedback. For me, this is a great indication that your episode resonated with your audience.
Email List Growth
If the goal of your show is to monetize, this metric is KEY. I know for me, I focused on lead magnets and growing my list, and those efforts resulted in me growing my list by 39%
Growth in Community
You can look at your community growth, this could be Facebook, Discord, Heartbeat (my favorite), Circle, etc. School of Podcasting member Mark Lawley who does the Practical Prepping show with his wife Krista. They have 155 thousands people in their community. I do not recommend using Facebook (or any free service) for your community. Paul G shared in his interview how he lost a five figure community. I've been kicked out of my own Facebook group, and moved to Heartbeat (which now has a great AI tool that makes setting up a community a breeze).
Business Metrics
If the goal of your show is to grow your business, then looking at the number of customers, the revenue generated should be something to look at. I hear people all the time mentioned how they will measure the goals in downloads and later say they want to make some income. Then I believe you may want to measure your success in income.
Attribution Stats
If you ask people who interact with you and the answer to the question, "How did you find me?" If the answer is, "I heard your podcast" that is something you can measure and let's you know your SEO and word mouth is working.
Being Asked to Speak
We had unprovoked audience feedback, this is unprovoked opportunities to appear on other podcasts, speaking gigs, or other media appearances.
Are You Being Seen as The Authority
Have you heard yourself being quoted? You can see what websites are linking to yours (which may be someone you collaborate with). This article from SemRush explains how to see who is linking to your website?.
Consistency in Schedule
Consistency in...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I am always confused when I ask someone who says I
want to start a podcast, I'll ask them why. I'll ask them who, and then
I'll say, how are you going to measure your success? And they
always look confused and go, well,
downloads. And I'm like, okay. And as I dig into
more of what they're trying to do, it turns out they want to turn this
(00:20):
into a business. To which I then say, well, shouldn't we be
measuring success in revenue? And
they go, oh, yeah, I guess. And so you don't
have to make money with your podcast. But often we get
disappointed when our numbers go, well, not
the way we want them to or not as fast as we want them to.
(00:42):
And so what I wanted to do today was point out
11 different ways you can measure success that have
nothing to do with with downloads. Hit it, ladies.
The school of podcasting with Dave
Jackson. Podcasting since
2005. I'm your award winning hall of fame
(01:04):
podcast coach, Dave Jackson. Thanking you so much for tuning in.
If you're new to the show, this is where I help you plan, launch,
grow. And if you want to monetize your show today, I'm going
to maybe help save your sanity. And the website
schoolofbodcasting.com use the coupon code
listnr when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly
(01:26):
subscription. You'll hear more about that later. But yeah,
it's always kind of interesting how somebody
will. You know, I usually say, why are you doing this? Who is this for?
What's your content gonna be? And then how are you going to measure your success?
And it just dumbfounds people. They're like, well, downloads. And
I was like, look, yes, that is one way to measure
(01:50):
if things are working or not. But I thought about it and I was
like, there are a lot of other ways to measure your
success. And what I wanted to point out was one of these
stats. I grew by almost 40% this year.
And so while my download numbers, I just
looked, they're kind of. I'm, I'm fairly consistent
(02:13):
that I get about
7,000 downloads a month. But then in October
or no, September, that went over 10,000.
And yeah, September was 10,000,
October was 16,000 out of nowhere. And I thought, well, I bet there were
five Mondays that month. No. And then
(02:35):
likewise, In February of 2025,
I was down to 5,000. So it kind of comes and
goes. And so if I only base
my success on downloads, I would need
medication. And so what I wanted to point out, I'LL give you an
example. My show. I do this show
(02:57):
to help you plan, launch, and grow your podcast. But the
way I measure my success is how many people sign up for the School
of Podcasting. So in January, my numbers go through the roof because
everybody's like, I'm gonna start a podcast. And then in February, those numbers go down,
much like gym memberships in America, but my
membership goes up. So I really thought about this,
(03:20):
and this is what I just. Some of the ones I came up with, the
first one, and I think this is more important
than downloads. And that is if you go into Apple and I'll have links to
these out in the show notes, just go to
schoolofpodcasting.com 1011. This
one goes to 1011, right? So I'll have links
(03:42):
to these. But if you log into Apple or
Spotify's dashboard, you can see
how far people are listening. Now, I will say,
be careful what you wish for, because there are times where, like, man, I wish
I knew how people, you know, how far people were listening. And then you
go in and you go, well, it says
(04:05):
42. Like, 42%.
And they're like, is that good? And then I go, well,
I hate to say this to you, but I'm an old teacher,
and where I come from, 70% is a C,
80% is a B, and anything above 90 is an A. So
42 is not something
(04:28):
that you know. It's a great place to start because you
can kind of only go up from there. But keep that in mind. That
is a way to do that. And what's really great about this
is you can go in, especially in Apples, if you see all of a
sudden just your, you know, the little line that's showing people are
still listening just turns into a waterfall because they're all leaving. You can click
(04:51):
there and hit the play button and say, like, what did I say here
that caused everybody to leave? And I remember once I
was looking at these, I do a show with Daniel J. Lewis called the Future
of Podcasting. And we were talking about just freedom of speech.
And I said the T word that rhymes with rump
and just mentioning that person's name. There was
(05:13):
a significant number of people, they're like, I'm out of here. So keep that
in mind. I always say, right? There's, you know,
religion, politics, or other things you just should mention, even if
you're just using it as an example. Number two. And so you
can do that. Now, what's interesting is in
Apple, there are things called listeners this is the number of
(05:35):
unique devices that have played more than zero seconds of an
episode. So if you're looking for like how many actual people,
then there's engaged listeners. This is a number. I like to look at
the number of unique devices. Again, people that
played at least 20 minutes or
40% of an episode with a single session.
(05:58):
And I know you could say, but Dave, what if I have a phone and
an iPad and a computer? Okay, right. And how
many people do that? So there's that. And you can
use that as a metric. Now Spotify shows
people you reached. That's how many people actually
got to see your stuff. And then they have people who showed
(06:19):
interest. That means they interacted with your show. And that might be
an indicator of your artwork or your title.
And then people who actually consumed so
they listened or watched your show. Those are stats you can
use to see am I going up or down? And that can help you with
things like titles. So like when you put episode six,
(06:42):
Dave Jackson, that does not make people want to click. But if
you say you know how to grow your podcast for free, people
will click on that all day long. Now don't be clickbaity.
Don't I look at your episode title as a
promise. This is what I'm talking about then. So
that's one, your completion percentage. And again,
(07:05):
be careful what you wish for. And, and if it is lower than you think,
that's okay. That's feedback that you could go,
oh, I thought people loved my three hour shows because after all,
Joe Rogan does it. Well, Joe Rogan's
Joe Rogan. And you're not. At least not yet. And it
may. The beautiful thing is you might find
(07:28):
out that, hey, maybe my audience wants a
shorter show, which means it doesn't take as long to make the show, or maybe
they don't want a daily show or maybe whatever, but you can get some feedback
on that. Now keep in mind, when you're looking at Spotify's
dashboard, that's only people that listen on Spotify. When you're
looking at Apple's dashboard, that's only people that listen in Apple.
