The Podcast promotion report

A Dark Jungle

ROI, as you know, stands for "Return On Investment". Generally speaking, if you invest in something, you then track the returns, and then you figure out whether or not it was worth it.

If it was a positive ROI, then you do more of it. And if it's a negative ROI, then you can investigate it, tweak it, test it, and worst-case, do less of it.

Like, say, you started on a special diet. Or a new workout-routine.

One way to measure your ROI is to check your body weight, glucose levels, body-fat percentage, blood pressure, etc. So whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve, you have a way to test for the results, and know if your new routine (or a tweak to your existing routine) is working.

But what if there was no way to measure your weight, or glucose levels, or blood pressure, or heart-rate? What if there was no way for you to know if what you’re doing is working, or hurting?

What if there was no way to track the returns?

What if you keep investing, but can't see the changes, can't track the results, can't predict if it's working?

Like trying to navigate a dark jungle with your eyes closed.

That’s one the biggest issue with podcasting right now.

With a regular web site, you can put Google Analytics code on it, look at your analytics and page-views and bounce-rate and email signups and eye-tracking heat-map software, knowing how long a video has been played, page scrolling, exit-intent, retargeting – so many ways to monitor traffic, behavior, engagement, conversions and so on.

With a podcast, other than the basic “Downloads” stats, there is almost nothing else available right now to help you track, measure, improve and optimize your podcast content and marketing. You don’t know how long the average person listens to your show, at what point do they stop listening, are they streaming or downloading (yes, there is a difference in terms of delivery, not consumption), how many true “subscribers” you have who have subscribed to your feed, etc. And like I like to say…

What cannot be tracked cannot be measured.
What cannot be measured cannot be improved.
What cannot be improved cannot be optimized.

It's really hard to justify paying for something that is a black-box, and something that is not easy to track the returns on.

Sure, there are some basic ways to know if your show is growing:

• Downloads: This is the easiest one: Downloads per episode. Track how many downloads you get for each episode for up to 30 days after you’ve released it.​
  
  
• Subscribers: After you publish an episode, don’t promote it on Social Media or anywhere else, for about 3 days. Track how many downloads you get within those first 3 days – preferably don’t include weekends and national holidays in those 3 days. Whatever number you get, is a reasonable “guesstimate” of how many “subscribers” you have – which is, how many people have actually “subscribed” to your show via your Podcast RSS Feed. Like someone who actually “subscribers” to your email list so that they can get all of your newsletters and updates.
  
  
• Engagement: Not easy to track. You may have a lot of listeners, but not all of them will respond to your calls-to-action. Doesn’t mean they’re not hanging on to every word you say. Just shows the difficulty of the medium when it comes to getting someone who listens to your call-to-action while they’re driving home from work, or out on a run, to come home and remember to act on your call-to-action. I have a section further down that talks about this issue.
  
  

But that’s it. Not much else you can track.

So it becomes hard to pour money into something for which you cannot track the performance or progress. And that is why it is easier to create something more tangible – like a “lead magnet” and an email list – and promote that, because now, you can track the interest of someone arriving at that page and measure the results and test and tweak.

The simplest idea is this: If they won’t give you an email address for a “free” thing, then they may not pay for your products and services down the line.

Obviously, to get someone to sign up to a free email list, there are so many components that go into it – a highly, optimized landing page design, a great offer, great copy, great headline, great benefit etc. So just because they don’t sign up doesn’t mean they’re not interested. However, assuming your form is even barely decent, a great offer should get someone interested in at least giving you their email id.

And the biggest thing about Kevin Kelly’s “1000 True Fans” concept, is that your true fans, will buy everything you create. Not just sign-up for free stuff. But more on that later as well.

So there are some things you need to do, in order to work-around the inherent ROI-challenges with podcasting. And that’s what this eBook is about.