#195: Why (and how) to ask your audience why they DIDN’T take action

Jay Clouse [00:00:13]:
Hello, my friend. I was out for a run recently, and I listening to a new podcast called Podcast Marketing Trends Explained. I apologize for how many times I'm about to say podcast, by the way. But Podcast Marketing Trends Explained is a show co hosted by my 2 friends, Jeremy Ends and Justin Jackson. Both of these guys are deep into the world of podcasting. Justin is the cofounder of Transistor. That's transistor.fm, which is one of my favorite podcast hosting platforms. And Jeremy is the founder of Podcast Marketing Academy as well as a member of The Lab.

Jay Clouse [00:00:47]:
These guys are doing really great work with this podcast about podcasting. It's nerdy. It's data driven. It's everything I love about being creator and a podcaster all rolled into 1, but even better because podcast analytics are so hard, so bad. But these guys are taking a very rigorous data driven approach, and I love everything they are putting out. In particular, I loved this episode you're about to listen to. It's all about understanding why it's so hard to get your fans from other platforms to give a podcast a listen. This is something I feel very personally as my overall audience has grown on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on YouTube.

Jay Clouse [00:01:25]:
The podcast remains the biggest mystery in terms of growth. It is so hard to get people from one platform over to podcasting. In this episode, Jeremy shares the results of a survey that he ran to his audience to understand why a large portion of his podcast specific audience hadn't listened to the show created for people just like them. It's fascinating, insightful, and even inspiring. It inspired me to run a similar survey to folks who didn't purchase Creator HQ during the launch. So I thought about bringing them on this show to basically rehash the same information, but they keep their podcasts so tight and well produced that I actually doubted whether I could make a better episode than the one they'd already made. So I just asked if I could re air this episode on my feed because even if you're not a podcaster, this will give you ideas for how to get feedback from your audience and make data driven decisions. But if you are a podcaster, I think this is going to be doubly valuable for you.

Jay Clouse [00:02:19]:
If you like this episode, I recommend subscribing to Podcast Marketing Trends Explained here in your player. You can search for it by name, Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, or visit the link in the show notes. That will let you pick whatever player you would like. We'll get that full episode right after this.

Justin Jackson [00:02:39]:
I was just at Podcast Movement Evolutions. A podcast listener came up to me. We had a great conversation. And then he said, can I give you some feedback on the show? And I said, absolutely. And he said, one thing that kinda turns me off is

Jeremy Enns [00:02:52]:
I wish the episodes were shorter.

Justin Jackson [00:02:54]:
It feels like work.

Jeremy Enns [00:02:56]:
The clips at the beginning feel manipulative and unnecessarily slick.

Justin Jackson [00:02:59]:
I listen to podcasts to get away from work. This is a work topic for me.

Jeremy Enns [00:03:03]:
The thing feels more like a science experiment than true connection.

Justin Jackson [00:03:06]:
I choose the most interesting topics in my feed. Yeah. Sometimes I choose your podcast. Sometimes I choose other podcasts.

Jeremy Enns [00:03:12]:
I want it to be shorter and more actionable and more concise.

Justin Jackson [00:03:15]:
The other danger here is that you listen to one complainer and then there's a silent majority who actually loves that thing. And then you remove it and then they're like, what happened? So, Jeremy, I've got a question for you. When I decided to team up with you, one of the thoughts in my head was Jeremy has this big email list specifically focused on podcasting. I think you've got, like, 9,000 subscribers or something like that. And you've, like, regularly emailed people about our episodes. But when I look at our podcasting stats, we're only getting, like, 350 downloads per episode.

Jeremy Enns [00:03:53]:
It's funny you mentioned this because, I actually had the same idea when I signed up. I I don't know how many people are on Transistor's email list, but, I imagine it's more than 9,000 actually. You know, this is something that I've actually been curious about myself, and this show is about podcast marketing and podcast growth. My newsletter is about podcast marketing and podcast growth. So I kind of assumed, okay. We've got 9,000 people here who want this topic. They have already kind of indicated that they like my take on it by staying subscribed. So, you know, I was kinda thinking it would be pretty easy moving everybody over, and it hasn't really worked out that way so far.

Jeremy Enns [00:04:25]:
So I got curious the other week, and I ran a bit of an experiment to try and get to the bottom of this mystery

Justin Jackson [00:04:31]:
Okay.

Jeremy Enns [00:04:31]:
To see why haven't you listened to podcast yet. And I had a few hypotheses, a few ideas about why that might be, and we actually were able to get about a 100 people responded to my little ad hoc survey and got some interesting data that I think is going to shine a light on, you know, this this phenomenon exists for everyone in in a lot of cases where maybe you've built up an audience on social media or your newsletter or on YouTube, and you're trying to get people to back the podcast and you're like, why are you not doing the thing? So we're gonna dig into that data today and try and get to the bottom of this kind of frustration that I know a lot of us as creators have. Now before we get into it, I am just curious about you. Are there creators who you are personally putting through this agony by engaging with their content somewhere but not listening to their podcast or maybe vice versa.

Justin Jackson [00:05:21]:
Carmen, give me a break. It's like every creator has a newsletter and a YouTube channel and a podcast and a Twitter and a Instagram, and I can't subscribe to everybody's everything. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely there's some people. It's like, I like their podcast, and I listen to their podcast, but I'm sure they have a newsletter, and I'm not on it. There's people I've tried as well where I really dig their newsletter, and they've got a podcast, and I'm like, okay. I'm gonna, like, try this out, but it's just not the same. Like, for whatever reason, it doesn't fit into my life in the same way.

Justin Jackson [00:05:55]:
And so as a consumer, I kinda have to make a choice.

Jeremy Enns [00:05:59]:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same way, and I find myself there have been seasons in my life where I will listen to a show for years at a time. And then Mhmm. Sometimes it just drops off entirely. And I'm still a fan. At heart, I know I I think of it as still one of my favorite shows, and it's almost like I'll have this reality check moment where I'm like, wait. I haven't actually listened in 3 years, and yet I still think of this as one of my favorite shows.

Jeremy Enns [00:06:21]:
And, 20,000 Hertz is one of these shows for me. I think of, 99 Percent Invisible. That's a show I still listen to a couple times a year, but in my mind, it's like I'm like, this is one of the best podcasts ever. And yet, it's there in my feed every week. I get the new notifications for it and I don't listen, even though I'm interested in the topic. And it's kind of just fallen out of this bubble of like, I have maybe 2 shows that I listen to every single week. And it's like, these are my must listen shows. And a lot of times I'll discover a show and I'll go back and binge through the whole back catalog.

Jeremy Enns [00:06:49]:
And then I get to the end and there's nothing new and that slot gets lost. So now maybe I do listen to that every week, but now something new slots in there. Or sometimes like the, the most recent one for me was the show I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi. And I've binged through all, I don't know, a 150 episodes or something like that about 3 months ago. And within a month or 2, I listened to all the episodes because I was like in the mindset. We're like, okay. I'm like focused on personal finances and, my partner Kelly and I, we, got engaged and so we're gonna be married. The show is all about, like, couples finances.