(07:50):
Now the downloads, if you're looking for downloads, you want to look at your media
host. And yes, if somebody listens on a website and they listen for at
least a minute, it will count as a download in your media host.
Speaking of that right now, in fact, this is coming to an end this week,
I believe I'll have to double check. But Captivate, which is one of my
favorite. I love Captivate. Love Buzzsprout. Those are probably my top two.
(08:13):
And then even that it's with podcasting, it's always
a. It depends on what you're doing. But Captivate has a deal right now. If
you buy a year's worth of hosting, you get four months free. And what's
cool is that's for existing customers, too. Because I was doing monthly
and I was like, hey, can I get in on that? Even though I'm
not a new customer? And they're like, yep. So if you're looking to
(08:37):
get four months free, yes, you have to buy a year, and that's a
chunk of change. But if you can do it, that's a good deal.
All right, so meanwhile, and yes, I will say if you go
out to. Again, schoolofpodcasting.com 10 11.
The link for Captivate will be an affiliate link. So it's a way to support
the show without actually, you know, spending extra money. Number three,
(08:59):
another one, and this is my favorite, is
unprovoked audience feedback. This means you put out
your episode and you didn't say something
like, you know, go to schoolofpodcasting.com?
that's the question of the month. That is a provoked answer. I am telling
you where and what to say and how to go. This is just. You
(09:22):
just put out an episode and, you know, hey, if you know anybody who would
like this show, tell a friend. And then you wake up in the morning and
you've got three, four, maybe emails from people
going, man, that really touched me. Or, you know,
what? The. The interview was good. I kind of
knew most of what that person was saying. But I am going to implement this
(09:44):
strategy that's unprovoked audience feedback.
And I'm here to tell you that'll make you feel giddy.
You're just like, ooh, wow, people are listening. I couldn't believe it. And when they
do that, when you get that feedback, always,
I can, like, bold, double underline, always
reply to that and start a conversation. Hey,
(10:07):
thanks so much. And then I always ask them, you
know, do you have a topic you would like me to talk about in the
future? I am wide open to talking about
that. I got one from Timothy Keem
o' Brien that I'm going to be working on here in the future,
because he left a comment, and I'm like, hey, thanks so much. And I said,
(10:28):
is there anything you would like to see? And he goes, yeah, and you'll have
to follow the show and find out later what he said. But I'M working on
it. So unprovoked audience feedback.
And here's another one. This is the one that I looked at and was like,
holy cow. If the goal of your show is
is to monetize, this is a key metric.
(10:49):
And it's not downloads, it is number
four. How much is your email list growing now? If you are a
regular listener to the show? You know, I always put somewhere in
the middle, there's a little commercial for the school of podcasting and then There's a
quick 15 second that just says, want more podcasting?
Whatever observations or insights, go to podcasting
(11:12):
observations.com and I have
grown my email list by 40%.
Now I also have an email and this is a mess,
for the record, But I was amazed that I grew at 40%. Part of it
is I have lead magnets. Like if you go to school of
podcasting.com best practices, I did an
(11:33):
episode where I gave you 15 best
practices. If you go to schoolofpodcasting.com
best practices, you can get the original 15 and
six more, I believe, if I remember right. And
that lead magnet, my email list I then use to a grow
my audience. But I also use it and I have a coupon
(11:55):
code in there. Like right now, you heard me say at the beginning of the
show, if you use the coupon code listener, you can save on your, you
know, monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription. Well, in, in my newsletter,
because I'm creative, I have a coupon that is,
you guessed it, newsletter. And they get a discount. Now, for the
record, it's the same discount. It just lets me know where you came from.
(12:17):
And so just by simply coming up with some league
magnets. Not that, by the way, that AI created. These are not
AI created lead magnets. Nothing wrong with AI created lead magnets, but
these are a little more honed in. We talked about the boots on the ground
kind of information in the last episode. And so
I was amazed that just by promoting it and I have
(12:40):
pop ups now on my website, which I realize are kind of annoying, but
it did grow my email list by 40%.
So that's another metric that you can go, okay, well, my downloads are kind of
staying the same, but I'm growing my email list.
And so keep that in mind that you might
be getting kind of kicked in the teeth. Wow, these numbers
(13:03):
are just not going the way I want them to. But then you go
over for me, I was like, wait, what? 40%?
And I've got a calculator. I'll put in the show notes so
you just put in, where did you start? Where did you end up? And it'll
be like, okay, here's how much growth you had. And I was like, it was
like 38.7 or something like that. And I'm like, I'll take
39%, number five. And so another way,
(13:26):
if you have some sort of community, you can look at your
community. Now, this could be Facebook or Discord. I love
Heartbeat. Heartbeat just came out with an AI feature
that they. In the demo video makes it
so easy to set up a.
Some sort of. Whatever you want to call it, a community. Because I know I
(13:48):
had somebody sign up over there, and just getting it up and going was
confusing. And so they left, and I was,
like, kind of bummed. And now Heartbeat has this
new thing, or you could use Circle. There's a bunch of these. School
is another one. And so, I mean, I give you
an example, Mark Lawley of practical prepping.
(14:11):
He has. I went over and looked. He does a show with his wife Krista.
They are both lovely people. I got to hang out with them at
the Empowered Podcasting Conference this year. And they have.
Are you ready for this? He has
115,000
people in his Facebook group.
(14:33):
Just let that 100. Like, that's a stadium full
of people in his Facebook group. Now, for the
record, I don't recommend Facebook or any free
service for your community. Paul G. Was
on an episode. I think he lost 85,000 people in a Facebook group.
I've been kicked out of my own. I got kicked out of my own Facebook
(14:55):
group. What was the horrendous thing I said? I went in and said,
hey, lunch with Dave starts in 20 minutes. And they banned me and said I
was a spammer. I'm like, it's my Facebook group. Took me about
a little over two months, maybe six weeks to get
that back. And I would have only gotten it back because I had a podcast,
because I reached out to you and said, does anybody know anybody that works at
(15:18):
Facebook? So that could be something
that you could look at to see. All right,
what part of my show is successful and
it might be your community? And this is where we're going to go back
to the P word. We say it in every podcast
episode. It kind of depends. Hey, this is
(15:41):
future Dave. And I figured out that depends doesn't start with the letter P.
But apparently I'm tired, right? Because
maybe you don't have a community. Maybe you're not looking to monetize,
so you don't really care about your Email list, you know, so keep that in
mind. But these are other things that aren't downloads, that
in the event you're kind of like, downloads aren't really doing well. Okay.
