How Do I Get My Audience To Do Something? The Podcast Report Episode #59

How do I get my audience to do something? It's the podcast report, episode five, nine show notes, links, conversation, and more@thepodcastreport.com 59. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul.

Hello, this is Josh Freeberg with Concept One Training, the One Thing Workshop. When I met Paul Culligan, I didn't know which end of the microphone to speak into what a podcast host was. And to be honest, I'm still not sure what Spreaker is. But thanks to HowToPodcast 2015 and listening to every episode of the Podcast Report, we launched the One Thing Workshop this week. Thanks for all your help. And Paul, you just keep up the great work you're doing.

Thank you, Josh, for that little intro. Appreciate it, buddy. Okay, the big idea. Your audience will do something other than listen the moment you give them a reason to. Hey, it's Paul, Podcaster, author, wrote how to podcast 2015 and have a little podcast called the Podcast Report that you happen to be listening to right now. I've been part of podcasting since the beginning. I love this industry. I have since day one. You are a podcaster looking to make your podcast real business or do more business because of your podcast. My show's never been a massive play, but it's been a deep one. It's here for you. Help you do better, help you do more. Let's get to work. The topic for today I've spoken to, I've chatted about the four models for podcast monetization. Sell Yourself is obviously my favorite. You know that. But the thing about selling Yourself is it requires that the listener move from listener, like you're doing right now, consumer, either on the subscriber side or at the website clicking play, or at some website somewhere clicking play to actually something else. And there's some paths, there's some processes, there's some ideas that I want to share with you. But the fact of the matter is you won't go to the next level. You won't be selling anything else you won't do. At least the monetization is selling yourself unless you get them to do something. And even if you've got other monetization models, getting your audience to do something is a desire of a bunch of podcasters. So we will chat about that today. There are really four paths that your podcaster goes down. There's four paths that your audience goes down. There's four paths that hopefully I'm going to take you down in this show. So let's chat to each one of them. The first thing is the listener to the subscriber. Now this is part of what we chatted about last week. You know, the idea that if you get yourself into some listing somewhere and somebody clicks on over, that doesn't mean they're coming back. That doesn't mean that they subscribe. A lot of people don't even know that they can subscribe. Which is one of the reasons why, as I do at the end of every episode, I tell you to subscribe. I tell you to get things lined up so that you can listen to the next episode when it comes out. Now I got some interesting follow up for that, I got some misunderstanding for that, and that's been fascinating and maybe we'll fix this up in a different episode. But the fact of the matter is you have to have a show that people want to listen to. You have to have a show that people want to subscribe to. You have to have a show that people are going to talk about. You're going to have to have all these things if you're going to do well. And you got to move them from a listener to a subscriber. I mean, think about it, a thousand listens every week. What if they're from a thousand new people? What if you had a thousand listens and then you got 500 of them to subscribe? Well, those 500 are going to listen to next week and then you got a thousand new one and five hundred of them subscribe. Soon you got some real numbers. Soon things get really, really interesting. I mean, when it comes down to it, a click, a listen, a visitor, doesn't matter. Returning clicks, visitors, listens, that's what matters. And the easiest way to do that is subscription. And that's one of the most powerful elements of podcasting. I've chatted to this in previous episodes of the podcast report. Feel free to visit the podcast report, look at back episodes or wherever you grab your podcasting stuff. There's a lot there, but you got to get them from listening to subscribe. And for goodness sakes, if you're listening to this part right now, and maybe this is your first episode, or maybe you just visit the website on a regular basis. Click subscribe. Get yourself in a situation where these things come to you every week. Now, once you're a subscriber, I want you to participate. I want you to do something. I want you to do something small, but I want you to do something. And I don't need info for you to do that. You can do it on social. You can leave a comment. You can do retweets. You know, you could do a bunch of things. You could send me email. I give you all those options at the end of the episode. Maybe even you want to do a viewer intro. You heard one today. Josh is a great guy. It's fun to watch his