Podcast Analytics: Setting Goals That Align

In this opening episode of the analytics series, Ed Barker, founder of Studio 1878, starts with the question most brand podcast projects never answer properly: what does success actually look like?Excitement and a strong concept are a reasonable starting point, but vague goals like awareness or thought leadership lead to measuring the wrong things and wasting time. The episode covers how to connect a podcast's goals directly to business outcomes, how to design a format around intent rather than instinct, and how to think about measurement across three time horizons. The frameworks here are aimed at teams who want to build something strategically coherent from the start, rather than reverse-engineering the rationale after the show is already in production.Chapters00:00 Introduction00:25 Launching Without Clear Goals01:05 Chasing the Wrong Numbers01:50 Start with the Business, Not the Show02:31 Connecting Goals to Show Design04:25 Intent-Metric-Message Framework05:33 Three Horizons of Measurement06:48 Aligning Strategy with Leadership07:53 Setting Realistic Targets08:40 The Pyramid of Purpose09:19 Building Goals into Your Workflow10:10 Wrap-Up and Next StepsAbout Your HostEd Barker has been producing and recording podcasts since 2009. After a long career as a corporate marketing and strategy executive - and then a VC - Ed launched Studio 1878 in early 2025 with the goal of making brand and business podcasting much better. Ed is a Brit, working out of Seattle, and podcasting worldwide. 🌎Studio 1878A podcast development studio for the modern brand. We believe everyone has a story worth telling. Specializing in business and brand podcasts, we’ll help build your story from ideation to distribution, transforming concepts to real connection with your audiences. We produce our own shows but our core proposition is in helping businesses and creators produce something truly compelling and authentic. We’d love to help you tell your story.ContactWeb: www.1878.studioEmail: [email protected]: 425-520-3483 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.