Do you actually get email and feedback from listeners?

[anotherquizshow]

Judging by what some podcasters say during their shows, it sounds like some podcasts get tons of listener feedback and email. Does it happen to you?

I would definitely like to hear back from our listeners more often. It's a great gauge of how we're doing We do get a few email from listeners and even some that submit content for our show! Rarely do they leave comments on the blog.

Do you get feedback? I'd like to know how I can increase feedback from our listeners.

Michael

[ajeric234]

as of now, I don't get feedbacks yet because my show is only a week old.

[jimk]

I don't know what I would do without email and voicemail feedback. Half my show is either reacting to it or doing bits inspired by it.

[Big Mike]

I get email. I love it! Makes the whole thing worthwhile.

[anotherquizshow]

Jimk, Big Mike, and others,

Just out of curiosity, how much feedback/email are you getting?

a. Less than 5 per week
b. Between 5 and 10 per week
c. More than 10 per week

Thanks.
Michael

[AaronfromQC]

I get less than 5 email/voicemail feedback per week but I'm honored by every single one. What really thrills me is hearing someone on their show talk about my show and say the nice things they have. They could talk about anything and they take the time out to give my show some love. I may bitch about my audience size every once in a while but I am truly honored that people take the time out to listen to my show and help me grow as a podcaster.

[jimk]

Jimk, Big Mike, and others,

Just out of curiosity, how much feedback/email are you getting?

a. Less than 5 per week
b. Between 5 and 10 per week
c. More than 10 per week

Thanks.
Michael

Oh much more than 10. AT least 5-10 voicemails and about ten to 15 emails. Plus comments here at PCA in the voting and comments on my blog site. I ask for interaction though, often in the form of begging. :) But also by posing questions, etc. Plus I think people like to hear themselves on a show, and they know I'm going to play at least two or three phone calls per show. Makes 'em call more.

[docsnavely]

c. more than 10.

i usually get about 30 some odd pieces of feedback. half emails and half comments on my blog.

my listeners make my show! if i get an overwhelming number of requests for a certain topic, i will do it.

if it weren't for my listeners, i literally would have no need for a show!

i make sure that my listeners come away with something new each show.... be it a new word that a japanese highschooler who listens didn't know, or a new bit of advice on how to order a meal.....

i love the feedback!!!!!!

[CoffeeGeek]

A week or two ago, I got an awesome email from a dude who's a radio producer at a major station in Sydney, Australia. He gave me a bunch of rules about broadcasting, and critiqued my show in some of the points.

I'll reprint it here cuz I think a lot of this will help anyone who wants more feedback from their listeners...

Anyway, here's some stuff we would tell an on-air presenter that may (or may not) be useful for you - please take this for what it is, free input - not criticism!


1. If you're doing an interview, dispense with the "hello how are you's, how are you doing?" Ditto any extended "thank-you's" and "all the bests" at the end. Chop chop. Listeners are distracted - they need instant results (still record them because courtesy matters, but then cut them back in the edits)

2. If you're doing an interview, confine it to one guest at a time. We never allow two members of a band in studio at the same time as when you ask a question there are awkward pauses as one defers to the other, or worse still two or three people talking at once. It is fine face-to-face as that is how conversation works, but for recorded audio it can be hard to follow. One guest means all your questions are answered smoothly. If you have two people you need to record, do so one-by-one as two interviews.

3. With callers, three fast rules. (a) Face and Place - means who are you and where from? (b) The point - what do they want? One point, as all subsequent points they raise tend to dilute the impact of their first, and best, point, and (c) The hug - a warm and genuine thank- you that says thanks for calling and tells others it's safe to do so. You seem to do all this instinctively!

4. When you care, they care. This is so obvious but lots of radio people don't get it. You have nailed this!

5. Name and address. Who are you, what's this all about? With a podcast, up-front is fine, but in radio we have to do it heaps as we have new listeners every time we open the mic. In your case, I expect they are with you from start to finish, and they should know what they downloaded, but do re-set the agenda with your guests. E.g. midway through an interview in progress say, "I'm speaking to Jay Millar, espresso drinking champion of 2005. Jay, tell me about xyz." The idea here is to remind people who might not have being close attention at your intro, just what they're listening to. On a five minute interview I'd do this at start, and again 2 or 3 minutes in.