(16:04):
It's like when you're like, well, I haven't really lost a lot of weight, but
my blood pressure's down. Well, that's good. And your cholesterol's down. Okay,
well, you're headed in the right direction. So that's another way to measure
success. Number six. And then this one does
go with. If you're trying to make money with your
podcast, one of the best ways to use a podcast is to use
(16:27):
it as the marketing arm of your business. And so if the
goal of your show is to grow your business, then looking at the number
of customers, the revenue generated, that's why
I. If you wonder why I always say that coupon code at the beginning, I
want to be able to trace that back. I rarely put that
in print. And so if somebody uses the coupon code listener,
(16:49):
it's because you're a listener. And so the revenue
generated should be something that you could look at. And
again, I really get confused why people
say, yeah, I'm going to judge my success. And look, I
shouldn't say that that sounds negative. They just haven't thought it through
that if the goal of the show is to make money, well,
(17:12):
again, as I'm saying today, there are many ways to
judge your success. But if the goal is money, I
believe you should be measuring your success in income.
And if you want to get super specific profit,
because I hear a lot of gurus like, oh, I did $8 million
last year. I'm like, okay, how much profit did you make? Oh,
(17:35):
$13.57. Because you're paying a team of,
you know, 60. You know, my buddy Ray Edwards,
when had to file bankruptcy and he was making millions, why? Because
he had a giant team. I love the fact that he was so
transparent about that. And why did he do that? Well, because everybody else had
a team. So that's another way you can
(17:58):
measure your success. Number seven. Here's another one. And I was like, you
know what? This is something that you could measure. And I'm going
to call it the attribution stat. Because attribution is
a kind of a word in podcasting that some people
go, ooh. Because there are some ways that people are tracking
podcast listeners and they call that attribution. So I can
(18:21):
see that, you know, so and so clicked on a link
and yada, yada, yada, they do that a lot
in advertising. That is not what I'm talking about. But the theory
is the same. And so if you ask people
who interact with you and they answer the question
when you say, so how did you find me? And the answer is,
(18:44):
well, I heard your podcast. I remember my
friend Pat Flynn, great guy, going to be a
keynote speaker at podfest and just super nice
guy. And I knew Pat when he was just a blogger and then
he started his podcast and he said he was kind of bummed out because
he put a lot of time and effort into his blog. But when he talked
(19:06):
to people, he said, well, how did you like? What's your favorite part?
And they were like, oh, I listen to your podcast all the time. They weren't
ignoring his blog. But when it came up to how did you found me? How
did you found me? Yes, how did you found me? Is
it really. It's not even late. How did you find me?
He. It was always his podcast and so
(19:28):
that might be it. And it lets you know that your
SEO, right, using keywords in your titles and things
like that without being again clickbaity or stuffing it
or that word of mouth is growing. Number
eight. And then another one is being
asked to speak. We talked
(19:50):
about unprovoked audience feedback.
This is unprovoked opportunities to appear on
other podcasts or speaking gigs. I'm speaking at the
National Religious Broadcasters Conference
next year in Tennessee. Looking forward to that. That
was an unprovoked ask. They just said, hey, this
(20:13):
is coming up next year. We'd like you to speak. And I
was like, okay, so this could be other media
appearances, I've been on tv,
things of that nature. That could be something again, if that's your
goal now, if that's your goal, you have
to make sure people know that you're a
(20:35):
speaker. And so if you ever wonder why
there's a segment of this show that says where am I going to be? Well,
number one, I want to meet you. And if you're in the area
and can attend that event, it'd be great to hang out.
So that's one. I'm also promoting the event.
So that's, you know, the, the event actually likes the fact that I'm saying come
(20:58):
to PodFest in January. And the fact that I always
say if you'd like me to speak at your event, go to
schoolofpodcasting.com contact so
that is something that I don't track as much
toe for crying out loud, here comes another 10 second tangent. 10
seconds indeed. Such absolute rubbish. Here's a
(21:20):
thought. Alex Sanfilippo, if you're listening, here's an
idea, because I love Pod Match. Podmatch is a great
place to be found as a guest. And if you're
looking to find guests over there, I
like Pod Match. They've kind of gamified it a bit. And. And Spotify has
that year end review. It'd be interesting if they did some sort of
(21:42):
urine review so you could see how many shows you appeared on or how
many guests you had or things like that. So if that's something that you're trying
to do, you could do that. Ugh.
Finally back to the show. And then this is
kind of a number nine, an offshoot of that. So
being asked to speak. But I'm gonna count this as a different one. And that
(22:04):
is, are you being seen as the authority? You
were the river. I can't do Cartman. What's going on?
The river sparked my authority. Right. So from south park.
Have you ever heard yourself being quoted? I have.
It's kind of cool. It's hard to watch your ego. Like you got to kind
of grab your head and make sure it doesn't go crazy. What I always
(22:27):
feel bad about is when people say, there
is no. Dave Jackson always says, there's no such thing as
too long, only too boring. And I swear, I always say that is Valerie
Geller. I am quoting Valerie Geller. So if you're quoting me
quoting Valerie Geller, just give the quote to Valerie. I love that
quote. But here's the thing you might want to do.
(22:49):
You can go see what websites are linking to
yours, which may, for the record, be someone
you collaborate with. And there's an article from
Semrush which is a cool tool for SEO. It's kind of costly,
but they have a free version. But it explains how you can see who
is linking to your site. I think you can just go in
(23:12):
to Google and type in links colon
and then your website address and it will show you people that are linking to
you. But that would be something. If you're trying to be seen as the authority,
then that's a way you could do that. Number 10,
another one, especially if you're brand new,
that you could use as a measurement of success,
(23:35):
is simply, are you consistent
in your schedule? Because I talk about this
all the time. When you are consistent in schedule, whatever
the schedule is, that it
makes it easier for your audience to put you into their
routine. Every Friday I go to
(23:57):
Walmart because that's how I Party. On the weekends, I go to
Walmart and I grocery shop. Why? Because nobody's in there.
And I listen to podcasting 2.0 with Adam Curry
and Dave Jones on Saturday morning. I
listen to Pod News Weekly Review with James Kridlin
and Sam Sethi as I am getting up, showering,
(24:20):
making my breakfast, getting ready to do Ask the podcast Coach, you
become part of their routine. And so if you're a
person that's struggling with that and then later you're
not, well, congratulations. That's something to be proud
of. Now, I always say if you're like, if
you're starting off your show going, hey, it's Monday and
(24:42):
I don't know what I'm going to talk about today, that's not being consistent.
That's wasting your audience's time. Because I would much
rather have a quote, if we could use air quotes here, a late
show that was supposed to come out on Monday, but now it's Tuesday.
I'd rather have a late show that was like, remarkable than
an on time show that was okay. Well, that wasn't
(25:04):
horrible, right? And speaking of things that hopefully
aren't horrible, here's a quick word about the school of
podcasting number 11. And then
here's another one. I remember
when I was doing the Logical Weight Loss podcast many moons ago,
I started off with, I thought one audience, and I found
(25:26):
out much later, oh, that's not who's listening to this at all. And
so one of the things you can measure is quality of audience.