Jeremy Enns [00:07:19]:
So I'm like, okay. I'm, like, doing the the research and, like, looking for all the potential pitfalls and so I wanted to just soak in that. And then I got caught up, and I haven't listened to a single episode since.

Justin Jackson [00:07:30]:
See, one of the questions in our outline is what are the creators doing to facilitate more connection?

Jeremy Enns [00:07:36]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:07:37]:
But there's this other side of the equation, which is what is the job to be done of the listener? Yeah. And as I was listening to you, I was I was thinking, like, you know, when Jeremy is listening to this personal finance podcast, and I'm not sure if people heard that, but you just got engaged. Yep. We all need to celebrate that. Congrats. Confetti everywhere. So happy for you and Kelly. But there's a job to be done there.

Justin Jackson [00:08:00]:
It's like, I'm about to take this giant step, one of the biggest financial steps you can take too. So you had this job to be done, which pulled you into the Ramit Sethi ecosystem. And the job to be done here was I need to figure this out because this big thing's happening.

Jeremy Enns [00:08:18]:
Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:08:18]:
And it was triggered by an event in your life.

Jeremy Enns [00:08:21]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:08:22]:
And I think this is how a lot of people listen to podcasts. I think when you view it through that lens, this job to be done lens, and understanding that listeners aren't just showing up to appease you and give you more downloads so that you can be happy. Listeners have jobs that they need done in their lives, and they are looking for ways to get those jobs done. And that might mean they're gonna be with you for a set amount of time. And in the case of this show, you know, we know that people who are listening to the show, and it's reflected in the data we're gonna go through, they are trying to achieve something.

Jeremy Enns [00:09:01]:
Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:09:01]:
And they've got x number of hours per week to invest in research and learning, and they could give that to us. They could give that to a blog. They could give that your newsletter. They could give that to a course. There's all sorts of ways they can invest that time. And once they're done that job, they may move on and be like, you know what? I only needed 3 episodes of that podcast. I'm good. Now I'm moving on to the next thing.

Jeremy Enns [00:09:28]:
Yeah. And I think that that correlates with one of my personal experiences as a consumer where I think of somebody like our mutual friend, Jay Clouse, where I was a binge listener of his show, and I listened through every single episode of that show for the first 30 or 40 or something like that. And now I am a occasional selective listener where the topic really needs to grab me. But what was actually the moment of transition was when I actually signed up to Jay's paid community. And now that job is being done in a higher resolution by actually getting direct access to Jay. And so I don't really need the podcast anymore. And I think that one of the interesting issues with educational podcasts, and I think Jay's actually a good example of this, is his premise of the show is to help creators become professional creators essentially. And so he covers a variety of topics.

Jeremy Enns [00:10:17]:
He'll talk about LinkedIn and podcasting and YouTube and all of these other things. We're running live events, all these things that might be relevant to different creators. And when you get to a certain level of advancement, any audience reaches this level where they kind of know what path they're on and they actually wanna tune out all the noise. And so I think that this is kind of one of the pitfalls of being successful is when you help your audience achieve the goal, it's likely that they are actually not going to engage with your show as much anymore, especially if you're doing a breadth of content. And I think that there are interesting ways around this to some extent. I think you can if you think about the job to be done of the different assets in your content ecosystem, that sometimes the podcast can really complement other areas. And so one of the things that, one of my new sector subscribers in this experiment we're gonna talk about mentioned was that they're actually a member of my paid community and work with me as a client, but the podcast offers a different thing than they get from the 1 to 1 and especially the roasts. And so I think that you can design certain types of shows depending what your business is, depending on what your goals are, that it can still be relevant longer term.

Jeremy Enns [00:11:20]:
Whereas I think if you're just trying to, like, teach somebody the things so they can be successful, oftentimes, like, that has a very limited shelf life, and we almost need to expect this as creators.

Justin Jackson [00:11:28]:
Yeah. And maybe just to to kinda wrap that up, there's also a question of what job is this podcast doing for you as a creator.

Jeremy Enns [00:11:37]:
Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:11:37]:
And so if it's in service of getting people to a certain point so that they then need the next step, which might be your course or your membership or becoming a customer or becoming a client, that could be that, oh, the podcast is just stage 1, and then people graduate from the podcast and go to the next thing. And as long as that graduation is happening, the podcast is doing its job. It might mean that your downloads per episode doesn't grow over time. But as long as you're getting new listeners who come through the program and then graduate to something else that you're offering, then the podcast is doing its job. You don't need a 100,000 listeners per episode.

Jeremy Enns [00:12:19]:
Yeah. The and the other thing that's interesting, I think, with that, like, what's the job of the podcast for you? Like, I think about this with my newsletter where this was totally unintentional but has been this great happy accident where I treat that newsletter as my workshop for new ideas. And so before anything ever gets taught in a course, a very structured format, it comes out as a newsletter idea. And so one of the great things is that whenever we do our, like, weekly office hours calls, my favorite thing is when one of my clients or or members of the community will say, hey. You wrote about this thing in the newsletter. Can we talk about that in more depth? And I'm like, oh, yeah. Because I've been thinking about that and I just published it. And now there's this opportunity to, like, okay.

Jeremy Enns [00:12:57]:
I put this out there. Now I actually get to have a conversation about it and go even deeper. And so the newsletter really serves the community. It makes the community better as well as serving the the broader audience. And I think that podcast can do that as well. And I know I've worked with a a couple of clients in the past who were kind of very niche coaches. And one client in particular, her podcast, the whole basic premise was to answer questions from her paid membership. And it was open to the public because they were relevant to her audience.

Jeremy Enns [00:13:23]:
But really, she was like, okay. I know more people than just this one client in my community have this question. So I'm just gonna address it on the podcast, and I'm gonna make it public. And so that was this way where the podcast could keep serving the community as well as both attracting people to it in the

Justin Jackson [00:13:37]:
first place. Yeah. Absolutely. I think podcasts can do all sorts of jobs for creators. And so thinking about both sides, I think, is important. But I think what you've done with your audience in actually running this survey is so brilliant, and more creators, more brands, more companies should be doing this, where if you have a big newsletter list, send your newsletter, survey and say, hey, How come you are listening or aren't listening to this podcast we have going? Yeah. So, yeah, do you wanna talk about that? What did you discover in there?

Jeremy Enns [00:14:11]:
Yeah. So I'll give the the setup, first. And so essentially, what inspired this was if for anybody who's done a course or product launch or something like that, a why didn't you buy survey? And so after your launch wraps up, you send out an email to everybody who didn't buy and you say, hey, why didn't you buy? And you ask, you know, it might be multiple choice. It might be open ended, but you might say, like, was the the price was too expensive or the timing wasn't right or there might be other reasons that people didn't buy. And a lot of times what happens is that you surface all these objections and you realize, oh, I didn't communicate this really core thing that people didn't consider this because I didn't include something in my messaging. And so I was kind of thinking every so often, it would be worthwhile to do this to your email newsletter and set it up the same way. And so essentially what I did, I sent out a dedicated email and I said, you signed up for this newsletter because you want this. I also have a podcast that does a version of this.

