What Makes a Podcast REALLY Successful?

Are you really seeing the full picture of your podcast, or just checking download numbers? Looking at both downloads and engagement stats gives a better idea of what’s working—how many people are listening and how much they actually care. It’s not just about the numbers; it’s about the connection. Otherwise, you might as well be podcasting into the void—and even the void isn’t leaving comments!

😋 FREE COMPANION GUIDES are available the Thursday after this episode is released. https://coffeelike.gumroad.com/

✨Tandem Audience Growth Coaching Program (the one on one coaching I'm demonstrating this season with April):
https://www.coffeelikemedia.com/coaching.html

📜 April's Door Key Podcast places online: (history)

Buzzsprout |
https://doorkey.buzzsprout.com/

Substack | https://doorkey.substack.com

🪐 Want more audience growth tips? https://podcasttoconnect.substack.com/

Podcasting Tools: These are products I adore so I recommend them highly. Includes affiliate links.

✨ Microphone: Samson Q2U✨

• United States: https://amzn.to/3Bk58e3
• UK: https://amzn.to/4g2pVlr
• Germany (ships to Denmark): https://amzn.to/4f2iY2t

😋 Host on Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2022201

👀 Record and go live with Restream: https://restream.io/join/Kro9rJ

😊Need podcast help? https://www.coffeelikemedia.com/

Transcript

(((April and Steph talking)))

April: 

People were commenting like, great episode. I learned things I didn't know.

Steph:

Yeah.

April: 
And it's like, I don't like those made me so happy because that's, that's what it's all about. Like, that's what I'm trying to do. That's the best. That's the best. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((Steph talking alone)))

Steph: 

Welcome to the final episode of the season of Podcast to Connect, where this series we are tracking podcast growth for April of Door Key Podcast while she was in the Tandem Podcast Growth Program of Coffeelike Media, my company. I'm Steph, a Podcast Manager and Growth Specialist, and it has been a sheer delight for this season to be recorded, to be documented, to be shared with you.

And not just to share the ways that April has grown her podcast, but in how you can apply that to YOUT own podcast. Check the show notes or video notes for the Companion Guides for each of the eight episodes. Again, to help you grow your podcast.

This (episode) was recorded in September and we primarily focused on the first three months of working together because that is the Tandem Program time period. However, when I was editing it, I really wanted to put the updated information so there is some updated stuff that I'm inserting in as editor Steph, so you'll be seeing that information as well.

In the last episode, we talked about the qualitative improvements that April saw in her podcast as well as in her life by the by implementing the changes and experimenting with what would work better for Door Key Podcast. And in this episode, it is the stats episode where we are going over downloads and engagement stats, which I think you will find really interesting and refreshing because it's not just downloads, but it's not not downloads. 

The companion guide this time will be a template of the engagement stats that April created and that I massaged so that you too, if you want to for a time period, can keep track of your engagement stats and see if they're going up. Bonus: use the tips in the first seven episodes to jumpstart your podcast growth and track them with this tracker for three months. 

I have to give a huge shout out to April for sharing the information and data in these eight episodes. It's not easy to put yourself out there like this and especially on video. So April, thank you. This has been amazing to document while you've been in the tandem program. I love what we've created here.

Anyway, if you need help jump starting your podcast, of course, reach out to coffeelikemedia.com and we will have a chat about that. Without further ado, let's get to the stats. So, 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((April and Steph talking)))

Steph: 
April, are you ready for our final episode of the season?

April: 

I am. I don't know. I'm sad. 

Steph: 
I know,  I kind of putting off recording this one for this very reason. But we're going to do this. We're going to do this. 

April: 
Okay, so we got this. 

Steph: 
We've got this. Today is the stats episode.

April:

Yay.

Steph: 

We're gonna go into the analytics and we've had a peek and I am really excited about this. Let's start with the downloads from Buzzsprout, the podcast host. But I actually want to look at overall. So this is the entire time for your podcast from June of 2022 to September of 2024. And again, September is not over. So that's of course going to be lower because we're about two thirds of the way through.

April:

Yeah.

