¶ Introduction to Episode
Welcome to this episode of Podcast Insider. I'm Todd Cochran, CEO of Blueberry Podcasting. And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry. On today's episode of Podcast Insider, we're getting into something every podcaster should be doing regularly and probably on a quarterly basis.
You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting, all with the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in.
¶ Analyzing Show Performance and Reassessing Content Strategy
Today, we'll walk you through how to analyze your show's performance, reassess your content strategy, plan your upcoming episodes, and much more. Starting off first, we have review analytics. What do you have to say about that, Todd? Well, you know, I think, I don't get too wrapped around the axle, but definitely, it's one of those things you should do is, especially if you're looking at a quarterly basis, you should evaluate your episode performance.
You can kinda look at the download numbers from episode to episode. You can look at listener engagement, definitely at retention rates. Of course, you should identify what was the most popular episode and then also look at those that underperform to to understand what's really resonating with your audience. And it's can be a little bit complicated and a little you know, sometimes people think, oh my god. How can I tell the delta because
the numbers are all over the place? So I I think you have to use a combination of of all things by looking at the download numbers, looking at the engagement you got on a specific episode, look at your retention rate in the stats from that specific episode, and then compare it to the others. Do a one for 1, and then, of course, then you can probably identify the most popular episodes. The most popular episode may not be the one with the most
downloads. It might be the one with the highest engagement. Again, it runs, you know, day to day, the episode to episode, and he probably really should look at those subscriber numbers too over the specific period of time you're looking at. And the key to that within Blueberry stats at least is to look set a date range. If you're gonna do July 1 until September 30th, you know, set that date range and look at those, those episodes in that period.
¶ Quarterly Review: Using Audience Surveys
I think one of the things that you're able to take a look at quarterly as well as those stats is we particularly include an audience survey for all customers, and that takes some time to garner, you know, results, because you can share it out with your
audience. You're able to get demographic information. That way, it helps you assess who actually is listening to your show, But it can definitely take time, so I think quarterly checking in on that is a good idea as opposed to kind of, you know, freaking yourself out and looking at it, like, every day. That's just not really gonna be super helpful. So quarterly
seems like a solid plan to me. And I think too is looking at the you know, what's going on with the content and see buy the most popular episodes by content and by feedback.
¶ Adjusting Content and Retention Strategies
You know, it really determine whether you need to adjust your content focus to introduce new segments. Another thing you can look at is too is that retention data to see if, you know, some episodes are losing listeners much earlier. This allow you have the ability to say, okay. Maybe I need to make a a touch up here in in the content. But I always caution is when you adjust your content and is to do one thing. Don't do
5 things. Do one thing, and then let it go for a month, 5, 6 weeks if you're producing weekly to be able to see what that is kind of how that is trending with that change. Making too many changes at once can run the risk of having insufficient data to make tweaks to a show. Yeah. Definitely.
¶ Planning Future Content and Audience Engagement
One of those things that we added to kind of help keep track of that is planning your future content. So our AI allows people to, come up with topics, like, before they are releasing. So you can create your own content calendar. You can, prepare for special episodes If you wanna hit those milestones, if you, you know, are trying to actually plan ahead big time, with whatever content that you're that you're putting out, I think Simple Berry resources
can be helpful there. You know, at the same time too, you know, engaging with audiences needs to be done at multiple levels. If you're just re wanting email feedback, is that the only way you're getting episode feedback? Then, you know, maybe what you really need to do is look at setting up social media polls, doing listener surveys, using a different methods to get direct feedback to get insights in what your audience like or wants more of. Usually, over time, you'll kinda get a feel
for that. You know, personally, on my show right now, the audience has been asking for more AI stuff. They've just basically say, we love the the AI commentary. So for me, I was making a little bit of shift and including more AI topics, in my podcast. And, again, you know, you reassess your action with your audience across these platforms and make sure you're responding to listener comments. You have to respond whether it be, feedback you got an email or on social.
