100.000 downloads! Some cool stats (marketing geek alert)

Somewhere in the next 24 hours, I’ll reach my 100.000 downloads milestone. The podcast just reached 100 000 downloads. That’s pretty exciting stuff! Especially since I reached 50.000 downloads only 4 months ago.

First of all: thank you for listening, but most importantly thank you for your support! There are plenty of days I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, alone in my small home office, and your messages give me the energy to start writing and recording again.

As for today’s post…Let’s go geeky! At least some of you are very much into stats and spreadsheets, like I am, so I’m discussing some cool numbers today. This post might be interesting if you’re considering starting your own podcast some day.

First, some fun stats:

  1. The podcast gets downloads from around the world. About 68% of downloads come from North America. 19% from Europe. 6% from Australia and 4% from Asia. Africa and South America each represent about 1% of the total downloads.
  2. The top 3 countries are: United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada (Last two share the third place 🙂
  3. 78% of the downloads happen on a mobile device like a smartphone or a tablet
  4. More than half of the total downloads come from a mobile Apple device. That’s crazy, right?

Now, some stats and thoughts that might interest you if you also have a podcast, or are thinking about starting one. Warning: my inner marketer takes over when I talk numbers, so I may sound a bit ‘businessy’ about the podcast all of a sudden. This is the kind of stuff I discuss in my money job. 🙂

About those 100.000 downloads…

  1. The total numbers of downloads just tells you how many times all episodes of a podcast were downloaded. So, in a way, it tells you a lot about the success of a podcast. But it also tells you absolutely nothing. This podcast, for example, now has a lot more episodes than it did back in December, so it’s normal for the growth to speed up. If it didn’t, it would be dead 😉
  2. 100.000 sounds like a lot. But, it’s a very low number when you compare it to other podcasts. Now, apart from a few exceptions, podcasts’ audiences tend to grow very slowly over the years. Since I have a pretty niche audience and no media budget, I always knew growth would be slow. I’d say it’s on track, really. Not fantastic, not disappointing either.
  3. Let’s move away from the total downloads since they tell us little apart from the fact that the podcast isn’t dead. A much better way to track the growth/success would be to follow the number of subscribers, right? Well, much to the frustration of podcasters around the world, you can’t. Technically, there is just no way to count the number of subscribers for your podcast. I know, it’s ridiculous.
  4. But that means we have to start looking at other indicators of growth and success for the podcast. One thing I look at is how many people start listening to the first episode of The Blogger Story every month. Or rather: how many times it’s being downloaded. (We can’t track unique users downloading either…). Those download numbers for The Lesbian Romantic are OKish, I guess  A bit more than 420 downloads per month lately. That tells me I need to work on finding more ways for people to discover the podcast!
  5. The next step: people downloading the first part is all fine and dandy, but do they actually keep listening? That’s the real question, isn’t it? You can’t track if listeners keep listening within an episode, nor if they listen to several episodes. So, we have to start guesstimating! Good thing guesstimating is so much fun.
  6. Guesstimate: the number of downloads of the last part of The Blogger Story versus the number of downloads of the first part should give us a pretty good idea of how many people keep listening. That result? About 31% keeps listening from part 1 to part 39. If I would get this type of result in my marketing job, I’d get a nice bonus from my client. So, good stuff here and an important indication people like the content 🙂 (Pfiew.)
  7. One of the most important things I watch, though, is the number of people listening to the latest episode immediately or soon after it comes out. Basically: I keep an eye on how fast a new episode reaches a 1000 downloads (which is a vanity number, mostly). It used to be a month, now it’s about 8 days. That tells me the number of people actively listening to the podcast keeps increasing.

 

Well, that’s the status of this podcast in numbers. The summary: it’s growing slowly as expected. The real joy and reward can’t be found in numbers, of course. What really makes me smile is the ability to share my stories and make a difference in other women’s lives. This podcast has gone from a hobby like project, to being a part of who I am.

Being able to talk to you all, here and on social, is a joy I cherish every single day. It has broadened my mind so much. There really are some amazing and kind people on this planet. It’s often hard to see that these days, you know? Thanks to this podcast, I am blessed to hear your stories and am often deeply moved and humbled by them. So, thank you. Y’all changed my life 🙂

3 responses to “100.000 downloads! Some cool stats (marketing geek alert)”

  1. LaLine Avatar
    LaLine

    Congrats on the milestone! I, for one, do find the geeky stuff interesting, so thanks for sharing.

  2. Marcie53

    Very interesting. I always wondered what podcasters could know about who is listening. I saw the word spreadsheets and lit up.

    1. Sigrid
      Sigrid

      Analytics are pretty basic still.. It’s supposed to get better later this year when Apple releases more insights. But gotta see it before I believe it 😀

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