We love your podcast. Probably not as much as you love it - but that's a given. You've got one podcast to love - we've got a fair few more than that, and we love each one of them equally.
One of the questions that we get asked a lot is 'What makes a podcast successful?'. Like so many aspects of podcasting - the quick answer is 'It depends...'
When our boss Pete was working in Breakfast Radio full-time, he had a very simple gauge as to whether a show had been good. How did he feel after closing the microphone for the final time that morning? If he felt good, then it was a good show; if not, then it wasn't. It really was that simple.
So - you could have that yardstick - but we're guessing you probably want more.
For so many people it's all about the downloads. The number of downloads dictates just how successful a podcast is.
(Quick side reminder: If you're measuring the success of your podcast by the number of clients you get through it, then you're just setting yourself up for a fall. It just doesn't work that way)
The magic question is, though 'How many downloads does a successful podcast have?'
Wow - that is a wide-ranging question...
First of all, download numbers are not made public. If you wanted to say that you were getting 50,000 downloads per episode as part of your social media marketing, there is no-one that could prove otherwise. Apart from me, obviously...
This means that you should always take those social media posts with a pinch of salt, when people are saying that they're getting x number of downloads.
Same goes for chart positions. We've seen posts where people say 'My podcast is #1 in the Business Management charts!'. That sounds great, but what they're not telling you is that the Middle Piddle Village Chart - and it's #1 in Kuala Lumpur.
The thing we wanted to talk about is the title of this whole article - that you're podcast is far more successful than you think.
Look at your regular episode download numbers. What are you averaging, per episode?
If you're getting more than 25 downloads per episode - you're in the top 50% of podcasts
If you're getting more than 100 downloads per episode - you're in the top 20% of podcasts
If you're getting more than 550 downloads per episode - you're in the top 5% of podcasts
These figures apply to the first seven days after the release of an episode, when a large majority of your audience will listen to that episode.
Just let that sink in.
Spotify recently released figures, saying that their platform now has 5.2 million podcasts. Now think about the fact that you're in the top 50% of that.
Well done!
There is a school of thinking, though, that says that you can't really use downloads as an accurate measure of success. There are 7.5 billion people on the planet - how many of them are in your potential audience? It's the Potential Audience that is the key to a successful podcast from a data point of view.
If your podcast is about Tarantula Ownership you've got a smaller potential audience than, say, someone podcasting about being a better business owner.
If there are 10 people interested in owning a tarantula, and you're getting 7 downloads per episode - that's a pretty successful podcast isn't it?
In summary, then, you might need to think about the Potential Audience of your podcast before judging whether or not it's a successful one.
OR you could keep in mind that you're probably in the top 50% of podcasts
OR you could just go off how you feel when you finish recording it.
Either way - believe us when we say, you've got a successful podcast.