What to Do When Nobody's Listening

Navigating the Early Days of Your Podcast

So you've launched your podcast. You've invested in decent equipment, carved out time from your busy schedule, perhaps even convinced fascinating guests to join you. You've edited, uploaded, and published those first few episodes. And then... silence. Your download numbers are distressingly low, feedback is minimal, and you're wondering if anyone is actually listening.

First things first: take a deep breath. You're not alone, and this is not a reflection of your worth or the quality of your content. This is simply part of the journey.

Ant and I have worked with dozens of new podcasters and virtually all of them faced this exact challenge. Today, I want to share some honest thoughts about how to cope with those disheartening early numbers, and more importantly, how to smartly measure what's working so you can steadily improve.

The Reassurance You Need (But Might Not Believe Yet)

Growth Takes Serious Time

Believe it or not, most successful podcasts you admire took months, if not years, to build their audience. In fact, the podcasting space is more saturated than ever, with over 2.4 million active podcasts competing for listener attention. This means audience development is typically a slow, gradual process – not an overnight explosion.

It’s not uncommon (in the first six months) to average fewer than 30 downloads per episode. But guess what? Stay curious about growing your podcast and you could be getting thousands of downloads. How? Through persistence, consistency, and gradually refining and approach based on what is working.

Small Audiences Can Be Mighty

Having 20 truly engaged listeners who love your content is infinitely more valuable than 2,000 passive listeners who play your podcast in the background whilst doing the washing up. Those 20 engaged fans will share your episodes, leave reviews, and become vocal advocates for your show.

Think of your current listeners as your core community. These early adopters see your potential before anyone else, and they'll likely become your most loyal supporters. Create content for them, not for the theoretical masses you hope to attract in future.

Let's Talk About Realistic Numbers

Here's a statistic that might surprise you: the average podcast episode gets approximately 124 downloads in the first 30 days after publishing. Not thousands, not hundreds of thousands – just 124. And that's the average, which means many perfectly good podcasts get fewer.

The most successful podcasters I've spoken to started with literally just family and friends listening. Joe Rogan, now one of the world's most successful podcasters, had modest beginnings too - and spent years on the comedy circuit building his profile with live TV appearances. Success rarely happens overnight.

Focus on Consistency Over Numbers

Your 10th episode will naturally be better than your first, and your 50th will outshine your 10th. That's simply how skill development works. The hosts who succeed are those who recognise that podcasting is a marathon, not a sprint.

Mark from "Marketing Unfiltered" told me, "Looking back at my first 10 episodes makes me cringe – I was so stiff, so uncertain. But I kept showing up, and by episode 30, I'd found my voice. By episode 50, I was confident enough to be myself. The audience growth happened naturally after that."

Remember Why You Started

Most podcasters don't launch shows expecting to become millionaires. They start because they're passionate about the subject matter, because they want to connect with like-minded people, or because they have something valuable to share.

Reconnect with your initial motivation. Was it to establish yourself as a thought leader? To build a community? To explore topics you're passionate about? Whatever your reason, let that fuel you through the challenging early days.

Practical Actions: How to Measure What's Working

Now that we've addressed the emotional side of low listener numbers, let's focus on what you can actually do to gauge performance and improve your podcast. Here are five concrete approaches:

1. Analyse Your Analytics Properly

Simply looking at total download numbers isn't enough. You need to dig deeper to understand what's resonating with your audience:

Action Items:

1. Compare apples with apples: Look at how each episode performs within the same timeframe (downloads in the first 7 days, for instance), rather than comparing your newest episode's fresh stats with older episodes that have accumulated downloads over time.

2. Identify your "sticky" episodes: Which episodes hold listener attention longest? Most hosting platforms show you listener retention data. Episodes where people listen to 80% or more are your winners – what topics did these cover?

3. Track trends, not just numbers: Are your downloads gradually increasing, even if slowly? A steady 5% growth rate might seem small week-to-week but compounds significantly over months.

4. Note audience geography: Where are your listeners located? This might reveal unexpected audience pockets that could inform your content or marketing strategy.

5. Cross-reference episodes against your podcast description: Are your most successful episodes aligned with what your podcast claims to be about? If not, this might signal a need to either adjust your content or reposition your podcast's description.

Rachel from "Tech for Humans" discovered through analytics that while her UK audience downloaded episodes about industry news, her growing American audience specifically engaged with episodes featuring expert interviews. This insight led her to alternate content types to serve both audiences.

2. Gather Qualitative Feedback

Numbers only tell part of the story. To truly understand your impact, you need qualitative feedback from actual listeners:

Action Items:

1. Create a simple listener survey: Use Google Forms or Typeform to ask specific questions about what listeners enjoy, what they'd like more of, and how they discovered your show. Keep it under 5 minutes to complete.

2. Establish a dedicated feedback channel: Create an email address specifically for podcast feedback, and mention it in every episode. Make giving feedback as frictionless as possible.

3. Monitor social media mentions: Set up alerts for your podcast name and relevant hashtags. Sometimes listeners discuss your content without directly tagging you.

