Keep Every Listener! Know These 5 Reasons People STOP Listening to Podcasts

When someone turns your podcast on for the very first time, What happens?

Do they subscribe? Do they stick around to become a long term listener? Or do they turn it off immediately, leave and never come back? Just like in our businesses where we want to get and keep as many of the right fit clients as possible, we want to get and keep as many of the right podcast listeners too.

And today we’re looking at the main reasons that people turn off podcasts and never return. So you can ensure that you are not making these mistakes.

This is profits through podcasting where we help health focused entrepreneurs generate leads and revenue for their businesses through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver. Now in the future, I will do an episode on the opposite of this, where we look at ways to engage and keep listeners. But I do feel that these types of mistakes, episodes are important.

even if somewhat negative, because we want to be at a minimum level. Like at the very least in our episodes, if we can avoid doing the bad things that are an immediate fail and, and highly likely to cause listeners to leave, then we should fix those. We can talk about the strategies to retain people later and how to do great episodes.

But if we’re making these mistakes, that’s not good. So we need, I feel like we need to get on the same page about that and make sure that none of these negative things are happening. So first reason why people stop listening to podcasts, bad audio. Now, even if people don’t fully understand audio, they don’t have to understand the technicalities of it.

to know that they just aren’t having a pleasant experience or that they find it difficult to hear, or it’s annoying or harsh or fatiguing. They may not even use any of those words. They’ll just turn it off. Let’s think this is not right. It’s not professional. Something is wrong. This could include, we’re talking about podcast audio.

Low quality audio. So low fidelity, just not a full range of sound, maybe through a cheap mic or headphones or something. It just doesn’t sound rich. A lot of echo. A room with a lot of echo makes the sound very muddy and it’s unpleasant to listen to in some environments. It’s just very challenging to even decipher the words depending on how bad the echo is.

Same with loud background noise. It can make it very challenging to hear and enjoy garbled audio. So just again, lacking clarity for whatever reason, this happens sometimes on calls. If they’re not using a good mic, it’s just very hard to pick out any of the words. Other things like gross mouth noises, people have reported.

You can look up online how to resolve this if it’s an issue for you, because everyone’s different. Some people naturally don’t have mouth noises to the same extent that other people would, but ensuring you’re properly hydrated, that sort of thing, your mic placement, that can all go into that. It can just sound very off putting to listeners if they’re hearing a lot of excessive clicking and saliva bubbles from a, from a podcast host’s mouth.

Don’t mean to make it gross, but this is just the reality when you’re talking into a microphone. And also over processing is another way that it can create those issues or exaggerate those issues of mouth noises.

There are also ways in editing to help resolve a mouth noises if that is an issue. And you know, you may not know about these issues. If no one’s ever told you, or you’re not really into audio yourself, there may be these things happening with your podcast and you’re not even aware. So it is good to get some professional feedback for sure, to make sure that something that I’ve just mentioned here isn’t happening and turning listeners.

Off from your podcast, it’s really not expensive to get good audio, you know, decent mic at proper environment. That’s not too noisy or echoey is really all you need. The microphones are not expensive, but you just need to have that and have it in a decent environment. So when you hear this and you’re concerned that maybe your audio isn’t great, I’m not saying to go spend 5, 000 on a big setup.

It’s really not that, uh, it’s not that expensive whatsoever. Now, when we’re talking about audio quality, guests are more of a wild card than the host, because you’re typically sitting in the same place every week, you have your mic, you have it set up, that’s good. But when you’re having guests on, if you’re doing interviews, well, Not all of them are going to be professional podcast hosts because there are plenty of times when you can get a guest who has a decent mic and understands the importance of a good environment.

But if you’re speaking to people who don’t always have that, well, it’s a good idea just to be safe to give them a bit of a heads up. ahead of time, give them some tips on what to do to get a great recording. You could even do a test call to evaluate their audio. I like sending out the sheet that just mentioned some things like, of course, being in a quiet space with, with little echo, being on a wired internet connection rather than wifi, if possible, those sorts of things, just so they have a heads up.

Now, these days we have the best tools that we’ve ever had in history when it comes to fixing bad audio. We can improve a lot that we couldn’t just a few years ago, but we still need a minimum level of quality. There is no just, here is a terrible, terrible audio recording, go fix it in editing.

As we say in the audio world, garbage in, garbage out. We need a decent recording to start with, okay? So I stress how important a good recording is, easier to do on your side than with guests all the time. But even with your guests, they don’t need an expensive or a special microphone. If they just have like those, uh, iPhone headphones.

The wired ones preferably or, uh, either the air pods, the wireless ones, those will work as well. But remember that all it takes is one episode for a listener to say, forget this. I don’t like this. It’s not good. Especially if you are promoting your podcast or, I mean, we’re all trying to get new listeners all the time.

So if you have someone who comes somehow you managed to get them interested in your podcast, they come listen to your most recent episode and the guest’s audio quality is very bad or your audio quality, or there’s dropouts, whatever it is, very, very unlikely that that listener is going to stick around.