podcasting journey. Hey, Josh. He's also a recent customer, podcast cart, which is awesome. And, you know, now what's he selling? Why is he doing podcast cart? I mean, he's not selling anything right now. He's just inside a podcast cart because he's using the email only options, which is, you know the place to start and you know the place when you're, you know, taking those first steps. He's building an email list, and he's doing that inside of podcaster car. So if you notice every episode, I have the big idea. You know, today's big idea was the, you know, your audience will do something other than listen the moment you give them a reason to. And if you head out to the podcastreport.com59, you'll notice I have the big idea. I have the graphic of the big idea. I put that graphic out in social, hoping that. That people will share that and we'll chat about that. But if you go to the website, you'll notice I have the big idea and then have a link after the big idea to tweet this, because I want to get my audience to go from subscriber to participant, listener to subscriber, subscriber to participant. Where are your listeners? Where are you in this scale? Are you further down? Then we go from participant to list. This is where you get somebody on an email list and you do that not so that you can mercilessly sell them stuff. It's just the next step in the process. A lot of email list services out there. My only warning to you is just beware of the free ones. The free ones, you know, they're free because, well, they're getting paid in other ways. And just be careful there. Think integration into sales. You know, you start to build a list. If you add 10 people every episode. If you add 20 people every episode soon becomes a really interesting list. And when that gets integrated inside of sales, would it be cool to check out your first sale and to realize that, gosh darn it, 40% of all my sales came from episode three? I should do more episodes like episode three. So definitely get an email list. Be careful about the free services. Think integration into sales. Get a system that does that. The other option for building a list is a phone list. And some podcasters have done this, short codes, that kind of thing. In my experience, that whole industry of email lists just isn't there there yet. I know if somebody texts me on a regular basis who's not my, you know, immediate friend or family or business associate, I get a little bit frustrated. So right now, the email list seems to be the best way to do that. And then from the list. So from listener to subscriber, from subscriber to participant, from participant to list, then from the list, we go from list to buyer. Now, again, this is only going to work if you give them something they need, if you give them something you want, and if you're selling ridiculous things that have nothing to do with your audience that you have no experience with, don't be surprised. Don't be asking why if the connection isn't made. But if you treat them right, things will do really well. A couple episodes, I chatted about Gimlet and Gimlet Media's option for the $60 a year membership program that I signed up for, where they promised my shirt was coming in four months. Well, lo and behold, I got my shirt yesterday. I'm actually wearing it right now. They treated me right. I joined the list. I'm a buyer. They're treating me right. And as Gimlet does other things, there's a better chance that I will join them. Now, if you move to a buyer, and a buyer can be something like Patreon, a buyer can be something like your book at Amazon, a buyer doesn't necessarily have to be your own e commerce system, but if you give that financial relationship, if you give that transaction, if you give that process over to somebody else, you have to trust that they're going to do a good job. I've chatted in the past about the idea of outsourcing your audience. Man, be careful. If there's any way that you can do it yourself, you might want to think about that. And you're going to. You're going to see more and more of that on the show, and we're going to keep Patreon open. It's still a grand experiment, you know, working on the 2.0 release of it. But, yeah, do what you can to keep that relationship because that keeps the trust that keeps things going. Now, they can buy your stuff. You could have them buy somebody else's stuff. I know podcasters who have done decently well building a list, you know, getting their audience to come from listener to Subscriber from subscriber to participant, from participant to on the list, and then on the list, you know, dealing with affiliate programs. But, man, if you got a list, who's ready to buy, why don't you create the product yourself? It's just more empowering, it's more exciting, and you might want to consider about. So that's the process. Listener to subscribe, subscriber to participant, participant to list, list to buyer. Now, two things. Number one, why are they going to do this? Well, you have to give them a reason to do this. You know, this idea. You know, how many times you've gone to a website and the website