6. Less is more. Songs, promos etc are often enhanced for a dramatic pruning. An audio ristreto if you like!

7. Mic placement is harder than it looks. Get em close. Tell guests to stay on mic. In one podcast you mentioned an audio hum you were experiencing. We have issues in one of our studios when the sports guy turns on his mic before the news guy has finished speaking - it makes the news guy's voice sound like he's looking 90 degrees to the right. In fact I said to him "stay on mic for once!" and he mentioned it was an issue as soon as Mic 3 was activated. Phasing and stuff can drive you nuts.

8. Role clarity within the on-air team. Not a problem with your show (as we tell morning shows, if you two agree on everything, one of you is superfluous)

9 . Invitations - you've heard radio do this all the time, "In just a minute, the brand new song from U2". Our goal is five minutes more listening per person. Again not an issue with a Podcast I would think, but very short teases are great - and I mean short - e.g. "Still to comes, Ken Burns from LM, meantime let's go to our news desk..." The industry term is "tease" but we call them "invitations" (when you care they care again)

10. The law of party throwing. Have fun! At a party you see a circle of people and lurk alongside. Within seconds you know if you are invited into the circle or are to be left listening - ion which case you wander off to find another circle. So, remember the "other microphone" - that's the listeners one. **** you have instinctively figured this out too (Skype, VOIP, email solicits. Nice work - it makes the listener feel included!)

11. Lastly, customer service - each listener is a star. Again, something you really seem to understand.

- cool stuff, very appropos for podcasters who want to connect with their audience.

Mark

[OuterLimits]

Hi Michael,

We get a lot of feedback, but this is primarily due to our 'controversial' content. Since getting started we've filled 8 forum pages with 143 comments. You can read them here:

http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?p=272965#post272965

Cheers,
Team Vanguard

MP3
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/2005/VNNB/gf13990556k.mp3
Previous Shows:
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/vnngfmain.htm

[cc_chapman]

I get lots of feedback and I assume part of it is that I encourage it on every show and remind people of the e-mail address.

If it wasn't for the comments and feedback from listeners and artists I don't know if I'd keep doing it. It's always great to hear that people are digging what you are doing.

[JohnnyWB]

We did our 15th show Monday night.

We are starting to get email from listeners. It's really helpful to hear what people have to say. Be prepared for criticism. Not everyone is going to like everything you do. Listen and learn.

Regards,

John

[podcastshuffle]

a. Less than 5 per week
b. Between 5 and 10 per week
c. More than 10 per week


I think a better metric might be percentage of feedback comments, emails, etc. per downloader or subscriber. That is if you have 100 downloads and 10 emails from listeners - your participation rate would be a very high 10% But if you've got 100,000 listeners and you get 100 emais, your show is just one way (0.1%).

I love all the email I get from listeners of my show and visitors to the web site. Its not the only thing that keeps me adding to the show and web site but its one of them.

Jeff

[jeffoest]

I think we have a fairly low participation rate show. Then again, we don't go out of our way to solicit ro encourage it either. Currently we get anywhere from 5-15 emails per show which is wonderful. I respond to all of them (unless I forget which I do sometimes) with try-to-be-thoughtful responses. With 5-15 per week, I even find that a bit difficult sometimes.

Pat would like more feedback than what we have now - but I'm pretty happy with it - not sure I want too much more. A handful each week is GREAT. Maybe if I can get HER to respond to more of them, we'll try to solicit more! lol

Then again, I guess a lot of podcasters don't respond or acknoledge their feedback? Dunno. I heard Dan Klass on his latest show say he just can't get back to everyone. I wouldn't feel right about doing that but, then again, at his volumes I'm sure you do have to change your personal philosophy towards it.