Jeremy Enns [00:15:02]:
So essentially click the link, which one best describes you. And the first link was I've listened to nearly every episode of the podcast. The second one is I've clicked play on 1 episode but haven't listened to most episodes. And the third one was I've never clicked play on a single episode. And after they clicked one of those links, they got redirected to a different kind of supplemental survey that each had a follow-up 2 or 3 questions just to get some more kind of long form data based on whether they were regular listeners, casual or samplers, I kind of define them or, non listeners. And so we got a 100 people who clicked through the link and, we got a bunch of really interesting data back from people. A lot of it was what I suspected or had some hypotheses around but there was also some really interesting kind of anecdotal long form answers that that came out of it. And, I wanna highlight a few of those things.

Jeremy Enns [00:15:50]:
But first, I'll just kinda quickly run through the numbers here from a high level perspective.

Justin Jackson [00:15:55]:
Okay.

Jeremy Enns [00:15:55]:
So we had 94 people respond in total. 30 of those people, so 32%, were regular listens to to the show. So they listened to most episodes. 42 people, so that was 45% had clicked play on one episode but hadn't listened to the majority. And then, 22 people had never listened to an episode at all and that was, 23%. And so this is a little bit of an interesting dataset because by virtue of them actually responding, they're already more engaged subscribers or audience members than typical. And so this is not representative of my total email newsletter. Like, obviously, the vast majority of people have not listened.

Jeremy Enns [00:16:36]:
And I I kinda did some really, really, really rough math to try and understand like, okay. What would I guess? If I was to look at my total audience here, I kind of extrapolated some of this out based on what I know. And basically what we can see from some of our data here is that we probably have around 200 people are probably regular listeners, I would say. I think some of the people fall into the sampler category. It's probably around 25100 people. And then non listeners on my email list are probably around 58100. And so that would be almost 70% of people have never listened to an episode. 30% of people have probably sampled an episode and 2.4% of people are regular listeners.

Jeremy Enns [00:17:17]:
So that's the kind of breakdown here based on this, like, really, really impossible to get 100% accurate math, from the survey.

Justin Jackson [00:17:25]:
One thought I just had while you were talking through those numbers is that it shows you actually that a podcast listener is generally at the end of a funnel.

Jeremy Enns [00:17:38]:
Mhmm. And

Justin Jackson [00:17:38]:
so at the top of your funnel is your entire blog and social media presence and LinkedIn Yep. Posts and all that. And then that filters down to your mailing list.

Jeremy Enns [00:17:49]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:17:50]:
And then your mailing list filters down to podcast listeners.

Jeremy Enns [00:17:53]:
Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:17:53]:
And, generally, what's true is the bigger the top of that funnel, the more people you're getting in at the top of that funnel, the more people you'll get at the bottom. You're only gonna convert x percentage to, in our case, a podcast listener. Yep. And in our case, there's a ceiling to the total addressable market.

Jeremy Enns [00:18:17]:
Yeah.

Justin Jackson [00:18:18]:
So the total number of people who are interested in what we're talking about is limited. Yeah. It's been estimated that even though there's, like, 5,000,000 or 4a half 1000000 podcasts, only about a 150,000 to 200,000 of those are active shows. That's across every type of show. Yeah. That's actually a very small market. It's, like, maybe 200,000 people. Yeah.

Justin Jackson [00:18:46]:
Well, if that's true, how many of those people across all shows, across all types of creators, across all stage of life are interested in podcast marketing just in general.

Jeremy Enns [00:19:01]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:19:01]:
And then we are have been focused on a specific type of podcast marketing. Yep. We don't focus that much on, for example, fictional shows Yep. Or, limited run series or documentary shows. And so the total addressable market's even smaller. And then it's like, how many of that group wanna hear from us specifically? And it's even a smaller number. So it's gonna change depending on what your market is. If your market is first time homebuyers, that might be massive.

Justin Jackson [00:19:30]:
Right? There might be many more people. If it's people who have ever watched an episode of Seinfeld, well, that's millions, maybe even in the 100 of millions of people.

Jeremy Enns [00:19:40]:
Yeah. And I think the other thing that that makes me think of when we're thinking about, okay, we've got this limited supply of people. The sad reality, which is true for every podcast, is that, oh, man. Let's just say that 25100 people have listened to an episode, but only 200 of them actually stuck around. That to me says, like, oh, k. We can do more. We got the impressions. It wasn't exposure isn't the sole problem here.

Jeremy Enns [00:20:06]:
Like, we've got this group of people that we have convinced to click play on an episode, and the vast majority of those didn't come back or only listen to 1 or 2 episodes. And so I think that this is where, you know, if your show is not if it has a low retention rate, you're gonna have to work so hard and get so much exposure. It's gonna be just this tiny tiny trickle down at the bottom of people who actually stick around that this is why actually focusing on the quality of the product and the show is so important because it's more efficient the exposure that you do get in the long run.

Justin Jackson [00:20:35]:
Absolutely. I I I think that's the other side of the coin is now okay. We had 25100 people try this us out. What could we have done to actually retain those as regular listeners? And what can we still do to convince them to, give the show another shot?

Jeremy Enns [00:20:53]:
And I think that, actually, we're gonna go through these 3 different categories, the regular listeners, the samplers, and the non listeners, in more depth here. But I think that there are some clues that they have actually told us potentially what we could do or why they are not coming back. So, we're gonna get to those, in a second here but let's start off with the the regular listeners and so these are the people who listen to most if not all episodes and, so this was 30 people who responded to the survey and they listened to to most of the episodes. And there was a bunch of interesting kind of responses that they had. And so one of the things that I asked was once they click that link, the first question was like, okay. Out of curiosity, like, what actually attracted you to the show in the first place? And one of the things that really came up again and again, and we've seen this in our Apple Podcasts reviews as well, is the data driven approach, which was a natural premise and concept for us because this was kind of a show that was conceived on the back of the actual podcast marketing trends report. And so, of course, it was always going to be kind of tied to data, but I was kind of surprised at how resonant that's been for people and how many people in their reviews have said like unlike other shows which just feel too wishy washy or too based on feel, this feels like real and concrete and solid. And that really stood out to me because that came up in a number of responses of what attracted people in the first place.

Justin Jackson [00:22:12]:
I think what's also interesting is as we get to the data of, like, samplers and non listeners, sometimes what attracts people and keeps them listening is what other people don't like. Yeah. And so as a creator, this is, like, sometimes maddening Yeah. Which is like, what do I do with this information? And in some ways, you want to listen more to the people who are engaged than the people who haven't taken any action. And so of all the data you collected, this is actually the one I'm thinking about the most. Mhmm. What could we amplify? What could we augment? What could we tighten up that these people appreciate? Because we kinda wanna find more people like this. Yeah.

