55: What the Latest Data Tells Us About Podcast Listeners
"Don’t just assume that everyone who follows you knows what a podcast is."
Every Spring Edison Research releases an annual report called The Infinite Dial and it contains data on a variety of media/content platforms; including podcasting.
In this episode, I'm highlighting some of the most relevant/interesting data in their 2019 report. Some of the topics include how many people are listening to podcasts on a weekly basis, how much of each episode they listen to on average, what devices they're listening on, how they typically find new podcasts, how likely they are to consider a brand that advertises on a podcast, and the main objections for why people who're familiar with podcasts don't listen to them.
This is a very numbers driven episode and I realize that might not be your cup of tea, but it should be. To learn even more information about podcast listeners such as the percentage who identify as male or female, a breakdown of the age ranges of listeners, and more check out the two reports mentioned in the episode linked below.
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Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more.
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Welcome to Episode 55, of podcasting for coaches. So this episode, just as an FYI, is going to be very data driven, we're gonna have lots of numbers. So if that's not your thing, please prepare yourself because these numbers are really, really important. If you have a podcast or considering starting one, this information might seem a little bit dry. But it is so powerful to know these things. And especially if you're considering starting a podcast, or if you have recently launched a podcast within the past few months. And you're already thinking about letting it go because it didn't give you the immediate results that you thought you were going to get which FYI, that's not how podcasting works. But here is the latest data. And I'm going to go into where this data came from in just a second. But this data, as you'll see proves exactly what I have been saying on the show, and exactly what I have been saying for the past few years, podcasting is growing like crazy. It's not set to slow down anytime soon. And podcast listeners are more engaged, more loyal and more likely to open up their wallets than just about any other platform. The data that I'm going to talk about in this episode comes from two reports put out by Edison research, Edison research and these two reports are the gold standard in terms of audience information for not only podcasts, but also music and television and those kinds of things. They cover pretty much all forms of media. The two reports that I'm going to pull data from for this episode are the infinite dial 2019 report and the podcast consumer report for 2019. I will have links to both of these in the show notes for this episode. Because there's so much data that I'm not even going to cover in this episode. You can find those show notes by going to podcasting for coaches.com. Click on the podcast tab in the main menu, and go to episode number 55. So let's go ahead and jump right in because we've got lots of data and I don't want this episode to get too long. And by the way, all of this data does apply to listeners in the United States. They do a report for Australia as well. So if you are in Australia, you can take a look at that. And I will put that in the show notes also. But again, everything mentioned in this episode is as it pertains to United States, audiences and listeners. So jumping right in for the first time ever, more than half of the US has listened to a podcast episode. This is the first time this has ever ever, ever happened 51% of the US population over the age of 12 because those are the respondents that they surveyed have listened to a podcast episode that's 144 million people. Now one random episode is not a whole lot to go off of that's great because it means podcasting is growing more people are getting exposed to it. So that's awesome. However, the more important numbers are the people who are the regular listeners 32% of the population of the United States. So that's 90 million people have listened to a podcast within the last month 22% so 62 million people have listened to a podcast in the last week. From their report in 2018 17 million more people are aware of podcasting than they were in 2018 20 million more people have listened to a podcast than in 2018 17 million more people are monthly listeners as compared to 2018 and 14 million more people, our weekly podcast listeners since 2018 14 million people even if that was the only listenership that's more than enough for you to have a business off of but that's just how many more people have listened. So again, 62 million, our weekly listeners of the monthly listeners 74% said a main reason that they listened to podcast is to learn new things. That is fantastic. If you are a coach or consultant, they're trying to learn a new skill, a new business, a new hobby, they're trying to educate themselves on something new, which is exactly the type of person that you want to be working with someone who is seeking to gain more knowledge or improve something about their life. Have the monthly listeners 93% Okay, 90