[Hittman]

I get, on average, one e-mail per show (with about 300 subscribers.) I always request it at the end of the show. Some say “right on, man!� Once in a very great while I’ll get someone who wants do debate a point. (These are the most interesting.) Most contain some variation of “I like the show, but don’t agree with everything you say.� I always reply that if everyone agreed with everything I said, the world would be a very dull place, especially for me, and there would be no need for the show.

I seldom give anyone any feedback myself. I’ll be listening in the car, think “I’ll tell them this� but never get around to it. I think that happens with most of our listeners.

[ExtraLife]

tons every week. Its becoming nearly half the show to read it all.

[boneheadz]

I have resorted to tactics like trivia contests, but what got some feedback was asking for listener pet pictures (I co-host with a dog) for a gallery. I am hoping for more feedback because the amount of bandwidth is not matching my feedburner numbers

boneheadz

[Version3]

Our feedback had risen up to 5-10 email messages per show, 2 or so VMs. I really love the feedback, and respond to everything. Since we've opened the forums, the feedback sent via email and Skype has dropped off, but I'm really happy to see the forums picking up speed. It's all about knowing someone is out there really listening for me to keep doing it.

[Version3]

I meant to add that I really love when we got those drunk calls from some of our fellow podcasters/listeners like Phil from bitjobs.net and messages from The Twisted Pickle or Nate and Di. It's great when people from these big shows want us to know they are out there, and that they want to take the time to help us out with feedback.

[Big Mike]

I get between 3-10 a week, I suppose, depending on the content.

[sometimessilent]

I've gotten less than 5 emails and only 2 comments but I think that's not too bad for just being on my 10th podcast with only about 125 subscribers according to feedburner. I don't know how many downloads I've had.

I wish I could get more comments on my website since because of the format of my show (I'm basically doing audiobook readings) I don't think a lot of admin stuff would be welcomed in the podcast itself. I'm tempted to put it at the end of the show (where I do give out my url again) but I think after listening for sometimes 30 to 40 minutes folks might just want to tune out.

I have tried to solicit suggestions on what to read next but so far no one has taken me up on it except one person who seems to have done so on accident.

At any rate, even though I haven't received many emails I did get a heartwarming one from a book loving woman whose vision became so poor that she couldn't read. Her son found my podcast for her. She wrote me to say that even though her vision has improved enough to read some she still enjoys my podcast. I responded to her and I will be keeping that one to re-read for a long time.

[cinesnob]

I'm on my second podcast & have 70 subscribers. I'm on a freebee site and have received two e-mails so far.

I'm podcasting on the cheap: I found a box containing a great four-year-old audio software program, lying in Staples’ markdown bin, for $7.90 which I use (along with Audacity) as my total podcast solution. I have a headset with an attached boom mike, that I purchased at Best Buys, for about $40.

I review movies on DVD that aren't quite in the cinematic mainstream. There seems to be some interest on this esoteric subject.

http://cinesnob.blogmatrix.com/

[ElNacho]

Feedburner reports 54 (and rising by the like 1/2 hour)
I've had...lets see..1...2...3...4
about 5 or 6 people tell me that they've heard my show and they like it (not counting people who are in the same school as me or anything)

[ovation]

Emails are a huge part of the content of my show and I use it as a way to connect wth my listerners. When they hear letters... they write letters. Right now I get between 15-20 email per week.

Two thinks I learned a long time ago in radio that really help and apply to podcastings:

1) Your listeners will feed you material in the form of email or calls IF you show them what you want. In other words, if you want more email, read more email on the show. But only read the emails that fit your format exactly or you'll just get more junk. Do it for awhile and your listener will spoon feed you great comments and content for your show.

2) Email feedback is like a phone call at a radio station. While you may have thousands of listeners, less than 1% of all your listeners will ever pick up the phone and call. EVER! Don't let those that do influence the direction of your show too much or you'll begin to less listeners.

There. That's my feedback.

Scott

www.motivationtomove.com

[protogenes]

Even we get fan mail.

No offers of marriage yet. :roll:

[kafraco]

I get more feedback from the musical acts that we play than from other types of listeners.

www.deliberatenoise.com

[Big Mike]

Will you marry us?

