Creating podcast episodes takes a lot of work, and it can be rewarding when you reach the right audience and genuinely connect with them. But having a successful podcast is not just about views or even likes, it’s about building a community that shares your vision and looks forward to connecting with you every single time.

But podcasts are not lives where you can gain feedback immediately, you might never know what you are doing wrong if you don’t ask. You could comb through the comments for dissatisfaction but how long and stressful would that be? It could also negatively impact your followerships, imagine potential followers see negative comments about all the things you are doing wrong, you don’t want that.

Podcast surveys help you understand what resonates with your target audience and figure out opportunities to improve your content. This way you don’t have to wait for bad comments before you identify the problems and solve them.

So, let’s look at how to create effective podcast surveys (you get a free template to get you started).

1. Define Your Podcast Survey Objectives

When setting up your podcast survey outline what you want to achieve. This helps you create a questionnaire that reflects what you need to learn. Here are some questions you must answer to define your podcast survey objectives:

• Who Is Your Target Audience: Find out who your audience is, for example, their demographics  (age range, gender location, career path). This helps you understand your audience better and create more relatable content for them.
• What’s Your Listener’s Content Preference: Do listeners enjoy your current format? Are specific episode themes particularly engaging? The survey can reveal what resonates and identify areas for potential improvement.
• Gathering Suggestions for Improvement: Sometimes, the best ideas come straight from your audience. The survey can be a springboard for gathering suggestions on new topics, interviewing guests, or even preferred episode lengths.
• Measuring Listener Satisfaction: Gauging overall listener satisfaction is vital. The survey can assess how engaged listeners are and identify areas where the podcast might not be meeting their expectations.

2. Know Your Audience

Before jumping into what your audience likes or dislikes about your podcast and its content, know who listens to your podcast and why. You can do this by asking questions about age, gender, location, occupation, and industry but try not to overwhelm your audience with too many demographic questions, it might come off as intrusive.

Here’s how demographic questions can  help you structure your podcast better:

• Tailored Content: knowing your audience demographics can help you content better with them. For example, you can tailor your content style and topics to engage specific demographics more.
• Collaborations and Sponsors: Understanding your audience’s income level, location, and occupation can help you identify people whose products or services align perfectly with your listeners’ interests for collaborations.

3. Look at the Data: Understanding Your Audience Habits

Ask questions that help you know your audience beyond just their demographics, ask about their habits and preferences. Here are some areas to cover while investigating audience habits:

• Frequency: Find out how often your listeners tune in and their listening pattern. For example, how often do they tune and do they listen to one episode or binge several?
• Platform Preferences: Find out where you get the most out of your audience, this can help you understand what you need to improve on other platforms and where to concentrate your distribution strategy.
• Episode Length: Find out your audience’s preferred episode length. For example, how long is too long, and how short is too short? identifying the ideal episode length keeps your audience engaged, you don’t go offline when your audience is still thirsty for more and you don’t overextend their patience.
• Format Preference: what kind of format do your listeners prefer? Do they enjoy the back-and-forth of interviews, solo episodes, or panel discussions?
• Topic Interests: Ask your listeners about the topics and themes they listen to frequently. This helps you focus on content that addresses their needs and keeps them engaged with fresh, relevant topics.

4. Content Feedback

Your content is the main ingredient of your podcast, ask questions that help you know what your listeners need from you. Here are some ways to get feedback on your podcast content: 

• Feedback on Specific Episodes or Segments: Find out the episodes or segments within an episode that generate stronger reactions than others. You can do this by asking listeners for their thoughts on a particular episode and the part they most enjoyed.
• Least Favorite Episodes and Areas for Improvement: All your feedback doesn’t have to be positive; in fact, it’s critique opinion that helps you easily know where you are getting it wrong and make improvements.
• Future Topic and Guest Suggestions: You can also figure out the content your audience looks forward to by asking them to say what they want to hear in future episodes.

5. Review Your Podcast Hosts

The next important thing after podcast content is the hosts. Hosts can make or break your podcasts. Here’s how to review your podcast host performance:

• Likability: How well do your hosts or yourself (if you anchor the show yourself) connect with your audience?  Are your hosts relatable and engaging? Do they create a warm and inviting atmosphere that listeners can connect with?
• Credibility: When discussing important topics, you need confident, trustworthy, and knowledgeable hosts who can back up their claims with evidence and research. This helps create a sense of expertise fosters trust and keeps listeners coming back for more.
• Communication Style: This is evaluating your hosts’ delivery, do they have a natural conversational flow, or does the dialogue feel forced or awkward? Do your hosts radiate genuine enthusiasm for the podcast’s topic? 

• Chemistry: When you have multiple hosts or have a collab, how well do your hosts bounce off each other? You need an interesting host dynamic to keep listeners hooked.
• Interview Skills (if applicable): Does your podcast host ask the right questions from guests? Your hosts need to ask questions your audience is interested in and not just a checklist of random questions.

6. Review Your Podcast Technical Quality

Even the most compelling ideas can fall flat if the sound quality is distracting or the editing feels rough. Find out how great your podcast quality is with these questions:

• Clarity: Ask listeners how they see your audio clarity. For example, do they hear background echo, volume inconsistency, or unclear conversation when hosts are speaking? These interferences can ruin your podcast experience if you don’t address them quickly.
• Production Quality: Ask questions about your sound effects, transitions, and background music. Find out if they enhance the listening experience or are distracting or overwhelming.
• The Big Picture: Go beyond specific elements and ask about the overall listening experience. Did the podcast sound professional? Was it easy to listen to for extended periods? Open-ended questions here can provide valuable insights you might not have considered.

7. Engagement and Community Building

Podcasts are fantastic for delivering content, but the true magic happens when you build a thriving community rather than just episodes. Here are some questions to help you create the community feel around your podcast:

• Live Q&A Sessions: find out if your listeners would like live question-and-answer sessions; it could be before or during the episode, for example, how they feel about a specific issue you will be discussing in the current episode, or their opinion on the topic you are discussing.
• Community Forum: You could also build an online community e.g. a social media page where you and your audience can hang out, chat about podcast topics, and exchange ideas and experiences. This builds a sense of community and encourages them to do more than just listen.
• Social Media Interaction: Ask listeners if they are interested in more interaction on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. This could include trailers, snippets of podcast episodes, or even behind-the-scenes of your podcast production.

8. Additional Comments

Give your survey participants a chance to share questions not covered in the previous questions. This way, they can tell you what they’re expecting from the podcast, particularly on topics they’re most interested in.

Conclusion

Content creation is an ongoing journey; you don’t stop going or getting better. Podcast surveys are how you stay connected to your audience’s needs and stay relevant. With each survey response, you know the areas to focus on to improve your podcast- format, topics, and the kind of collaborations to go for.

We hope this guide helps you create better podcast content that resonates with your audience and here’s a survey template to get you started!