42. 5 Podcasting Strategies to Get Your Listeners to Leave Reviews

Struggling to get podcast reviews? Tune in to find out why they're important (though perhaps not for the reason that you think!) and for 5 ways to encourage your listeners to leave reviews.

When you're done listening, please leave a review for Podcasting for Introverts identifying which episode is your favorite!

How to Write a Review

About Apple's Search
About Apple's Charts


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This episode was produced by me, The Podcast Teacher! Contact me at Hello@ThePodcastTeacher.com.

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Transcript

Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Today, we're talking about podcast reviews. And since you can only leave ratings and not written reviews on Spotify, today's conversation is going to focus on Apple Podcasts reviews. Reviews are important for reasons which I'll dive into in a moment, but a lot of podcast gurus place a ton of value on reviews and make them out to be the end all be all. They're really not, which is why it's taken me until episode 42 to talk about them and why I don't ask for them repeatedly in most episodes. So many podcasters will say, leave us a review.

It helps others find the show. And I get a little twitchy every time I hear this because it's not really true. Perhaps it's just a matter of semantics and we're splitting hairs here, but reviews don't technically help others find your show. Apple specifically says that reviews do not factor into the algorithm for search results or for chart rankings. Seriously. And if you're skeptical about that, I don't blame you since so many of the podcast gurus say that reviews do factor into the algorithm. I'll leave the links to the Apple pages in the description so that you can read it for yourself. Anyway, you need to focus on things like SEO and marketing to help new people find your show.

But reviews are important primarily for convincing the right people to press play and give your show a chance. When someone sees a new show in their search results, they have found it through your SEO, your optimization, or they have seen an ad for it or something like that. They come across your show. They look at your cover art. They look at your title. They click into it. Maybe they read your description. They scan your episode titles, and most likely they will skim the reviews.

When a listener writes what they like about the show in a review, a new potential listener can read it and determine whether or not they are likely to enjoy the show as well. For example, if someone writes a review sharing that they love the host's dry and sarcastic humor, if I go and I read that review and I happen to love dry and sarcastic humor, then I'm likely to press play and give the show a chance. On the other hand, if I can't stand dry and sarcastic humor, then I'm gonna stop right there and go find a different show. So reviews help encourage the right people. That's important. The right people to press play and the not such a good fit people to go look elsewhere. A generic review of this show is great. It's helpful to a degree, but reviews are really beneficial when they can call out something specific.

This is helpful to that potential listener who's trying to decide if this show may be a good fit for them, and it's also helpful to the podcast host. As I've mentioned before, podcasting is largely set up to be a one way medium. Mostly, I talk. You listen. While we can get creative about how to make it a two way relationship, reviews are a built in way for listeners to provide feedback to the host, and that's always a good thing. So how do you get more reviews? I'm gonna go over 5 different strategies. Strategy number 1 is to simply ask your listeners. Give a call to action in your episode and ask listeners to leave a review.

If you can do this in a fun or memorable way, they're more likely to go do it. So get those creative juices pumping if you can and ask in a fun or creative way. Consider being super specific in your ask and asking them to identify something in particular in their review. I'll give you an example here in a second. And, also, provide directions if you can. Writing a review on Apple is not the hardest process, but it's not the most intuitive process either. And so especially for those that haven't written a review before or maybe a little less comfortable with tech in general, providing directions in the form of a PDF or a video example can be really helpful and kind of reduce that barrier to entry. My directions are linked in the episode description.

And here's where I'm gonna jump in and take the opportunity to practice what I'm preaching, and I'm going to ask you. Will you please go leave a review for podcasting for introverts and tell me which episode so far has been your favorite? That will be super helpful to potential listeners who are trying to decide if this show is a good fit for them and what episode they should start with. And, of course, that's helpful to me as well to know what kind of content is resonating with you. Thank you so so much in advance. Alright. The next strategy, continuing on with the theme of asking for reviews, but this time I'm gonna take it into the avenue of asking specific individuals for reviews. So you can start, especially when you first launch your show with people like friends and family or your biz besties.

Even if they are not people who would normally listen to your show, they're not your target listener, it can be a little awkward, but you can say something to them like, will you please listen to my show and leave an honest review with something that you liked? This will help new listeners decide whether or not to press play. So explaining to your friend or family member how this is going to help you, and and it gives them extra incentive to do it. They like you. They wanna help you out. And you're also asking them to identify something on their own that they liked. So you're going to get some feedback even though you learn may not be your target listener. They're still going to give you something that's helpful to you and helpful to other potential listeners. You can also ask this of individuals that you may be talking with 1 on 1, particularly if they give you a compliment about your show.

I'll get compliments via email of, oh, I really like this episode or sometimes in a Facebook group, like a membership that, you know, I'm a part of. It's a more smaller intimate community. They'll be like, oh, I caught your recent episode. It was great. And so that can be an opportunity for you to say, you know, thank you so much. That means a lot. If you haven't had a chance to write a review yet, that would be amazing. So you can ask that individual.

