Episode Completion Rate Secrets: How To Keep Your Listeners Hooked

[00:00:00] Now we're rolling hey hey hey hey check check so in this episode my aim is to teach you three things the first is what is an episode completion rate? What is a good episode completion rate? How do improve your completion rate? And I guess four things because I'm going to share my completion rate at the end of this so stay tuned and we'll see where I'm at.

[00:00:30] What up potty people and welcome back to Clipped as always I'm Eric your host and Clipped brings you podcast production tips industry insights, podcasting resources and podcast conversations with my potty pals. It's all aimed to help you become a better more efficient podcaster and I'm on a mission to help you star grow and monetize your show. And today. I am talking about episode completion rates and before

[00:01:00] I get into it just want to give a shout out to this episode sponsor that's Riverside Riverside dot FM is a great place online to record remote podcast record up to 4k video and high fidelity audio all remotely that's Riverside dot FM. You can use it in your web browser you don't have to download anything so. If you're looking for a great place to record remotely online head on over to Riverside and enter promo code Clipped for 20% off of any individual plan. Now let's give it a try.

[00:01:29] Now let's give it a go.

[00:01:44] So an episodes completion rate is how long on average people listen to that episode so did your listeners listen to 100% of a particular episode do they listen to 65% of a particular episode.

[00:01:56] They listen to 19% and then they dropped off and earned it off because they thought the episode was boring or it wasn't adding value or they didn't learn what they thought they were going to learn.

[00:02:06] So your episode completion rate is the percentage of listeners who listen to an entire podcast episode.

[00:02:13] And obviously you want people listening to the whole episode or the majority the vast majority of each episode that doesn't always happen but that is the goal.

[00:02:23] If your listeners are listening to the majority of every one of your episodes you're in a good place.

[00:02:29] If they're not then I'm going to give you some strategies here in a moment to entice your listeners to keep listening to your episodes.

[00:02:37] And so where can you find your episode completion rate well for Apple you can go to Apple podcast connect log into your account pull up your show and there you can literally go through each episode

[00:02:49] and see if people were liking it and see how long they stayed before they dropped off.

[00:02:55] You can also use chartable and uncharitable you can see spotifies episode completion rate as well.

[00:03:02] Those are the two main listening platforms so those are the ones I'm going to mention don't know if there's other ways to check completion rates.

[00:03:09] They're probably are but apples obviously like one of the most popular is well spotify so that's where you're going to go to check those two platforms out now what's a good completion rate well.

[00:03:23] I don't know that there's like an industry standard it's funny I used to produce still produce a show couple years ago and we were in a meeting and this was a podcast network fairly large show

[00:03:36] and they were recommending for what they saw with their clients and people on their network that it's an interview based show or like a solo cast type of show we're not talking about like narrative or true crime for interview or solo kind of the two most popular formats that a good episode completion rate was around like 70 75%

[00:03:58] and that sounds about right in my mind or that sounds good in my mind rather so I'm going to say a good episode completion rate is about like three quarters of the entire way through the episode.

[00:04:11] And again, that's not really based on any data that's just based on my opinion and kind of an opinion derived from that meeting I had several years ago.

[00:04:22] I mean if people are listening to three quarters of your episode that's pretty damn good what's a bad completion rate again it's kind of just an opinion but I mean if someone's listening to like 25% or less you've probably got some work to do on keeping people engage and excited so they continue to listen say like 25% on like the low end maybe you know 50 to 60% is like the medium range where you're not doing

[00:04:51] horrible but you're not doing great and then let's call it for the sake of this in my mind what I think 75% or better is good and if you're getting into the 90s 85 90 95 that's stellar and that's my opinion should I say again that's my

[00:05:09] opinion I think I'm going to say it one more time that's my opinion and so you're going to have to determine what like a good completion rate is in your mind for your show.

[00:05:18] But again the higher the better means people are engaged they're hungry for what you're putting out their paying attention and they're good listeners and in turn that means you're putting out good content so do some research hit up the Googles and then form your own opinion but more is better let's leave it at that.

[00:05:38] Okay so how do improve your episode completion rate well I've got several things here there's not one right answer but I think if you focus on some of these and put these into your strategy you're going to be in a good place and these are just tips that over time if you start implementing you should see a better completion rate unless your show is just hot garbage you're not a good host you might think you are but maybe you're not maybe your content isn't great maybe your guests aren't good maybe your editing isn't good in any case that's my opinion.

