“My podcast isn’t growing. How can I reach more listeners?”

This is a big question, and I love talking about growth strategies - but that’s not where I’m going today.

A podcasting friend recently asked me about their show's growth. After diving into the data, we realized they were doing better than they thought - and chances are, you are too.

Here’s why:

Podcasting isn’t like Instagram or YouTube.

When someone asks how big your podcast is, what do you say? Most likely, you're sharing your average downloads per episode.

But on YouTube? Total subscribers. Instagram? Total followers.

The difference? Subscribers and followers are cumulative - they grow over time. Unless something drastic happens, those numbers tend to trend up regardless of how many of them consume your content.

On the other hand, average podcast downloads only measure how many people listened to one episode within a set time frame.

Think about how you listen to podcasts. You probably:

• Fade in and out of your favorite shows

• Listen to some episodes, and skip the others

• Binge the catalog, take a break, and return months later to catch up

Your listeners do the same.

If we had a perfect metric, we’d track total podcast subscribers across all platforms. But since that data isn't easily available, we rely on average downloads per episode - which only tells part of the story.

So yes, average episode downloads matter, but they don’t show the whole picture. Chances are, your following is bigger than you think, and you're reaching more people than you realize.