What is a “good” number of downloads for your podcast?
Welcome to our first newsletter!
We (Puddle Creative) are creating this newsletter to share our thoughts on the podcast industry, resources, and what our amazing clients have been up to.
👋 Check out some personal stuff at the end, we’re humans after all!
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Today's newsletter is 709 words — a 4-minute read
What constitutes a “good” number of downloads?
We get this question a lot from clients and prospects, and while it is impossible to answer, we too are curious: what kinds of download numbers are other podcasts getting?
Benchmarking your podcast download numbers against others is one way to compare yourself, but it is not the only way! Often, comparing your episodes to past episodes of your own show is the best way to go. And you can look at consumption rate, listen time, or other metrics rather than just downloads.
Article: Omny Studio recently released their annual benchmarking data report - read it here, including data broken down by podcast category and geography. (4 min read)
New episodes
🚀 Outer Space: BMO’s Sustainability Leaders podcast had on Kevin Murphy, Chief Science State Officer at NASA, and Raghu Ganti, a Principal Research Scientist at IBM Research. Michael Torrance sat down with Kevin and Raghu to discuss how data collection strategies are helping to develop and improve geospatial models, creating opportunities to better understand environmental risks. (18 minute listen)
🏄🏿♀️ Surf’s up: Kanoa Greene was born into a family of surfers in Hawaii, but for a long time she didn’t feel like she belonged in the ocean. She’d never seen a plus size person out in the water and she struggled to find gear to fit her body. Eventually when she was in her 30s, she stood up on a wave for the first time and it opened up a new world for her. Now Kanoa’s goal is to help other people, no matter their size, discover their own sense of adventure. (28 minute listen)
Other recent episodes:
Contributor: Robust Observability: OpenTelemetry with Austin Parker (35 mins)
Arrested Mobility: Unmasking the Bias: The Trouble with Automated Traffic Enforcement (16 mins)
Tools we use
We’ve been loving the Shure MV7 Microphone for recording remotely.
Get your podcast on YouTube, asap! The Google Podcasts app is shutting down in April. Contact someone from our team to help with this if you’re a current client 🙂
Need to find info on a particular podcast? Check out Podcast X-Ray, from Bumper.
From Puddle HQ
Annie is back in rainy Portland, OR after a nice vacation to San Diego, where she went to the San Diego Zoo and Legoland (with her 3-yr old). She also got to have acai bowls on the beach with her colleague at REI, Jenny Barber.
🧩 She’s been doing a lot of these cool puzzles lately.
Derrick is happy it finally snowed in NYC. He and Puddle Creative’s Sam (work friends!) went to see the 2004 Rom-Com Saving Face and Derrick bought the DVD (yes those still exist).
🎥 He and his wife review movies under the Instagram account Two Faced Movie Reviews.
Jonah was also in San Diego with Annie, and loved Legoland as much as their 3-year old did. Jonah is a native of Chicago and a Cubs fan, and he’s particularly excited about the return of Cody Bellinger.
Sam has been doing a lot of karaoke lately. He went to karaoke 6 times within 15 days. He also started hosting a radio show called Slop Trough, where he plays music, and showcases some of the interviews he does outside of work.
🖼️ If you find yourself in NYC, Sam recently went to the Noguchi Museum and loved it.
Sylvia is back in her home state of Minnesota after a few months in Brazil. Before she left, she had a fantastic meal at D.O.M. She is preparing for her wedding (eek!) in April.
Sylvia recently received a Crotch Pot as a gift from a Wild Ideas Worth Living podcast guest! She hasn't used it…yet.