How To Ask for Reviews in a Podcast

As a podcaster, asking for reviews can be a challenging task.

Everybody wants to get their podcast reviewed, as they help them understand how listeners are resonating with their podcast. The reviews indicate that your podcast has a loyal following.

But…

It is a challenging task to ask for reviews in a podcast.

No worries!! Read on and learn some great ways to ask for your podcast reviews.

1 – Add a Strong Call to Action

At the beginning and end of your podcast episode, you should tell your listeners where they can leave a review.

Telling your audience what you want them to do at the start and end of the episode will keep the CTA (Call to Action) fresh in their minds.

If you don’t let your audience know what the CTA is, how are they going to know what you want them to do?

Although your listeners may thoroughly enjoy your podcast, they have millions of other things also going on in their minds. So, leaving a review for your podcast is probably not something that generally crosses their mind.

You should give them a gentle reminder; there is no harm in that.

You can also explain to your listeners why leaving a review is essential. As your fans love listening to you and have also built up a personal connection with you, they’ll be naturally inclined to help you out. For instance, your CTA could be – “if you love listening to my podcast, please leave a genuine review”.

Some podcasters opt to ask for an “honest assessment and rating” instead of a five-star assessment. Of course, you continuously need a five-star evaluation; however, it’s right to recognize your content material alone has earned you one. There’s additionally plenty of value in four-star reviews – potential new listeners are much more likely to be aware of these than they are for the 5s and the 1s.

A tactic that we have seen work well is reading out your listener’s reviews. Noah Kagan Founder of AppSumo has done a great job of this.

He reads all his listener’s reviews and reads one out at the start of each episode.

Listen to this clip to see how it’s done.

@noahkagan has the best style when it comes to building podcast reviews.

See how it’s done! 👇👇 pic.twitter.com/1m4CM68vBX

— Podkite (@podkite) October 15, 2020

2 – Creating a Short link or Vanity URL

Creating a short link/ vanity URL, which is easy to remember increases the odds that your listeners will leave you a genuine review.

The short link you will be creating should redirect your audience to your review page, making it as straightforward as possible for them to leave a review.

You should mention the link during your podcast and post on your social media, which will make it easier for you to get reviews.

Another option is to use the new Podkite reviews tool reviewthispodcast.com. A function that is a part of our Kitelinks feature. It makes the process of reviewing a podcast super simple and easier for a listener.

For all the Kitelink users out there this is where to switch the feature on.

3 – Give Rewards for Your Podcast Reviews

A great way of increasing the number of your podcast reviews is to provide incentives to the people giving out reviews.

The motivation can be of many types, such as giving a shout-out to a reviewer on your podcast each week, announcing about a particular episode once your review goal has reached, a game show or a contest, and so on.

Podcasting is generally a passive activity – you upload, and they listen – however when the podcaster acknowledges individual listeners, it reminds your audience that they’re a part of a bigger group.

This will not only endear listeners to you even more; however, it additionally communicates to them that you are not inaccessible. You’re not too high and mighty to engage with your fans, and that humility is going a long way.

You should consider doing a contest every so often in which you will be giving a prize in exchange for reviews. You can give out a prize to the first few people who leave a review for your podcast after you announce the giveaway.

You can even garner the people who review your podcast during a specific time frame and then select one person out of them to win merchandise, which can also be related to your podcast.

The prize you give away to your reviewer can be a consultation call, personal message, or something related to your podcast topic.

For example, if your podcast is related to health, you can provide the reviewer with protein powder or energy drinks. Giving rewards for reviews can be a great way to motivate the listeners to leave a review, but you should also select prizes that interest your listeners.

If you run a contest for reviews, try to run each contest for a short period so that you get to choose a few people out of many.

You can see there that the guy over at The Dice n Die Show: A Dungeons & Dragons Podcast have done this and use twitter to help promote it.

Is this your #review?

If so please get in touch via email (Showthednd@gmail.com) so we can enter you into the draw to #win the #pathfinder #giveaway#Competition #GiveawayTime #Sweepstakes #raffle #giveawaycontest #ttrpg #podcasts #dnd #dnd5e #PROMOhttps://t.co/yqzatKAiDX

— The Dice n Die Show: A Dungeons & Dragons Podcast (@ShowDnd) October 12, 2020

4 – Ask for a Review from Guests

Each guest that comes to the show comes with their listener base.

It is easier for the guests to ask their fan base and remind them to check out the show and leave a podcast review after listening to the show.

It is an excellent way for your guest to share the episode with their community and get your podcast noticed.

You should tap into their audience as well as asking them to review the episode as well.

5 – Explain the Procedure

In some cases, your audience doesn’t know where to leave a review for your podcast.

Many of your listeners may have never reviewed a podcast before, it might seem easy to you, but it might not be simple for them.

You should consider telling them about the review process and the way to do it.

The more you lay it out for your audience, the more apparent it will become, increasing your podcast’s chances to get reviews.

Final Notes:

Hopefully, this has given you some great actionable tips for getting more podcast reviews.

Above all, you should keep reminding your listeners to leave a review for your podcast, and you should also appreciate them for taking the time to write a review. With time, you should begin to see an enormous amount of your podcast reviews.