Did You Know There Are 10.5 Million UK Listeners Waiting For Your Show?
I am not sure where you are reading this blog around the world but for this article, I am going to focus on some stats from my home nation of the UK to share why podcasting is such a big opportunity.
The latest stats that came out a few weeks ago highlighted that 10.5 million adults now listen to podcasts every single week here in Blighty. That is 19% of the population — which, is a lot of people, right!
When I first started launching shows back in 2017 it was around half of that figure, so the growth over the last half a decade has been substantial.
But, as well as an increase in the audience size, there are some other numbers in this latest MIDAS report (which you can see HERE if you are interested!) where some real signs of the value of podcasting reveal themselves.
Here are the headlines that we picked out and what they actually mean to us content-makers!
10.5 million people listen every week
Meaning: That is a lot of people
There are a total of 69 million hours of podcasts consumed each week
Meaning: That is a lot of time
The average listener tunes in for 6.5 hours, per week
Meaning: You can get a long time to spend with your ideal consumer if you can get them to listen to your show. I would also suggest this shows that if you create multiple episodes per week, listeners will have time to consume the content
93% of people listen to podcasts alone
Meaning: Podcasts are an amazingly powerful medium for gaining attention when there are no other distractions that are pulling focus from the listener. Of course, people might be working or studying, in the car, on the treadmill etc. but they are unlikely to be distracted by other forms of media at those times. Attention is one thing, focused attention is quite another!
68% of people listen to the whole show
Meaning: Once you grab a listener, they will stay with you for all of your content
73% of listeners consume shows through their mobile phone
Meaning: You need to make sure you optimise your show for the phone experience — for example, your artwork needs to be optimised for the phone, think about the audio production of your show from the perspective of someone listening on mobile or through AirPods and make sure things like shownotes include click-throughs to where you want to drive traffic (links don’t appear on Desktop versions of a lot of the apps, but they will on mobile variants)
Hopefully, all of the above should serve to bolster your enthusiasm for your show — if you are already making one — and reaffirm your need to add podcasting into your marketing mix if you have yet to launch!
I know I might get a bit geeky when these kinds of reports come out but that is because I know just how powerful podcasting can be if it is done in the right way. Even in 2022, it is still my humble opinion that a podcast is the №1 way to grow your expert positioning and be considered as the thought leader in your sector, it gives you a global audience and it allows you to build a tribe of organic consumers.
Unlike other forms of marketing, a podcast is earned-media in its truest sense and there are no gatekeepers between you and the audience you build.
Here’s the maths to back up why this is so exciting as a content maker…
Let’s say you can get just 100 listeners for your show and you create a weekly podcast that is current best-practise average which is 37 minutes, we know from the stats above that 68% of listeners will tune in for the whole show which means you generate 2516 minutes of listen-time each week, which generates 10,064 minutes a month.
Now, ask yourself his question, how valuable is it for you to have the ability to gain the focused attention of your ideal market for over 10,000 minutes a month!?
