One of the biggest frustrations we encounter as podcasters is the seeming impossibility of getting good data on who our listeners are and what they want from us. Especially when we’re starting out, we can ask and ask for those listening to reach out and get in touch with us, but few – if any – ever do.
Gaining information on who is actually listening to our shows and what they want is invaluable in our quest to put out great, relevant content, grow an engaged listenership, and form a deeper, more meaningful connection with those listeners.
Oh yeah, and that other thing called an email list that currently has your mom and a couple of aunts subscribed to it? You’re going to want to fill that up with your podcast listeners as soon as possible as well in order to communicate directly with your audience.
Why Bloggers Suck*
* Ok, they don’t suck, I love them. They just have it so easy sometimes
When your main form of content production is through a blog, you’ve already got your audience engaged fully in your content at their computer or on their phone, with the ability to quickly and easily complete surveys, segment themselves through the links they click, and so on.
Man, bloggers, lucky bastards amirite?
Well, today we’re going to look at a trick that I like to use to help gain insight into my listener’s lives, wants, needs, personalities, what they ate for dinner last Tuesday* and more.
* Ok, so I don’t really go that deep, I’m not running the NSA over here
The problem is that when it comes to podcast consumption, most people tend to multitask while listening. Now before you get all defensive, it has nothing to do with your content! Your content is great!
But this is the reason we love podcasts in the first place right? The ability to consume content while tackling the more mundane parts of our days.
With multitasking, binge listening, and the transient nature of a podcast episode however, it can be hard to get your audience to follow through on your calls to action.
Really hard.
You thought it was hard to get someone to leave a comment on your blog when you started out right? Well, podcast engagement seems to be even harder to facilitate.
Those bloggers again!
The Secret To Listener Engagement
Ultimately you have to do something to convince your listeners to come to your website, and once there sign up for your email list. There are a lot of different ways that you could go about this, but I’m going to make it really easy for you.
Free Stuff.
Yeah, told you that was easy.
A lot of you who started out blogging and are moving into podcasting probably already have lead magnets and content upgrades scattered across your website. This is great, but for our purposes here, you’re going to want an entirely new freebie to give away to your podcast listeners.*
* For those of you who are only podcasting with no blogging background, you’re still going to want a lead magnet specifically for your listeners
The point of this lead magnet is to target your podcast listeners specifically. Sure there might be some overlap between blog readers and podcast listeners, but maybe it’s not as large an overlap as you think. Maybe there’s NO overlap. Either way, you want to know so that you can better serve your listeners going forward.
*If you’re not sure what your options are when it comes to creating you lead magnet, I’ve got a FREE downloadable guide to 20 of my favorite types of lead magnets waiting for you at the bottom of the page!*
How To Set Up Your Podcast Lead Magnet
There will be a little bit of work setting up the web side of this little reconnaissance mission, but even if you’re not the best at dealing with all the web back end stuff, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Step 1.
First off, you’re going to need a website…*
* Ok, you know what, you already know you need a website and it’s probably way better than mine, so I’m just going to skip ahead
Step #2853. (those other steps were basically you pulling your hair out setting up your website)
You’re going to want to set up a landing page on either a subdomain or a specific page on your website that has no links to it from elsewhere on your site.
That last part is important. You only want people to end up on that page who know the URL by you giving it to them through your podcast.* With this in mind, make sure that the URL is something memorable that your listeners will be able to recall later in the day when they have time to complete your call to action.
* You can add this link in your show notes as well of course
How To Set Up Your Landing Page
You’ve got your landing page set up with a super easy to remember URL, and it’s time to decide what it is you want your listeners to do once they’re here. You’ve got a couple of options when it comes to reconnaissance CTAs* like this.
* That’s Call To Action for you guys following along at home. All this talk of reconnaissance got me feeling like I need to start using some secretive acronyms and such YKWIM? (Dammit, there it is again – I meant “you know what I mean”. Let’s just get back to the article…)
The first and probably most common option is for your listeners to enter their email address and immediately be sent your lead magnet giveaway that you’re offering.
This is great. You’ve got them on your email list which is essential. Once they’re on the list you can ask them questions and segment them through your welcome email sequence.
The thing is, I find that personally, once I’m on the list, my engagement drops. Sure there are people who sign up for the list, click every link, answer surveys, and reply directly to the owner of said list – but I am not one of those people, and I’m pretty sure I’m far from alone in that aspect. (Sorry to anyone who’s list I’m on. I know I should help you out and engage with you…)
Segmenting & Surveying
Sooo if most people will engage to get on the list but then turn passive once the emails start rolling in, the answer is to simply move up the surveying and segmenting to before you give them the lead magnet, while you still have their full attention.
My favorite way to do this is to link to a Typeform survey from your landing page (or have your URL direct straight to the survey). Your listeners fill out the survey, and then get the giveaway sent to their inbox!
In this scenario, you get not only their email address, but also a ton of other information that you can then use to segment your list, understand your audience, and shape your content accordingly!
Pretty awesome huh?
Setting This Up On The Podcast End
With the back end covered, it’s time to talk about setting up this giveaway on the podcast end of things. This is where it gets really difficult.
Actually, you know what, I’m not even going to try and get clever and lead you on here, you’re welcome. It’s super easy.
All you have to do on the podcast itself is direct your listeners to the URL you’ve set up.
Eaaaasy.
What to give away
Deciding what to give away is something a lot of new podcasters and bloggers struggle with. We don’t want to give anything away that we think is good enough to charge for, but, well… we think everything we create is good enough to charge for.
Sorry, to break it to you, but if you’re in that boat, you’re going to need to either get over it and give some kick ass swag away*, or create something new specifically to give away.
* Your audience will totally love you
What you’re expecting your audience to do in order to collect on their giveaway will also impact what you choose as your lead magnet.
