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Welcome to podcast answers, the show where I help you start and grow your podcast answering

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any podcasting questions along the way.

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That's right, guys.

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Today, we are going to be talking about calls to action or CTAs and how to use them, what

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they are.

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But first, I want to remind you if you've not had a chance to go back and listen to

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the last episode where I was talking with Todd Cochran, the CEO of Blueberry, I would

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recommend doing that because we talked about podcast mirror, what is podcast mirror and

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how you can use it to grow your podcast, but then also put in a lot of the new name tag,

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namespace tags that podcasting 2.0 is allowing you to do such as funding and live and things

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like that because we do this show live here every Tuesday or Thursday, just depending

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on what the day is.

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But you can do that now with the podcast mirror, even if your host does not allow you to put

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those in your own tags, so your own feed.

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So I would suggest going back and listening to that episode.

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It was a great episode.

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Podcastanswers.com slash podcast mirror will get you to that specific episode.

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But today we were talking about calls to action, what they are.

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So a call to action is just that.

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It's a call to action.

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So normally in your podcast, you want somebody to do something, whether that's subscribe

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to your podcast or subscribe to your newsletter or go out and become a Patreon or send a

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boost in their new podcast app.

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There's lots of different things that you want to do.

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You want to call somebody to action and it's crucial for engaging your audience and driving

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them to take specific actions.

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So there are some ideas and some things that we need to be thinking about when we're doing

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these calls to actions because you can't just willy-nilly put 15 calls of actions, right?

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So you want to be clear and specific exactly what you want your listeners to do.

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That could be visiting your website, subscribing to your podcast, leaving a rating review,

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purchasing a product or something, but you want to be super, super specific.

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So you can say, you want to say, I want you to do this.

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I want you to go out and leave a review this week because, and you can give them a reason.

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Now don't say because it helps people find our podcast because it does not do that.

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You hear that in a lot of different podcasts, but it does not actually help you.

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It does not help people find your podcast when you are, when you, when you're people

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rating your review.

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So that's just a my soapbox rant and I'll get off of that right now.

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But you want to be super specific with that and don't just say, I want you to purchase

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my product.

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I want you to say something specific.

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So you can say, I want you to go out and if you get any enjoyment from this podcast, go

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out and go to our buy me a coffee link and consider donating $5, 10, $20 or becoming

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a reoccurring member.

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And you can give them the reasons that that's going to be good for them.

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You can say it's going to get you extra stuff.

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You can feel warm and fuzzy.

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You could do whatever, but we need to be very specific on what you want them to do and why

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that they should do it.

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Now you can place your calls to actions at specific points in your podcast and I would

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limit the amount that you are wanting people to do specifically limit them back to back.

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So at the end of your podcast, don't say go out and subscribe to our podcast, join our

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Patreon list or buy me a coffee, buy my product.

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Like you don't want to do three or four things.

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You want to do one specific thing at a time when you in your calls to action because too

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many calls to actions, people are not going to do them too many calls to actions.

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People are just going to forget and not actually do it.

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So you can do calls to actions at the beginning.

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You can even do them in the middle and at the end, but you don't want to place too many

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calls to actions back to back to back.

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Now for me in this podcast, I use calls to actions usually at the beginning and at the

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end.

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My beginning one is usually something like go back and listen to the last episode or

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do something or reminding people of what they can do at the beginning because usually that's

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my intro.

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I'm usually not into my topic yet, but I want to remind people, hey, you can subscribe to

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the podcast if you've not done that now.

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Now is the perfect time to go subscribe to this podcast.

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So I use calls to actions at the beginning and at the end of my episodes.

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And so you can do that again.

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You can put them at the beginning at the end, but you need to be super specific and you

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need to provide clear instructions that are easy to follow because you have to remember

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one of the things you have to remember about calls to action and is that people in podcasts

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specifically is people are usually doing something else when they're listening to your podcast

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or watching your podcast.

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They're maybe out driving, they may be out mowing the lawn, they may be doing the dishes.

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Some things that they can't do right away.

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So you want to make it really easy for them to do.

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And one of the ways that I do that is I have short links.

