The Role of Podcast Audience Feedback in Shaping Your Content

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:

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

‍