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Episode 35 | Don’t Mess the Podcast Seat
In this episode of the Messy Back-End of Entrepreneurship, our Expert, Mark Deal, Podcast Director, discusses the importance of having a website as a podcaster.
“The medium of podcasting and the personal nature of it, the relationship you build with your listeners and the relationship they have with you—they could be just sitting there, chuckling and listening… there’s nothing like that.” – Mark Maron
How do I track listeners? I can only really see where to find out how many downloads I have. It seems to me that it not the real number of listeners.
You can go into Apple Podcast Connect and look at how many listeners you have that are on IOS 10 or later (which is a small subset of the listeners) and see where they drop off. Check how many people are listening to the front, skip your ads, and how many people make it to the end.
Treat downloads as your leading indicator.
Sponsors and advertisers don’t typically ask how many listeners you have. Instead, they ask how many downloads you have. Most sponsors want shows with at least 5,000 downloads per episode in a thirty day period. That is 7% of all podcasts.
Your website is another great leading indicator.
If you have a podcast coming out on Monday, and a spike on your website on Tuesday and Wednesday. It is a good chance they are visiting your website. If you podcast episodes point to a specific page or post on your website then you can gauge the number of downloads I get versus the number of people that visit the website.
Focus on where you want to drive the needle – do you want more people to visit your website or listen to your show. Once you decide, against accordingly depending on what you want.
What are some great ways to drive podcast downloads?
There are two places to go to get podcast listeners. First, go where your podcast listeners are and be present with them on that social media platform in a nonspammy way. Second, go where people are listening to podcasts. Go seek out those shows to be a guest on and be interview there. Go on podcasts that are relevant to your market.
Do you think podcasters need websites?
If you are spending the time and doing all this work to create and produce a podcast then you absolutely show have a website. People are going to be able to find you a whole lot easier. Many people search Google for podcasts or search for topics you have in your show notes and those will bring them to you. Google is actually ranking websites with podcasts higher.
On a website, you can also showcase your guests and help give them more publicity.
Check out Marc’s Facebook’s group: Podcast Guests Experts https://www.facebook.com/groups/PodcastGuestExperts/
Check out Podserve an awesome podcast platform – podserve.fm/messP