has the message, be sure to, you know, bookmark my website and come back often. I mean, why would I do that? What's in it for me? The same thing with podcasters. I have to give you a reason to subscribe to my show, and I'm doing that. The numbers are going up, and that's always cool. But it's because I gave you a. To get you to go from subscriber to participant, I've got to give you a reason to do so. And for some of you, the idea that I might interact with you online, the fact that a community might be formed, that's exciting. Others want advice, other want help. But I'm giving you a reason. And as we begin to build the second phase of the list, there's got to be a reason to do that as well. There has to be a reason. Just putting up a signature block isn't going to do it. Just asking people to join your list isn't going to do it. Just asking people to do reviews or anything isn't going to do it. Now, sometimes they will because they want to express their appreciation, but give them that opportunity to tell them, this is how you express your appreciation. This is how I get paid. You know, this is that kind of thing. So big idea number one is that you need to give them a reason. Big idea number two is you can jump. I mean, it would be. Obviously it's very conceivable that somebody could listen to something and jump and purchase a product. But jumping's hard. And the process of taking someone through, listener to subscriber, subscriber to participant, participant to list, list to buy, that process just goes better. And if you think in terms of that process, it will go better for you. So where am I going? Well, as I understand this more and more, and as I realize this more and more, I'm really taking a look at where my audience is And I'm understanding my audience in terms of, you know, I got X amount of listeners, I get X amount of subscribers, I got X amount on the list, I got X amount to buyers. And I'm going to look at each one of these because, you know, buyers do come down that path. I'm only going to get more buyers by getting more listeners who have to become subscribers, who have to, you know, join participatory. That's where the buyers are going to come from. So I'm figuring out where my audience is on the path and I'm figuring out, I'm understanding, I'm working through strategies for all of them. And you should see my whiteboard right now. What you can do is you can take a look at your podcast and, you know, where is the majority? Do you have a lot of downloads but no subscribers? Are they not coming back? Are they not participating? Do you have great participation but no list? Do you have a list but no revenue? Where are you at in the process? How's that going? And then of course, you know, how are you going to get further down the path? What's the plan? You know, the old classic failing to plan is planning to fail. And, well, what's the next step for you if you want to move to participant? If you want to see what that's like, consider some social interaction on this show. I would love to have you reach out as, you know, as a result of episode 59 here on social. If you'd like, head out to the podcastreport.com 59, see the big idea, click the tweet this button and see that whole process of you sharing the show with others. I love the tweet this option. I think it's fantastic. I learned about it from Michael Stelzner, who obviously learned about it from somebody else. It's been going on for a while, but it's a unique opportunity. It's a simple, easy step to participant. One click type of thing. But you can do that. You can figure it out as well. Well, if you want to do the social thing, the podcastreport.com Twitter or Facebook, they're all there. Love follows, love likes, love comments, that kind of thing. Always fun. Do you want to head out to the podcastreport.com 59? You can leave an, you know, you can leave a comment about this episode. That's fun. I've put some links up. How to podcast 2015 the book got a link. Podcaster cart got a link. SMS to opt in. Got a link. Our Patreon page got a link. Legal Podcast Music got a link. And Josh, who did the introduction at the beginning of this His One Thing podcast, got a link to that as well. I'm going to ask you to subscribe again because that's the next step of the process and that's how I serve you better. You can go to the podcastreport.com iTunes or Stitcher or Pocketcast, TuneIn, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Overcast. All of those give you options to subscribe or follow or whatever it is they happen to call it. But that process lets you move from listener to subscriber, which is the next step. If you want to email me the podcastreportlook.com and if you want to review I love the reviews at itunes. I love the reviews at Stitcher, the Other Place take reviews, but the audiences on those seem to be so small right now that I'm just not that interested. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you can bring your listeners down this path as I attempt to do the same. Stay subscribed and we will go through this together. Chat with you next week. Talk then. Bye.