4. Join podcasting communities: Platforms like Reddit's r/podcasting or Facebook groups for podcasters can provide peer feedback on your format, audio quality, and content approach.

5. Ask guests for honest feedback: After recording, enquire what they thought worked well and what could be improved. Guests who appear on multiple podcasts often have valuable comparative insights.

A client of mine was surprised to learn through a listener survey that the segments she considered "filler" – casual observations about her industry – were actually what her audience found most valuable. This completely reoriented her content strategy.

3. Run Deliberate Experiments

Treat your podcast like a laboratory where you can test different approaches to see what resonates:

Action Items:

1. Vary your episode length: Try releasing both shorter episodes (15-20 minutes) and deeper dives (45+ minutes) to see which performs better with your specific audience.

2. Test different formats: Alternate between interviews, solo episodes, panel discussions, or narrative storytelling to identify what your audience prefers and what you excel at producing.

3. Experiment with publishing frequency: If you're publishing weekly, try a two-week experiment with twice-weekly shorter episodes, tracking whether this affects overall engagement.

4. A/B test your episode titles: For similar content topics, try different titling approaches – questions vs. statements, specific vs. intriguing, long vs. short – and monitor which attracts more listeners.

5. Try different promotional strategies: Dedicate equal effort to promoting episodes across different channels (Instagram, LinkedIn, email newsletter, etc.) and track which drives the most traffic.

James from "The Property Podcast" discovered through experimentation that episodes released on Tuesday mornings performed 30% better than his Friday releases, simply due to his audience's commuting patterns. A small change with significant impact.

4. Set Realistic, Meaningful Goals

Rather than fixating on arbitrary download targets, establish goals that actually matter for your growth stage:

Action Items:

1. Aim for percentage growth rather than absolute numbers: A goal of "10% month-on-month growth" is more realistic and adaptable than "reach 1,000 downloads per episode."

2. Measure engagement metrics alongside reach: Track metrics like percentage listened, social shares, and comments – these often predict future growth better than raw download numbers.

3. Set process goals rather than outcome goals: "Record and publish consistently for six months" is within your control; "Get featured in Apple Podcasts New & Noteworthy" largely isn't.

4. Benchmark against yourself, not industry giants: Compare your current performance to your own past performance, not to podcasts that have been running for years.

5. Create listener milestone celebrations: Plan special content for when you reach 10 subscribers, 50 subscribers, 100 subscribers. This makes growth tangible and provides natural moments to thank your early supporters.

A podcaster I mentor was discouraged by her download numbers until we reframed her thinking: her modest audience of 75 regular listeners would fill a medium-sized event space. Imagining her listeners as a physical gathering helped her appreciate the community she was building.

5. Focus on Sustainable Promotion

Many new podcasters make the mistake of promoting heavily at launch, then letting marketing efforts fizzle out. Sustainable growth requires consistent, strategic promotion:

Action Items:

1. Develop a content repurposing system: Transform each episode into multiple pieces of content – quote images, blog posts, short video clips, newsletter content – to extend your reach with minimal additional effort.

2. Implement a guest reciprocity strategy: When hosting guests, make it easy for them to share their episode by providing pre-written social posts, optimised audiograms, and direct links.

3. Create a systematic outreach calendar: Identify 5-10 relevant online communities, forums, or newsletters where you can share valuable insights from your podcast (not just promotional links) on a rotating schedule.

4. Build relationships with adjacent podcasters: Rather than viewing similar podcasts as competition, reach out to collaborate. Cross-promotion benefits both shows and introduces your content to pre-qualified listeners.

5. Optimise for search discovery: Research and use relevant keywords in your episode titles and descriptions. Many podcast listeners discover new shows through search functions rather than browsing.

Emma from "The Freelance Fix" attributes much of her growth to consistently repurposing her podcast content for LinkedIn, where her audience of freelancers was already active. This drove more traffic to her podcast than all other promotional efforts combined.

The Growth Mindset That Sustains Successful Podcasters

The podcasters who eventually succeed aren't necessarily those with the best equipment or the most impressive guest list. They're the ones who:

• View feedback as valuable data rather than personal criticism

• Focus on serving their current audience rather than chasing numbers

• Consistently show up, even when motivation wanes

• Measure what matters and adjust accordingly

• Celebrate small wins along the way

Remember that podcasting is ultimately about connection – connecting with your listeners, connecting people with ideas, connecting communities with each other. If you're making those connections, even on a small scale, you're already succeeding.

A Final Thought

Every podcaster you admire started with zero listeners. Every single one. What separated them from the thousands of podcasts that launched and fizzled wasn't talent or luck – it was persistence and adaptability.

Low listener numbers aren't a signal to quit; they're simply the beginning of your story. The question isn't whether your podcast deserves an audience – it's whether you're willing to put in the consistent work to find and nurture that audience over time.

So check your analytics, yes. Gather feedback, absolutely. Run experiments, of course. But then get back to what matters most: creating the next episode, and the next, and the next. Because that's where the real magic happens.