Justin Jackson [00:22:55]:
People willing to put in the effort to listen to an episode and stay committed week after week.

Jeremy Enns [00:23:01]:
Yeah. I think the other thing that really stood out to me from there's so the the questions I asked were, you know, what attracted you to the show in the first place? What keeps you coming back? And then what do you get from this show that you don't get elsewhere? And in this one, that data driven approach showed up in answers to all of those questions. So that was kind of interesting. But one of the other really common responses here, first of all, is about me because this was my newsletter. And so people said, oh, I've, like, subscribed to your newsletter and I really like your thoughts on things. So when you had the podcast, it was a natural thing. But then what keeps people coming back is now people may have not been aware of you, but the co host dynamic came up a lot of times. I'm like, I really like Jeremy and Justin's vibe.

Jeremy Enns [00:23:37]:
I really like the co host dynamic And so that was another interesting kind of thread where I know we've talked about this before too where people will check out a show for the topic a lot of times, but they keep coming back because they like the host dynamic. And I know that this is something we we talk about relationships a lot here, but, you know, both of us had the advantage with this show of having been in podcasting for a while, having built up a reputation and an audience that was then able to, move them over into the show when it launched. So that was a an easier sell to those people.

Justin Jackson [00:24:04]:
Yeah. I think this is the relationship factor is underrated. The truth is is that often someone becoming a podcast listener is like the culmination of a relationship that's been building with the host over time. And so that could mean your activity in an industry, your profile in a certain culture, your blogging, your newsletter, your tweets, your LinkedIn posts, people kind of begin to date you somewhere else.

Jeremy Enns [00:24:36]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:24:36]:
And then, eventually, the relationship gets serious enough that they're willing to commit to having you in their earbuds every week. And so that's notable. You know, a lot of people mentioned specifically they love your newsletter, so it made sense that they might like your podcast. A lot of people like your approach, so it makes sense that they would like your podcast. And sometimes I think folks have not yet earned the right to have a regular listener.

Jeremy Enns [00:25:11]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:25:11]:
It just takes time. Like, let's say you have an industry podcast, but you're brand new to that industry, you need to earn the right to be heard. Yep. And that might take some time, And you can get there different ways, you know, maybe you can get there through interview podcast and and building rapport through other people's profile in an industry. But I think if folks do this survey themselves, they will see some of this reflected.

Jeremy Enns [00:25:40]:
Yeah. And that that's really interesting in the question of what keeps you coming back. My favorite response here was you keep being interesting. And I thought like, at first, I was like, that's a really funny, like, terse response. But I saw more responses that were similar to this. Somebody else said, I keep learning something new. And that was this kind of idea that came up a number of times in this question, what keeps you coming back? And so there's this idea of earning the right to have an ongoing listener but there's also the idea that you can't coast on that. That every episode out, you need to re earn that trust to get them to come back to the next episode.

Jeremy Enns [00:26:12]:
And so to me, these responses here are saying like, they're not just gonna keep coming back indefinitely. It's the fact that they keep listening to the show and more often than not, when they do, they walk away with something interesting to them. And when that stops to happen, they're just gonna stop listening which is what any of us would do for any product subscription that we subscribe to. Netflix stops coming out with interesting shows that's being cut from our bill. And the same thing is with pre podcast, newsletters, blog posts, social media follows, all of this.

Justin Jackson [00:26:39]:
Yeah. It's easy to almost, like, rest and get complacent. Like Yep. You these people are gonna listen to me no matter what I put out. And, I mean, podcasts can sometimes feel like this. Like, I gotta put out another episode this week. What can I wrangle together to, you know, just get out on the feed? Mhmm. And it's you know, we are serving the listener Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:27:01]:
With something. And, again, going back to that job to be done, what's the job to be done here?

Jeremy Enns [00:27:07]:
To your point about, you know, that feeling that we all have of, like, I you know, the guest canceled or whatever. Do I just cobble something together this week? I am increasingly skeptical of that form of consistency. I think Mhmm. Consistency is important of release schedule but I think the consistency and outcome or listener experience has to be high as well. And I think that when you start putting out something that doesn't meet the bar, I think that that has a subtle but very real negative impact on somebody's perception of the show. And it's, you know, we're all gonna have an off episode here and there, but I think when that starts to happen too often, it doesn't really take long for people to start dropping off. And I think that this is something that I think more people probably if you're in a funk that week or a guest cancels, I might even put out a 1 minute episode just as a a note saying, hey, guys, this happened. I'm gonna be skipping an episode this week, but don't worry, I'll be back with a brand new one next week.

Jeremy Enns [00:28:01]:
I think that's actually a preferable listener experience where you're not getting this like, where's the episode? Where's the episode? Why isn't it in my feed? You've actually communicated with them. You can take that episode down later, but you've also said, I didn't have anything that was worth publishing this week and so I'm gonna save it until I have something that is. And I think that that preserves your reputation as somebody who has a high bar for quality and what you share with listeners, which is more important than just being there every single

Justin Jackson [00:28:26]:
week. I've had a hard time with this too, especially with guest driven shows of caring so much about the listener's time and attention that if the guest is not good, having the guts to say, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna release this episode. It's just doesn't meet our bar for, you know, what our listeners expect, and that's hard to do. But Yep. I think it's worth doing. And we've done this with this show. We've recorded an entire episode, and then you and I are kinda sitting there going, I just don't think that hit the bar.

Justin Jackson [00:28:59]:
And then we we've rerecorded it, which is painful, but worth doing if you really value the listener's time and attention.

Jeremy Enns [00:29:08]:
Alright. So let's move on to the, samplers here next and dig into some of the responses from them. And so again, this was, 42 out of the 94 respondents. So 45% of people, this was the biggest group. So from the people who responded to the survey, the largest number of people had listened to at least 1 episode, but were not regular listeners. And I actually asked as a follow-up question, you know, how many episodes had you actually listened to? What was your experience with the show? And so out of these 42 people, 43% and so those 18 people had listened to a few episodes. So they'd maybe listened to 2 or 3 or 4 episodes, but not the, you know, 15 that we'd published at that time. 31%.

Jeremy Enns [00:29:43]:
That was 13 people had finished 1 episode, but not come back for a second. And then 11 people that was 26% had started one episode, but not even finished it. So 26% started, but not finished. 31% had finished 1 episode, 43% had finished, multiple episodes. So Mhmm. That was was interesting to me that the the largest group actually was had listened to a few episodes. So these were kind of this they straddle the line between being regular listeners, but they weren't quite and then there were people who listened to 1 episode or not even 1 episode, and it just didn't grab them. And so there's a spectrum within a spectrum here within just this segment of listeners, which was the first kind of interesting thing here.

