Auditing Your Call to Action: The One Next Step Rule

Do you end your episodes by asking your listeners to rate, review, subscribe, follow you on Instagram, and join your email list all at once? If so, you might be accidentally stalling your business growth. When you give your audience a laundry list of chores, you trigger listener paralysis, ensuring they do absolutely nothing. Most people listen to podcasts while driving, folding laundry, or working out; they don't have the mental bandwidth to navigate a multi-step checklist. In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, we explore the One Next Step rule—a simple but transformative strategy to streamline your calls to action. This week, episode 282 of Podcasting Unlocked is about auditing your call to action! 

In this episode of Podcasting Unlocked, I’m sharing the importance of providing a clear and specific call to action and actionable steps you can take right now to guide your audience toward your high value resources . 

I also chat about the following: 

• Master the One Next Step Rule: Learn why focusing on a single, clear action is the most effective way to increase your podcast conversion rates. 
• Audit Your CTAs (Intro, Outro, and Dynamic Ads): Discover how to identify conversion leaks in your show’s structure. Learn why your intro and outro need to align with a single priority to keep your audience from dropping off.
• Reduce the Listener’s Mental Load: Understand the multitasking listener mindset. Learn how to craft instructions that are easy to follow even when your audience is driving or at the gym.
• Implement High-Value Lead Magnets: Explore examples of simple, high-value resources—like checklists, guides, or bonus solo episodes—that entice listeners to join your email list or Substack community.
• Shift from Chores to Value: Learn how to reframe your requests from "do this for me" (rating/reviewing) to "here is more value for you" (a free resource), building immediate trust and authority.

Your podcast should be a clear path for your audience, not an obstacle course. If you realize that your current strategy is pulling your listeners in too many directions, it’s time to simplify. This week, I challenge you to audit your outro: remove the laundry list and replace it with just one valuable next step. 

Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips on turning your podcast listeners into leads and to hear even more about the points outlined above. 

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about Podcasting Unlocked at https://galatimedia.com/podcasting-unlocked/ 

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LINKS MENTIONED:

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Transcript

Alesia Galati: 0:00

You've just finished recording a fantastic episode, and then you sign off by asking your listener to rate, review, subscribe, follow you on Instagram and join your email list. If this sounds familiar, you are actively hurting your business growth. Giving your audience a laundry list of chores guarantees that they are going to do absolutely nothing. Today, I'm going to be showing you how to implement the one next step rule to drastically improve your conversion rates. Welcome to podcasting unlocked the show for purpose driven podcasters. I'm Alesia Galati, founder of Galati media, and I'm here to share actionable strategies to help you amplify your message and grow your audience. Hey, friends, it's Alesia. I'm so excited to get into today's solo episode, but first I want to paint a picture for you. You're listening to a podcast episode. Maybe it's this one. Maybe it's a different one. You're driving your car, maybe you're folding some laundry, you're walking on the treadmill, or maybe you're just sitting at your desk working while also listening to a podcast. Most likely, you are not sitting at your desk just focusing on the podcast episode with a notebook ready to execute five different things. The same goes for your listener. Most podcast outros sound like a laundry list. It's subscribe, rate, leave a review on Apple. What if the person doesn't use Apple podcasts? Make sure that you watch the video on YouTube, go comment over there, follow on social media, buy the course, the problem with all of this is that you're asking your audience to do too many things. Also reviews don't pay your bills. So we need to make sure that we are being really strategic about what call to action we are telling our audience to do? I want you to also put yourself in your listeners shoes. So often they are being bombarded with so many different choices. What are we going to have for dinner? What do I need to do to plan for my vacation next week? And we're coming up on the summer months. Even looking at just the month of May, which is the month that we're in right now. There are so many things, especially if you are a busy parent. You're probably working full time or part time. Your kids have all the activities, all of the field trips, all of the events. There's college graduations, there's Mother's Day, there's Memorial Day. There's so many different things happening that our brain is done. We are fatigued by all the decisions and all of the things that we have to do. So if you are giving your listener four more things to do, those are not going to show up high on their priority list, you're forcing them to guess which link is the most important, and what you need to do is instead take that mental load off of your listener. Your job as a host is to tell them exactly what to do next and get the specific result that they want based on that conversation or based on maybe whatever your general call to action is. So let's talk about what that one next step is. Every single episode should have one singular call to action. It has to be logical to follow that topic of the episode. Maybe you have an episode that's about streamlining your systems. Then your call to action is to download a systems checklist. Maybe it's to book a call if they feel like their systems are not exactly working the way that they want them to. Maybe you have an episode that lists out your favorite products to help you be more productive. Then your call to action shouldn't be go to each of these places. It should be here's a quick cheat sheet to help you get access to any of these products that we mentioned, so you don't feel overwhelmed or frustrated by trying to sift through any of these links. You can always go back to it later. Maybe your episode is about an event that you have coming up. The call to action shouldn't be go follow me on Instagram that is not going to get you results for your event. Instead, it should be go to this specific page to sign up for notifications about the event or events coming near you, or any way that you can communicate with them one on one to get them to your event. The way to reframe this for your brain is just that the action needs to be the next piece of value for the listener, not what is a favor for you, like a review or a rating, so please replace that review and rate for grabbing a free resource that makes executing the strategy easier. So. What I want you to do, first and foremost is I want you to go back listen to three different parts of your episode. The first is going to be your intro. So often we do the intro when we start our podcast. Did we change the podcast? Name? Has our name changed? Maybe if you've gotten married and you changed your name. Maybe you want to change your name in the introduction. Maybe the topic has shifted just slightly, whatever it is, go back listen to that intro and make sure that that is still relevant. Two, if you have an outro that is dynamic, meaning it gets inserted at the end of every single episode, then I want you to go and check that one out too, make sure that it is clear that there is a quick and easy way for them to connect with you further. That is one place, and I don't want it to be social media. I don't want it to be leave a rating and review. Sure, leaving ratings and reviews is really helpful. But in the grand scheme of things, if your goal is to grow your business, then you need to be using a call to action that is going to grow your business, right going back to and we'll link the show in the show notes that episode where we talked about our four goals. What is the goal of your podcast? If your goal is that you want to be ranking in multiple countries, then sure that's great. And is that converting to leads? Is that actually your goal, or is it that you want that clout of I have a top 3% podcast. You get to decide that. I don't get to decide that for you. Only you can. But your call to action at the end has to be dialed in to what exactly that goal is. So definitely go check out the goal episode. And I think we have a goal breakdown for each of those goals as like what you need to be doing. I also have a workshop. So if you're not sure about the goals, go check that stuff out. So listen to your outro. Does it have the things in it that it needs to actually achieve your goal? And make sure that it's one specific action, and if that action does end up being leave a rating and review, please, for the love of all that is good, do not say, leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. Not all of your listeners are listening on Apple podcasts. Simply say, leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. There you go, because on Spotify, they can leave comments, and they can leave ratings, but not reviews. So you have to be very strategic about the kind of language you're using. All right, once you've got that outro situated and that is clear, you probably have some type of dynamic insertion that you swap out with a specific call to action across your entire catalog, make sure that that is clear for your business ones, that your business goals, whatever those are, that next step that you want your audience to take, and make sure that it's relevant. So if your call to action is about a worksheet that is no longer interesting to your audience, or seems to have kind of fell off, or maybe it is a checklist that you created in 2020 it might be time to update that. What is your latest thing that people are really gravitating towards, and how can you make sure that that is the call to action that your audience can then move forward towards? So what I want you to do from here you've looked at your intro, your outro and your dynamic ad insertion. I want you to re record where you need to, not saying you have to re record all three of them. Please don't if you don't need to. But where do you need to re record? Make sure that you're strategic with that. Make it quick, snappy, don't ramble. Be direct, confident and specific. One thing I also want to make sure that we note here is that you might be at the beginning of your business or the beginning of your podcast, and you might be feeling like I don't really have a call to action just yet. The best thing that you can do for your business at this point is to have a specific call to action around your podcast content. So I would encourage your listener to connect with you deeper. If you want to get on calls with your audience and have one on one conversations, your next action for them might be if this conversation sparked something in you and you want to talk about it further, book a free 15 minute chat with me. Let's just talk about this episode and what came up for you, or if you want them to subscribe to your newsletter, because writing is your best way to connect with people, and that's how you want to talk one on one with them, then your next step is make sure you are subscribed to the newsletter so you never miss a thing. Now you don't have to say, Never miss an episode, because maybe there might be times where you have seasonal breaks, but this way they know that they're not just getting just episode content. So you never miss a thing from me. Or you could say, go subscribe on sub stack. Sub stack is a platform and. Talk about this in another episode coming up, because substack, I'm finding is working really well for my hobby podcast, and being able to engage with people and getting to be able to have their email list, but from a platform, has been really, really impactful. So we'll talk about substack a little more on another episode, but that one is a great one to be able to use as an option of moving someone to a platform where you're actually going to get something out of it, like an email list. So those are some ideas if you don't even have a thing to give your audience just yet, and I would recommend working on something on the back end, even if it is a checklist or a guide or a how to a meditation, maybe it is a bonus solo episode that they only get access to by subscribing to your newsletter, some type of freebie that they get to convert those listeners into subscribers, which then can turn them into leads at a later date. All right, so go ahead and go do that audit. I want you to again, make sure that you have a clear call to action. Look at your intro, your outro, and any dynamic ads or ads that you might have inserted into your episodes, and make sure that those are clear and a high value resource. Thinking again, what is that next piece of valuable content for your audience? So that is my challenge to you. If you are realizing that your podcast strategy is pulling listeners in too many directions, let's fix it. If this feels overwhelming. I'm here to help. You can go to help my pod.com Again, that's help my pod.com book a free consultation. We will talk about what you are working on. I can give you some ideas on some strategies to implement to make it better, and you don't have to pay anything for it. It's literally just a one off 15 minutes. Let's talk it through, and you have everything you need to move forward from there to build a clear path of converting your listener into whatever that next thing is that you want them to be doing. All right, until next time. Happy. Podcasting. You