Turning listeners into email subscribers is one very valuable form of listener engagement.
It means you have listeners who are getting so much value from you that they’re willing to do something you tell them to (even though in reality you should be just giving them more good info for free).
Why is this valuable? It’s the top of the sales funnel for your business. It’s the first (and often most difficult) step to get people to take. And podcasting… Yes that’s right podcasting can be an incredibly effective way to do that.
Along with being the lead producer here at Just Hit Publish I also run a company that helps to educate golf instructors how to run better businesses and be better teachers. (education based business) This is the place I actually run a lot of tests to learn what’s working and what’s not before bringing the concepts to clients and then ultimately to you here 🙂
So here’s the experiment that converted 7.6% of podcast listeners into email subscribers.
The idea – To create a series of episodes based around one specific topic that was highly relevant and “urgent” to the audience.
Since it was the fall – we decided to create a series of 4 episodes about what to be doing over the winter. Specifically what kind of programs they should be running.
Step 1 – we went out and found some individuals really doing some innovative and effective things and had a conversation with them detailing out exactly what they were doing. From those interviews (before we launched the series) we created a handbook detailing out the specific info of what they discussed getting links and examples to everything. (I described it as a “cheat sheet”)
From there it went onto a landing page where listeners would put in their email address to get access to it.
While putting together the intros and editing together the shows I made sure to mention this handbook or cheat sheet at a minimum of once per show. Also included buttons and links in the show notes on the site.
Results?
7.6% conversion from number of listeners (downloads in Libsyn) to people putting in their email to get handbook we put together.
Compared to the normal level of podcast listeners converting into email subscribers that is fantastic!
Think about this…
Instead of having a company sponsor the show or give away this valuable space to someone else it’s effectively getting used for your business. And creating business for you that should far outweigh the dollar amount any sponsor could offer.
From a listener perspective as well… You’re creating more value and helping them out. If you’re hesitant because it feels to “spammy” to you just think about if you had to put a sponsor read in there.
I would suggest testing this out in your business for your podcast and seeing what kind of results you can see. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
Click on the video below and check out some videos talking more about this concept and how it’s VITAL for your podcast.