People are much more likely to follow through and do something when you ask them individually rather than kind of just a generic call to action. So if you say, hey, Julia, will you do this? Then I feel that responsibility as opposed to, hey, anyone out there, can you do this? I feel much less obligation to go through with that. Alright. And finally, in terms of individuals, you can also ask this of your guests. You can ask them, hey. I'm loving having you on the show. It's a great episode. You know, have you had a chance to write a review yet? And, generally, if a guest is coming on your show, it's because they see value in what kind of content you are you're creating and providing to your audience, and therefore, they naturally have something positive to say.

Okay. Moving into the next strategy. My third strategy is to do a giveaway. One way that I like to do this is to celebrate a milestone. So this can be a big milestone, a small milestone, or anything in between. So this could be for publishing a certain number of episodes, maybe when you publish your 25th episode or your 50th episode. It could be also a number of downloads. So when you hit 1,000 downloads, that's amazing.

Let's celebrate with a giveaway. And so during this giveaway, you want to give some kind of big grand prize away. The key here is to make this something that your audience wants. So this could be a scholarship to a program that you offer or a course that you run. This could be a 1 on 1 session with you. This could be an Amazon gift card. Whatever it is, just make sure it's something that your audience actually wants. Make it desirable that they're going to want to complete the action of writing a review in order to enter to win this prize.

And then I always love whenever possible to give something, obviously, much smaller, give something away to everyone who enters. So every single person who writes review enters your giveaway that they get something in return. So this can be, like, bonus content. Maybe they get access to a special training or they get access to a, maybe even with something like a blooper reel or a PDF, something that maybe you normally sell for, you know, $27, and you're just going to give it away to everyone who enters your giveaway. Something just to make every single person feel special. This is kind of above and beyond tactic. You don't need to do this, but I think it really adds a nice touch. And, finally, whenever you are doing a giveaway, make it super easy and super clear what they need to do to enter.

So you can say something like write your review, take a screenshot, post it on Instagram, and tag me in your post. So make it super easy and clear. The fewer steps you involve, the more likely people are to follow through. Strategy number 4 is another giveaway strategy. So seeing the concept that I just talked about, but instead of doing this for celebrating a milestone, this can be kind of like a relaunch of your show. So if you are doing a rebrand, you are changing your podcast title, or maybe you're giving your cover art a refresh, something new and exciting is happening, you can almost relaunch your show and generate that excitement, and you can do a giveaway along with that relaunch, that excitement. So same thing I just talked about applies with, giving away a big prize, making sure it's something they want. If you're able to give something to everyone who enters, great.

And, of course, make it super easy and clear. And strategy number 5 is to participate in genuine review swaps. And the keyword here is genuine. I personally will never write a review for a show unless I have actually listened to their content. And, of course, I'm not the ideal listener for every single show that may want to do a review swap. And so the challenge here is finding something positive that you can say about the show, about the host, about the content that is true even though you may not be the ideal listener. So I'll give you an example that I was doing a review swap with someone who has a podcast about motherhood, and I am not a mother. I am not her ideal listener.

But it's someone who I know and I want to support her, but, of course, I don't wanna leave one of those generic reviews that's like, wow, her show is so great. Go listen to it. That's not super helpful. And it was really important to me to be genuine in what I said. So I listened to a few episodes of her show, and then I left her a genuine review talking about how I loved her honesty and how transparent she was in explaining the things that she was struggling with on her journey. And those words were a 100% true. Doesn't really matter that I'm not her ideal listener. I found something that stood out as a positive on her show, and I was able to write a review.

So I wanna emphasize that if you agree to do a review swap with someone, please do this in a genuine manner. Really listen to each other's content and really truly pick out something honestly positive that you can say about them and their show. I see a lot of groups just doing review swaps where you hop on Zoom for an hour and then go and review each other's shows without listening to the content. And I'm just not a fan of that technique. I don't think it's super ethical, and it's not something that feels good to me. So it's not something I would be participating in, and I encourage you to consult your moral compass and only participate in genuine review swaps. So if you're on board with that, how do you do that? I have found that the best way is to simply ask in a group. Hey, podcasters in this group.

Anyone wanna do a genuine review swap with me? Here's what that means and kind of explain that you're actually gonna listen to each other's content, pick out something positive, give an honest statement, blah blah blah. And, generally, you'll find podcasters in most groups of people where you're hanging out. Okay. So to recap all of that, podcast reviews are needed even if maybe not for the reason you might have originally thought. And in order to get more of them, you need to ask for them both a generic ask of your listeners and of specific individuals. You can consider running a giveaway to celebrate a milestone or if you're doing a relaunch, and or you can participate in genuine review swaps. So that's it for today. Please leave podcasting for introverts a review telling which episode so far has been your favorite.

Until next time. Happy podcasting.