How to get Feedback From Your Listeners

[00:00:00] It happened again this weekend. I was sitting in the kitchen. My 7-year-old comes in and looks at the cupboard. She looks at me. Then she looks back at the cupboard.

[00:00:15] Are you hungry? She says to me, tea, if you want something just ask for it. Then she says, can I have something to eat? A common problem I hear among podcasters is no one shares the show or leaves reviews or sends in feedback.

[00:00:33] And I always ask the same follow-up question. Are you asking for those things? It's the same lesson I give my kids. Don't ask, don't get.

[00:00:44] And with Spotify recently announcing that they are going to bring comments to the Spotify app, I figured now was a great time to talk about how you can get good feedback for your podcast.

[00:01:01] Hey everybody, welcome to podcasters Workflows. A show that provides insights into how to improve your podcast systems and workflows, allowing you to create and grow a high quality podcast by showing you how to best spend your limited time.

[00:01:17] I'm your host, Joe Casabona, and today we are going to talk about the secret to getting listener feedback. True of everything in life. You can't expect people to into it what you want or need.

[00:01:36] If you want feedback or reviews for your podcast, you need to tell people that you want feedback or reviews for your podcast. And you need to make it easy for people to give you feedback or reviews.

[00:01:52] So when it comes to your podcast and getting listener feedback specifically, what can you do? Well, let's look at a few things. The first is ask early.

[00:02:07] And I mean this in two ways. Ask early in the episode, like after you deliver the first piece of valuable content and ask way before you will want or need that feedback. By asking early in the episode, you're ensuring that you're reaching the maximum amount of listeners.

[00:02:31] Since episodes generally see a significant drop off later, especially after the sign off, or as you're wrapping up, most people don't stick around for that. So asking them for feedback as the very last thing in the episode, you're going to exclude most of your listeners.

[00:02:51] My recommendation is to deliver it within the first five minutes. This gives you enough time to deliver a quick win, like a good quote or the first piece of actionable advice, and then ask for a favor.

[00:03:06] This hits even better if the ask is related to the value, though I know that can't always happen. The other form of asking early is based on specific feedback questions or a campaign. Ask way before you need it.

[00:03:25] Everyone may not listen to every episode. And even if they do, they'll likely need to hear the ask a few times before they take action.

[00:03:34] So if you're working on a episode or an episode where you want listener questions, don't just ask the episode before. Ask three or four episodes before and ask regularly throughout the episode. That way it gives your listeners time to write in questions.

[00:03:53] And this really brings me to my next piece of feedback. But before I get to that, I do want to let you know that this is a written to be read article that went out to my newsletter first.

[00:04:04] And so if you want to get this content earlier as well as lots of tips from me about how to improve your podcast processes, you can head over to podcastworkflows.com slash join to sign up for it might free mailing list.

[00:04:19] Okay, so the next piece of advice here is ask regularly. So regularly that it feels like you're doing it too often. Remember that we hear our message all the time because where the ones saying it.

[00:04:36] But we're also biased into thinking that people hear and retain everything that we say. As you can tell from the story I opened the show with that's not the case, especially when it comes to podcasting.

[00:04:50] So make sure to build an multiple asks throughout the episode towards the beginning around the middle and at the end. You may feel like you're promoting too much but as long as you tie it to value for the listener, like your feedback will make this upcoming episode better.

[00:05:11] Or you'll get my best advice as early as possible, you should be good. And again, if you feel like you're repeating yourself just remember that it takes people a lot of times to hear a message.

[00:05:24] For like a year straight I talked about how you shouldn't start episodes with the episode number. And I'm like, well this is this is settled science now. But you know what? Honestly, oh we could go as I record this people were asking me that question.

[00:05:42] So just because you feel you've heard your message too much doesn't mean everybody has heard your message too much or even that they feel that they've heard your message too much. The people who hear at the most of your biggest fans anyway.

[00:05:56] So ask early, ask often and ask everywhere. For a recent episode of my other show the streamline solo per newer I put a call out for questions. I said what questions do you have about time tracking?