[mental-escher]

We get a 2-5 e-mails from each episode, but would be nice to get more. The most exciting thing was when we "channeled" Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix, both on the same show (4th of july)- wow, fans from beyond the grave, is that cool or what?

[cdoelle]

My email is picking up and I haven't really included it in as part of any of my shows. I think I will take some of this advice to heart after remembering that I have given waaaay more feedback to shows that make feedback a part of their show and despite the fact that I do four shows and should be thrilled at all the "air time" I receive, I get more excited when something I said or wrote is on someone else's podcast.

[SFEley]

Here's a surefire way to get feedback from people: Bribe them. I was recently contacted by a publicist for the Neil Gaiman arthouse movie MirrorMask (http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/mirrormask/). He wanted me to do a shoutout for his film, and in return offered some posters and action figures and things. I did the shoutout, and announced a listener survey in which I'd be giving away whatever I got from the guy.

It's been maybe a week, and I've received dozens of responses to my survey request. Some of the responses weren't even from people who wanted the stuff; but saying that I was getting this feedback has prompted other people to give it.

Another tip is to keep the feedback high-profile. Reading it or talking about it on your show is a great idea, because it'll prompt others to want to participate as well. Just getting their name mentioned on a podcast can be a thrill to many.

And finally: if you're really out to get responses, controversy always helps. Just make sure it's sincere to your subject matter, and not controvery for the sake of controversy. Of all the stories Escape Pod has done, by far the one that's gotten the most comment is our recent episode "The Burning Bush." (http://www.escapepod.info/2005/09/22/ep020-the-burning-bush/) It's not our best story, but people have strong opinions about it: some find it hilarious, others tacky or offensive. (It's about a woman who manifests the Voice of God in her pubic hair, then sets out to reform the Catholic Church.) I didn't run the story just to get attention: I really thought it was a fun story. But it did get talked about in blogs, and it boosted our numbers a decent bit.

Just a few data points for your consideration. I doubt you'll ever feel you're getting "enough" feedback -- everyone always complains that they're getting either too little or too much. But if you're striving to have the opposite problem of the one you have, that is an achievable goal. >8->

[Kell]

We haven't received gobs of e-mail, but we have had a few very encouraging e-mails telling us to keep it up. I would be very interested in doing survey, or feedback or heck just contest were anyone listening could receive something. I was actually thinking about that at work last night/today - I work 3rd so I'm usually confussed.

Thanks for the post, I don't feel like my thought was unattainable.
If you have any advice on how to approach, or a good approach I have Ideas rolling around but I'm so unsure of myself sometimes.

Thanks

[tWW]

Our situation is a little different, since -- if we didn't have listener participation -- we would not have a show. I am always surprised though, by the number of non-story-submission emails we receive every week.

Not that I am recommending this as a means to increase email feedback... but, it seems if we let a little too much time go by (i.e. more than usual) between episodes, that's when our inbox fills up the most. It's so cool! We let a week go by without releasing a new episode and it's "where are you?", "what happened?", "are you guys okay?" ... from all over the world.

I LOVE IT! Who knew you could drink, ramble and slur your way into the daily lives of total strangers... ?

[Bryan D]

So far i have only pissed off one person that sends me angry email. I think it was worth it. Maybe i will talk about it in my next show. The only thing about reading email on shows is i do not listen to shows that only read email. It is boring to me.
bryan
http://pointbshow.libsyn.com

[cybercooler]

I've received email fromthe US, Germany, and the UK (I'm in Ohio myself). Its soooo weird cause you think it's just you, your mic, and the water heater.....

Then you get an email from Germany. It put quite a smile on my face.

[Patrick]

We get hundreds of pieces of email a week. It's built up since we started in June. The longer you podcast, the more mail you'll get.

[themacattack]

I get a lot of email, anywhere between 15 - 30 emails and voicemail a week. I ask for it during the show. I really like the fact that people take the time to email just to say thank you and keep up the great work or to comment on a topic covered on the show.

I don't worry too much about blog comments, I would rather they vote and comment here and/or participate by sending me email or voicemail.

