Using Podcast Statistics to boost more than your ego…
Many podcasters think that the number of podcast downloads are the best measure of their success. But a thoughtful analysis of your podcast download statistics offers the podcaster so much more actionable information than just total downloads. As a matter of fact, the best thing about podcast statistics is what it tells you about your listeners.
The leading podcasters have a mental image of their ideal listener (often called an avatar). During a podcaster’s early episodes this avatar is completely created by the podcaster’s opinions and goals for the show. A thoughtful podcaster can review their download statistics and clarify much more about their audience.
Below are a few examples of actions you could take based on the information provided by Blubrry’s different levels of podcast statistics plans.
Blubrry’s Free Statistics Plan is free, really free. You can use most any podcast host and still use Blubrry’s powerful, free, basic podcast statistics to learn a lot about your listeners. Here are two examples that demonstrate how your audience listens to your show can guide your practices for better engagement.
- You discover by using Blubrry’s Free Stats that a majority of your listeners are listening to your podcast via a Windows computer. Knowing this, you can add a segment of your show where you can talk about resources on your podcast website and ask your listeners to open up a new browser window and click through to your website while they are listening to your show. That is an easy way to boost listener engagement.
- You discover that a large segment of your audience listens from Australia. As you are planning your next episode you find two equally qualified experts on your episode’s topic, one from Norway and the other from Australia. Which one are you going to reference on your show and maybe ask for an interview? Of course, the expert from Australia would be the best choice.
You can make those types of decisions based on Blubrry’s Free Basic Statistics Plan.
There are a few more actionable data points included in Blubrry’s Standard Podcast Statistics Plan that can help you make even more decisions.
- Your podcast has made you a known expert in your field and you have been invited to speak at two separate events on the same day. Unfortunately, one is in Santa Fe, NM, and the other is in Burlington, VT — which to choose!? You can look at your Blubrry Standard Statistics and determine which state is home to more people who listen to your show and let that be your deciding factor. You could speak at the event during the day and host a meet-up with your listeners in the evening and everybody wins.
- With an add-in of Advanced Statistics you can see how long your audience listens to each episode if they stream your episodes. With this type of review you may discover that many of your listeners stop listening after the first 15 minutes. Knowing this you can do two things:
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- Change things up about about 15 minutes into your episode, do something different that keeps them listening, remember it is your show and you can do what you want.
- If you have an advertisement on your show, play the ad while most of your listeners are listening. There is no reason to wait for the arbitrary midpoint or the end of your episode for your ad (unless you are not contractually obligated). Having more people hear your ad will help you sell more of your T-shirts or get more people to buy audio books.
As you can see, these are powerful tools for you and your show. The question is, which Blubrry statistics service plan gives you what you need? With these plans you will see that the two phrases, ‘Free is good’ and ‘You get what you pay for’ definitely apply. Feel free to review the full features of each plan and choose what will help you learn more about your listeners.