“You would be better having 50 people listen to your podcast, and those 50 people be the key target audience who would potentially be your customer.”

Tri from my team at Seven Million Bikes Podcast asks me the big questions about measuring the ROI of a business podcast. I’m Niall Mackay. I started my first podcast in 2019, it went on to win major awards, and it’s now in the top 5% of podcasts worldwide. After I lost my job during COVID, I started Seven Million Bikes Podcast, and we recently opened Saigon Podcast Studio here in Vietnam.

There’s no easy answer to this question, and I say so upfront. But I walk through why downloads are the wrong measure for most business podcasts, what to track instead, and how to tell whether your show is actually helping your business grow.

Key Takeaways

• Downloads shouldn’t be your goal: Measuring success by download numbers isn’t helpful for a business podcast.
• Sponsorship is really difficult: At around $28 per thousand downloads, even a top 1% show makes little money per episode.
• Measure audience and engagement: Check where your listeners are, their age, and their device.
• Track your leads by asking: Add “How did you hear about us?” to your contact forms and your sales conversations, with the podcast as an option, and record the answers in a spreadsheet.
• Give it at least a year: A podcast is one part of your marketing funnel, and it creates value with every episode and clip before it creates a lead.

Chapters and Timestamps

00:00 – Why downloads are the wrong measure
03:00 – Why making money from sponsorship is so difficult
05:00 – What to measure instead: audience, engagement, and leads
08:00 – How a podcast creates value before it creates a lead, and how to track business development
10:00 – How long to give your podcast, and how to work with us

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