-Steve

[Treehonk]

I agree with Patrick. The longer you are around the more e-mail you will get. We started in July and we have just gotten to the point where we get something every day.

We still don't get too many on the voice line though. It seems people prefer to send audio files, which is cool because the quality is better anyway.

[pwfenton]

I get so much great e-mail and Skype voicemail. It truly makes it all worthwhile. I got a voicemail and an e-mail just today and both of them made me get misty eyed. I'm lucky I can afford to do this stuff. Would I like to earn a living from doing my show? Hell yeah... who wouldn't? Would I let not earning a living stop me? Hell no... I'm too stupid :) I'm a pretty lucky guy... I at least get to make radio for a living. It ain't MY show... but it beats working for "the man".

[chicagosn]

Cubscast gets about 10-15 e-mails per week, and usually a couple voicemails. Our auditions to find White Sox, Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks podcasters have brought in a lot of calls, though. Probably 40 voicemails in the past 2 weeks.

[puffcast]

I get probably 20-30 emails a week - and my show has greatly benefitted from many suggestions from my listening audience on what to play in the future. I have learned so much about a topic - reggae and dub - that I thought I already knew pretty well. I didn't expect this when I started but now it's like gold to me.

The feedback to me is truly inspiring and keeps me going. And, I do ask for it each show. Although, the whole asking for PCA votes thing still is hard for me.

[SFEley]

The feedback to me is truly inspiring and keeps me going. And, i do ask for it each show. Although, the whole asking for PCA votes thing still is hard for me.

Then don't ask for votes. Believe me, you aren't missing a thing.

[retrocrush]

I get about 10 or more emails per podcast.

[themacattack]

It's really simple, just keep soliciting for emails - not over and over until it becomes annoying, but I think it's ok to throw out your email address twice in a 30 minute podcast. You have to remember that only a small percentage of your listeners are going to participate by either sending email or voice mail (if you are set up for it). Since I do a tech show I ask for questions and comments in email, voice mail, and pre recorded messages that then are emailed.

Some weeks I average 30 to 35 show emails, this past week it was down to about 18. Many of the emails I receive are nice comments about the show, and more than half are of course questions.

I have to tell you I was touched that a listener from the midwest sent me an email two weeks ago asking if my family and I were safe with all of the bad weather we were having here in NJ (luckily I live in an area that wasn't hit by the flooding). He had seen the news reports about the bad weather we were having in the North East and knew that I was in NJ. I never mentioned on the show about the storms we were having here, but I have, every so often mentioned I was in NJ. I thought it was pretty cool.

-Steve

[paulyb]

we're just starting to create a bit of a buzz around the podcast and emails are starting to arrive, although the most recent one came from a guy asking where we paid our band royalties to, which was a bit embarrassing as we don't get paid ourselves!

Punky! starts replying to them this week, funnily enough! We only have time for three rude songs and a load of puerile shouting though so there's not a lot of time to encourage email anyway.

http://www.lastminutecomedy.com/podcast/rss.xml

[thezashow]

The ZA Show has been going since the 17th of July and enjoying every minute of it. But what makes it more enjoyable and rewarding is getting comments and e-mails from listeners, it is a sign that people are listening.

But I must admit, trying to attract a huge listenership esp with a podcast that originates from South Africa is a dawnting task because the impression here is that when people see South Africa, they think "Africa" and so all the negative and 3rd world connotation are associated. Wtih this podcast, I'm trying to change that and I hope that people will take the time to listen in and realise that, wait a minute, but these zany Cape Tonions are from a pretty cool place (yeah, I am blowing my horn here) lol. And perhaps want to find out more about what SA is all about.

I think getting feedback from listeners is so vital to the show.

Oh, and another thing I've found from my show, I've never had any negative feedback, which is good I guess, but then I'll never know what makes people unsubscribe in the first place 'eh?

[LoveHouseRadio]

Don't get a lot of response but our audience is still small. I do get feedback from the bands we play from the PMN so that is always great to see. Any feedback is good feedback and it all helps make the show better so I ask for it each show.