So just because you're attracting people, are you attracting
the right people? So if we're looking at
Ray over around the layout, right, the show, he's
(25:46):
been on a guest and he does a show about
model trains, well, that's great. But if Ray gets a bunch of
people that love knitting, he's like, yeah, we're not really here
to talk about knitting. We're talking about, you know,
model railroads. So are you getting the right people?
And you're like, well, what if I'm getting the wrong people? Well, I remember
(26:09):
when Super Joe Pardo, who used to run an event,
did a show and he just attracted a
completely different audience than what he wanted.
And he had to kind of go, well, I could tweak my content
to better attract the people I was shooting for, or,
(26:29):
hey, look, I got an audience. What do they want?
Daniel J. Lewis is another great example of that. His show is called the
Audacity to Podcast. And he meant it as the audacity,
as in like the courage to Podcast, but there is that software
called, you know, Audacity. And so when he first started,
he got a lot of people thinking they were going to get Audacity
(26:52):
tips. And so what did Daniel do? Yeah, he gave them
Audacity tips. And then he also asked them,
what are you guys looking for? And so some of them said, well, I've got
this Zoom P6 thing. You can't figure it out. Oh.
So Daniel went and made a course, and then,
you know, he found out that they wanted more engagement, so he made
(27:13):
podgagement. And then he saw that, you know, there are
some media hosts that don't support chapters, so he
made pod chapters. So he gathered an audience.
Wasn't really the audience he was looking for because he was, I think,
originally just promoting. He used to do artwork. He doesn't do that anymore.
But he gathered an audience and went, well, okay, I got an audience.
(27:36):
Because you don't monetize a podcast. You monetize
an audience. And he went, what do you guys need? One other
example, I'm working with Ralph Estepp Jr. Who's the content
creators accountant dot com. And Ralph
realizes he has to make sure to be clear, he's there to help you keep
the money you make. Not so much how to make content,
(27:58):
how to grow your audience. He's like, no, no, I'm here to help you. And
as a content creator, you've worked hard to make your money. Here's how you keep
it, and here's how you grow it, and here's how you grow your business. So
you have to make sure you have the right audience. Number 12, the
last one. And this is the one that
encourages longevity. You know, I've had people
(28:21):
ask, Dave, you've been doing this over 20 years now.
How do you keep doing it? Why? Why haven't you burned yourself out?
And number one is, I do a weekly show, and
if I had to do this show more than once a week, it would make
me crispy or it would be much shorter, something
like this. But I call this the fun and
(28:43):
fulfillment factor. And it
starts off, I always say, when you first start out,
start a timer, whatever it is, if you're using Toggle or Clockify
Me or just the, you know, the timer on your phone,
measure how much time you're putting in. And then you want to make sure
to take your life and see if there's enough room to squeeze
(29:06):
in your podcast, not
take your podcast and see if you can squeeze your life into your podcast.
Because that's just a recipe for Burnout. But some other things
when it comes to the fun and fulfillment factor,
which again, starts with creating a schedule you can live with. But
are you a better communicator or interviewer than when you
(29:29):
first started? Well, that's something to go, hey, look, I'm
making progress. Do you feel more confident explaining
your topic? Do you feel more confident behind the
microphone? Do you feel less of the imposter
syndrome? That whole nine. For a lot of
podcasters, especially when you first start out that first year,
(29:51):
that's really the huge improvement. My buddy
Nancy May from Family Tree Food and Stories. So
if you're a foodie that loves stories, check it out.
I'll put a link in the show notes again. Schoolofpodcasting.com
10:11 and she went back and listened to some
of my early episodes and she's like, wow, you've changed
(30:12):
a lot. I'm like, well, I hope so. That would be
disappointing. So. So that is something when you first start off, really, sometimes
that first year is just you getting comfortable behind the mic, and then
year two, you make better content, and by year three,
your audience is sharing that. But the fun and
fulfillment factor is something like, hey,
(30:34):
I used to hate my show and then I
hired a bunch of editors or I outsourced all the stuff that
I hated, and now I like my show again. Well,
that's something that you can go, yes, this is more successful.
And I will now keep doing my podcast because I'm seeing growth
here. So those are all ways that are not
(30:57):
really having to do with downloads that you can use to
go, hey, is my show getting any better? And you may be
surprised that, yeah, there's a lot of things that are improving
that have nothing to do with downloads. And that's something to be
encouraged about the school of
podcasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two quick
(31:20):
things. Apple has adopted chapters in Apple
Podcasts. And I logged in at
podcasts again with AN S All one word podcast
podcasts connect apple.com
and I kind of like the way Apple does this. And that is, hey, if
you're not doing this, we're going to add this to your
(31:42):
show in Apple Podcasts. And so their
chapter kind of little option, and you log in, you click on your show, and
you go to. I think it's accessibility. And there's an option for
chapters. And it basically says, hey, if you're not adding chapters
to your show, we will put them in. And
those will be visible on Apple Podcasts.
(32:04):
So keep that in mind if you're like, I have no idea what you
just said, then you're fine. But for me,
because I use media hosts like Captivate and Buzzsprout
and Blueberry will do them as well. And if you're not using a host that
does Chapters, then you could go to
podchapters.com I love this tool.
(32:26):
And you can add chapters. It just makes it easier to
listen to your show, especially if it's a show like this
where I have multiple topics. If you're not doing any
of this, at least in Apple Podcasts, they are now going to add
them to your show. For people who use Apple
Podcasts automatically, the other thing I just wanted
(32:48):
to briefly mention here, if you're a member of the School of Podcasting,
I think I talked about this on the show, I was using a video host,
Adilo, and they went
down for a week. So basically I had a spell there as I was
moving videos that none of the videos at the School of Podcasting were working,
which was embarrassing, infuriating and other things. So I've moved a
(33:10):
lot of them to a different host, but in the meantime they came back. So
if you're a member of the School of Podcasting and you saw that all the
videos are back and I'll be working with a Dillo in in the
future to correct some things. So I just wanted to put that in there.
And if you need help with your podcast, whether it's planning,
launching, growing, monetizing, if you need
(33:32):
some feedback on your show, check out podcast
hotseat.com because I have been doing this for 20 years
and I love helping podcasters. It's what I do.
I can't wait to see what we're going to do together. And
again, if you want to join the School of Podcasting, it is, I swear, one
of the best communities. I'm in a lot of different communities. I really
(33:55):
love our community. You can go out to
schoolofpodcasting.com, click on join, use that
coupon code listener. That'll save you on either a monthly,
quarterly or yearly subscription. And that comes with a 30
day money back guarantee. So until
next week, take care. God bless in class is
(34:15):
dismissed. And if you're in the us, enjoy your
Thanksgiving. And if you're not, enjoy your Thursday.