Justin Jackson [00:30:24]:
Yeah. I'm I'm just looking at these responses. Some of this is even a little bit spicy, but I kinda, like, love it. I Yeah. I I think you need to start to love critical feedback. Yep. And there's something in here that really kind of inspires me and gives me ideas on how, you know, we can make this show better or do a different show that targets some of these pain points. So

Jeremy Enns [00:30:49]:
yeah. This is I wanna get to what stood out to you in a second, but there's one other kind of, quantitative question that I asked. And so for this group of people who had listened to Click Play on at least 1 episode but not listened regularly, I asked, you know, what's keeping you from listening more? And what was just the overwhelming majority here was 55% of people said lack of time. And then the next closest was 10% of people said, it just wasn't specifically relevant to me. And then 7% of people said it just didn't grab me for whatever. It is relevant to me, but, you know, something about the delivery, the host, whatever, it didn't grab me. So time Yeah. Was the big one, And we're gonna see that again in the non listeners, that with the people who are not regular listeners, time was the biggest factor, which was interesting.

Jeremy Enns [00:31:31]:
And there's actually some interesting anecdotal, spins on that in elaborations. But you mentioned some spicy kinda takes in this samplers category. What kinda stood out to you here as you're reading through

Justin Jackson [00:31:40]:
this? What keeps you from listening more? It feels like work sometimes. Yep. That And then here's another one. I listen to podcasts to get away from work. This is a work topic for me. Yep. So there's something about that in particular that I just find so interesting. Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:32:07]:
Because remember, podcasts do different jobs for people in their lives. And so if someone's normal podcast listening time is when they get home and they've, like, thrown off all their work clothes and they finally get to walk the dog, do they wanna get back into work mode? Yep. Like, do they want us to stress them out with all the things they could be doing about their podcast? It's like, no. I don't want something that feels like work in that mode. And so that's interesting. But it also makes me think like, I wonder how we could shape the show to address that. Is there creative ways we could reach the people to make the show feel less like work or to start another show that doesn't feel as much like work. Right? Yeah.

Justin Jackson [00:32:56]:
And, again, this show has a lot of data in it, and a lot of the people that listen to the show like the data. But maybe by including all this data and then the discussion around it, it just makes the show longer. Makes it feel more like work. Maybe these audiences are mutually exclusive, and so that's interesting too, just to look at this stuff and go,

Jeremy Enns [00:33:21]:
Yeah. I think that one was really interesting, and I know that I've experienced this with different shows and different content where when the topic at hand is part of your job. And I think this can be done, but I think it's hard to do well to have a casual low stakes conversation that doesn't feel worky but is about work. That to me too, it feels like, do people want that? If they're just gonna get something casual, do they wanna just tune out of work entirely? But then Mhmm. I think we also have all had the experience where it is nice to go out with people in your industry for drinks or like a happy hour in your industry with people who get the context that you live in, but you're not really talking deep about that. So I think there is value there, but you kinda have to pick a lane. And where we are going more for the actionable, like explaining the data, like this is we want this to be really useful to people in that way. And so that's the job to be done, which actually ironically in the non listener group, so they don't even know what the show is about necessarily.

Jeremy Enns [00:34:13]:
But also here in the sampler, a lot of people started to say, I want it to be shorter and more actionable and more concise. And so Yeah. In our mind, we're kinda giving an actionable show, but it's not actionable enough for some people, which is fascinating.

Justin Jackson [00:34:26]:
Yeah. And what I like about this feedback is it inspires new ideas. So it does make me think, Like, we could do another feed where we get, you know, Chris, our editor, to just, like, pull out, like, the actionable tips, and it's just like, here's the feed with just the 10, 15 minutes of tips, if that's all you want. That would be an interesting experiment and wouldn't cost us that much more because we've already, you know, edited the content once. We could just grab it and try another experiment there. It also makes me think about there are some universal kind of human truths that I think are more compelling more of the time. So telling a story or involving your listeners on a journey is a much different format than doing kind of a data driven show or an advice driven show or a tips driven show. We've talked about doing a completely different show where we try to make a show popular.

Justin Jackson [00:35:29]:
So, like Yeah. Pick a podcast that we think has potential, you know, and it's like, hey, everybody. This is Justin Jeremy, and we are trying to get Alison's podcast to 10,000 downloads per month. Join us every week as we give her actionable feedback. Well, that's a journey, and that might be more interesting and feel less like work. Yep. Because in that case, it's like, oh, wow. Like, I wonder what happens next.

Justin Jackson [00:35:52]:
Did, like, you know, they were trying this crazy experiment. How did it go? So I like the inspirational stuff that comes out of this kind of feedback. And, again, you're not gonna be able to do every idea, but it's it's like a nice time to consider other opportunities either for the show you're doing right now or a spin off that might be even more compelling to a bigger audience.

Jeremy Enns [00:36:16]:
Yeah. I think the other thing that stood out to me here is that at this stage, one one of the questions that I asked was, is there anything we could do with the show that would get you to listen more? And so we're essentially asking for advice, and I knew going in that this is a untrustworthy response. And so you get this a lot of times with pricing and things like that. People go down rabbit holes where they're like, you know, what would you pay for this? And this is actually a terrible question to ask people to suss out, pricing. And there's all kinds of actual more rigorous pricing methodologies out there, but we started getting people saying like, I wish the episodes were shorter. But Mhmm. Then there was this fascinating response here where somebody said, I loved your longer or shorter episode experiment. And so this was the experiment we ran previously where for a couple episodes, we did like an hour long version and a 40 minute version or 35 minute version and basically said, listen to whichever one you want and kinda tried to measure the results.

Jeremy Enns [00:37:08]:
And this person said, so I I love that experiment. I picked the longer episode to listen to because I didn't wanna miss any useful content. But so far, I've only listened to it for about 30% because my business podcast listening time is limited. Not sure whether that's a vote in favor of the longer or shorter episodes. Maybe a vote in favor of shorter but just as meaty and so there's this tension here where people say they want shorter but the show might just not be enough of a priority for them to listen at any length. And so I've seen this a lot with a lot of shows where people see that their, episode consumption is too low for their taste or they're getting feedback that they people people wish it was shorter, you make the change and it doesn't change anything. And it's because for those people, they're trying to convince themselves to listen. Like, they act they do want to listen, but it's just not enough of a priority to actually get themselves to do it.

Jeremy Enns [00:37:54]:
And so their kind of verbal feedback to you, you can't really take that face value and you kinda have to do your own experiments and then measure the results and see what do people actually take action on.

Justin Jackson [00:38:04]:
I still think some of those insights are interesting. Like this person said, I choose the most interesting topics in my feed when I set off on my dog walk commute. Yeah. Sometimes I choose your podcast. Sometimes I choose other podcasts. That's just true. That is an observable truth about how I consume podcast episodes, how you consume podcast episodes. Regular podcast listeners, you wake up in the morning.

Justin Jackson [00:38:30]:
It's like, I'm walking down to the office. What grabs my attention?

Jeremy Enns [00:38:36]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:38:36]:
And I've got 30, 40 episodes I could choose from.