Steph: 

So on this one there was a increase. Like the highest one here is 281. Those are lower. And this one is 342. But then this one here is 275, which is still higher than 231 the previous. So the peaks aren't that much higher. But look at this. This dip is 64, 109, that's before us. 133. That's before us. 127. You're already going up in your, In your dips. That sounds like such a weird sentence. And then 146. And now during the three month period, your lowest point was 200 in July. Yeah, for the month.

So that's huge. Especially when you're publishing every two weeks and not every week not having that big of a dip. The dips being less is growth. I mean, that just screams G R O W T H. That's. That's a substantial increase.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(((Steph's vocals with some graphical visuals)))

Steph:

Hey, it's Steph poking in a few months after this was recorded to show you some really exciting updates with dorky podcast downloads from Buzzsprout. 

VISUAL ONE:
The first one is the overall for her entire time that she has been a doing her podcast. You can see it started in June of 2022 and it goes to December of 2024, which it is now when I'm recording this. Now, previously in the episode, the total was 5,000, about 5,300 downloads. And now she's at 6,400 plus downloads. You can see all the way to the right that there is a substantial bump in June, August and November. If you look across the peaks, you'll see that the downloads per month have gone up substantially since we started working together in April. 

VISUAL TWO:
One more thing I want to show you, if you look at just the time period that we've been working together, the initial three months starting in April and then from from then till now, which we've been doing some stuff. Not as much marketing stuff, but haha, the meta moment. We have been doing this season of Podcast to Connect, so I'm including that in the marketing stuff. So we haven't been working as actively on the marketing pushes that we've been talking about in the previous episodes, but we have been doing quite a bit of marketing for Door Key Podcast through these Podcasts to Connect episodes and the gazillions of YouTube shorts that I've been putting out there. So check out the growth in this just from when we started working together in April till now. That is quite a nice bump there. All right, back to April and me in September of this year just a few months ago.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((Steph and April talking)))

Steph: 

Okay, so those are the stats. I know people rely heavily on stats, so we wanted to start out with those to show what most people are familiar with and what most people look at. April, do you want to explain the next thing we're going to look at?

April:

I made a spreadsheet that kept track of all the interactions on social media for every episode I did, starting from Stonewall and going all the way to Marie Curie. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((Steph's vocals with some tracking sheet visuals)))

Steph:
December Steph popping in here again. April actually did this day by day ((showing those sheets on screen) and I ended up, for the sake of the graphs and charts that you're going to see shortly, I ended up summarizing it into what you're seeing here (showing summary tracker)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((Steph and April talking)))

April: 
I recorded the tracks for all of all the social media sites. So like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads.

Steph: 

I love this. These are basically engagement stats, engagement analytics. And so we're looking at the reactions like the likes and whatever reactions there are. There's so many different options now these, these days, not like in the old days. I started to say these days and I'm like, I have to go old person voice because that just feels like how I'm talking right now. Reactions, comments, shares and quotes. So all of those in all of these places, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((Steph's voice with some visuals on screen)))

Steph:

Before we move on to why these engagement stats are so important to use, as well as the download stats we already saw, I want to show you a few more visuals of the changes that has happened for Door Key Podcast over these three months.

VISUAL ONE: 
So here is a visual of you can see the seven episodes, starting with Stonewall and ending with Marie Curie. And you can see that Facebook is blue, Instagram orange LinkedIn gray and threads are yellow. 

What this visual tells me is that her engagement, generally speaking, went up. It did spike with the Romanovs episode, but it also, generally speaking, stayed up after that.  If you compare the later episodes to that first Stonewall episode, one more visual for you. 

VISUAL TWO:
This visual has all of the seven episodes with the social media platforms the same color coding. Blue is Facebook, orange is Instagram, gray is LinkedIn, and yellow is threads. But it's all together combined. 

Four of the six episodes after the first one when we worked together, four of the six were substantially higher than the first episode when we worked together.

That, my friends, is realistic progress. 

Love it. And we're again, we're talking about engagement. We're not talking about downloads. We're talking about people actually responding to an episode on social media, which is not the platform where they're listening to it. On that kind of engagement, although not viral, who cares? It's engagement, it's feedback. It's communication from your listeners about your episode. 

