“How many downloads did you get today?” my husband asked me last night.

 

“I don’t know.”  I responded with a stiff jaw, determined not to look annoyed.

 

Ten minutes later, he asked again.  “So, how many downloads did you get?”

 

“I don’t know…stop asking me.”

 

“Why don’t you want to tell me your download numbers?” he begged.

 

I sighed heavily.  Did I really want to tell him the real reason why?  ‘I’m too busy’ and ‘I’ll check later’ aren’t working anymore.

 

“Because the last thing I need is for you to compare your numbers to mine and then I feel like crap.”

 

And there you have it…a perfect example of how, even between a husband and wife who have two completely different podcasts, comparing download numbers becomes emotionally charged.  You can imagine how heavy this comparison game can feel amongst thousands and thousands of podcasters!

 

There are two options in the podcasting world when it comes to downloads: you can either reveal all and show the world your hand or you can remain silent about them. 

The former is usually chosen by those who have big numbers.  I often see graphics from podcasters celebrating that they crested over 100,000 downloads or 1 million downloads.  And this makes total sense.  When I reach 1 million downloads, you bet your ass I’ll be screaming it from the mountain tops!  Wouldn’t you?

 

The latter option is reserved for the other part of the population…the majority of podcasters, by the way…those who don’t have 1 million downloads.  Those who don’t get 10,000 downloads per episode.

 

This is not a philosophical discussion.  I’m not going to make an argument that “numbers don’t really matter.”  And I’m not going to try to shed light on why you should be killing yourself to get more downloads as fast as you can so you can ‘really matter.’

 

All I’m going to do is share my numbers with you for the sole purpose of you using this information to make sense of your own numbers and what they mean to you.

Let’s start with a few basics:

 

What is a “download?”  A download is counted every time someone presses play on an episode.  Whether someone listens for 10 seconds or 30 minutes, it counts as 1 download.

 

Why are download numbers important? If you look at podcasting as a game, download numbers are one tool you can use to keep score and let you know where you stand.  It’s a way you can rate yourself on the important things you want to know as the host of your show.  Is anyone listening?  Do people like my show? Am I growing my audience?  Did people like today’s guest/topic?

 

Note that the answers to these questions are not definitively determined by your download numbers.  Just because 300 downloads are showing for the day doesn’t mean 300 people listened.  It simply means 300 people pressed play.  Just because one episode skyrocketed past your prior episodes doesn’t necessarily mean that your listeners loved that guest/topic.  It could mean that someone of influence shared your episode and many other people saw that share and pressed play.

 

The download numbers are simply one element that you can mix into the equation to help you better understand your show.

NOTABLE DOWNLOAD MOMENTS FOR BIZ WOMEN ROCK

New & Noteworthy

 

The first 8 weeks you launch your show, iTunes gives you a little bump.  The New & Noteworthy section is specifically for new shows so they can get prime real estate within iTunes and be introduced to an audience who might love them.

 

When I first launched the Biz Women Rock podcast, my team and I had a very clear strategy.  Our goal was to be on the New & Noteworthy section of iTunes as often and as high on the list as we possibly could.  We knew that the algorithm to make N&N was determined by 1) the number of downloads you received, 2) the number of subscribes to your show and 3) the number of ratings and reviews you received.

 

Without going into our entire launch strategy here, I’ll simply say that my team hustled like crazy to acquire as many of all three of these things as possible.  Therefore, Biz Women Rock was consistently in the top of the New & Noteworthy section for two months.

 

During my time on New & Noteworthy, Biz Women Rock had a total of 16,095 downloads…an average of 1,788 downloads per week and 255 downloads per day.  More than that, I had received about 140 reviews

 

New & Noteworthy

16,095 total

1,788 weekly

255 daily

140 reviews

 

 

My Emotional State

 

16,000 downloads is pretty respectable, right?  I was super proud of these numbers, especially because we had executed our strategy so beautifully!  (I’ll share our entire New & Noteworthy strategy in another post soon and I have no doubt you’ll laugh at some of the ways we asked people to review!).

 

But just when I was patting myself on the back a few weeks into N&N, I saw Chris Cerrone, a fellow podcaster who had launched his show The Cerrone Show at the same time I did, announce that he had hit 100,000 downloads.  Are you freakin’ kidding me!?  (sidenote: his show is good and filled with personality…check it out here!).

