Survey Results Are In!! How Your Answers Will Shape My 2022

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First, I can't say this too many times -

Thank you so much for taking the time to complete the survey. I received 91 responses, which means 91 actual people sacrificed time out of their busy, hectic lives to help me figure out my own life! There is nothing more valuable than your time, so I am incredibly grateful for that gift. I received it as a true kindness and an indication that you really do care to see The Storied Recipe move forward - and that you care about me personally. Also, *many* more people than I expected took a moment to leave a very personal, helpful, or encouraging note. The wisdom in those notes synthesized so much of this data into actionable steps for me. The personal stories motivated me to find keep going. Thank you so much for both.

Right around the 50 responses, the percentages for each question began to stabilize and remained steady for the remainder of time that I kept the survey open. So I'm fairly confident that I've gotten a representative snapshot of what the community wants from The Storied Recipe in 2022. Having this objective data in hand has allowed me to make decisions without guesswork or assumptions. I knew the facts about my family's needs in this season. Your responses gave me the facts about what *you* want. All I had to do was put it together into a new plan.

So let's jump in! For each question (or group of questions), I'll share the data, then my analysis, and finally the changes I'm making in 2022

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Q1: How long have you been aware of The Storied Recipe?

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Analysis:

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The positive to this result:

How incredible is it that so many have stuck with me and this little podcast for over a year? This stat tells me that you are here for the long haul (have I said "Thank you" yet?). It also says that there's something about this community and my offerings that, when put in front of the right audience, has real staying power.

The Negative - Or, what this result reinforced to me:

At the same time, an endeavor always needs new growth to flourish. This result reinforced what the stats have been telling me - The Storied Recipe Podcast *did* grow in 2021, but the rate of growth was much slower than in 2020. I believe there are 3 reasons for this (additional results below verify my hunches):

1. The great Instagram hack of July 2020. I've written about this a LOT (and given you every resource to prevent it from happening to you), so I won't recap it here. But Instagram has been a massive driver of traffic to the podcast (too much, more on that down below). Starting from scratch was an absolutely massive blow. Not only did I lose a way to stay in touch with people who were following along, I also lost all momentum in building a following. In other words, my rate of growth decreased significantly thanks to that hack. [spacer height="10px"]
2. I stopped doing One Big Uncomfortable Ask A Day. This was a big part of my strategy at the beginning of Covid. Every day before I started homeschooling my little 2 at 9am (my older 2 stayed in virtual school during the pandemic), I made sure to do 3 things - exercise, drink 16oz of water, and complete One BIG Uncomfortable Ask. Basically I was pitching somebody something every single day. It was a brilliant strategy, honestly, and it paid off in lots of ways - while I did it. By far my biggest regret of 2021 is drifting away from this strategy. I am certain that I forfeited a lot of growth by drifting away from a daily discipline that was working for me. I'm writing another blog posts analyzing my 2021, so we'll discuss the "why I drifted" then. [spacer height="10px"]
3. As my rate of growth slowed, I doubled down on releasing content as a means to growth. I should have been focused on *marketing* that content (via the Big Ask strategy).[spacer height="10px"]
4. I'll be talking about this a lot more in the Analysis of 2021 post, but briefly I was following a lot of advice for food bloggers that was a bad fit for me. It's ok - you gotta fail to learn. Now I know.

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Changes:

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Just keep reading - will start discussing these in the next section 😉

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Q2: How did you learn about The Storied Recipe ?

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Analysis:

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1. You guys, no matter how you cut it, this result isn't good. There is absolutely no way that the growth of *any* endeavor should be *this* dependent on Instagram. While I've done a lot of work removing myself from the emotional clutches Instagram, 2022 is the year that my strategy needs to massively shift away from dependence on Instagram. It will be so much more effective to focus my growth efforts in other places, then encourage new members of the community over to Instagram where I can further connect with them.[spacer height="10px"]
2. 8% of respondents heard about me on another podcast or learned about me from an article. On the face of it, this may seem insignificant. However, consider that I have pitched to *very* few magazines and had a very high rate of acceptance the few times I did pitch. I've only pitched one other podcast and the few I've guested on have been pretty minor. I was super surprised this result was so high considering the extremely tiny fraction of time I've dedicated to pitching other podcasts or press. [spacer height="10px"] Let's put it this way - only 8x more people have come to The Storied Recipe through IG and I've dedicated literally thousands more hours to IG than pitching! [spacer height="10px"]Also, only 2 or 2.5x more people have come via the guests I've had on the podcast than from me appearing on other podcasts or in print. That is a pretty stunning and telling result.