Yes, I completely acknowledge that some people are just liking and sharing because they like the person. However, when we're including comments and quotes in there as well, like April mentions, that is gold. So those going up is phenomenal. I'm not surprised. You really should check out her podcast.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(((Steph and April talking)))

Steph: 

April, what do you think is the biggest thing that sticks out to you with all of this?

April: 

It shows more interactions on the posts I'm making as, as each episode progresses. I think that that has a lot to do with me taking your advice on posting engagement questions on the type of things that I, that I post to social media, why I post them. I always had intention, but you helped me put more intention behind it. And I think that makes, I think that. I think that difference shows.

Steph: 

Yeah, I'm just, I'm blown away by some of these. And you may think, oh, that's not viral, but honestly, for podcasters to get any feedback is phenomenal and then with increasing feedback in that short a period of time. And this is such a fun way to look at a podcast because it's not like on YouTube where there's a place right there like Spotify now has a comment section. But I don't think I would love to see the stats on how many people actually use it. Most of the people I've talked to aren't receiving comments on that yet. But in general, on podcast apps, there isn't a place to comment. You can't really like it unless you're on an app. That has a review, and, like, you and I are on Podcast Addict and you can write a review there. It's stuck on Podcast Addict. It doesn't go to the other ones. All the Apple reviews are stuck in Apple podcasts, which, try as Apple might by revamping their website, is not really accessible for Android users. So it's. It's really hard to. To gauge engagement.

April: 

Yes.

Steph: 
Yeah.

April: 
And something else that I noticed was that on. On LinkedIn, I had a comment last episode, which was Helen Keller, as well as on Marie Curie, where people were commenting, like, great episode. I learned things I didn't know.

Steph:

Yeah.

April: 

And it's like, those made me so happy because that's, that's what it's all about. Like, that's what I'm trying to do. That's the best. 

Steph: 

Yeah. Warm fuzzies. Warm fuzzies. Warm fuzzies.

April: 

Yeah. For real.

Steph: 
Yeah. And seriously, I'm not just saying this because of everything we've been through together, but I will legitimately listen to, like, edit one of your episodes. And that night I'll be like, talking to my husband, saying, did you know? Blah, blah, blah, Like, a factor, too. That stuck with me. And I'll be like, how did I not know that? And I'll wait. Thank you, April, for teaching me that.

April: 

Whoa.

Steph: 

Part of the reason I wanted to work with you is because that not many history podcasts, actually, no history podcast had that impact on me. Until you. Oh, I would listen to them, get bored, and stop. 

So the lesson from today's. Look at the download stats, which everybody's familiar with, and the engagement stats that I hope more people start to play with is look at the big picture. Look at all of it. And also look at how you feel after you publish an episode from what you get back from your listeners and think about what you want. Are you selling something or are you building a community or are you sharing information? Like, what is the ultimate goal and is what you're getting back from the listeners and what you're giving to them? Is that. Is that balancing out to what you need and want to give to the world? That sounds cheesy, but I truly mean that.

April: 

Yeah, I don't think it sounds cheesy at all. I think that's hitting the nail on the head, actually.

Steph: 

And if anybody listening isn't, still hasn't heard an episode of Door Key... April, which one should they start with?

April:

Oh, my goodness. I would start at. At the, at the newest and work your way back. Those are the ones that. That you've worked on, and I think that they are the best quality. And hopefully, by the time you get to where before we started working together, people would kind of know what to expect. Enough to extend me that little bit of grace needed for my rough episodes.

Steph: 

Oh, I'll. I'll add to that. What was the name of the. The Chinese pirate?

April:

Zheng Yi Sao.

Steph: 

Yeah, I would. I would recommend starting there or Sally Ride. Those were. I mean, there's so many. So many good episodes, but I truly did not know anything about Zheng Yi Sao. So for me, that was like, whoa, she's badass. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

April:

Amazing.

Steph: 

And April, this is the last time. Say goodbye, April.

April:

Goodbye.

Steph: 
Bye, everybody. Thank you.