If you like the show, please share it with a friend.
If you like the show, pretty, pretty please share it with a friend right
now. If this was twice
a week, I would have burned out years ago for me.
(34:39):
And this is again where that P word comes in. It is know What? It's
not the P word. It's the D word. Wow. I am really tired today.
It's. Depends. Not.
Yeah. Because the P word. Wow. That could mean a whole lot of
things. Penguins. Yeah. Anyway.
Wow. So it's fun for me.
(35:02):
And this is what I always say. Don't pick a schedule
and then try to fit it into your life.
You want to pick a. I'm saying that backwards. I'm.
Wow. What? This is what you get when you're not.
I'm using bullet points today, but not as much as I used to. Let's do
this part over, because I'm lost in the woods.
(35:27):
Yeah.
I am always confused when I ask someone who says I
want to start a podcast, I'll ask them why. I'll ask them who, and then
I'll say, how are you going to measure your success? And they
always look confused and go, well,
downloads. And I'm like, okay. And as I dig into
more of what they're trying to do, it turns out they want to turn this
(00:20):
into a business. To which I then say, well, shouldn't we be
measuring success in revenue? And
they go, oh, yeah, I guess. And so you don't
have to make money with your podcast. But often we get
disappointed when our numbers go, well, not
the way we want them to or not as fast as we want them to.
(00:42):
And so what I wanted to do today was point out
11 different ways you can measure success that have
nothing to do with with downloads. Hit it, ladies.
The school of podcasting with Dave
Jackson. Podcasting since
2005. I'm your award winning hall of fame
(01:04):
podcast coach, Dave Jackson. Thanking you so much for tuning in.
If you're new to the show, this is where I help you plan, launch,
grow. And if you want to monetize your show today, I'm going
to maybe help save your sanity. And the website
schoolofbodcasting.com use the coupon code
listnr when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly
(01:26):
subscription. You'll hear more about that later. But yeah,
it's always kind of interesting how somebody
will. You know, I usually say, why are you doing this? Who is this for?
What's your content gonna be? And then how are you going to measure your success?
And it just dumbfounds people. They're like, well, downloads. And
I was like, look, yes, that is one way to measure
(01:50):
if things are working or not. But I thought about it and I was
like, there are a lot of other ways to measure your
success. And what I wanted to point out was one of these
stats. I grew by almost 40% this year.
And so while my download numbers, I just
looked, they're kind of. I'm, I'm fairly consistent
(02:13):
that I get about
7,000 downloads a month. But then in October
or no, September, that went over 10,000.
And yeah, September was 10,000,
October was 16,000 out of nowhere. And I thought, well, I bet there were
five Mondays that month. No. And then
(02:35):
likewise, In February of 2025,
I was down to 5,000. So it kind of comes and
goes. And so if I only base
my success on downloads, I would need
medication. And so what I wanted to point out, I'LL give you an
example. My show. I do this show
(02:57):
to help you plan, launch, and grow your podcast. But the
way I measure my success is how many people sign up for the School
of Podcasting. So in January, my numbers go through the roof because
everybody's like, I'm gonna start a podcast. And then in February, those numbers go down,
much like gym memberships in America, but my
membership goes up. So I really thought about this,
(03:20):
and this is what I just. Some of the ones I came up with, the
first one, and I think this is more important
than downloads. And that is if you go into Apple and I'll have links to
these out in the show notes, just go to
schoolofpodcasting.com 1011. This
one goes to 1011, right? So I'll have links
(03:42):
to these. But if you log into Apple or
Spotify's dashboard, you can see
how far people are listening. Now, I will say,
be careful what you wish for, because there are times where, like, man, I wish
I knew how people, you know, how far people were listening. And then you
go in and you go, well, it says
(04:05):
42. Like, 42%.
And they're like, is that good? And then I go, well,
I hate to say this to you, but I'm an old teacher,
and where I come from, 70% is a C,
80% is a B, and anything above 90 is an A. So
42 is not something
(04:28):
that you know. It's a great place to start because you
can kind of only go up from there. But keep that in mind. That
is a way to do that. And what's really great about this
is you can go in, especially in Apples, if you see all of a
sudden just your, you know, the little line that's showing people are
still listening just turns into a waterfall because they're all leaving. You can click
(04:51):
there and hit the play button and say, like, what did I say here
that caused everybody to leave? And I remember once I
was looking at these, I do a show with Daniel J. Lewis called the Future
of Podcasting. And we were talking about just freedom of speech.
And I said the T word that rhymes with rump
and just mentioning that person's name. There was
(05:13):
a significant number of people, they're like, I'm out of here. So keep that
in mind. I always say, right? There's, you know,
religion, politics, or other things you just should mention, even if
you're just using it as an example. Number two. And so you
can do that. Now, what's interesting is in
Apple, there are things called listeners this is the number of
(05:35):
unique devices that have played more than zero seconds of an
episode. So if you're looking for like how many actual people,
then there's engaged listeners. This is a number. I like to look at
the number of unique devices. Again, people that
played at least 20 minutes or
40% of an episode with a single session.
(05:58):
And I know you could say, but Dave, what if I have a phone and
an iPad and a computer? Okay, right. And how
many people do that? So there's that. And you can
use that as a metric. Now Spotify shows
people you reached. That's how many people actually
got to see your stuff. And then they have people who showed
(06:19):
interest. That means they interacted with your show. And that might be
an indicator of your artwork or your title.
And then people who actually consumed so
they listened or watched your show. Those are stats you can
use to see am I going up or down? And that can help you with
things like titles. So like when you put episode six,
(06:42):
Dave Jackson, that does not make people want to click. But if
you say you know how to grow your podcast for free, people
will click on that all day long. Now don't be clickbaity.
Don't I look at your episode title as a
promise. This is what I'm talking about then. So
that's one, your completion percentage. And again,
(07:05):
be careful what you wish for. And, and if it is lower than you think,
that's okay. That's feedback that you could go,
oh, I thought people loved my three hour shows because after all,
Joe Rogan does it. Well, Joe Rogan's
Joe Rogan. And you're not. At least not yet. And it
may. The beautiful thing is you might find
(07:28):
out that, hey, maybe my audience wants a
shorter show, which means it doesn't take as long to make the show, or maybe
they don't want a daily show or maybe whatever, but you can get some feedback
on that. Now keep in mind, when you're looking at Spotify's
dashboard, that's only people that listen on Spotify. When you're
looking at Apple's dashboard, that's only people that listen in Apple.
(07:50):
Now the downloads, if you're looking for downloads, you want to look at your media
host. And yes, if somebody listens on a website and they listen for at
least a minute, it will count as a download in your media host.
Speaking of that right now, in fact, this is coming to an end this week,
I believe I'll have to double check. But Captivate, which is one of my
favorite. I love Captivate. Love Buzzsprout. Those are probably my top two.