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3% that's an insane number typically listens to all or most of a podcast episode, I do not have the data for how many people read an entire long form blog post or read every email newsletter that you put out, or watch all of your Facebook Lives whenever you go live or your YouTube lives or your Instagram lives. I don't have that data, but I can just about be safe betting almost anything I own that it is not 93% 93% is a ridiculously amazing number, to have people engage with your content for all or the vast majority of it. So whenever you put on a podcast, Episode 93% of your listeners based on this data, obviously, it could vary our listening to almost the entire episode or all of it. That's incredible for all of the participants in the survey 28% of the audio that they listened to our podcast. Now I know 28% doesn't sound high. But that's actually the highest of all the different options. The next highest one is am FM radio at 24%. And then the next highest after that is streaming audio. So Pandora, Apple Music, amazon music, I heart, radio, Spotify, all of those things, only total 15%. So of all of the respondents in this survey, the most popular form of audio that they're listening to his podcasts of the monthly podcast listeners 27% of them are interested in the category of wellness slash self help. I'm guessing that applies to a lot of you listening to this right now. But that in terms of how many people is 24 point 3 million people who listen to podcasts on a monthly basis, are interested in the topics of wellness and self help. 19% are interested in philosophy slash religion, in which I am figuring that spirituality and manifestation and all of those kinds of topics are under that umbrella. The 17 point 1 million people who are interested in that 18% of these monthly podcast listeners are interested in business. That's 16 point 2 million people. So if you're a business coach, entrepreneur coach, anything along those lines, business consultant, even 16 point 2 million people who are listening to podcasts on at least a monthly basis, are interested in the topics of business. Now let's talk about how this information is consumed. of the monthly listeners the devices that are used. 65% are listening on either a smartphone or a tablet or some kind of mobile device. That's not a shocker. The vast majority of any podcast downloads are most likely going to come from Apple podcast, which is Apple's mobile app for listening to podcasts. 25% however, still do listen on their computer or their laptop. 25% may sound like a number you can ignore. Because 65% is obviously the majority. However, 25% of all the monthly podcast listeners is 22 point 5 million people 22 point 5 million people still listen on their computer, their laptop. So if you do not have your podcast episodes, in your show notes on your website, you're missing out, you're losing people. So whatever hosting service you have, they should be able to provide you with a player that you can embed into the show notes for every single episode. This is why you cannot ignore individual shownotes people. You have to have them if you want your podcast to be successful as part of your business. And 10% are listening on smart speakers. Now this number has gone up. They have a lot more data about this in the full reports. So I don't want you to ignore smart speakers. So anything like Alexa devices, which mine probably just went off as I recorded that Google homes, those kinds of things. So any of those apps now by the way, a lot of things like Pandora and Spotify are on those apps, so you're covered if you're on those. Speaking of Pandora and Spotify 43% of monthly podcast listeners have listened to a podcast on Spotify. 35% of podcast listeners have listened to a podcast on Pandora. Now Pandora just recently, within the past few months at the time of this recording, started displaying podcasts. So they are rising very, very quickly in the ranks. I can tell you just from experience with my own podcast that Pandora is likely to become pretty popular in terms of where your downloads are going to be coming from and where people are listening. My podcast has only been on Pandora for about a week at this point, maybe even less. And I already have considerably more downloads from Pandora than I have from I Heart Radio in which my show has been on for over a year. So in less than a week I have more downloads with Pandora than I got from my heart radio in a year. One of my clients I just looked this morning, she got to prove the same time I did and was listed about the same time. She already has four times the downloads from Pandora then
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she does from i heart radio and she's been on i heart radio for like two years so if you have not submitted your podcast to pandora yet absolutely you should do that and i will have a link in the show notes of where you can do that if you host with lipson you can go through them as well but pandora does have a direct submission process so i'm going to link to that in the show notes also same as spotify if you're not on spotify get on their spotify as quickly become the number two most popular destination for where people's downloads are coming from for their podcast so don't neglect that either again i'll have a link on how to apply to have your podcasts listed on spotify as well in the show notes so next let's talk about not necessarily just sheer numbers of the people you can get access to with the podcast but how these people are likely to turn into paying clients or customers of the monthly listeners who have a household income of $75,000 or higher 12% of those have a household income between 75,100 1,017% have an annual household income of 100 to 150,012% have an annual income of over 150,000 obviously depending on where you live that's going to impact how much disposable income they have in those different brackets but those are no small numbers people these podcast listeners have disposable income they have money they're educated they're wanting to learn actually the most popular reason people listen to podcasts is to learn something new they're there they're waiting for your courses your products your services they're ready to open up their wallets and this is also evident by the fact that of the monthly listeners 17% said they are much more likely to purchase from a brand when they're advertised on a podcast 17% again doesn't sound like a whole heck of a lot but that's 15 point 3 million people said they are much more likely to purchase from a brand you are a brand by the way when they're