Jeremy Enns [00:38:40]:
Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:38:41]:
So if that's true, then there are some things you could do. Right? Like, make sure that you're releasing the most compelling topic, episode title, episode cover art, episode description, first 30 seconds that you can so that you increase the chances that when someone's skimming through episodes to listen to, they might choose yours. I also just think I like having that in mind, like, as a background. Sometimes as creators, it's like, man, how come no one's listening to my show? Like, come on. I'm doing all this work. And it's like, yeah. But let's actually look at how people choose episodes to listen to. And if you're not regularly fitting into that slot, then you're gonna have a hit rate that's like maybe 15% of the time they choose you.

Jeremy Enns [00:39:38]:
Yep. If

Justin Jackson [00:39:38]:
you wanna increase the hit rate, you're gonna have to do some things. Or maybe your topic, maybe your concept, that's just what you're gonna get.

Jeremy Enns [00:39:48]:
Yeah. The other thing on the picking the most interesting episode in the feed, we actually had a number of people who mentioned this. And so the final question here for this group was anything else you'd like to share about the show that might help us improve? And a lot of people didn't actually offer constructive advice. They actually offered praise. And so there was a number of people here who said, I appreciate how clear the episode titles are that so it helps me choose whether this is relevant to me. And this is something that, you know, we talk a lot about in the roast of having like not just a hook but just clarity in the title. What are you gonna get out of this? If you have this question in your mind and this was actually something else that people mention a lot in the previous category of regular listeners. This idea of I keep coming back because I'm glad to hear that Jeremy and Justin are asking the same questions that I'm asking myself and I didn't know if other people were thinking about these things.

Jeremy Enns [00:40:30]:
And so I think that this with episode titling and descriptions, this came up a lot for people too, which is is really affirming to me that I'm like, okay. I haven't been entirely missing the mark with the titles here. And, you know, I spend a decent amount of time workshopping a few different titles and oftentimes, I'll actually the day we publish, I'm like, that's not quite right and then 2 days later, I'm like, that's the title, and I'll go back and change it because everybody else who comes through later, like, they'll now benefit from that. And so Yeah. I think, like, you're not you might not get it right the first time, but improving the overall clarity and kinda legibility of your feed so that somebody who's new can quickly find something that is relevant to them. That's gonna increase both new listener acquisition, but also this kind of sampler group help them get more touch points with the show by finding something regular and starting to build the habit around that.

Justin Jackson [00:41:15]:
I also wanna point out one thing talking about episode titles. This person says, I haven't had the mental space for more information. I'm feeling quite overloaded with business and personal stuff.

Jeremy Enns [00:41:26]:
Mhmm.

Justin Jackson [00:41:27]:
As soon as I read that, I instantly was like, that would be an amazing episode title and concept for show. Feeling overloaded with business and personal stuff? Listen to this. And these surveys are so good at surfacing those kind of topics.

Jeremy Enns [00:41:44]:
Yeah. There was a spin on that that came up a number of times in this segment as well where there was a lot of people who had listened to one episode, and I think there were some people in the non listener segment as well where they basically told us, like, this is in my queue, but I've got other stuff. I'm feeling too overloaded right now, but I wanna listen. It's on my queue. I'm gonna come back. Mhmm. And I think we have our existing audiences who are interested in the topic. And there's this kind of slow permeation of a show throughout that audience where people like I mentioned before with my own consumption habits where it's like, I'll go through a feed and then now there's a slot 3 months later.

Jeremy Enns [00:42:14]:
It's like, okay. What have I been waiting to listen to to binge through that now is gonna fill that slot? And I think that a lot of people when you give up too early, you don't actually like, your podcast would grow to saturate more of your existing audience, but it's gonna take months or years to, like, fully propagate. And obviously, there's always new people coming in who are kinda starting a fresh. And so I think people are here telling us like, the show is interesting to me. It's not that top priority right now but I I do wanna listen. I like what you're doing. I like the newsletter and I wanna listen to this and it's just the timing's not right. And so that exists for everyone as well with everybody's audience.

Jeremy Enns [00:42:47]:
Like, you have people who like your show. They're they've already made the the purchase so to speak in their mind, and it's just like they're waiting for the right time, the right offer, the right episode to come along.

Justin Jackson [00:42:56]:
Yeah. They're they're waiting for a big road trip or they're waiting for a airplane ride or something. Sometimes you you just need to wait for the right time to come up for that listener.

Jeremy Enns [00:43:06]:
Alright. The the last one that I wanted to mention before we move on to the non listener segment is this one that, said the clips at the beginning feel manipulative and unnecessarily slick. The thing feels more like a science experiment than true connection. And I thought this was such a fascinating differing of tastes where I think we've got a lot of feedback from listeners who really feel connected to us and like the experiments. And as you mentioned before, you can't satisfy every audience. And this person, it feels too over the top, too much, and there's always gonna be that. And I think that you can go get yourself into trouble by taking all advice as equal. And so you kinda mentioned that before about having some discernment about who are you actually listening to.

Justin Jackson [00:43:43]:
Yeah. I mean, because the other the other danger here is that you listen to one complainer, and then there's a silent majority who actually loves that thing. And then you remove it, and then they're like, what happened? Like, I loved that section of your show. And you're like, well, one person complained. It's like, well, no. Just contextualize all of this stuff. And eventually, you're gonna have to develop your own sense of taste about what is good or what you feel is good, and then stick to your guns. I'm sure Ira Glass gets people, giving him advice all the time on how to make a show better, But he has the confidence in his taste to go, okay, that's nice.

Justin Jackson [00:44:23]:
I I understand you want me to put more air horns in my intros, but I'm not gonna do that.

Jeremy Enns [00:44:30]:
Alright. So let's move on to the last segment here, which was the non listeners. This was 22 people who are non listeners, and I asked them why hadn't you listened to the show yet? And here, again, the most common response, 45% of this group was lack of time. And so this again kinda signifies like, oh, I'm interested in the show. I'm interested in the topic. I just don't have time to do it, which is a good a good sign to some extent. The next highest group was that they didn't know it existed. And this to me is a fascinating insight that 32% of people who had not listened didn't even know the show existed.

Jeremy Enns [00:45:02]:
They're engaged enough with the newsletter to take this survey, but they didn't know the podcast existed. And I suspect that everybody's audience has a similar group of people and you hear this I've heard this anecdotally from so many people who you do a post on social media or you talk to an audience member on a phone call and you mentioned the podcast and they're like, oh, I didn't know you had a podcast. And you're like, I post about it like 6 times a week. Like, how can you anybody not know? And that group always exists and I think we as creators tend to pull back from promoting typically as much as we could. Mhmm. And I feel like I've personally especially because the podcast is not paid and I'm really proud of it. So I feel happy to promote it. But reading some of these responses and seeing that number of people who didn't know it existed, it made me think, I realized some areas where I've not made this as clear as it could be, both that the podcast exists and also the links people mentioned, some links to listen even though I thought it was obvious as a as the writer of my newsletter and people were saying, like, link to the audio players and I'm, like, I do link to the audio players right above the YouTube video link.

Jeremy Enns [00:46:05]:
And Yeah. But I don't have the buttons or anything like that. And so there's some ideas where I was like, I could be doing more to make it easier for people from a kind of, like, user interface perspective.

