by: AskPat 983 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 983 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.
We have a question coming in today from Yukari.
Dr. Yukari: Hi, Pat. My name is Yukari. I started podcasting in my own language, which is Japanese, a few months ago after I started listening to your podcast. I was really inspired. And I realized that you mentioned a couple times that you have . . . iTunes should have rating, or customer review. And I try to do that. And I try to ask my audience to do that too. By the way, in two months my audience increased from zero to 500. So I'm really excited. Thanks to you.
But anyway, so I tried to explain to my audience how to do the review through iTunes, and none of my audience seems to be able to do this. And I feel a little bit frustrated how to . . . What's the best way to tell my podcast audience to do the rating? And I would really appreciate it if you could mention that to podcast audience like us. Or perhaps you can do some posting, that would be great. And I wanted to thank you and, how much I enjoy and learn from your podcasting and websites. Really way to go; you really have inspired me so many different levels. And I thank you very much.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Yukari. Thank you so much for the question, I really appreciate it today. Getting reviews for your podcast is actually a very very, very difficult thing to do. And it's because it's not very simple. Just so you know, I've had like 45 million downloads of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, and only 2,000 reviews. And so that's after multiple listens, multiple episodes, multiple asking of that. And it doesn't come easy. So don't be super frustrated when you see that you might not have many ratings and reviews. Another thing that makes it difficult is sometimes you only see the reviews on your own country. So if you are getting . . . If you are in the Japanese market for example, and you have the Japan iTunes open, you're only gonna see reviews from Japan. You have to scroll down on your desktop version of iTunes and click on the little flag there, the Japan flag, and then select for example, United States or other ones. Now for yours, maybe there wouldn't be any listeners since it's specifically that language. But perhaps there are other reviews that are out there that aren't showing up for you, because you're just not on that particular page.
But you could also go to MyPodcastReviews.com, that's a site that'll help collate all that for you. There is a little bit of a small fee for that, but I use it and I find it's very much worth it. That's by Daniel J. Lewis, a good guy in the podcasting space. So MyPodcastReviews.com. I'm not an affiliate for that, but it is a great tool.
But actually the easiest and best way to get people to leave a review for you—two things you can do. One is just simply ask them. If anybody is ever said, “Thank you,” or sent you an email, or replied on a social media comment related to your podcast, reply back and say, “Hey, thank you so much for listening to the show. If you can just take a moment really quick to leave a review, that would be super helpful.” Letting people know why it's helpful to you is also very important. It helps with your show's exposure, it helps you stay motivated to keep going, like all those kinds of things. But beyond that, I think showing people how to subscribe. I think some industries, especially when you have a genre of listeners that are maybe in the older generation, they just don't know how to do it, and it's not easy. So what you could do is actually—and I know a few people who do this, they have a blog post and, or a video that will literally walk people through the process. “You click on this. You click on this. Click on this button. Leave a review. Click submit. Done.” And so showing people that process makes it very simple.
And then lastly, if you're ever in person with somebody who you know really likes your show, have them whip out their phone and you can show them right there on the spot. And it's not . . . I know that might sounds a little bit kind of aggressive, but if they love your show and they don't know how to leave a review, you can show them and you're actually doing them a service, because they want to help you out. So those are some methods you can use to help you get some more reviews. But honestly the best thing to do is just ask. And not just ask everybody in your email list, or everybody who's listening to your show at the same time. Asking one on one, a personal ask, can go a very, very long way.
All right. Thank you so much, Yukari. I appreciate it. I want to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page. Thank you so much. I appreciate you, and here's a quote to finish off the day by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that is, “What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else?” That is a great point and a great question. All right guys, thanks so much. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.