advertised on a podcast 37% so 33 point 3 million so they're somewhat more likely so they're there they just need to be greased up a little bit which is what's so great about a podcast is you have the time to build that bond to grease them up to get them comfortable with you and to get them to say yes so a few more things to talk about here one is how people are finding podcast this is huge because so many people almost everyone has their main call to action their show to be submitting a rating or review for their show on itunes which would be apple podcast i have been saying for years that this is not what you should be doing and here's why the reason people request these ratings and reviews is because they believe it helps their rankings in the various search engines within apple and the categories that is partially true yes they do play a factor in that however that's not how people are finding podcasts that is not how the majority of them are finding them have monthly podcast consumers 73% of them say they have discovered podcasts by searching the internet just doing a google search so if you don't have a website and you don't have individual show notes and you're not working on your podcast seo you're missing out on a heck of a lot of people 67% said they discovered new podcast from social media posts so that's likely from the people they're already following who are posting on social media about their podcast 66% said they discover new podcasts via recommendations from friends or family 62% said they discovered podcasts via recommendations from other audio program hosts so if you talk about another podcast they're likely to check it out because if you like it and they like you chances are they're gonna like this other podcast 54% so they have discovered other podcasts from advertisements on other audio programs so if you have not utilized maybe doing an ad exchange with a similar podcast in your niche or a complimentary podcast that might be a viable option for you and even going beyond just the advertisements guesting i would imagine would factor into this as well they basically just hear the show talked about on another audio program that they already listened to and that's how they find new shows 46% say they come from recommendations from ads on am fm radio stations which is odd to me and then below that is the itunes music store slash google play so basically these directory searches that's 45% so look at everything else that comes before that searching the internet social media posts recommendations from friends and family recommendations from other audio program hosts advertisements on other audio programs recommendations from slash ads on am fm radio stations all of those things are more popular ways to discover new podcasts
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than just going into a directory and finding a show that way. So if your main focus of your show is these iTunes rankings, which by the way ignores every other platform out there, which is millions of people that you're missing, you're doing your podcast a disservice. That is not how people are finding shows. And just like anything else, if people can make money off of it, they're going to so there are scammers out there, that people are paying to either tank the ratings for their competition, or if they're not quite that evil about it. They're just paying them to boost up their rankings. So the iTunes rankings, the apple podcast rankings are not even technically accurate or legitimate. So please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please stop asking for ratings or reviews as your main call to action. Can you mention it occasionally? Yeah, sure. Reviews are great social proof to post on your website and social media. That's awesome. And it's nice to get good feedback. It's a little confidence. But it's of course, but that should not be your main method that you rely on for getting people to discover your show. Okay, so now that I've gotten off my little soapbox about that, we're going to talk about the 53 million people who are familiar with podcasting, but have never listened to an episode. Here are some of the reasons why 75% of those people say podcast just aren't for them. I would venture to guess that a lot of those people just don't really understand what a podcast is. And that's why they say it's not for them, because they're either afraid to admit at this point, that they don't know what it is, or they just don't want to learn about it. 51% say they don't have enough time to listen to podcast. Again, some of this can also come from they don't understand how easy it is to listen, if they're sitting in their car, for an hour commute each way, they have time to listen to podcasts, but they may not realize that it is that easy. 49% say podcast don't provide anything that they can't already find elsewhere. And you know what that might be true, the information can be found elsewhere. But it's just a matter of how you prefer to consume the content. 41% say listening to a podcast can use up a lot of your phone's data plan. Again, they don't understand that you can download episodes to listen to offline, you can download on Wi Fi, listen offline, and you're not using your data plan. 41% say they don't have a podcast app on their phone. If they're an iPhone user, then they have one, they probably just don't realize it. It's a built in native app. They can't get rid of it. If they're an Android user, they have options. They have Google podcast now, which you don't even technically have to download an app for. You can just do a Google search. And then you can play podcast episodes straight from that. 40% say podcasts are too long. Some of my episodes are six minutes. How on earth is six minutes too long. I know some other podcasts where they have just like daily affirmations where they're two and three minutes long. So this is not a valid excuse in most cases. 