Justin Jackson [00:46:14]:
And trying different things out, like, be maybe trying a newsletter where it's just, like, super clear, like, over the top, like, with pointy arrows saying, please click here and add this to your podcast player. I I think it's worth trying different approaches. And, also, you know, a lot of newsletter software, if you're using that to promote your podcast, you can do AB tests where you send one version to 1 group, what another version to another group, and see which one gets the higher click through rate.

Jeremy Enns [00:46:45]:
Yeah. So outside of the the lack of time, they didn't know that the show existed. There were a couple other reasons people hadn't listened to the show yet in this non listener group. 9% of people said it just didn't grab me. And so that would be they haven't listened yet. So it's not about the content. It's about the framing of the show, which I think is another important. This applies to all kinds of sales, but it's like there are different forms of value that most products or podcasts might give someone.

Jeremy Enns [00:47:09]:
And sometimes you need to try out some of these different angles to your audience and say to some people, like, oh, is this really data driven focus or we break down the numbers and all this kind of stuff and in a different newsletter or a different social post where you talk about another benefit that people can get from the show. And for us, we've got 2 show types. So maybe we advertise the roast more and and you can kinda cycle through these different ways of talking about the show so that somebody who cares of generally about your topic, something's gonna hit with them potentially where they're like, oh, okay. I didn't get that that's what the show did. But now that I understand that, I am interested and I'm gonna try it out. And so that's another reason why it takes so long to market anything is that there's not just one way to market it. There's gonna be probably, hopefully, one dominant way where, like, for, you know, more than happy your audience, this is the thing that they're getting this benefit. It's doing this job for them.

Jeremy Enns [00:47:55]:
But there might be many other reasons that somebody might get value out of the show. And the more conversations you have with your audience, the more you're gonna kinda find that stuff out and you're gonna see that people from your regular listeners will tell you things that you're like, Oh, I didn't really realize that's what people got out of this. So another thing to think about when you're marketing to that audience that is into your topic but has not yet listened to your show.

Justin Jackson [00:48:16]:
Yeah. I'll and I like the idea of maybe just continuing to experiment with positioning. Like, what are some hooks I haven't tried yet that might get some of these folks Yep. Into the show? You could even do an episode where the whole framing is. This is a 15 minute episode, so it's it's totally approachable. The length is shorter. And this is an episode specifically designed to get people into the show. So if you haven't listened, listen to this one here.

Justin Jackson [00:48:49]:
And maybe even you could even try some other things, like some hooks to say, like, you know, everybody who listens to the show, at the end, there's a contest or there's some payoff at the end that is a bigger hook to getting to try it out for the first time.

Jeremy Enns [00:49:04]:
Yeah. So looking at some of the anecdotal responses here, a couple of interesting things here. We had, again, a couple of people who said, you know, this is on my list. I do wanna listen but it just don't have the time right now. This was the one of the most telling, responses where it said, sheepishly, I do have the time to listen because I could make the time. Something just hasn't pushed me to try it out yet which would probably trigger a habit. And so I love the self awareness of this person who's like, yeah. I know probably once I listen the first time, I would get a lot out of it.

Jeremy Enns [00:49:32]:
I like your other content and I would probably listen. And I think that this comment almost more than anything highlights probably where most of our audiences are at where there's like Yeah. Something needs to break through and once we can kinda open the floodgates, they're gonna become a listener. Not everybody, but there's a lot of people there who, like, they're just they can't even tell you why they haven't listened yet, but there's just something that we just need to keep hammering away at it, and, eventually, we're gonna break through.

Justin Jackson [00:49:57]:
And in some ways, to me, this is making me feel like we need to double down on the segment we have at the beginning of the show. Because the segment at the beginning of each episode is kind of like the sales pitch for that episode. Yep. And I think if anything is going to kind of break through, it's doubling down on that. Here's the promise of the show. Here's the promise of the show. Here's what you're gonna get out of this episode, because it is kinda like chipping through a wall and then you eventually break through. And and that doesn't always mean to stop doing what you're doing.

Justin Jackson [00:50:35]:
Sometimes it means to double down on what you're doing. And eventually, as you're chipping away, you're gonna get break through that wall and get more listeners.

Jeremy Enns [00:50:43]:
Yeah. And this is something a couple people did say this in each of the categories around. They gave us some advice saying, like, let me know who this is relevant to and what I'm gonna get out of this at the start of the episode. And I think that we've been a little bit guilty maybe of going a little bit too far in the open loop kind of hook creation. Yeah. And we've kind of neglected the here's why we've opened this loop. So we've got some interesting I think we've done a good job experimenting with some of our hooks that I think feel really interesting and pull you in, but there hasn't been that promise of, like, what you're gonna get out of this. It opens the question without really hinting at the answer to it in some instances.

Justin Jackson [00:51:16]:
Yeah. The other

Jeremy Enns [00:51:17]:
thing that, came up a lot here, and I think that this is something with the non listeners that I'm very pleased with some of the responses here. So a lot of people said, you know, I just don't have the time. I prefer to read in newsletters where it's shorter and actionable. And same with the samplers where for me, the responses around making it shorter and more actionable, to me, I'm like, I'm fine that these people don't listen to podcast because they already are newsletter subscribers, and that's the job of the newsletter. The newsletter is designed to be a 2 minute read, and so that's meant to satisfy these people. I would love if they listen to the podcast as well, but if they have the time for this, I'm happy to engage with them there. And, you know, other people want the more nuance, the more in-depth stuff. Maybe they don't like reading newsletters and they can come to the podcast.

Jeremy Enns [00:51:59]:
And so I think this is actually really affirming to me. It's like, oh, I've actually checked off both these bases where there are these 2 different camps but actually I'm already serving them with the newsletter and then with the podcast. And so it's not about making the podcast do the same job that the newsletter is already doing. It's like, yeah. If you want that, you can get that. You actually already are getting that there. And for people who want more and a more nuanced, more organic discussion, then, you know, the podcast is for you. So to maybe wrap this up here, we've got all this data here and now it's kind of like, you know, when you do a research project like this, it's great to get some information from your listeners or your potential listeners or your non listeners.

Jeremy Enns [00:52:33]:
And then there's this like, okay, what do we do with this now? We've got a bunch of information. We've got some people who listen to show regularly. Some people are sampling. Some people are not. When you look at this, what's your kind of order of operations of, like, okay. Here's how I'm gonna start putting this into practice.

Justin Jackson [00:52:48]:
Yeah. There's a just a few little tweaks. Maybe changing the intro, like you mentioned, maybe having better calls to action in our newsletters.

Jeremy Enns [00:52:57]:
Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:52:57]:
I think doubling down on some things that where we haven't quite broken through the the glass ceiling yet, but posting clips, posting video, I think with repetition, we would actually kind of break through that ceiling and maybe get a lot more listeners. And maybe finally, just realizing that this is going to take some time. You know? Yeah. Like, if I was gonna start a restaurant, I'd be like, it's gonna take 5 years for us to become known as the best spaghetti restaurant in town. And you and I are in, you know, the first 6 months of this. Yeah. So part of me is like, this is just gonna take time. And if we really wanted to grow this show, we would be looking on a 2, 3 year horizon instead of just saying, well, we've done it for 6 months.