[00:06:07] In any case that's a conversation for another day but that's just some food for thought I think it's good to be introspective with your show and be constantly adjusting questioning improving and getting real and sometimes you have to get real and be like dude why aren't people listening to my show well here's some things to improve upon if they aren't listening to your show so the first is the hook listeners early so I'm trying to do this more and more I went to a podcast conference two months ago in Salt Lake City Utah.

[00:06:36] called the outliers podcast conference and this one guy Roger he was talking about to lead into the show with what you're going to be talking about or rather like what you hope to teach or what problem you hope to solve for your audience so it's like problem

[00:06:53] and what we're going to do about that problem at the top of the show and so that way you're leading in right away your listener knows OK by listening to this episode I'm going to learn like X Y and Z I'm going to learn these three things so hook listeners early let them know what they can expect so that's going to kind of tease them to want to keep listening so that they learn or they hear about those things and mention those things at the top of the show.

[00:07:18] The next is breaking the fourth wall and I actually talked about this two episodes ago so go check that out breaking the walls when you address the audience you recognize their presence in you talk to them and I think that makes some feel special it helps them take a pause to think about what you're saying and it gets them more involved in your show when you address the audience you're breaking the fourth wall

[00:07:43] and it just deepens the connection with your listeners and it allows them to realize like oh this person they're talking to me I love this show this is a host that I like this is a show that I like and it shows in turn that like you're thinking about them and I think listeners we all want that right we want to be in the story we want to be in the episode so addressing the audience is a great way to help engagement and that may increase your episode completion rate.

[00:08:13] Next it's probably the most important I say put this at number three although this is going to be key and that's used data from previous episodes so if you're noticing that certain episodes or certain topics are getting a higher completion rate like use that data kind of study okay what did I do in those episodes why are people listening all the way to the end how did I title that episode how did I talk to the audience what did I present them with

[00:08:43] and then kind of copy that formula and rinse and repeat you're not going to like talk about the same exact thing but you can talk about that topic from like a different perspective or put a different spin on it or like elaborate more than you did in those previous episodes but using that data and focusing on the analytics of what has been performing really well for you

[00:09:05] and then kind of copying that rinse and repeat elaborate that's going to work wonders and I think that that

[00:09:12] and it doesn't have a right away guys any of this stuff but that will help you improve your episode completion rate.

[00:09:19] It's social proof more or less the next is short episode hacks so it is true that shorter episodes people tend to listen to longer you know there's like a seven eight minute episode out there it's going to be easier to consume the whole thing

[00:09:33] than like an hour and a half episode actually heard on marketing school Eric Sue and Neil Patel they've talked about this a little bit and their episodes are short.

[00:09:43] And so that has improved their completion rate but I don't know that they on purpose were like we're going to do short episodes as like this hack because then we're going to get a higher completion rate

[00:09:56] and that may help our rankings within Apple or whatever the case may be that's going to keep people more engaged to the end where we can give them a call

[00:10:06] the action where we try to sell them our services whatever it may be they're right that short episodes get listen to more and longer

[00:10:16] but I don't know that you need to like put out short episodes just for the sake of like doing some hack where you're like oh I'm going to get like a higher completion rate because I'm putting out a seven minute episode that being said if you're going really really long think about that is like all.

[00:10:33] The content in your hour long episode relevant is it good could you cut that down thus improving the amount of time that people listen to that episode.

[00:10:44] Just think about yeah like cutting filler or really focusing on content that resonates or that you tried to hook people in within the beginning if you find yourself drifting from that and there's filler or unnecessary stuff cut that down because it is true that shorter episodes have higher completion rates.

[00:11:04] And should I say that again I keep saying that in any case yeah find what works for you what works for your niche and your type of content and when you're done be done don't don't go longer.

[00:11:16] And I think you'll find if you keep things good with good content but a little bit on the shorter more concise side that should help your episode completion rate.

[00:11:27] The next is optimize your audio quality pretty simple pretty easy to do now not going to talk too much about that I have in the past but sounds good people are going to want to listen to it longer.

[00:11:37] It sounds like shit probably turn it off earlier.