You really have to make sure that those that are that are responding to you are getting some feedback back. And sometimes people come with you with a a critical assessment of something or or they really love something specifically and but always acknowledge that feedback in the show. I think it's super important to do so. Even if that feedback came on Facebook,
say, hey. Thanks to, you know, so and so for their comment on Facebook or if it was on x or Instagram or wherever that interaction happened, make sure you give them feedback there. And then calling there's nothing more an audience members like to hear than hearing you talking about their feedback to the show on the show. That just makes them understand that, hey. You really listen to them and you're taking this feedback,
at heart. Just a reminder, we are one of those shows who, you have a topic that you want us to cover on Podcast Insider,
¶ Listener Interaction and Feedback Tips
we would love to hear it. Please tell us, and we will take the time to prepare content for that specific, you know, tool or problem that you're having and that you wanna solve with your podcast. We are more than happy to do that. But moving on, one of the other things that we recommend
¶ Optimizing Marketing and Promotion Efforts
to check on quarterly is optimizing your marketing and promotion efforts. This can be whether you're doing social, newsletters, emails out to people, what is going on on your website, how's your SEO, cross collaborations with other podcasters. It runs the whole gamut. But checking on it, to make sure that you are getting some type of growth or might maybe you even realize, like, this this that I have been doing isn't working whatsoever. Double down on what is working well and,
you know, just scrap what isn't. There's there's nothing wrong with that. At the same time, if you're doing monetization within your show, you know, review current sponsorship or ads to see if they're meeting expectations. And, of course, you can always reach out to new sponsors or new potential sponsors if your audience size has grown. And, of course, if you're using listener support methods, value for value, Patreon,
merchandise sales, You can look at those. Now I, you know, I run a a merch store for quite a while, and what really is easy to overlook is maybe I need a new t shirt designs, maybe I need a different coffee mug design. You know? So quarterly is a good time to really look at your merch, even the way you're approaching, your newsletter and how you're base maybe soliciting for donations. You know, kinda do a overview on that, and I often will take a look at my specific donation page
to see, okay, has things changed? And it really in preparation for this particular episode, last week, I did a check on my, landing page that I send listeners to for monetization and said, okay. Yeah. This this is, getting a little long in a tooth. It needs to be refreshed, and it really kinda match what I'd already been saying on the show, but it was not what was being portrayed on the on the on the donation
page. So I think that is always a, something you need to look at on at least on a quarterly basis.
¶ Refreshing Artwork and Utilizing AI Tools for SEO
Yeah. And this this next one is not necessarily, you know, quarterly per it may be more of a 6 month. But how can you update your podcast platform that you are just like, the overall of your podcast. That includes improving your show notes and your SEO. So go over the show notes in general, like, the post that you actually have along with the episode, the titles, descriptions.
All of these platforms, all of these directories kinda work somewhat differently when it when it comes to SEO and how they're, like, working search. So, you know, trying to optimize for search engines and discovery on the
directories is great. And, as our graphic designer here, Aaron Hope, he's not on this episode, but he's done a couple in the past, would say, refresh your artwork and branding depending on the directory, recommendations, because those are the ones that are putting out the standards of what should be happening. So, you know, if Apple says, do it in this size with we recommend this template, do that. You know, you don't have to follow exactly what is being recommended. Make it your own.
But just make sure that you're not doing yourself a disservice with whatever artwork and branding that you currently have. And to add a little bit to that, since I've started using our AI tools, and experimenting with AI, to be honest with you, my show titling and show notes have gotten so much better. You know, I've post you know, I basically been at this nearly 20 years now, and I had a formula. And that formula was good, but the formula was not great.
And I think now the formula I have now is at that, basically, about at that 80% level of where I wanted to be in that. The the show titles are now more focused on the primary content that's in the show, and it's basically really coming up to be, you know, what are people looking for in within this topic? In other words, if I talk about subject x, when someone's on Google looking for subject x, are they gonna find my show with my episode?
And because I've improved my titling, I've improved my show notes, give, Google more metadata to chew on. It's really resulted in a in a significant bump. And, you know, if you're growing 1, 2, 3%, you know, if you want that growth to be higher, this is just one of those small tweaks that you can make that have long term impact, on findability of your show. But at the same time, on the technical and production piece
¶ Evaluating and Upgrading Technical Equipment
is, you know, you need to evaluate your equipment software. And, many of you maybe are just using a RODEcaster or, maybe have a more complex setup or maybe just plugged into a USB mic. But it's always good to really kinda look and say, okay. Is my sound the way it should be? Is is it there? Do I need to make a a
tweak? Now remember, if you're gonna make changes on a a device, take a screenshot of those or take a you know, use your phone, take a picture of the current settings before you start tweaking because you may go the other way. You may say, oh, that change was not as good and scratch your head a little bit. Say, oh, what do I need to go back to? I find myself doing that from time to time, because I have a lot of granularity in how I can tweak the sound of my show.
At the same time, the workflow, how you're recording and editing. One of the big changes I just made because I do both audio and video is I had a computer that was well, I had one of the Mac Pros, the old I guess the best way to call is a trash can, and I did an upgrade to that machine. You remember those Mackenzie, the black?