 

I felt like a loser.  Like a complete failure.  Why wasn’t I getting those kinds of numbers?  What is he doing that I’m not?  

 

I started looking at the podcasters who were killing it, those who were getting thousands of downloads per show out of the gate.  I observed what they were doing.  And I tried many of those things.  Some worked, some didn’t.  Some are great ideas that I still need to try.

 

I decided to look at my numbers as NUMBERS and not let it mean something about me.  I decided to use the numbers as a tool to guide my next moves, to see what was working and what wasn’t.  I decided to stop feeling so competitive with my fellow podcasters and just concentrate on my listeners! (although I hope you’ve made the connection that I’m not perfect at all this, as indicated by my very in-the-present-moment opening scenario with my husband!).

 

When we toss aside whatever personal judgement we might attach to our download numbers, we free ourselves to create opportunities to make them do what we want them to do!  And have fun!

A Huge Spike

 

In the summer of 2014, my team came up with a stellar idea: feature women who have been on Shark Tank during Shark Week!  Shark Week was popular and so was Shark Tank.  We created an entire marketing campaign around it, including sending out hand drawn pictures that had fun sayings with sharks on them like “Every Shark Has a Tale To Tell,” and “Did They Survive Shark Tank?” and “Listen to the Women of Shark Tank During Shark Week on the Biz Women Rock podcast!”

 

We mailed them out to the women of the Biz Women Rock community and also made them available digitally so anyone could access them.  I asked my community to take a #SharkSelfie (a hashtag that was organically created during this week!) and post it on Twitter and Facebook, tagging me, Biz Women Rock, Shark Tank and Shark Week.

 

We had hundreds of women participate and received an onslaught of creative #SharkSelfies!  Barbara Corcoran even re-tweeted it!

 

Some samples of the Shark Selfies!

    

 

How Did That Affect Our Numbers?

 

Changing My Release Schedule

Late in 2014, I made the very tough decision to publish two shows per week instead of the 3 I had been releasing up to that point.  What made it a tough decision?  Not the fact that I was exhausted and having a really difficult time keeping up with the schedule.  Because I was terrified it would dramatically decrease my download numbers.

 

But exhaustion overruled and thank god it did.  Pulling back one show each week gave me so much more time to focus on building my community, writing great emails and producing a better show.

 

But it did decrease my download numbers.  Just a bit.

 

From launch date to schedule change, I had a total of 73,138 downloads over 8 months, an average of about 9,100 downloads per month.  

 

From the time I went to 2 shows per week till present moment, I’ve had a total of 36,073 downloads in 6 months, an average of about 6,000 downloads per month.  

 

Which makes sense.  I went from releasing 12 shows per month to 8 shows per month.

 

Did this kill my show?  Absolutely not!

 

THE TOTALS

 

As of the date of this post, the Biz Women Rock podcast has a total of 110,397 downloads (please let it be noted that I made sure to refresh Libsyn just before I got that number…just in case there were any more since 10 minutes ago!  Ha!).  That’s an average of 7,885 downloads per month and an average of 677 downloads per show (I have 163 shows as of today).

 

110,397 total

7,885 per month

677 per show

 

 

 

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

 

First off, let me say there are a dozen other ways you could analyze your numbers that would give you different vantage points of your listeners.

 

When all is said and done, numbers mean nothing and they mean everything.  They are an incredible tool to tell me some things I want to know about my listeners.  Yet if I dare to take them too seriously, to take them too personally, (whether they’re big numbers or small numbers), I run the risk of letting them rule my actions.

 

As a pregnant woman, I can equate it to my weight.  I don’t regularly check my weight, but when I see my midwives, I do…just so I have one more piece of data to let me know I’m having a healthy pregnancy.

 

WHAT REALLY MATTERS

 

Every savvy podcaster will tell you the same thing: what really matters is the engagement of your listeners.  Are you getting emails from people listening to your show?  Are people commenting on your social media posts about your episodes?  Are your listeners reaching out to you in some way?

 

In the game of podcasting, QUALITY beats out QUANTITY every day of the week.  

So, shift your paradigm from “how can I get more downloads?” to “how can I get more engagement from my audience and build a stronger relationship with them?”  I promise you’ll feel the results!

If you want more great insights into download numbers, go listen to The Podcast Producers, an amazing shares the insights of dozens of active podcasters about the industry.  Episode 5 is all about numbers and sheds more light on this topic!  You can listen HERE!