You want to grow your podcast audience. How can you tell if your content is resonating with them?

To gauge if your podcast content is resonating, monitor download numbers, listener retention rates, and social media engagement. Pay attention to feedback from reviews, comments, and direct messages. Conduct surveys to gather insights directly from your audience. By combining quantitative data with qualitative feedback, you'll understand how your content is connecting with your audience and can adjust accordingly.

Just hit a milestone with 280 episodes on my podcast! When it comes to gauging engagement, I've learned not to rely solely on download numbers – they can be deceptive. ?? Leveraging Spotify and Apple Podcast analytics for Retention/Completion/Consumption metrics provides a more nuanced understanding. My episodes consistently achieve a commendable 70% consumption rate, acknowledging the varied interests of the audience. ???? In addition to analytics, I employ strategic surveys and polls within my weekly newsletter and on YouTube to glean insights directly from my audience. Understanding your preferences is key to delivering content that resonates.

Use metrics. For example, no. of times an episode was downloaded. Next utilize SEO or (keywords)- a major influencer in your viewership, to understand why an episode performed well. Also take surveys/ polls. Ask your listeners their key takeaways, Aha! moments, what they'd like to see more of/ less of.

As somebody who has had a podcast for six years, it’s very important to know if your podcast is resonating with your audience. For the first 100 episodes of my show I didn’t focus on the data, I was focusing on getting better at my craft. As a host, don’t get caught up in the data right off the bat…. focus on your craft and fall in love with the process. Okay, now go the data…. Over the six years of hosting I’ve had many episodes out perform the majority of others. This has either been due to the guest, viral clips, or share-ability. When looking at the data, guests who cross promote to their audience tend to receive a higher listenership on my episodes. One metric that I like to emphasize is retention rate. You got this!

Everyone is looking for growth: In my experience, analyzing episode completion rates and listener retention can reveal which topics or formats resonate most. For instance, a high drop-off rate might indicate a need for more compelling content or a shorter episode length. It is smart to regularly review these metrics and adapt your content strategy so that you can grow.

Leveraging podcast directories and apps for audience insights is crucial in the podcasting industry. As a podcaster, I've found that platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify offer invaluable data about listener demographics and feedback. This information can be used to tailor content, improve podcast quality, and ultimately grow your audience. You can also manually upload your RSS feed to huge directories like Gaana and Jiosaavn for mass distribution in other countries like India.

I recently launched a new podcast called “Questions” with two cohosts: DJ Swivel (Grammy winning producer, and Brandon Jenner.) Upon launch, we asked our social media audience to listen to the podcast + leave an honest rating an review. Within the first week we’ve received over 250+ five star rating, which was very informative for us…. Listeners are loving the show! We drove people mainly to the Apple podcast app, but of course let them know that they can listen on multiple platforms. When launching a show, or if you already have a show, ask your listeners to leave an honest rating and review. Those five star ratings add up and build trust with future listeners!

Spotify est hébergeur, donc évidemment qu'il se doit de proposer des statistiques. Après ne pas se laisser dévorer par les statistiques qui sont parfois non représentatives surtout si vous lancer votre podcast. Même avec une super communication cela peut être un vrai flop parfois. Donc restez focus sur vos objectifs de création. Avancez à votre rythme sans pression.

this is a goldmines for audience insights, this is how: By analyzing listener demographics and engagement metrics available on these platforms, podcasters can tailor their content to better match their audience's preferences. I've used listener age and location demographics from Spotify to adjust my episode release times, aligning with when my audience is most active, resulting in INCREASED engagement.

Stephen really hit it on this one - retention is the critical component to see if your content is resonating - does your podcast provide enough value for someone to tune in to the next episode?

Why I Left, whyileft.co, has grown its audience primarily through social media and I’ve been able to gauge response by direct feedback and through ratings. I definitely haven’t been shy about reaching out to people to share their story, so that’s also been helpful. LinkedIn has been great for that because this a prime platform for people to talk about things that happen at work. And something that happens at work is that people often resign, but we don’t talk about it enough. I’m trying to change that. Maybe a Top Voice Podcasting badge would help that ?? I’m working on building a newsletter to better capture my target audience, but admittedly struggle if the world needs another newsletter. I’ll likely still create one though.

The most impactful feedback loop for our podcasts at Listener.com is on social media, Instagram specifically. For all of our hosts, we always have them post Instagram stories asking for feedback on each episode that we publish. This has led to many insightful conversations in the DM’s, which I love. Being able to send audio messages to our listeners is a great way to build audience engagement. There are so many way to go about building community within your podcast, for us at Listener, Instagram + email is key. Most importantly, focus on building a genuine relationship with your listeners. It matters!

Je déploie avec passion sur les réseaux sociaux mes deux podcasts, car il y a un véritable besoin de visibilité pour doper vos écoutes. Il faut bien cibler où vous les posterez car faire une erreur peut vous co?ter une rétention moindre sur votre podcast. Communiquez en ma?trisant.