[00:11:40] Dude there's one podcast I listen to I'm not going to mention it's these two SEO experts and they talk about like growing your presence online your website getting it to rank better on Google.

[00:11:51] And presumably these guys make a lot of money I don't know how much but their brand is huge and they're well known and the show is well known I'm not going to name it.

[00:12:00] But it's like man I listen to audio quality and I'm like what's up with this like it's not very good you would think like people of that caliber would have like mastered the art of getting decent audio.

[00:12:13] That being said I do listen to probably at least half of those episodes but if your audio doesn't sound good it's going to turn people off it's 20 24 everybody and we need good audio keeps everyone engaged.

[00:12:27] Keeps people wanting to listen the next is storytelling and adding in personal anecdotes be strategic when you do this don't waste time and don't just talk about something in your life because you want to talk about it like it's your time to event on the microphone or be funny or tell some story.

[00:12:43] If you're going to do it make sure it relates to the topic in some creative way and then I think people will buy into that and they'll want to keep listening because they'll want to hear how the story ends and they want to hear what's unfolding in the story.

[00:12:55] But don't just do it to do it try to and I don't know if I'm.

[00:13:00] Great at this but I've tried to mention a couple things like that podcast conference outliers in Utah and Eric Sue marketing school just some personal stuff that I tried it's high in so you learn a little bit more about me as a host but that also is relevant.

[00:13:16] Okay so lastly I want to share my apple episode completion rates for you I'm pulling it up right now okay good thing it didn't log me out it's a pain in the ass to like log into this.

[00:13:34] So I'm going to pull it up for the last 60 days because that is a preset that you can choose within Apple podcast connect and I'm going to start from episode 88 which was released January 31st that's 55% on a 31 minute episode not great.

[00:13:54] The next episode 89 starting a podcast in 2024 followed these 12 tips for success so name the episode 22 minutes long 90% completion rate solid

[00:14:07] episode 90 87% completion rate on a 12 minute episode episode 91 also a 12 minute episode 74% completion rate episode 92 14 minute episode 78%

[00:14:23] and this is weird because this one episode 92 monetize your podcast with Patreon super cast Apple podcast subscription I've noticed anytime I talk about monetization my downloads go up because we all of money people like to talk about money people like to learn about money how they can make money with their content.

[00:14:40] So funny enough this episode has more downloads than some of the others in the weeks surrounding it but the episode completion rate is 78 which is a little bit lower than some of these other ones so interesting.

[00:14:54] Episode 93 23% completion rate that's a 43 minute episode that is not a good completion rate guys the next lowest one is 55 which was episode 88 and I don't throw in a lot of numbers at you.

[00:15:09] Yeah episode 94 97% and that's on a 9 minute episode.

[00:15:16] Episode 95 it's an 11 minute episode and that's a 60% completion rate so that's some of my numbers for the last two months yeah and also kind of taken to account that the longer episodes been out the more opportunity people have had to listen to it and so some of your older episodes.

[00:15:38] If the completion rate is really high that's even better because people have had a longer time to listen or they've had a longer time to tune out and drop off early so it's kind of just a different data set the way that you look at that.

[00:15:51] That's it I wanted to teach you about this today and it's important one because it kind of gives you a roadmap for your content you may like oh the this type of content is working people are listening for a long time in this type of content

[00:16:05] these topics that I'm covering people aren't listening for a long time and some use that to your advantage and brainstorm around the stuff that's working and double down on that I feel like personally I'm a better fan on double doubling down and I do better on doubling down on what's working and putting efforts into that then trying to like really improve the stuff that's not working.

[00:16:27] I mean you do have to kind of figure out what's not working and try to get it to work but if you've already got a type of content or a type of show that's crushing it double down on that triple down and use that to your advantage and if your listeners are liking it then that's what they want to hear more of so.

[00:16:44] So that's it guys want to say thank you for listening for looking for more information on podcasts growth and monetization head on over to the podcast Haven dot com I've got hundreds of articles on the blog hovering all things podcasting equipment growth monetization marketing

[00:17:04] would love you to check that out the blog is really been growing trying to crush it there as well as on this podcast and your support your questions concerns compliments or disparaging comments I love it all so that's the podcast Haven dot com and until next time keep listening keep engaging keep creating I'm out.

[00:17:34] you