38% say that they have to pay to subscribe to podcast. This is so not true. And this is why I advocate for using the language subscribe for free on because that immediately gets rid of that concern. 38% of 50 million I don't even know what that is. I could ask Alexa, but I'm not going to 38% that you have to pay for podcasts and you don't 36% say there aren't any podcasts that cover the topics they're interested in. And I call bullcrap on that because there's a podcast on literally anything you want to know about. I know of a podcast that's strictly about breeding chameleons. I know of knitting podcasts, I know a super super niche podcast. So there is a podcast about something they're interested in. 35% say they don't know how to find a podcast. 33% say they're not sure how to listen to a podcast. 32% say there are so many podcasts they don't even know where to start. 22% don't understand what a podcast is. 18% do not understand the difference between a podcast and a radio show. 16% think that most podcasts are for educational purposes. And 16% think that there aren't any podcasts with music in them or about music. As you can see, almost every single one of these reasons for why they don't listen can be overcome. It's either a misconception or if it is a valid concern, it can be overcome with just a little bit of education and knowledge. So my takeaways for this are to educate your audience about podcasts. I have always said that one of the best ways to grow your podcast audience is to educate your existing audience. Don't just assume that everyone who follows you knows what a podcast is. Yes, it's 2019 70% of the entire population of the US is familiar with the term podcasting, but they may have just heard it in passing and they don't actually know what it means. So take the time to periodically explain on your social media platforms, on your blog, on your website, in your email newsletters wherever you put content out. Explain what a podcast is how easy it is to listen if you can do like a video tutorial of how to download and subscribe to your show. That's awesome.
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that takes away so much of the pressure from them thinking they don't understand how it works and then of course make sure that you explain that it's free now you can have a paid podcast where they have to pay for access to the content but if you're wanting to do this as part of your business that's a very not great idea so educate educate educate educate constantly be educating if you're with someone new in person and they say they don't understand what a podcast is or they don't know how to listen you know yeah your show is awesome but i just i don't even know how to listen to a podcast literally have them get out their phone right there in front of you if they have an iphone open up the apple podcast app for them type in your show name and subscribe for them if they have an android phone i like google podcasts podcast addict is another popular one there are so many different apps out there ask them if you can download it on their phone or just do a google search and say hey listen this is how you do it here i am i'm on google podcasts just search for it oh play you're listening right now so it can be super simple they just need to know that my second main takeaway is to encourage sharing of your episodes over ratings and reviews and to focus on your seo on your website recommendations searching and being on other podcasts are the most effective ways to get your show in front of new people not ratings and reviews my other takeaway is to get on smart speaker apps if you're not already so get on pandora get on spotify get on tune in which is the default for alexa devices which kind of is terrible but it's what it is if you're in google podcasts you're on the google home so you're good there and this data shows that podcasting is only growing and it's only going to continue to grow and that the people who are listening to podcast are loyal and they open up their wallets if you have any questions about this or you want to check out any more of the data head over to podcasting for coaches com click on the podcast tab in the main menu and then go to episode number 55 if you're one of those people who have recently launched a show and you're listening to this data and you're thinking oh my gosh my audience is not growing where's all this growth you're talking about where are these wallets that people are opening nobody has contacted me i'm not getting any new clients my numbers are not growing in fact they're going down if any of that sounds familiar i want you to reach out to me and let's schedule a free consultation call where we're going to talk about some of the basics of your show and then see if it might be a good idea to have me do a full audit of your show where i review your episodes your show notes your rss feed itself how things are displayed in the various platforms and see what we can tweak because there's obviously something not quite resonating with your audience maybe the audio quality is not so great and you just don't know how to improve it so again schedule that free call with me so that we can see if a full audit of your show will be beneficial for you you can do that also by clicking the link that will be in the show notes thank you so much for tuning in this week and i will see you back here next week where we are going to have yet another interview the bass successful podcaster
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and that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches if you'd like to connect with me further you can do so on instagram at podcasting for coaches if you know it's time to finally get serious about starting your podcast go to podcasting for coaches comm and click on the work with me tab in the main menu to learn more about my one on one launch consultation packages or my self paced online course and i look forward to seeing the podcasts that you create and put out into the world