A call to action is a request to your listeners to perform an action. A lot of podcasters ask for ratings and reviews. I’m sceptical of the value of this. The usual claim is that this helps others to find us. When I think about how I find new podcasts, ratings and reviews don’t figure at all in my calculations. I go to search on the Podcast app and type in a name or a topic. From there I listen to an episode to see if I like what I hear. If there’s connection to those in the niche I’ll go iTunes and do a full search through there. Some of the best shows I listen to have or at the time of subscription, had not one rating nor any reviews.
So I’m not sure that’s a thing worth pursuing. I have asked my listeners to tell everyone they know, any way they can about the show and seen a bit of a bump in listeners.
A better call to action, to my way of thinking, is to let people know the full show notes are on the website. This means the show notes as published through the host are very minimal. I include a link to the blog post of the full show notes and references to other articles I quoted or cited in the episode. Once on the website people can subscribe to the podcast, if they haven’t already and are able to read the “About Me.” page and so on.
Other calls to action I’ve seen work are links to freebies that relate to the episode. A small business show I listen to crafts a pdf checklist download for each episode to reinforce what they’ve been teaching. This is a good way to build an email list but only if your content is useful. I don’t think I can emphasise this enough, your content must lead the way to your call to action.
Even if you ask for ratings and reviews, content drives actions. If your content doesn’t resonate, your listeners will not respond to a call to action.
Takeaway:
- You can ask your audience to do something.
- Think about what you are asking.
- Content drive actions.