Increasing Your Podcast's Audience Engagement With Better Calls To Action
We love our audience, and we want to connect. We want them to take steps to deepen their level of engagement. We want them to take actions. These often include:
Subscribe, Rate & Review in iTunes
Follow us on Social Media
Join our Email List
Buy products
Shop At Amazon
and that's just a few.
Determining Your ONE Call To Action
Your call to action will be unique to you. We all have different needs, and different motives. There is no one size fits all, but in the end you need to STOP and THINK, WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THIS PODCAST. Them figure out the roadmap to get your audience from point A to point B. If you are in podcasting “Just for fun” you probably still want people to tell their friends. That is a call to action.
Now if I was to honest here, I would say I want everyone to join the School of Podcasting. I need to look at this realistically. This may be the first time you've been on my website, or heard my show. That seems a bit forward don't you think? You don't ask someone to marry you on the first date, so you might not want to close the deal on the first contact with you audience. The cool thing is it is YOUR call. You want to ask someone to marry you on the first date, you can do that. But you might be less intimidating to have them sign up for your email list. From there you have another opportunity to provide value. Notice what I said here, you have an opportunity to serve your audience.
Figure out where you want to go, and the figure out how you're going to get there. It sounds easy, but you might find it difficult. The bottom line is you need a plan.
Tips For Creating a Call To Action
- As I said before, you need to figure out what you want your audience to do
- Be clear and concise
- Be repetitive if necessary
- Tell them HOW (sure you know how, but they may not)
- Make it E A S Y (don't make them hunt for buttons, or type insane website addresses)
- Eliminate competitive calls to action
- Explain how they will benefit (not how you will benefit)
- Explain exactly what will happen
- Explain why they need to do this now
- Remove the Fear. Try to avoid words that might seem much of a commitment. BUY NOW vs Add to Cart. Maybe we should be asking people “Get the back catalog” instead of “Subscribe.” Explain how they can cancel at any time, and it is free.
- Place it in two places on your post. One near the top of the page (“above the fold” and once near the bottom).
In the end, a call to action should convey value, and provide a sense of urgency.
11 Tips for Better Podcast EngagementClick To TweetBecause of my Podcast – Jeff Steinman
Jeff explains that how launching a podcast boosted his book sales, brought him more traffic, and boosted his interview skills. You can find Jeff at howtoquitworking.com
How To Quit Working: A Simple Plan to Leave Your Job for a Life of Freedom
Podbean's CrowdFunding Platform
For the sake of this argument, let's say that the bar is set at Patreon.com They are the first at an ongoing crowdfunding platform. Others have come and gone, and they are still here. Podbean (a media host) recently launched the ability to have crowdfunding. I went over to check it out. Here is what I found.
- It's easy to setup, but in some cases impossible to edit.
- With Patreon it's super easy to create a post (think of it like a Facebook Wall) and choose who can and can't see that post. I don't see that option. With Podbean you have a comments section that doesn't seem as robust.
When I watched their video on this, I did notice that their example video shows that all the rewards are outside of the crowdfunding area (bonus content, newsletters). I have an email into Podbean for clarification. I noticed on their demo video someone asked the same question (how do I create a piece of content for a certain support level) and it hasn't been answered.
Podbean does have some badges (something I wish Patreon would provide) that make it super easy to copy and paste and have them appear on your website. the one feature that Patreon has that Podbean didn't event mention is scarcity. In other words you could setup a reward amount and say “Only 5 people can be VIPs.” I didn't see this as an option in Podbean.
One of the issues I had with Podbean is not their fault. I was using Feedburner for the Podcast I setup. Feedburner (shocking) had a problem with the artwork. Podbean pulled this artwork (or lack thereof) and uses that in your listing. There is no place in Podbean to change that. With a properly working feed, I wouldn't have had this issues, but I had no way to edit it. After I updated the feed, the image never appeared.
Like Most Humans – I Stuck With the Comfortable
I have a Patreon account for the School of Podcasting and another one for the Ask the Podcast Coach show and I understand the Patreon platform. They also seem to be working on adding more features to the Patreon platform.
Create Clammrs From Just About Anywhere
Clammr has been adding features. Clammr is a tool that allows you to share up to 18 seconds of audio and put it on twitter, Facebook, email, etc. Anyone can listen to the whole episode, or like it and receive the details of the audio clip via email. Recently they announced the ability to integrate with the PowerPress player (something I will report on in the future), but they also had it easy to create clammrs by sharing an audio clip and sending it to clammr. In my testing it seemed to work a bit more reliably if Clammr was open already and then you went to your podcast player and clicked the share button.
From there you will record your audio and be taken to the clammr app where you can fine tune it before publishing it to your clammr account. For more information go to clamrr.com and to here what people are clammring, check out the clammrcast top 20 countdown.
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