Brian Aquart mentioned his experience in growth so social media, I really do agree with that. To my experience: social media and email are not just channels for promotion, it's a powerful tools for engaging with my audience on a personal level. My workflow is to share exclusive content and initiating conversations, I gain valuable insights into my listeners' preferences. Email also can serve as a direct feedback that may not be captured through public social media interactions, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of my audience's needs and interests.

Capturing engaged listeners can be tough through traditional platforms - that's why having an email capture or social media is valuable to further engage & "own" your listener data

Un site est un besoin essentiel pour relayer votre podcast. Utiliser ensuite des outils pour voir les écoutes, taux de rétention, trafic sont primordiaux. Pour ma part j'utilise WordPress dans lequel j'intègre Spotify, je booste mon SEO avec Yoast et j'analyse avec Google Analytics couplé à Yoast.

In addition to the methods mentioned, it's crucial to leverage AI tools to gain deeper insights into your audience's behavior. For instance, AI can analyze patterns in website and blog traffic, helping you understand what content resonates with your audience. Also, consider using AI-powered podcast recording software like Riverside.fm for superior audio quality, which can boost audience engagement. Programs like Castmagic or Chat GPT + Zapier can quickly write SEO rich blog articles, and even upload to your wordpress site automatically when set up properly.

A website is the best place to engage, interact and learn more about your podcast audience. You have more control over what to do with your audience, if you are able to redirect them to you website. Use various analytics tools to check how your audience is reacting. You can build a list of your podcast audience using your website and then send emails to them to learn more about them and they opinion about your episodes.

Listening to feedback is one of the best ways to grow your podcast. Really listening to what your current listeners are saying helps give you a better idea of exactly what is or is not resonating with your audience. Also, if you take advice from listeners - share that! Saying things like "Jane Doe asked for more information about ___, and that's what inspired ___" goes a long way in audience development. It also increases the likelihood of positive WOM, because who wouldn't want to share their shoutout on their favorite podcast!?

In the last two years on Dev Interrupted, we've ran two different listener surveys that have been invaluable for both gathering a deeper understanding of our audience - and setting us up for better monetization. By being able to provide potential advertisers with a better understanding of our audience and their demographics, we're able to better connect our sponsors with our audience and provide reciprocal value - and we learn invaluable information to guide our show creation. It's easy to set up audience feedback forms + surveys for free with tools like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey, and the data you get can be a huge boost. If you're having trouble getting data, consider using a randomized incentive to help drive responses.

Feedback can give you insights on what works and what can be improved as you're starting to grow your audiences. You can reach more listeners beyond your target audiences with the right promotions on different platforms. On your podcast's social media you can also interact with your audiences and the whole podcast community to get their feedback. Polls and surveys can be done on Instagram stories and Twitter polls.

Feedback forms and surveys are an excellent way to gather direct insights from your podcast audience. However, it's crucial to craft your questions carefully to ensure the data you collect is actionable. Using AI tools can help analyze the responses more effectively and identify patterns or trends. For example, forms can be connected to Chat GPT using Zapier to automatically write articles, blogs, emails, and more to maximize efficiency when forms are completed.

Podcast analytics tools like Chartable, Podkite etc. can help you get more information about your audience. They provide additional data points that your podcast hosting company won't be able to provide. Use these data points to analyze how your audience is feeling about your show. Metrics that can help are audience drop off points, no. of downloads in the first 30 days of releasing an episode, subscriber growth etc.

Apart from the basic information/data that you got on the Podcast Hosting Platform what is more important is to check the audio directories like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Spotify: Spotify provides a section known as Interact. You can ask questions or put polls related to the episodes. If the listeners respond that is a clear sign that your podcast content resonates with your podcast audience. Apple Podcasts: Check the data provided by Apple Podcasts Connect. How many people are your listeners, and what is the average consumption of your podcast episodes? These are clear indicators to find out if your podcast content is liked by your audience or not. You can re-strategize the content based on the information collected.

In addition to the mentioned strategies, it's crucial to leverage AI tools in podcasting for audience growth. AI can help in transcribing and translating podcasts, making them accessible to a wider audience. Tools like Descript can assist in editing while AI copywriting tools like Chat GPT can help in creating engaging show notes. Also, don't underestimate the power of email marketing. Platforms like Convertkit or Mailchimp can help segment your audience and deliver personalized content, driving more engagement and conversions.

Remember that you're in control of what action you want the audience to take. We recommend that all our clients have individual blog pages for each episode. Why? Yes, for SEO, but more importantly, so that we can ask the audience at the end of the show to click on a link in the show notes and leave us a thumbs up on the blog page comments if they like what they're hearing. It takes 12 seconds, it avoids any intermediaries, and it works. You'll be amazed at how much they write once they click over.