How do you measure the success of your podcast and what metrics do you use?

1 Define your goals

Before you start prototyping and testing your podcasts, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. What is the purpose of your podcast? Who is your target audience? What value do you provide to them? How do you want them to feel, think, or act after listening to your podcast? Having specific and measurable goals will help you design and evaluate your podcasts better.

2 Generate and select ideas

Once you have your goals, you need to generate and select ideas for your podcast episodes. You can use various creativity techniques, such as brainstorming, mind mapping, SCAMPER, or the Disney method, to come up with different topics, formats, styles, and angles for your podcast. Then, you need to filter and prioritize your ideas based on your goals, audience, and resources. You can use criteria such as feasibility, originality, relevance, and impact to rank your ideas and choose the most promising ones.

3 Create and refine prototypes

After you have selected your ideas, you need to create and refine prototypes of your podcast episodes. A prototype is a low-fidelity version of your podcast that allows you to test and improve it before launching it. You can use tools such as Anchor, Soundtrap, or Podbean to record and edit your prototypes. You can also use scripts, outlines, or storyboards to plan and structure your podcast content. You should aim to create multiple prototypes for each idea and iterate on them based on feedback and data.

5 Measure and analyze results

The final step is to measure and analyze the results of your testing and validation. You need to use metrics that reflect your goals and help you evaluate your podcast performance. Some common metrics for podcasts are downloads, listens, completion rate, retention rate, engagement, ratings, reviews, subscriptions, and revenue. You can use tools such as Chartable, Podtrac, or Podbean Analytics to track and visualize your metrics. You should also compare your results with your benchmarks and competitors and identify your strengths and weaknesses.