Justin Jackson [00:53:45]:
Where's our listeners?

Jeremy Enns [00:53:47]:
Right. Yeah. I think the the other thing for me, we've kind of talked a little bit about this already is knowing who to pay attention to, essentially. Yeah. And so which feedback is worthwhile to acknowledge and which isn't. And I think you look at some of it like the the one it was really interesting to me that one about the clips at the start being unnecessarily slick and it feeling like more of an experiment. And I'm fine with that feedback because to me, one of the jobs of the show is to be an experiment. And that as Mhmm.

Jeremy Enns [00:54:10]:
Somebody who teaches podcast marketing, I need something practice on and that requires experimenting and so this is gonna be the thing. I think that there is even more that could be done there. And so you could look at that person's feedback and say, oh, we gotta dial back the the slickness or the experimentation. But to me, I'm saying like, actually, I think we need to ramp up the experimentation because I think that's what a lot of listeners actually appreciate. And a couple people did say, I really appreciated the experiment that you did elsewhere. And we could build out a whole additional premise of, like, we run experiments and share them on the fly with the show. And so Yeah. There's kind of this, like, knowing who to listen to.

Jeremy Enns [00:54:41]:
And I think part of that is knowing especially, this was an anonymous survey. So I don't know who any of these people are who gave the feedback. I think if you can get in touch with people and you can get a sense for, oh, this is the person I want more of. Their feedback really matters to me. Whereas you talk to somebody else and you're like, this one's just somebody who I don't want an audience of a 1,000 of these people. So I actually should do the opposite of what they say almost. And Yeah. Then there's this quote by Neil Gaiman.

Jeremy Enns [00:55:07]:
When people tell you something's wrong, they're almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong. And so this is, I think, one of the most important things to understand as a creator is that Mhmm. When somebody says it doesn't work for them, they're probably right, and they won't be able to explain it. They'll they might try to explain, but you should discard everything that they say, their advice, what they should do but you should fully acknowledge like if something's not landing, there's probably something wrong and then you need to say, is this the person that I care about it landing with? And if so, then you're like, okay. Well now I gotta get my creative hat on and I gotta figure out if if it's not landing for this person who I want it to be landing for, what do I think is the problem? What are my hypotheses and what experiments might I run to to tweak that? So I think that that's, you know, this this, element of discernment that I've talked about a number of times here is like, that's one thing to do the data collection in the survey, and then it's another thing to parse it and tease it apart and try and figure out what is actually relevant to me, in alignment both with my audience as well as the show that I want to make.

Justin Jackson [00:56:08]:
And to the point about who do you want to be attracting, normally, unless you've got a real, like, bad listenership that's super toxic. But, normally, you wanna attract more of the listeners who are already fans. I was just at podcast movement evolutions, and Michael Osborne from, Famous and Gravy, who we've mentioned a few times, came up to me. We had a great conversation. And then he said, can I give you some feedback on the show? And I said, absolutely. And he said, you respond too much that it depends. So for him, there's this thing that kept coming up where I you would ask me something. I'd be like, well, it depends.

Justin Jackson [00:56:44]:
He's like, we know it depends. Like, just get to the point. And I take that kind of critical feedback. Here's a super fan of the show. He shared the show. He's reviewed the show. I trust him as this is the kind of person we wanna attract more of. Yep.

Justin Jackson [00:57:00]:
And so when he says, you know, one thing that kinda turns me off is you keep saying it depends. That's awesome feedback. Yep. And you'll notice, Michael, I didn't say it depends once in this episode. So, I appreciated the feedback. But if it was, like, somebody who's, like, always super negative and they're like, you know, you should eliminate the vocal fry from your voice. I'd be like, oh, whatever. Like, I'm I'm not listening to you.

Justin Jackson [00:57:26]:
But somebody like Michael, I perk up. I'm like, oh, yeah. I I wanna know what folks like you think because I want more folks like you.

Jeremy Enns [00:57:35]:
He sent me an email with the same advice and just kinda recapping the conversation that you had, and it made me think of a shortcoming that we never really defined who our audience was from the start. We both kind of just assumed we have these audiences of podcasters, and Michael is a very serious podcaster. He's won awards for his show. And that's not to say, like, I only want people who have achieved this amount, but he is a savvy guy. And we, I think, the reason we have so many it depends is because we haven't actually defined what stage is our ideal listener at. Are they just starting out at which they do not have the context to know that it depends? Or are they at Michael's level where they've been doing this work? He works professionally in podcasting. He's done a show for many years. He knows, of course, it depends.

Jeremy Enns [00:58:19]:
Like, you know, you and I, anybody tells us any marketing advice and we're most likely to ignore it because it's like, yeah. For somebody that's true, but, like, there's so many, like, it does depend on so many things. But if you have in mind that your audience is savvy and smart, you know that you can cut to the chase and not caveat everything that you're saying on the show.

Justin Jackson [00:58:36]:
Yeah. I like that idea. Like, maybe if we were gonna start the show all over again, we would say, okay. What level of savviness are we targeting here? And an underrated approach is targeting the people who are more serious Yep. Because they are really willing to dig into a topic Mhmm. As opposed to folks that are just getting started. It's like going from 0 to 1. There's honestly not gonna be that many survivors.

Justin Jackson [00:59:03]:
The percentage of people that are gonna make it through and a lot of shows focus on 0 to 1. Yep. So yeah. That's interesting.

Jeremy Enns [00:59:11]:
Yeah. And it's always the 0 to 1 is always there's more content options. Not all of them are always good, but it's the biggest audience so the most people cater to them whereas the people who are more advanced almost never have anything that that's actually relevant to them. And so it's gonna be a smaller pool, but I like what you said where they're more bought into it and they're willing to go more in-depth with you. And when they find something that actually speaks to them, like, they're going to be very quick to become super fans because there's just not that much on offer for them. Yeah. Alright. So that wraps up the the breakdown of this experiment.

Jeremy Enns [00:59:42]:
I'm actually gonna publish the full survey results. They're all anonymized. And so if you wanna go through some of the feedback that we got, I would highly encourage you to do that and I'm gonna include the link in the show notes to the Google Sheet with all of these results. And I think what you will find if you look through this, you can probably assume that most of the reasons that applied for our listeners either sampling or not listening to our show or keeping continuing to come back to our show will also apply to your show. So it's worth looking through some of these responses and kind of saying like okay this is the kind of thing that probably exists in any audience. What might my listeners be saying if I were to do a survey that, asked the same questions here? And I'll also include a video walkthrough of how I set the survey up. So if you wanna do something yourself, you can do that and replicate that. And, I would really love to hear if anybody does this for themselves and we can kinda compare notes on what you find from your audience.