Podcasts are a great way to get your message out to a wide audience. They can be used to educate, entertain, and inform listeners. But if you want to make sure your podcast is successful, you need to include a call to action. A call to action is a statement or request that encourages listeners to take a specific action. It can be as simple as asking them to subscribe to your podcast or share it with their friends.
A call to action is important for podcasts because it helps to keep listeners engaged and encourages them to take action. It also helps to build relationships with your audience and encourages them to come back for more. Without a call to action, listeners may not know what to do after listening to your podcast. They may forget about it or move on to something else.
A few CTA examples include:
- “Check out the link in the description”
- “Subscribe to my show”
- “Click the notification button”
- “Comment on our website”
- “Visit this episode’s show notes”
Word of mouth is still one of the major ways that podcasts gain listenership, and that’s why including a request to tell others is still the most popular CTA.
When creating a call to action for your podcast, it’s important to make it clear and concise. You want to make sure that listeners understand what you’re asking them to do. You also want to make sure that it’s relevant to the content of your podcast. For example, if you’re talking about a new product, you might ask listeners to visit your website to learn more.
It’s also important to make sure that your call to action is timely. If you’re talking about a new product, you want to make sure that listeners know that they need to act now. You don’t want them to forget about it or wait until it’s too late.
Finally, you want to make sure that your call to action is easy to follow. You don’t want to make it too complicated or overwhelming. You want to make sure that listeners can easily understand what you’re asking them to do.
A call to action is an important part of any podcast. It helps to keep listeners engaged and encourages them to take action. It also helps to build relationships with your audience and encourages them to come back for more. By including a call to action in your podcast, you can ensure that your message is heard and that your listeners take action.
Why You Should Ask Your Listeners
The most important reasons to include a podcast call to action are as follows:
- Grow your audience
- Get your audience’s contact information to add them to your email list,
- Make a sale
- Endorse a product /service or an event
If you fail to include a CTA you are missing out on these opportunities completely.
Believe it or not, a large portion of podcasts are still active due to their sponsorships, eCommerce store, affiliate offers, and/or other products or services that they are selling. For podcasters using their show to monetize it is important to direct listeners to their website to make a purchase, their CTA should also include something reminding them of your special offers.
Such as purchasing a copy of the Podcasting Your Purpose Resource Guide CTA which is included in my shows.
Other podcasters focus on signing up for an email list so their listenership stays informed about the latest live events, news, or even giveaways. Finally, show hosts often include a CTA asking for a review of their show.
Reviews help a podcast to stay on the “good side” of the algorithms that directories like iTunes run on. In other words, more reviews tells the directories that people like your show, and therefore they might boost your visibility to new potential listeners.
What Should Your Podcast Call to Action Be Like?
Your CTA is going to depend on your show’s goal. In all likelihood it will be a combination of things. For example, it’s not uncommon to ask for reviews and a visit to your website to read the show notes. However, you may decide the most important thing for you is to get people to your website to opt-in for some kind of freebie so that you can get them on your email list.
You CTA should be attention-grabbing, but also short and sweet. It doesn’t have to be long and complicated – in fact, making it too long will have your listeners moving on to something else before you can finish what you want to say. Keep it simple and you’ll have better results.
Here are some examples of real CTAs in other people’s podcasts that you might want to mimic:
- “Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven’t already.
- Leave a review
- Download a copy of the 7-Step Podcast Checklist
- Share
- Check out other social media platforms
How to Make a CTA that Works
You want to avoid constantly nagging your already devoted listeners. Because of this, you may want to save your CTA for the very end. While mentioning your website or show notes organically throughout the episode may make sense, asking for reviews or explaining how they help you is best saved for after you’ve delivered your main message.
You also don’t want to ask for too much, or drone on too long about why you need them to act. In other words, if you spend five minutes of your 15 minute episode begging for reviews it can feel demanding and turn your listeners off as a result.
People love to hear their names, and receive appreciation from the host, so this may be something you want to consider.
One great way we’ve seen podcasters ask for reviews is by reading real reviews from listeners within an episode. People love to hear their names, and receive the appreciation from the host, so this may be a tactic you can consider.
If sales are your goal for affiliate offers or your own products and services, providing a special discount is often the best way to get your audience to visit your offer page. They want an incentive to click!
Of course, you need to keep in mind that not everyone will be listening to your episodes when they are released, so you may need to use discount offers that don’t expire quickly.
How Often Should You Have a Call to Action?
Every. Single. Episode. No exceptions!
While you might feel silly repeating a podcast call to action for every episode, you need to include one in all of them if you hope to find success in your podcasting venture. The reason? Not everyone will listen to every episode you release. Skipping your CTA in a single episode means that you could miss out on the opportunity to get someone new to your audience to do what you want them to do if they don’t listen to your other releases!
If it helps, you can always record a couple of variations on your CTAs and simply drop them in like ads into your episodes while you’re editing your show. Or you could create an editing template that already has your intro, a CTA, and an outro ready to go so that all you have to do is add the meat of your episode to make producing your show a little faster. How you go about this will be up to you.
Some podcasters prefer to say the CTA every time they record so that they can tweak it just a bit.
Remember – your podcast call to action can help you grow your audience and your revenue. After a while it will feel normal, and will become routine, and when your numbers start increasing you’ll be glad you included them in your show.
I invite you to send an email to [email protected] to schedule a 15-Minute Complimentary Discovery Call or enroll in the 5-week podcast coaching sessions for blogging or podcasting support.