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Changes for 2022 - Focusing on Two Avenues to Growth

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1. This very week, Julia Renee Consulting is performing an SEO audit on my site. I invested in SEO in 2021 and actually worked really hard at it, based on my own research. Truthfully, my results weren't stellar. And that's actually ok. I do not feel like those investments of money or time were a waste. Ihad to try these things and see them fail to move forward. [spacer height="10px"]Now, between the things I've learned and working with Julie, who has a proven track record (and is the first SEO professor at Drexel University), I'm super excited for the ways that my organic traffic can grow in 2022. The goal from every visit is a subscription - either to the podcast or the newsletter. Those are two really well-established ways that I can regularly engage and envelop community members into my entire ecosystem of content.[spacer height="10px"]
2. As I return to my one-a-day BIG Uncomfortable Ask Strategy, I've enrolled in the Press for Success platform. I snagged a HUGE Black Friday deal and got full membership access for the year for only $250! I heard about Sabina when she was just starting the platform - it was actually through a podcasting friend of mine that scored a segment about her podcast on Good Morning America, thanks to Sabina's guidance! Since then, I've followed along with Sabina over on IG. I've seen how much content she provides, both in terms of pre-recorded teaching, templates, and *lots* of face time with members, giving very specific, personal feedback and advice. I actually couldn't believe the price of her membership site was so low, considering all that she offers.[spacer height="10px"]
3. My promise to myself is I'll prioritize these two strategies over creating new content. (More changes below to support this decision.)

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Q3: What is most likely to cause you to tune into an episode?

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Analysis:

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This, by far, is the most alarming result of the survey. HALF of my podcast listeners are depending on a platform that shows my content to around 2% of followers!!! NOT cool!!!

It's already not great that 46% of my community members learned about me from Instagram, which we covered in that first question. However, that *could* be OK as long as I effectively pull those people into more reliable means of communication - either the newsletter or a subscribing to the podcast in a player like Apple or Spotify.

But for 50% of responders to depend on Instagram (either posts or stories) to tell them when I've released new content - yikes. In order to make winning pitches to sponsors in 2022, I need to show that I have a faithful audience that will reliably tune into episodes. I know for sure that I *do* have a loyal audience that is deeply connected to the podcast. However, they won't listen faithfully if I'm depending on an undependable platform to share my content!

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Changes for 2022 - Three Ways to Convert Instagram Followers Into Integrated Members of the Community

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1. Offer text message communications. I've seen this work very well for endeavors like mine that that produce regular content. Obviously, this means of communication isn't as detailed or personal as the newsletter. However, on the up side, it's super easy to subscribe by text via Instagam. It's a call to action I can put into literally every single post, if I want to.[spacer height="10px"]
2. Schedule weekly calls-to-action to subscribe the newsletter (probably alternating between posts and stories). I absolutely love sending my weekly newsletter. It covers everything - episodes, recipes, personal updates, images, and other offerings. Thanks to Flodesk, it reliably ends up in people's inbox, and I can easily re-send to people that didn't open the first time around. I wish every single person that ever interacts with *any* of my content would sign up for the newsletter![spacer height="10px"]
3. Admit that I'm not different than other podcasters! Haha. For the longest time, I said, "I'm not going to drone on an on during my episodes about subscribing to the podcast in the player. They're smart enough to do that if they're interested." However, only 20% of listeners have actually subscribed in a player and... that's not good! From here on out, I'm going to start issuing regular, clear, emphatic calls to action for listeners to subscribe to the podcast via their player or my website!!![spacer height="10px"]
4. If I have time, I'd love to work on more incentives for all of these things. But truthfully, given my extremely part-time approach to this endeavor, I probably won't have much time to develop incentives - and I'm totally ok with that. One thing I have learned in 2021 is the followers that connect with my content don't really need incentives. If they like my work, they're happy to engage with it more deeply.[spacer height="10px"]
5. I'll only be posting 3x a week to IG. I'll be focusing more on stories. These are more intimate and give me the ability to directly link to my CTA.