And become a regular long time listener, right? So consider that if you’re going to put out an episode that has audio issues or just isn’t that great, there’s always going to be someone out there who it’s their very first time listening and you get that one shot at a first impression.

And beyond what I just spoke about, there are other things like imbalanced levels, such a very amateur thing where say the host is really loud and the guest is really quiet or the opposite. And they have to keep turning their volume up and down. It’s very, very annoying to listen to. It’s just not, it’s not right.

Okay. So every episode needs to sound good. There’s a reason that this issue of bad audio quality made it on the list of why people stop listening to podcasts.

Reason number two. the content doesn’t match the episode title. Your titles are important. You know, there’s a reason newspaper headlines exist, have existed for a long time, and then that translated to online, and YouTubers are constantly trying to get the best titles on their videos, and podcasters, same thing.

This can make or break an episode. or a video, ? Think about your own behavior and what compels you to turn on a podcast episode or click into a YouTube video. And that title can absolutely make that difference between people going into that video or thinking, ah, it doesn’t sound that interesting.

The trouble comes where the title, for whatever reason, doesn’t match the content of the, the podcast episode or the video, or at the very least, it doesn’t match what people hear when they first turn it on. They may have a bit of patience to catch it in the episode, but you really would like to hook them.

And you see this technique on YouTube videos a lot, where they immediately, once you click into that video, are showing you something like, this is coming up, or here’s a preview of what’s happening. So you know, That what’s in this episode or in this video is what you, you came here for based on the title.

People do not want to be tricked. They don’t want to feel like they’re not going to get a payoff for what they came here for the thing that they were interested in.

Or even if maybe the topic of the title is covered in the episode later for a very brief time, but most of the conversation isn’t really about that. People aren’t going to really be happy about that either. So accurately reflect that. In the title. What is in the episode? Yes. Still write your title in an intriguing manner so that people are interested in.

They do want to come check it out, but definitely make sure that you are delivering on what the title promises. Reason number three, why people stop listening to podcasts, boring, unengaging content. I’m starting to sweat right now.

Getting self conscious. Lumping a lot under this one because it can mean a lot of things. But at the end of the day, the episode, if it’s just boring or it’s got boring parts and people can’t be bothered to stay, they’re likely gonna turn it off. If it’s just not interesting to them at that moment, or it’s not valuable, that’s a huge one.

It’s not valuable. They’re not getting anything out of it. They’ve been listening for a little while. And they feel like this has been a complete waste of time. I got nothing from this. I don’t have high hopes that I’m going to get anything from this episode. If someone’s just speaking in a very monotonous way, the content’s not good.

Maybe they’re on some tangent that’s unrelated to the topic at hand. There’s just so many ways this can manifest. I also heard from a lot of people talking about, uh, rambling at the beginning of an episode. So, the host reading a long guest bio verbatim, just reading a whole page about the guest exactly as it was written.

Not bringing any life to it, not condensing it. Starting a podcast with, Hey, tell us about yourself and letting the guest talk for 10 minutes and it’s not relevant. All of these things. Okay. And I know I sound like a broken record when I bring up attention spans and how short they are these days. years ago, people had a little more of a tolerance for boring stuff. But now it’s just getting shorter and shorter and shorter and we’re finding new ways to engage people and keep them interested and make our content more concise and pack it with more value. So you cannot be spending the first 10 minutes of an episode promoting a course or talking about why you’re sorry that you haven’t podcasted in six months.

You’ve got to get a hook there and you’ve got to go. You’ve got to cut down your intro sequence. We’re seeing trends and that just shortening up your intros, getting right to the point. It’s great to talk. It’s great to podcast, but we can’t just be rambling. People are not, they don’t have a tolerance for that.

Okay. So this is definitely going to cause problems. If you have that type of content in your episode, people are just going to leave. When it comes to ads as well. I’ve seen people experience problems with listener drop off at ad breaks. Now, part of that could be the content just wasn’t that compelling.

And then once you interrupt them with an ad, they just go, ah, forget this. . Or. Maybe they’re just taking a break from the episode. The ad is a good time to do that. Just hit pause. But long ads. I had this conversation come up recently with a client who sent me a 10 minute file for an, a mid roll ad.

And I said, is this multiple takes in here or what’s going on? They said, no, that’s the ad. I said, do you listen to 10 minute ads and podcasts? And you probably skipped two minute ads. There is just no way. You can expect to run this and run it episode after episode, the same 10 minute ad. No, just no, I can’t even talk about that.

I’ll get too, get too impassioned about it, but that kind of stuff, that’s not going to fly. Okay. It’s not going to fly. So keep your conversation focused, keep stuff tight, keep it concise, keep it value packed and think at all times through the lens of your listener. What are they here for? If the guest really wasn’t that great and you don’t feel great about the interview Seriously consider not publishing it.