Yeah. So that had been my machine for years, and just that production flow going to a new Mac, took my video encoding time from, like, 20 to 25 minutes to, like, 3 and a half minutes. So I'm thinking myself, my god. I could have been saving 15 minutes every episode. You know, you do the math on that. And, like, for me, I'm doing 8 episodes a month. That's a lot of time. Right. It seems like nothing day of, but it really does make a difference. You know, I'm talking about 2 hours
of saved time and production flow. So just, you know, that was an expensive upgrade. Don't get me wrong. But what is your time worth over a year? So, you know, 2 hours a month times 24 hours, you know, that's half a work week. So I think that, those types of things again, it's not a 100%, realized gains because I was always doing other things while that encoding was happening. But still, the process just got much faster. So I think that, you know, refreshing your artwork and branding is
important. But again, this workflow, all these types of things are good things to tweak on at least a quarterly basis or maybe, again, maybe every 6 months. Yeah. I'll
¶ Setting New Goals and Keeping Updated on Industry Trends
and something that you can do as well is setting new goals. You know, you might have hit all the goals that you set 6 months ago during this last quarter, and then you're deciding, oh, okay. Alright. What do I what do I do next? You need to decide, I think a lot of the time if people just kind of go with the flow and and say, I I don't really wanna put too much into it. You can get kinda stagnant, you know, even
if you're enjoying it in the meantime. If you do have that hope and desire for growth in the back of your mind, you have to actually set those goals. And we mean growth goals as well as content goals, because those are two different things. You know? Challenging yourself to a new type of content, whether you're doing interviews or not, or doing scripted, or, you know, just just doing whatever comes to mind.
All of these things can help keep the show evolving, and sometimes they'll bring up numbers. You know, you can wanna increase your social media following or just the engagement, increasing downloads by a certain percentage, by such and such date, or really filling out your email newsletter list. These are all different things that you can have have set goals for that will really keep you,
focused, I think. One thing I think that a lot of creators, to be honest with you, fail to do is paying attention what's happening in the podcasting space. Mhmm. And, you know, obviously, we are our noses are to the grindstone and and following what's going on in podcasting, but I'm amazed at the number of free webinars and amount of, you know, help that's out there.
So I I from time to time, if I see a webinar that's it's fits into a time slot that I can attend, I intend just to kind of hang out, listen, find out what's new, what someone else is doing, and listening to podcast about podcasting for fresh ideas, and just kinda take a a little bit of a heartbeat of the space. And, of course, going to conferences are always super value
because it's drinking from the fire hose. We just came back from a AI conference, and I'm still decompressing even 2 weeks later the amount of data that they sent to
us. Now that has nothing to do with podcasting, but when we go to to podcast in, in January and where we're gonna be surrounded by lots of creators, yeah, we may have been doing podcasts for a long time, but I tell you what, I really listen to what folks are doing because you have to stay abreast of what people are, how they're doing their shows, things that are being successful. I really think it helps in the long run-in picking up ideas.
I've always said if I could go to a a conference and I sit in a session and I have one takeaway from an entire session, I'm talking 5, just one. One thing I can implement, that I think will make a difference, then I've really, really won, a big value from attending that event. Same thing with webinars. We hold webinars here on a regular regular basis. The one we just put out recently was well attended, and there was a lot of stuff there that I picked up. And
I was one of the webinar presenters. So I think that, these types of events are worthy of your time, to be able to, either listen in on and sometimes there's the replay, so you may not you'd be able to attend live, but you'll be able to listen later. And oftentimes, those replays are only available if you have signed up for the webinar. So if you didn't attend, you get an email saying, hey. Didn't make the webinar, but here's the recording.
I think those are all great ways to stay fresh of what's happening in the space. And, of course, keep an eye on changes or updates to what's going on at Apple and Spotify and so forth. And there's a lot of things have happened recently over at Spotify that, you know, podcasters need to be aware of when it comes to, making sure that your audio is the preferred content listening stream over there. And he gets basically remain compliant with all,
with best practices. So, again, stay updated on industry trends, I think, is just as critical as anything else, and you don't have to be as in tuned as we are. We will tell you the super, super important stuff here. But, again, listening to this show and others like this, I think, will help your show a lot. You know, as this episode goes out, the Q3 of the year just ended. So we hope that you'll spend some time, going over some of these things that we
suggested for your podcast. We're always here on the team to help with any questions you have about changes you might wanna make. We've really put in a lot of time and effort into our stats and our AI tools recently to ensure that you're getting the best overall use out of Blueberry to help create new and fresh content all the time as well as understanding how your show is performing at a on the overall basis. So we hope that, this help this is helpful.
Absolutely. And, more importantly, happy podcast. Thanks for joining us. Come back next week. And in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information. To subscribe, share, and read our show notes, check out the latest suite of services, and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's Blueberry without the e's because it can't afford the e's.