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Qs 4&5 Regarding Listening Habits & Preferences -

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Analysis:

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1. 50% of people listen half the time or more. 50% of people listen less than half the time. Based on my own listening habits, I was actually quite pleased with that result. However, as I put that together with some other responses, I realized I have a huge opportunity to bump up the "occasionally" and "about half the time" listeners into more frequent listeners.[spacer height="10px"]
2. A significant chunk of people (almost 40%) would listen to MORE episodes if I released LESS. (Obviously my monthly listens would not increase, but my listens per episode would.) This result reinforces that people are interested and loyal - they're just BUSY! (Oh, how I relate!! A secret just between you and me: I don't listen to *any* podcasts more than very occasionally.)[spacer height="10px"] So - combine the busyness of my listeners + many people simply aren't *aware* when new episodes are released because I'm overly reliant on IG = HUGE opportunity![spacer height="10px"]
3. Almost 15% of people don't listen to the podcast (and probably never will), but still care enough about me and my content to take the time to respond to this survey. That was surprising to me. It's a result that became more clear through the responses below. I can tweak some messaging to further engage a small but still significant part of my audience that just isn't interested in the podcast. Those people are important to me and *are* the prime audience for some of my other offerings. I want to keep that 15% of you engaged!

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Changes for 2022... Keep Reading

 

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Qs 6&7 - Regarding the Concept** of The Storied Recipe

Candidly, now we're getting into the thorny issues that I was afraid to tackle for a long time. I formed this survey to confront several questions that had been nagging at me. One of those questions was this:

Is the fundamental concept of The Storied Recipe still working? Does it still make sense to "make, photograph, and share" the recipes from my weekly guests?

Also a long-form response I feel to be relevant to this question and representative of other responses:

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Analysis:

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1. YES. The fundamental concept is still very much of interest to people! That is abundantly clear from these answers and from much of what people wrote in. [spacer height="10px"]
2. Frankly, I was shocked that 85% of respondents showed some level of interest in the recipes. I get a lot of feedback on the podcast, mainly via DMs and emails, and the positive feedback almost always focuses on my interview style and the stories of my guests. I rarely hear feedback about the recipes. This has always made sense to me. Many of the recipes that my guests give me are quite far outside the comfort zone of myself and my listeners. Many use ingredients that are new or difficult to obtain for Americans. I've learned quite a few new techniques from my guest's recipes and learning anything new take a bit more time. In short, my guest's recipes are often the complete opposite of "Quick and Easy Weeknight Meals" that seem to be no the cover of every other monthly food magazine. So I was surprised to hear that my listeners still really like the fundamental concept.[spacer height="10px"]
3. This question exploring different types of episodes that are possible was probably the most exciting and inspiring for me. I have SO many ideas and I learned that you guys are ok with that! Yes, y'all love the traditional episodes - those are the backbone of the podcast! At the same time, as I seek to lighten my load (and keep in mind that 35-40% of you can't keep up with listening to a weekly schedule), I can feel *very* free to include episodes that don't require all the same workflow steps of a traditional episode. More on that below.

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Changes for 2022

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1. I will no longer be writing separate recipe blog posts in 2022. This is a decision that I'll write more about in my 2021 Analysis post because it's not really based on these results, but other data. However, when I saw that necessity of that decision, I began to seriously reconsider the entire concept of the podcast - no longer requiring recipes from guests or photographing and sharing them. This response told me that would be big mistake! I WILL absolutely continue to share the recipes. The only change is that now I'll be sharing links to the recipes directly from the show notes. This way, the concept of the podcast remains intact, readers can even more easily access the recipes, but I will save several hours a week that are very definitely NOT helping grow any aspect of The Storied Recipe. (Again, more on that in an upcoming post.)[spacer height="10px"]
2. Similarly, this result encouraged me not to jam "one last quick question" about the recipe at the end of the interview, only in order to justify the title of the podcast. Instead, when crafting interview questions I'll feel free again to linger a little more on the recipe, as long as it has something new to teach us.[spacer height="10px"]
3. I'll be releasing (no more than) 3 episodes a month, at least for 6 months after I return from this break. Two episodes will be traditional and a third will be another type of episode that doesn't necessarily require the making of a recipe. I've been resisting this change for a long time, mainly because it's going to hurt to watch those monthly numbers dip. But, the monthly numbers ultimately do not matter - it's the episodic numbers that matter. [spacer height="10px"]In order to improve SEO and my pitching, I need more space in the very limited time I can devote to The Storied Recipe. The truth is I have over 100 tracks and over 60 galleries of images already! I have SO many avenues and new audiences that I want to pitch and I simply need to focus on that - especially since it will allow 38% of you to listen to more episodes! [spacer height="10px"]

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Qs  8 & 9 - All About The Photos.