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So if you've noticed, I've said things like if you want to get help with your podcast,

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go to podcast dancers.com slash contact or podcast dancers.com slash help out.

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If I want someone to go to buy me a coffee and help me buy the new thing that I want

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to buy or you're going to support the podcast or whatever, like I make it really super easy

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or you know, go to podcast dancers.com slash boost and that will take you to the place.

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It's super easy because people are going to remember your URL usually.

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So they're going to remember podcast dancers.com slash and then whatever I want them to do,

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like support or buy me a coffee or boost or whatever.

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It makes it really easy because they can, it's really clear instructions on how they

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can do it.

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So if I want them to leave a review, I say go to podcast dancers.com slash review or

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whatever because they can get to it really easily and remember it later.

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The other thing you could do is you could put a QR code in your chapter art for a specific

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chapter where you're making the call to action.

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You can use chapters and during that call to action, bring up a QR code and then also

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chapters also allow you to do links to things.

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And so you could have a link to that specific place.

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But if someone's not using that, an app that has a chapter link in it, the great thing is

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you could use chapter art, then people can easily take a screenshot of that, save that

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to their device and then go back later and easily get down to, you know, get to the URL

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that you want them to go.

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So another thing that I would say is you need to rotate your calls to actions, keep them

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fresh and varied.

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You don't want to have the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

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Now it is good.

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Repetition is good.

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It is okay to have repeated ones because it takes several times for people to actually

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listen in here and get that into their system and go, Oh yeah, I do want to actually support

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podcast dancers by going to podcast dancers.com slash buy me a coffee, which is my buy me a

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coffee if you guys want to support the show.

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If you get any value out of this, you know, I would suggest going to do that.

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So but I would, I would, I would vary them up a little bit because if it's the same thing

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every time, you know, for the whole series of your podcast, you know, the whole season,

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the whole, whatever it is, a hundred episodes, whatever you're doing, however many episodes

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you're in, people are going to forget that they're going to tune out because they're

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going to hear the same thing.

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Just like in your favorite podcast, a lot of times if they have banter at the very beginning,

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you're going to hit that 30 second, 30 second, 30 second until you get to the, to the actual

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meat of the content or on the, on the flip side at the end of an episode, when you start

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to hear that, that music come in, what do you do?

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You know that it's going to end the same.

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You know that they're going to say, this is the way you can contact me.

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And so you tune out, you forward to the end, you finish your episode, you just don't do

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that.

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So call us to action.

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You want to vary them where they're at in your episode.

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And you also want to vary the calls to action that you're doing.

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So it's not the same thing every time and people are, don't just get used to it and

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tune it out.

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And the last thing that you can do is you can provide incentives for taking a specific

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desired action.

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And this could, you know, be exclusive content like for buy me a coffee or discounts or access

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to special events or incentives that can motivate your audience to ask to act.

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And that's good for some things.

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I mean, you know, that's what it works.

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That's why people do contests because when you incentivize people to do something, they're

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more likely to do it.

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So I know for me, when I get survey things in my email saying fill out the survey, if

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the survey is just a survey, I'm 99.9% of the time I'm not going to do that survey.

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But if that survey says, Hey, fill out the survey and I'll give you $25 Amazon gift card

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or $50 or $100 Amazon gift card, you better believe it.

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I'm opening that survey link right now.

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I'm going out there right now and I'm going to take that survey and be looking in my email

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box for that, for that reward.

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So you can definitely incentivize people to do that.

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Do you have a call to action on your podcast?

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If not, why not?

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Because your episode is there.

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Yes, it's there to get people get the information out there, but it's also there and you can

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use your platform to invite people to do things, to take action.

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So for instance, I'm going to invite you now to go out to podcastanswers.com slash buy

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me a coffee.

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And if you get any value out of this show, I would recommend you go out and go out and

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support us by becoming a monthly buy me a coffee supporter or a one-off supporter, whatever

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you find value in this show.

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I ask that you go out and give that value back to me as a way to thank me.

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But it also allows me to make this show even better for you.

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So guys, thanks for subscribing.

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Thanks for being a part of this show.

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Thanks for watching and just thanks for being an awesome member of this community, guys.

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For that, have a great week.

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Are you ready?

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you