If all you’re expecting from your audience is for them to exchange their email address, the bar is lower. Now I don’t mean that you should be lazy about it. It still has to be something useful that your listeners would actually want!
Basic offering
One of the most common offerings out there from podcasters is a well-designed pdf reference sheet of the key takeaways from the episode. This should be fairly easy on your end as you can create a template and then swap out the information for each new episode.
On the other hand, don’t be surprised if only a small percentage of your listenership takes you up on the offer. These are the keeners, and while we love them, they are not indicative of the preferences, struggles, and desires of your entire audience.
Let’s go deeper
A more in depth giveaway that will take more time to set up but should hopefully convert more listeners would be some sort of content upgrade.
Let’s say that my on my latest episode we were talking about podcast gear, and I mentioned that by going to a URL that I’ve set up, you can get a pdf detailing the step-by-step setup – with diagrams – of some common podcast studio arrangements.
Sounds pretty good right*
* Like so good that I should actually just make this and give it to your guys. Ok, fine I’ll do it, but you’re going to need to be a little patient.
Something like this would take you a fair bit longer to set up than a simple summary of the episode, but if you talk about similar topics on a fairly consistent basis, you’ll probably be able to get more than one use out of it.
It’s nice to have 5-10 of these type of content upgrades that you can cycle through every so often and reference in episodes on differing topics.
Giving them even more value*
* Ugghh I can’t believe I just used the phrase “giving value”. Is it me, or is that the biggest buzz-phrase in the world of entrepreneurship education.
Too bad it’s true.
Ok, aside over.
So that content upgrade scheme is pretty solid for convincing listeners to exchange their email address with you. But, if you’re asking them for more, say like filling out a 3-minute survey, you’re going to want to provide something even better for them.*
* I’m completely aware of the irony that 3 minutes is enough of a time investment to warrant you spending hours creating something new. It’s a sad state of affairs, but that’s the way it is.
One of my favorite ways to give potential subscribers a ton of value while avoiding sinking a ton of time into creating a new resource is to repurpose old products.
These might be a product that was once the flagship of your brand, but then – you being you – created something even better and the original product doesn’t see much action anymore. If this is the case, it might be time to move it into the lead magnet category. You can even include that you normally charge $XYZ for it! Maybe even $VW,XYZ!!!!
An option that one of my clients recently implemented in just this type of campaign was a sample contract that they had drawn up by a lawyer for working with their clients. Yes, it’s just a sample, but it cost them over $500 to have that contract created. I’m sure there are more than a few listeners to their show that would be happy to have a starting point for creating their own contracts.
One more option that seems to be gaining in popularity is email courses. These take a bit of effort to write and automate, but you can impart a lot of valuable information over a 5, 7, 10 part email course. They’re much quicker to create than a video course, but due to the drip nature of the course presentation, lasting over a week or two, they give the perception of being worth a lot.*
* Well, I mean they SHOULD be worth a lot already because the content is so great…
These are just a few options I’ve seen used well. If you’re in contact with even just a few of your listeners, reach out to them and ask them what would be useful to them.
How Often Should I Push These?
Once you’ve got your lead magnet and/or content upgrades setup, you might wonder how often you want to push them on your audience.
Is every episode too much?
Are they going to hate me for asking all the time?
Like so many things in life, the answer is, it depends.
If all you’re asking for is an email address, I would offer your lead magnet every single episode. A lot of times people want to sign up but they’re busy at the time, get distracted, and forget. For a small ask like this, don’t worry about pushing it too much.
Keep in mind, you should still be offering something of value to them though.
On the other hand, if you’re asking them to commit some time to a survey – even if it’s only 3 minutes long – you might want to take a more conservative approach.
In this case, I would recommend directing your listeners to the survey maybe about once a month. Any more and it’ll just become background noise, but the information is important to you, so you do want to make sure your listeners know about it and that it stands out.
If you run a show with more than one episode per week, when you first release the survey I would push it out EVERY episode of that week, and then give it a break for a while before repeating.
As with everything, play around with it and see what your audience responds to. Some approaches might work fantastic for one podcast audience and fall flat for another’s. Good thing experimenting is fun, right?
Knowing your audience
This might all sound like a lot of work with very little definable ROI.
Trust me, it’s worth it.
Knowing your audience is probably the single most important step in taking your podcast to the next level. Once you know who your audience is and what they actually want, life as a podcaster becomes a lot easier.
That uncertainty about whether your latest episode is going to resonate or not will disappear, you’re going to have entire episodes devoted to people or topics that your listeners have already told you they’re interested in.
What’s more, listeners who feel like they’re being heard are more engaged, and this whole you-speaking-into-the-microphone thing becomes a lot more of a conversation than a soliloquy.
But first, you need to reach out to them, and say, “Hey, I noticed you’ve been listening to my show, tell me about yourself.”
If you’re wanting to put together some type of lead magnet offer for your listeners but are unsure of what’s best for your audience, or even what your options are, I’ve put together a downloadable PDF of some of my favorite types of lead magnets. I go over the pros and cons of 20 of my personal favorite types of lead magnets to help you decide what might be the best fit for your listeners.
To claim your own Lead Magnet Guide, just click the button below!
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If you’re looking for some inspiration and support in your podcasting journey, come check out our free Cut The Bullshit Podcast Community. We’re an open, honest, but challenging community aimed at improving our brands through podcasting and making genuine connections with our listeners. See ya inside 🙂
Jeremy travels full-time, loves long-distance cycle touring, and will always look back on the day he finally saved up enough money to buy the Millennium Falcon Lego set as one of his proudest achievements. He believes that the way to grow sustainable businesses is by leading with heart, vulnerability, and helping your people be and become their best selves.
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