Here we get into another big issue. No other podcast host takes time to create an entire gallery of storytelling photos for every episode! Frankly, this has become burdensome to me and is a very unwise use of my very limited time for The Storied Recipe. This time in my schedule reflects and creates my overdependence on Instagram. However, so many of my hopes and goals for The Storied Recipe are centered around the photos and I LOVE taking and sharing photos of these recipes. I wondered how to resolve this tension.

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Analysis (This is a synthesis of these responses and my own experiences):

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1. The photos *are* an important part of what I do - on every level! More than 88% of respondents appreciate my story-telling photography. A lot of opportunity for growth continues to depend on images - almost 1/3 of respondents are interested in food photography mentoring. Another 1/3 (possibly the same 1/3) are interested in the Print Shop. And while 2022 will mark a huge shift away from my dependence on Instagram, it *does* continue to be a natural way for me to attract new followers. I have to admit I was pleased and relieved to read this. [spacer height="10px"]HOWEVER....[spacer height="10px"]
2. While it has been fun and challenging to tell the story of a dish like Isku Dhex Kharis and to make recipes like Vegan Lentil Pilau look beautiful, it's only meaningful to 1/3 of respondents that my photo relate to the episode in *any* way. The truth is, I can remain faithful to the concept of the podcast AND further my goals with food photography with a FAR lower investment of time. [spacer height="10px"]
3. If I want to grow The Print Shop, the best way is through minimal, thoughtful images of ingredients in extraordinary light. I can create these types of photos - using ingredients from my guest's recipe - in my "studio" (garage) in very little time.[spacer height="10px"]
4. If I want to grow opportunities for food photography mentoring (which I don't anticipate having time for in 2022, but it's good to be laying the groundwork), I don't need to massively grow my portfolio. I need to grow my messaging/marketing.[spacer height="10px"]
5. Since I'm no longer sharing recipe posts, I need MAXIMUM 2 photos per recipe for the episode blog posts.

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Changes for 2022

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1. When I create my shot list for episodes, every shot will be for a purpose. I'd like to get 3 for IG posts, 3 for the newsletter, 2 for the episode blog post, 1 for The Print Shop, and 1 for The Storied Recipe book that is totally in my bucket list to create. Technically, if I got 3 great shots for every recipe I'd be totally covered. (Obviously I'll get more than 3 because my style is pretty well established at this point, but it will be super helpful to remind myself that's all I *need*.)[spacer height="10px"]
2. Since I'm no longer publishing the recipe posts, none of those shots need to be of the final dish. I can strategically take shots that I know will be successful in the spaces where I show them.[spacer height="10px"]
3. In addition to limiting my shot list, I'm limiting my time for shoots also. One hour, maximum, hard stop! I worked for 8+ years as a wedding photographer, and we never had *close* to an hour for *any* of the key parts of the day. I know how to work to a schedule and it's time to bring embrace that training!

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Q10. Is There an Episode You Like Most and Why?

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Analysis:

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1. Almost half of respondents shared about their favorite episodes. This was unexpected, but reminded me that for the right audience, this podcast does truly resonate.[spacer height="10px"]
2. I really can't predict why people are going to connect with an episode. The varied responses reinforced my belief that every story truly does have value. I can trust the process and know that God's just going to connect the right guest with the right listener.[spacer height="10px"]

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Changes in 2022:

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1. You guys like to hear from me and my family. I'm really going to try to lean into that in 2022. (Actually, I'll be sharing a SUPER personal holiday tradition episode this month! I'm nervous already!)

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Q 11. Is There Anything Else You'd Like Me To Know?

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I was *stunned* by how many of these responses I received and how generous you all were with your words and wisdom. As you can see, the results of this survey RELEASED me from the aspects of The Storied Recipe that have become burdensome and FREED me to pursue growth and excellence in the small bits of time that I can manage in this aspect of life. I just wanted to close with a few of the comments that represented the level of support and kindness you've shown me. THANK YOU!!! I promise to do my best with this and to stay in touch as things change. As I always say - The Storied Recipe is FIRST and foremost a community. Xoxoxoxoxo!!!!!

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