(08:13):
And then even that it's with podcasting, it's always
a. It depends on what you're doing. But Captivate has a deal right now. If
you buy a year's worth of hosting, you get four months free. And what's
cool is that's for existing customers, too. Because I was doing monthly
and I was like, hey, can I get in on that? Even though I'm
not a new customer? And they're like, yep. So if you're looking to
(08:37):
get four months free, yes, you have to buy a year, and that's a
chunk of change. But if you can do it, that's a good deal.
All right, so meanwhile, and yes, I will say if you go
out to. Again, schoolofpodcasting.com 10 11.
The link for Captivate will be an affiliate link. So it's a way to support
the show without actually, you know, spending extra money. Number three,
(08:59):
another one, and this is my favorite, is
unprovoked audience feedback. This means you put out
your episode and you didn't say something
like, you know, go to schoolofpodcasting.com?
that's the question of the month. That is a provoked answer. I am telling
you where and what to say and how to go. This is just. You
(09:22):
just put out an episode and, you know, hey, if you know anybody who would
like this show, tell a friend. And then you wake up in the morning and
you've got three, four, maybe emails from people
going, man, that really touched me. Or, you know,
what? The. The interview was good. I kind of
knew most of what that person was saying. But I am going to implement this
(09:44):
strategy that's unprovoked audience feedback.
And I'm here to tell you that'll make you feel giddy.
You're just like, ooh, wow, people are listening. I couldn't believe it. And when they
do that, when you get that feedback, always,
I can, like, bold, double underline, always
reply to that and start a conversation. Hey,
(10:07):
thanks so much. And then I always ask them, you
know, do you have a topic you would like me to talk about in the
future? I am wide open to talking about
that. I got one from Timothy Keem
o' Brien that I'm going to be working on here in the future,
because he left a comment, and I'm like, hey, thanks so much. And I said,
(10:28):
is there anything you would like to see? And he goes, yeah, and you'll have
to follow the show and find out later what he said. But I'M working on
it. So unprovoked audience feedback.
And here's another one. This is the one that I looked at and was like,
holy cow. If the goal of your show is
is to monetize, this is a key metric.
(10:49):
And it's not downloads, it is number
four. How much is your email list growing now? If you are a
regular listener to the show? You know, I always put somewhere in
the middle, there's a little commercial for the school of podcasting and then There's a
quick 15 second that just says, want more podcasting?
Whatever observations or insights, go to podcasting
(11:12):
observations.com and I have
grown my email list by 40%.
Now I also have an email and this is a mess,
for the record, But I was amazed that I grew at 40%. Part of it
is I have lead magnets. Like if you go to school of
podcasting.com best practices, I did an
(11:33):
episode where I gave you 15 best
practices. If you go to schoolofpodcasting.com
best practices, you can get the original 15 and
six more, I believe, if I remember right. And
that lead magnet, my email list I then use to a grow
my audience. But I also use it and I have a coupon
(11:55):
code in there. Like right now, you heard me say at the beginning of the
show, if you use the coupon code listener, you can save on your, you
know, monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription. Well, in, in my newsletter,
because I'm creative, I have a coupon that is,
you guessed it, newsletter. And they get a discount. Now, for the
record, it's the same discount. It just lets me know where you came from.
(12:17):
And so just by simply coming up with some league
magnets. Not that, by the way, that AI created. These are not
AI created lead magnets. Nothing wrong with AI created lead magnets, but
these are a little more honed in. We talked about the boots on the ground
kind of information in the last episode. And so
I was amazed that just by promoting it and I have
(12:40):
pop ups now on my website, which I realize are kind of annoying, but
it did grow my email list by 40%.
So that's another metric that you can go, okay, well, my downloads are kind of
staying the same, but I'm growing my email list.
And so keep that in mind that you might
be getting kind of kicked in the teeth. Wow, these numbers
(13:03):
are just not going the way I want them to. But then you go
over for me, I was like, wait, what? 40%?
And I've got a calculator. I'll put in the show notes so
you just put in, where did you start? Where did you end up? And it'll
be like, okay, here's how much growth you had. And I was like, it was
like 38.7 or something like that. And I'm like, I'll take
39%, number five. And so another way,
(13:26):
if you have some sort of community, you can look at your
community. Now, this could be Facebook or Discord. I love
Heartbeat. Heartbeat just came out with an AI feature
that they. In the demo video makes it
so easy to set up a.
Some sort of. Whatever you want to call it, a community. Because I know I
(13:48):
had somebody sign up over there, and just getting it up and going was
confusing. And so they left, and I was,
like, kind of bummed. And now Heartbeat has this
new thing, or you could use Circle. There's a bunch of these. School
is another one. And so, I mean, I give you
an example, Mark Lawley of practical prepping.
(14:11):
He has. I went over and looked. He does a show with his wife Krista.
They are both lovely people. I got to hang out with them at
the Empowered Podcasting Conference this year. And they have.
Are you ready for this? He has
115,000
people in his Facebook group.
(14:33):
Just let that 100. Like, that's a stadium full
of people in his Facebook group. Now, for the
record, I don't recommend Facebook or any free
service for your community. Paul G. Was
on an episode. I think he lost 85,000 people in a Facebook group.
I've been kicked out of my own. I got kicked out of my own Facebook
(14:55):
group. What was the horrendous thing I said? I went in and said,
hey, lunch with Dave starts in 20 minutes. And they banned me and said I
was a spammer. I'm like, it's my Facebook group. Took me about
a little over two months, maybe six weeks to get
that back. And I would have only gotten it back because I had a podcast,
because I reached out to you and said, does anybody know anybody that works at
(15:18):
Facebook? So that could be something
that you could look at to see. All right,
what part of my show is successful and
it might be your community? And this is where we're going to go back
to the P word. We say it in every podcast
episode. It kind of depends. Hey, this is
(15:41):
future Dave. And I figured out that depends doesn't start with the letter P.
But apparently I'm tired, right? Because
maybe you don't have a community. Maybe you're not looking to monetize,
so you don't really care about your Email list, you know, so keep that in
mind. But these are other things that aren't downloads, that
in the event you're kind of like, downloads aren't really doing well. Okay.
(16:04):
It's like when you're like, well, I haven't really lost a lot of weight, but
my blood pressure's down. Well, that's good. And your cholesterol's down. Okay,
well, you're headed in the right direction. So that's another way to measure
success. Number six. And then this one does
go with. If you're trying to make money with your
podcast, one of the best ways to use a podcast is to use
(16:27):
it as the marketing arm of your business. And so if the
goal of your show is to grow your business, then looking at the number
of customers, the revenue generated, that's why
I. If you wonder why I always say that coupon code at the beginning, I
want to be able to trace that back. I rarely put that
in print. And so if somebody uses the coupon code listener,
(16:49):
it's because you're a listener. And so the revenue
generated should be something that you could look at. And
again, I really get confused why people
say, yeah, I'm going to judge my success. And look, I
shouldn't say that that sounds negative. They just haven't thought it through
that if the goal of the show is to make money, well,
(17:12):
again, as I'm saying today, there are many ways to
judge your success. But if the goal is money, I
believe you should be measuring your success in income.