Like I mentioned already What if that’s someone’s first time listening to your episode your your podcast and they go, you know what this is boring, So you may have to do that. You may have to make some tough decisions if an interview goes like that,

and we actually have that on our booking form for our podcast. When people schedule with us, it says, Hey, we might not publish this episode. We have the right to not publish it. They accept. ? There’s a lot on the line for us. And of course you can cut some boring stuff in editing as well. And that’s a way to salvage an episode if you don’t want to can it completely.

And it’s not a bad idea in editing to trim some of the trim, some of the fat, as we say, it’s just not that engaging. And you know that the episode has potential or there were some tangents, definitely cut that stuff out. And that will help.

Reason number four, why people stop listening. They are getting annoyed by the content that they’re hearing. So. You may think that this sounds like the last section that we covered, but this is not just boring, unengaging content. Things that were mentioned around this were hosts who just talk too much hosts who constantly interrupt guests, a lack of editing.

So a lot of ums, filler words, long pauses. I actually remember recently I was listening to a podcast and I was kind of already feeling that it was just droning. Then I just started hearing ums, um, um, over and over. And it was kind of like I was in a trance for a moment. Then I snapped out of it and thought, yeah, this is boring.

I cannot tolerate all these ums. The content is just not that good for me to put up with this. You know, I enjoy talking, but for most of our podcast interviews, when we have guests on, I’m biting my tongue. We have a limited amount of time. Even with me barely talking, we get 30 to 40 minutes easily.

I don’t want the episode to get too long. So there are things that I have to either not bring up or I’ll cut them out later. But keep this in mind because we do have this goal of creating high quality, valuable podcast content. And as much as we all like to talk and have conversations, is it adding to the discussion?

Is it valuable to your listener? So just because in a normal conversation, you would just say a question or just make a comment that’s going to take five minutes. That doesn’t mean that you need to let everything that comes to your mind come out of your mouth on the podcast, right? So use that filter, use that lens.

This will help you in editing as well if you have less to cut out.

But anything like that, people also mentioned, yeah, the hosts interrupting guests or talking too much about themselves. These are things that you wouldn’t always think of, but they definitely matter to podcast listeners. And I mentioned the conversation as well and say, biting your tongue. Yes, these are conversations.

There are different approaches. So find what works for you. In my situation, I find I have the solo episodes, these ones to talk. This is where I can share when the guests are on. I want to keep the spotlight on them and learn from them. So I keep it very, very brief. If I ever bring up anything about our situation or us, it’s all about them, right?

I’ve got them. It’s their valuable time. Let’s make it about them. If there’s something that comes to mind that I would like to talk about in the future, I will write that down and I will do a solo episode on it.

be respectful of your audience’s time. And to summarize that point is do not annoy your listeners in any way. And reason number five, why people stop listening to podcasts. They’re recorded in front of a live audience. Now, I’ve seen this come up numerous times over the years from commenters about what they will not listen to without a whole lot of reasoning.

Okay, and yeah, they, they just don’t like live episodes for some reason. They didn’t really know why, but some people felt so strongly to point out that if they see a live episode from a podcast, they follow or they tune in and they hear that it’s live. Instant delete. not even giving it a chance. Uh, but as I thought about what their reasoning may be for not liking these types of episodes, I typically have to agree.

I have found live episodes that I gave a chance in the past, just not the same. The vibe isn’t the same. The content’s not the same. Maybe I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s being in the room. It’s more exciting. Maybe the hosts aren’t as natural in front of a live crowd. It could be audio quality.

heavy background noise, whatever it is, people don’t tend to like live recorded podcasts. So if you ever do these or you do them on a regular basis, that’s all I can tell you is to consider, reconsider. At the very least try to keep the content in line with what people expect so like a normal episode of your podcast or Whatever.

There’s no rules. You can do something different I’m, just passing on what i’ve learned from these comments where people do not like live episodes And you can experiment with this too and check your download stats See how many people listen to the episode or if they dropped off earlier In a lot of cases, this isn’t really going to be applicable or you’re really not going to be doing a live episode very often.

But I did think it was an interesting one to include because so many people commented about it. So there you go. That’s five big reasons why people stop listening to podcasts that we absolutely don’t want to do with our podcast because every listener, every download is precious. We want to do everything that we can to keep people listening.

And my source for these, by the way, is just various posts all over the years, online from different surveys, different posts on Facebook and whatnot. People have asked what were the biggest reasons that you would turn off a podcast

and I’ve noted those down because it’s very interesting as podcasters. We want to know these things and you don’t always get this type of insight. Typically, if a listener leaves, they’re just gone. Thank you. You don’t know why you don’t know why your numbers are shrinking instead of growing. They’re just whatever.

They don’t come back. Okay. So you want to be aware of these things. If you have been doing any of the things that I mentioned here today, that do cause people to potentially stop listening. Well, now you have that awareness. Now you can make an effort to not do them anymore and help ensure that every listener who does come across your podcast has the highest chance of sticking around and perhaps one day becoming.

A paying customer for your business, because we would all love that. Thanks for listening. And we’ll talk to you again next time.