[00:06:14] Naturally I asked on the show. I mentioned it in an episode though admittedly I didn't start early enough. But most of the questions I got didn't come from the show's call to action. I didn't just ask on the podcast.

[00:06:30] I asked on Twitter, I asked on Facebook, I asked on threads and I asked my mailing list. I said reply with your questions. Most if not all of the feedback came from those places.

[00:06:48] And yes, I know there's overlap between the listeners and the people who follow me on say Twitter. And maybe Twitter was just the more convenient place to write in.

[00:06:59] But there were questions and conversations happening on social media and I grabbed the best and I saved them into a show document. And like I said, most of the responses came from there because let's face it.

[00:07:14] It's so much easier to interact on other platforms than it is to interact directly with a podcast. And yes that is going to change with Spotify rolling out comments. And yes that is changing because more podcasts are putting their shows on YouTube which also has built in comments.

[00:07:36] But Apple podcasts which is still incredibly popular doesn't. And the I don't know 20, 25% of people who listen to podcasts and something other than Spotify or YouTube or Apple podcasts, they'll be at a look. Which ties in to my last piece of advice here?

[00:08:01] Make giving listener feedback dead simple. There are lots of ways to make giving listener feedback easy. There are lots of tools designed specifically to gather feedback. So here's what I recommend. Give them several ways to submit feedback.

[00:08:21] Just like you should ask everywhere, you should accept everywhere or at least in a lot of places. Here are a few ways you can get listener feedback. Number one is have a memorable URL set up on your own website.

[00:08:38] For this show I have podcastworkflows.com slash feedback for streamline solopreneuer, I have streamline.fm slash feedback. Now if you don't have your own website yet or you prefer tracking in something like type form or Google forms, notion or air table, you can create a branded redirect.

[00:08:57] For example, I also own streamlinesfeedback.com which is probably a lot easier for most people to remember than streamline.fms slash feedback.

[00:09:07] And while I redirect it to my actual feedback form, you can point it to any URL you want by the domain with name cheap or pork bun and redirect it to another URL.

[00:09:21] You can also use services like speak pipe or fan list to get audio messages from listeners. Speak pipe cost money. Fan list doesn't but fan list does require the listeners to create a fan list account.

[00:09:38] You can also use services like loom or telby to get video messages from listeners. You can use social media and be active in the replies. The more you respond to the more you're signaling to the social network that this is an active and interesting thread.

[00:09:56] You can email your newsletter and keep an eye on your inbox for replies when people respond to my newsletter. I reply to everyone that comes in.

[00:10:06] I know I probably won't be able to do that forever, but I try really hard to respond to everybody who replies to me. And finally, enable comments on your website for podcast episodes.

[00:10:20] This is really going to depend on the pod on the website you're using for your podcast. If you're using the one that is provided by your podcast host, you probably don't have comments. But if you're using some of the wordpress you do.

[00:10:33] And now if you're using Spotify, you can encourage people to respond on Spotify, especially if you look at your stats and you see that most of your listeners use Spotify anyway. I made it as easy as possible for people, not just listeners to submit questions.

[00:10:48] And I got some great ones. I'm not convinced I would have if I had just asked on the podcast. And that's not a knock on my listeners, but interacting with the podcaster is really hard. Because unless you use the right app or you're in the right place,

[00:11:08] it's going to have a higher level of effort. So ask early, ask often, ask everywhere and make it easy. That's how you get feedback for your podcast. So my question to you is what are you going to ask your listeners for?

[00:11:30] You can respond to me by going to podcastworkflows.com slash feedback or I'm on every social network as Jay Casabona. And of course, if you want to join my mailing list, you'll get content like this earlier and more often

[00:11:49] and you'll have the opportunity to interact with me there. You can sign up at podcastworkflows.com slash join. There will be links to everything I just mentioned in the description for this episode. Thanks so much for listening to podcast workflows.

[00:12:05] And until next time, I can't wait to see what you make.