And if you want to get super specific profit,
because I hear a lot of gurus like, oh, I did $8 million
last year. I'm like, okay, how much profit did you make? Oh,
(17:35):
$13.57. Because you're paying a team of,
you know, 60. You know, my buddy Ray Edwards,
when had to file bankruptcy and he was making millions, why? Because
he had a giant team. I love the fact that he was so
transparent about that. And why did he do that? Well, because everybody else had
a team. So that's another way you can
(17:58):
measure your success. Number seven. Here's another one. And I was like, you
know what? This is something that you could measure. And I'm going
to call it the attribution stat. Because attribution is
a kind of a word in podcasting that some people
go, ooh. Because there are some ways that people are tracking
podcast listeners and they call that attribution. So I can
(18:21):
see that, you know, so and so clicked on a link
and yada, yada, yada, they do that a lot
in advertising. That is not what I'm talking about. But the theory
is the same. And so if you ask people
who interact with you and they answer the question
when you say, so how did you find me? And the answer is,
(18:44):
well, I heard your podcast. I remember my
friend Pat Flynn, great guy, going to be a
keynote speaker at podfest and just super nice
guy. And I knew Pat when he was just a blogger and then
he started his podcast and he said he was kind of bummed out because
he put a lot of time and effort into his blog. But when he talked
(19:06):
to people, he said, well, how did you like? What's your favorite part?
And they were like, oh, I listen to your podcast all the time. They weren't
ignoring his blog. But when it came up to how did you found me? How
did you found me? Yes, how did you found me? Is
it really. It's not even late. How did you find me?
He. It was always his podcast and so
(19:28):
that might be it. And it lets you know that your
SEO, right, using keywords in your titles and things
like that without being again clickbaity or stuffing it
or that word of mouth is growing. Number
eight. And then another one is being
asked to speak. We talked
(19:50):
about unprovoked audience feedback.
This is unprovoked opportunities to appear on
other podcasts or speaking gigs. I'm speaking at the
National Religious Broadcasters Conference
next year in Tennessee. Looking forward to that. That
was an unprovoked ask. They just said, hey, this
(20:13):
is coming up next year. We'd like you to speak. And I
was like, okay, so this could be other media
appearances, I've been on tv,
things of that nature. That could be something again, if that's your
goal now, if that's your goal, you have
to make sure people know that you're a
(20:35):
speaker. And so if you ever wonder why
there's a segment of this show that says where am I going to be? Well,
number one, I want to meet you. And if you're in the area
and can attend that event, it'd be great to hang out.
So that's one. I'm also promoting the event.
So that's, you know, the, the event actually likes the fact that I'm saying come
(20:58):
to PodFest in January. And the fact that I always
say if you'd like me to speak at your event, go to
schoolofpodcasting.com contact so
that is something that I don't track as much
toe for crying out loud, here comes another 10 second tangent. 10
seconds indeed. Such absolute rubbish. Here's a
(21:20):
thought. Alex Sanfilippo, if you're listening, here's an
idea, because I love Pod Match. Podmatch is a great
place to be found as a guest. And if you're
looking to find guests over there, I
like Pod Match. They've kind of gamified it a bit. And. And Spotify has
that year end review. It'd be interesting if they did some sort of
(21:42):
urine review so you could see how many shows you appeared on or how
many guests you had or things like that. So if that's something that you're trying
to do, you could do that. Ugh.
Finally back to the show. And then this is
kind of a number nine, an offshoot of that. So
being asked to speak. But I'm gonna count this as a different one. And that
(22:04):
is, are you being seen as the authority? You
were the river. I can't do Cartman. What's going on?
The river sparked my authority. Right. So from south park.
Have you ever heard yourself being quoted? I have.
It's kind of cool. It's hard to watch your ego. Like you got to kind
of grab your head and make sure it doesn't go crazy. What I always
(22:27):
feel bad about is when people say, there
is no. Dave Jackson always says, there's no such thing as
too long, only too boring. And I swear, I always say that is Valerie
Geller. I am quoting Valerie Geller. So if you're quoting me
quoting Valerie Geller, just give the quote to Valerie. I love that
quote. But here's the thing you might want to do.
(22:49):
You can go see what websites are linking to
yours, which may, for the record, be someone
you collaborate with. And there's an article from
Semrush which is a cool tool for SEO. It's kind of costly,
but they have a free version. But it explains how you can see who
is linking to your site. I think you can just go in
(23:12):
to Google and type in links colon
and then your website address and it will show you people that are linking to
you. But that would be something. If you're trying to be seen as the authority,
then that's a way you could do that. Number 10,
another one, especially if you're brand new,
that you could use as a measurement of success,
(23:35):
is simply, are you consistent
in your schedule? Because I talk about this
all the time. When you are consistent in schedule, whatever
the schedule is, that it
makes it easier for your audience to put you into their
routine. Every Friday I go to
(23:57):
Walmart because that's how I Party. On the weekends, I go to
Walmart and I grocery shop. Why? Because nobody's in there.
And I listen to podcasting 2.0 with Adam Curry
and Dave Jones on Saturday morning. I
listen to Pod News Weekly Review with James Kridlin
and Sam Sethi as I am getting up, showering,
(24:20):
making my breakfast, getting ready to do Ask the podcast Coach, you
become part of their routine. And so if you're a
person that's struggling with that and then later you're
not, well, congratulations. That's something to be proud
of. Now, I always say if you're like, if
you're starting off your show going, hey, it's Monday and
(24:42):
I don't know what I'm going to talk about today, that's not being consistent.
That's wasting your audience's time. Because I would much
rather have a quote, if we could use air quotes here, a late
show that was supposed to come out on Monday, but now it's Tuesday.
I'd rather have a late show that was like, remarkable than
an on time show that was okay. Well, that wasn't
(25:04):
horrible, right? And speaking of things that hopefully
aren't horrible, here's a quick word about the school of
podcasting number 11. And then
here's another one. I remember
when I was doing the Logical Weight Loss podcast many moons ago,
I started off with, I thought one audience, and I found
(25:26):
out much later, oh, that's not who's listening to this at all. And
so one of the things you can measure is quality of audience.
So just because you're attracting people, are you attracting
the right people? So if we're looking at
Ray over around the layout, right, the show, he's
(25:46):
been on a guest and he does a show about
model trains, well, that's great. But if Ray gets a bunch of
people that love knitting, he's like, yeah, we're not really here
to talk about knitting. We're talking about, you know,
model railroads. So are you getting the right people?
And you're like, well, what if I'm getting the wrong people? Well, I remember
(26:09):
when Super Joe Pardo, who used to run an event,
did a show and he just attracted a
completely different audience than what he wanted.
