Podcast Marketing

The Role of Podcast Audience Feedback in Shaping Your Content

Last updated on: 
February 25, 2023

How to effectively use listener feedback to create content that resonates with your audience and boosts overall performance.

The number one tip to creating a show that continues to scale and build an audience is to listen to your audience. If you’re not tuning into what matters to your consumers, you’re making a critical mistake.  Your listeners are your greatest asset when it comes to shaping future content. 

Your audience’s feedback will keep your finger on the pulse of:

  • What they care about
  • Their values
  • Their interests
  • New technologies and trends
  • Where your show is resonating 
  • Where your content might be falling flat

In today’s blog we’ll explore the benefits of audience feedback, how to receive it and how that information can help grow your podcast and improve its quality. 

1. Encourage reviews and sharing 

It might seem obvious, but we can’t overstate the importance of asking for reviews. We recommend asking your audience to leave a review in the closing segment of your podcast so it’s top-of-mind. 

Reviews provide insight into what your listeners love most, why they feel connected to the show and ways you can improve. When asking your audience to leave a review, it’s also important to ask them to also share the show with friends and family. Not only will this help in scaling your show, but it means more people are included in the funnel of audience feedback. 

Remember: more reviews and sharing = more feedback = improved show quality. 

Quick Tip: You can also link a form in your show notes for listeners to send you feedback privately! 

2. Ask basic questions about your audience

The demographics of your audience, such as age, gender and country are all important data points that help you get a better understanding of their point-of-view, stage of life and what questions they’re looking to be answered by your content. You can get this information through the analytics provided by your hosting platform. 

You can learn a lot of this with listener call-ins to your show or by making surveys available to your listeners in your show notes and website. Never forget that it's critical to know WHO you are speaking to in order to develop a genuine connection through your content overtime. 


3. Learn your audience journey

Asking listeners where and how they discovered your podcast is a great way to figure out where you should double-down your focus and marketing efforts. 

If you discover that one of your listener acquisition channels is more effective than others, it's time to roll up your sleeves and really understand that channel inside out. 

Your audience journey data will help in not only growing your listener base but also give you important information about where your audience lives, what else they consume, where they are hanging out on social media and who they are influenced by.

Quick Tip: Make sure you are using a podcast tracking link to track where your podcast downloads are coming from. Tools like CoHost’s Tracking Links let you track podcast listener attribution. 


4.  Survey your audience about their preferences 

You must seek out positive feedback and critical feedback alike, otherwise your podcast won't grow to reach its maximum potential or biggest audience. 

If you only ask your friends for feedback, you may not get the most honest feedback and you'll also miss out on the constructive criticism you get from people you don't know. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. A great place to start is with a simple survey that goes out annually (or twice a year!). 

Examples of survey questions to include: 

  1. What are two things you like about the show?
  2. What is one way you would improve the show?
  3. What was your favorite episode and why?
  4. Which episode did you least enjoy?
  5. What would you want me to focus on in the coming episodes? 
  6. Pick three words that best summarize how listening to the show makes you feel.
  7. Where are you and what are you typically doing when you listen to my podcast?
  8. What do you find most valuable about my show?

Surveys are a powerful tool for collecting information from a broad swath of people while also getting individual opinions. It’s also a good idea to sprinkle in a few open-ended questions that dig into your listener’s lives and habits that you can’t get through data. 

Things like what industry they work in or other podcasts they enjoy listening to, (again, always learning about your audience persona!).  

Not sure where to start with collecting feedback? Remember surveys can easily be set up with Google Forms (+ its free!). 

5.  Make it easy for your audience to reach you 

Include a call for feedback in every episode, in your show notes, your social media posts, your website — in other words, in as many places as you can. It doesn’t really matter how you ask people to contact you as long as there’s at least one easy option. 

If your audience feels you are genuinely open to hearing from them, many of your audience members might surprise you with transparent and honest feedback that can help inform future content. It’s paramount to make your audience feel valued and that their feedback matters. Being easy to reach is an easy way to build on the intimacy podcast audiences already feel with their show host. 

The Role of Podcast Audience Feedback in Shaping Your Content

As is made clear here, feedback you get from your listeners is invaluable when it comes to helping improve the content and services you offer, as well as attracting new listeners (or future clients). 

No matter what method you choose, gathering feedback is essential for any podcaster. If you're not already collecting audience feedback, now is the time to start! 

To learn more about audience feedback or chat about your brand’s show, get in touch with our team!

The Quill Team

Platform
Price
Pro’s
Con's
Anchor

Free

  • Easy to use
  • Automatically distributes your podcast to major platforms.
  • Embed media player.
  • Great if podcasting is a
    side hobby
  • Very basic editing
  • Since it’s a free tool, you don’t have full control over the monetization of your podcast.
  • Not the right platform for people taking podcasting seriously
Buzzsprout

Free for 2 hours of content per month

$12 for 3 hours per month

$18+ for 6 hours and up

  • Very user-friendly
  • Caters to both long term and beginner podcasters
  • Advanced analytics
  • Easy distribution of your episodes
  • They measure their size requirements to hours not megabytes
  • Bonus: get a free $20 Amazon gift card when you sign up for any paid hosting plan!
  • Advanced features like dynamic ad insertion need some work
Libsyn

$5/month for Monthly Storage 50mb

  • Oldest podcast hosting site.
  • Easy distribution to major platforms and great for scaling once your podcast gets bigger.
  • Hosted over 35,000 podcasts.
  • An iTunes Podcast partner.
  • Allows you to publish your podcast to specific directories.
  • Embed media player.
  • Price is based on storage
  • 50mb storage for $5 won’t be enough if you are publishing weekly so you’ll end up with a higher price point
Podbean

Unlimited audio package: $9/month

Storage space:

Unlimited

  • Great support & customer service features
  • Unlimited audio.
  • Pages are easy to customize
  • Can schedule podcast release dates.
  • Easy to use.
  • Uploads and changes to podcast titles and/or descriptions are automatic to Spotify.
  • Embed media player.
  • Simple Analytics
  • Analytics aren’t as advanced as other platforms
  • Upload and changes to podcast titles and/or descriptions take a day to change on iTunes.
  • Not an iTunes podcast partner.
  • The process to send a podcast to iTunes is more tedious. But, you will still be able to get on the platform.
Blubrry

Classic

$5/month

Monthly Storage

50mb

  • Podcast Wordpress plugin and management.
  • If you want to record a new introduction or conclusion, add in a sponsored ad or upload a new version of a podcast, it doesn't count towards your storage usage per month.
  • Blubrry allows a 25% storage overage each month
  • Prices are based on storage.
  • Usability is okay.
SimpleCast

Starting: $15/month

Recommendation: $35/month

Monthly Storage: Unlimited

  • Hosts your audio files no matter what the size!
  • Dynamic insertion for podcast ads or edits.
  • Incredibly detailed analytics including number of episodes completed and listener location tracking.
  • Embed media player.
  • Easy to use.
  • Great distribution! Easy access to all major podcast platforms.
  • Customizable podcast
    website.
  • Prices are slightly higher than other platforms, but well worth it especially if you have a branded company podcast!

Looking to generate reach, leads, and measurable results?

Chat with our experts about your podcast

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