And he had to kind of go, well, I could tweak my content
to better attract the people I was shooting for, or,
(26:29):
hey, look, I got an audience. What do they want?
Daniel J. Lewis is another great example of that. His show is called the
Audacity to Podcast. And he meant it as the audacity,
as in like the courage to Podcast, but there is that software
called, you know, Audacity. And so when he first started,
he got a lot of people thinking they were going to get Audacity
(26:52):
tips. And so what did Daniel do? Yeah, he gave them
Audacity tips. And then he also asked them,
what are you guys looking for? And so some of them said, well, I've got
this Zoom P6 thing. You can't figure it out. Oh.
So Daniel went and made a course, and then,
you know, he found out that they wanted more engagement, so he made
(27:13):
podgagement. And then he saw that, you know, there are
some media hosts that don't support chapters, so he
made pod chapters. So he gathered an audience.
Wasn't really the audience he was looking for because he was, I think,
originally just promoting. He used to do artwork. He doesn't do that anymore.
But he gathered an audience and went, well, okay, I got an audience.
(27:36):
Because you don't monetize a podcast. You monetize
an audience. And he went, what do you guys need? One other
example, I'm working with Ralph Estepp Jr. Who's the content
creators accountant dot com. And Ralph
realizes he has to make sure to be clear, he's there to help you keep
the money you make. Not so much how to make content,
(27:58):
how to grow your audience. He's like, no, no, I'm here to help you. And
as a content creator, you've worked hard to make your money. Here's how you keep
it, and here's how you grow it, and here's how you grow your business. So
you have to make sure you have the right audience. Number 12, the
last one. And this is the one that
encourages longevity. You know, I've had people
(28:21):
ask, Dave, you've been doing this over 20 years now.
How do you keep doing it? Why? Why haven't you burned yourself out?
And number one is, I do a weekly show, and
if I had to do this show more than once a week, it would make
me crispy or it would be much shorter, something
like this. But I call this the fun and
(28:43):
fulfillment factor. And it
starts off, I always say, when you first start out,
start a timer, whatever it is, if you're using Toggle or Clockify
Me or just the, you know, the timer on your phone,
measure how much time you're putting in. And then you want to make sure
to take your life and see if there's enough room to squeeze
(29:06):
in your podcast, not
take your podcast and see if you can squeeze your life into your podcast.
Because that's just a recipe for Burnout. But some other things
when it comes to the fun and fulfillment factor,
which again, starts with creating a schedule you can live with. But
are you a better communicator or interviewer than when you
(29:29):
first started? Well, that's something to go, hey, look, I'm
making progress. Do you feel more confident explaining
your topic? Do you feel more confident behind the
microphone? Do you feel less of the imposter
syndrome? That whole nine. For a lot of
podcasters, especially when you first start out that first year,
(29:51):
that's really the huge improvement. My buddy
Nancy May from Family Tree Food and Stories. So
if you're a foodie that loves stories, check it out.
I'll put a link in the show notes again. Schoolofpodcasting.com
10:11 and she went back and listened to some
of my early episodes and she's like, wow, you've changed
(30:12):
a lot. I'm like, well, I hope so. That would be
disappointing. So. So that is something when you first start off, really, sometimes
that first year is just you getting comfortable behind the mic, and then
year two, you make better content, and by year three,
your audience is sharing that. But the fun and
fulfillment factor is something like, hey,
(30:34):
I used to hate my show and then I
hired a bunch of editors or I outsourced all the stuff that
I hated, and now I like my show again. Well,
that's something that you can go, yes, this is more successful.
And I will now keep doing my podcast because I'm seeing growth
here. So those are all ways that are not
(30:57):
really having to do with downloads that you can use to
go, hey, is my show getting any better? And you may be
surprised that, yeah, there's a lot of things that are improving
that have nothing to do with downloads. And that's something to be
encouraged about the school of
podcasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two quick
(31:20):
things. Apple has adopted chapters in Apple
Podcasts. And I logged in at
podcasts again with AN S All one word podcast
podcasts connect apple.com
and I kind of like the way Apple does this. And that is, hey, if
you're not doing this, we're going to add this to your
(31:42):
show in Apple Podcasts. And so their
chapter kind of little option, and you log in, you click on your show, and
you go to. I think it's accessibility. And there's an option for
chapters. And it basically says, hey, if you're not adding chapters
to your show, we will put them in. And
those will be visible on Apple Podcasts.
(32:04):
So keep that in mind if you're like, I have no idea what you
just said, then you're fine. But for me,
because I use media hosts like Captivate and Buzzsprout
and Blueberry will do them as well. And if you're not using a host that
does Chapters, then you could go to
podchapters.com I love this tool.
(32:26):
And you can add chapters. It just makes it easier to
listen to your show, especially if it's a show like this
where I have multiple topics. If you're not doing any
of this, at least in Apple Podcasts, they are now going to add
them to your show. For people who use Apple
Podcasts automatically, the other thing I just wanted
(32:48):
to briefly mention here, if you're a member of the School of Podcasting,
I think I talked about this on the show, I was using a video host,
Adilo, and they went
down for a week. So basically I had a spell there as I was
moving videos that none of the videos at the School of Podcasting were working,
which was embarrassing, infuriating and other things. So I've moved a
(33:10):
lot of them to a different host, but in the meantime they came back. So
if you're a member of the School of Podcasting and you saw that all the
videos are back and I'll be working with a Dillo in in the
future to correct some things. So I just wanted to put that in there.
And if you need help with your podcast, whether it's planning,
launching, growing, monetizing, if you need
(33:32):
some feedback on your show, check out podcast
hotseat.com because I have been doing this for 20 years
and I love helping podcasters. It's what I do.
I can't wait to see what we're going to do together. And
again, if you want to join the School of Podcasting, it is, I swear, one
of the best communities. I'm in a lot of different communities. I really
(33:55):
love our community. You can go out to
schoolofpodcasting.com, click on join, use that
coupon code listener. That'll save you on either a monthly,
quarterly or yearly subscription. And that comes with a 30
day money back guarantee. So until
next week, take care. God bless in class is
(34:15):
dismissed. And if you're in the us, enjoy your
Thanksgiving. And if you're not, enjoy your Thursday.
If you like the show, please share it with a friend.
If you like the show, pretty, pretty please share it with a friend right
now. If this was twice
a week, I would have burned out years ago for me.
(34:39):
And this is again where that P word comes in. It is know What? It's
not the P word. It's the D word. Wow. I am really tired today.
It's. Depends. Not.
Yeah. Because the P word. Wow. That could mean a whole lot of
things. Penguins. Yeah. Anyway.
Wow. So it's fun for me.
(35:02):
And this is what I always say. Don't pick a schedule
and then try to fit it into your life.
You want to pick a. I'm saying that backwards. I'm.
Wow. What? This is what you get when you're not.
I'm using bullet points today, but not as much as I used to. Let's do
this part over, because I'm lost in the woods.
(35:27):
Yeah.
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