Podcast Guesting: The Definitive Guide To Getting Featured On Podcasts

Do you want to:
Grow your audience?
Build relationships in a non salesy way?
Have your ideal customers seek you out instead of the other way around?

Podcast Guest Appearances can help you do just that.

But why podcasts?

Podcasts are growing in popularity.

Now that everyone from 8 to 80 has a smartphone, there are more regular podcast listeners and fans than five years ago.

Influential marketers are encouraging brands to add podcasting to their marketing strategy, and with good reason.

With over half a million podcast shows out now and growing every month, the opportunity is ripe for anyone who wants to grow their personal brand and audience.

Think about it. When you are a podcast guest, for twenty minutes to an hour, you are the focus.

You tell your story, your struggles, your victories to a captive audience. If you want to position yourself as an expert in your field, podcast guesting can be powerful.

The listener will learn more about you in those twenty minutes than a few Facebook ads or Linkedin posts clogging their feeds.

If you do a good job, you might even be on your way to gaining a fan.

It is also great for building your online reputation. What is one of the first things that a prospective client does? Google your name, of course.

Imagine if you have twenty or thirty podcast appearances under your belt. When they Google your name, all of these shows are likely to appear on the first and second pages of the Google search results.

This shows that others have wanted to hear your message and you must know what you’re talking about.

Not to mention the testimonials and reviews that you will inevitably accumulate will be excellent social proof.

Podcast guesting is also a brilliant networking tool. You can build relationships with influencers, mentors and up and comers in your industry without having to shell out loads of money attending conferences.

Plus guesting gives you awesome content for your audience that you can repurpose over and over again.

Want to know more?

In this guide to podcast guest appearances, I will show you how to:

• Create your One Sheet
• Search for podcasts
• Contact and pitch the host
• Set up your landing pages
• Prepare for the podcast interview
• And leverage the interview for weeks

Let’s dive in.

Defining Your Audience & Message

Before you start your podcast outreach campaign, take some time to write down your goals.

Do you want to build a community of your ideal clients? Do you want to network with influencers in your industry? Is improving your online reputation your goal? Or maybe you are trying to gain exposure for your new book or online course?

Being crystal clear on your goals will direct you to which podcasts to pitch, your message, your lead magnets and more.

The next step is to define your audience or market.

Think about your ideal customer.

Who do you want to work with? Jot down their details: age, job, location, biggest challenges and pain points etc.

Then brainstorm the types of podcasts they might be listening to. For example, you are a health coach and your ideal customer is a business woman over 35 who is having difficulty managing her stress. She might listen to marketing, health and entrepreneurship podcasts.

What is Your Message?

A podcast interview is not a pitchfest.

You are not a guest to unload your sales messages and promote your latest product or service.

You know like those “free” webinars that give you crap tips and then try to sell you a $1000 coaching package?

Your goal is to serve the host and their audience with content that is of real value.

If you do a good job, the traffic and leads will follow. If you do a bad job, the host might not even release your episode and everyone’s time is wasted.

Most podcast hosts want guests with a compelling story and clearly defined message. Take the time to craft them.

Creating Your One Sheet

A one sheet is a podcast electronic media kit.

It is (usually) a PDF document that accompanies your pitch emails.

Most people like to send it with their initial email but I recommend only sending it on request if you’re pitching cold.

What do you include in your one sheet?

A professional headshot – This should be a high quality, clear picture of you looking at the camera.

Your headshot should match the personality that you want to convey to the podcast host and their audience.

Remember this image might be used by the podcast host in their social media images when promoting your episode.

Your biography – This is a brief summary of your story and your expertise.

And I mean brief.

Don’t include your entire life story.

One hundred words should do the trick.

It should reinforce why you are a good fit for the show without just repeating the points raised in your pitch.

Write your biography in the third person because the host will likely read it as your episode intro.

Social media links and contact details – Pretty straightforward inclusion of your social channels, your Skype details, and email address.

Space is limited so include only the channels where you have a decent following. It might reflect poorly on your personal brand if you highlight that you have only 50 followers on Twitter.

If you have impressive social media stats, feel free to include the number of followers alongside the social channel.

Your pitch is more enticing if the podcast host knows that you have a healthy audience to promote your podcast episode.

So if you have a 10K email list, let them know!

Topics – A selection of 5 to 10 topics that you are primed and ready to talk about.

Tailor the topic list to the specific podcast you’re pitching.

You can also include a list of questions that you would like the host to ask you during the episode.

Alternatively, your one sheet could be a page on your website with all of the above information. If the host asks, you just shoot the URL over.

How to find podcasts

Now it’s time to start searching for podcasts.

Here are three ways that you can search for them.

#1 Search Podcast Directories.

Apple Podcasts has a huge directory of podcasts with a number of categories: business, health, technology and more.

For example, if an alternative health podcast would be suitable for you, select the Alternative Health subcategory which contains over 200 podcasts at the time of writing.

If you want to quickly collect the URLs and paste them into a spreadsheet, use a scraper browser extension (like Scraper).

#2 Plain Old Google Search

Head to Google and search for your industry and “podcast”.

Using the alternative health example again: type alternative health “podcast”.

On the first page of results, you are likely to see links to podcast directories and when you dig deeper into page two and beyond, you will roundup or list posts and podcast websites.

Try using other keywords that are relevant to you, for example, meditation podcast, energy medicine podcast, etc.

Also, think of podcasts that are not directly related to your industry but where you can still add value to their audience. For example, you might pitch a lifestyle podcast and supply health tips.

And #3 Search For Influencers

Search for influencers in your industry that you know are regular podcast guests.

Type their name and podcast into Google.

Use search operators to refine your results eg podcast intitle:”influencer name”.

Finally, try a reverse image search of their bio picture to find even more resources. You can use Google Image search for this.

Now you should have a spreadsheet with a large list of prospective podcasts.

From your spreadsheet, look at the titles of the podcasts and eliminate any ones that don’t seem to be a good fit.

Take a look at each podcast.

If you want to open multiple tabs at once, use a browser extension like Open Multiple URLs.

Check the number of podcasts that the host has produced. If there are more than 20, you know that the host is serious about producing content and has probably started to develop an audience.

Look at the podcast episode titles to ensure that your topic is covered or at least you can see how you can tailor your content for the audience.

Also, make sure that the host accepts guests on the podcasts. Most podcasts do but you don’t want to spend time pitching a solo podcast.

Check the dates and make sure that they have recently published episodes. Some podcasts do produce seasonal podcasts so might not publish every week or month so keep that in mind.

It is probably a good idea to remove podcasts that haven’t published in 3 months or more.

So now your list should contain podcasts that you think are a good fit, have published a good number of episodes and are publishing regularly.

Now, it’s time to listen to each podcast.

You don’t necessarily have to listen to the entire episode right now, but I do recommend listening to at least 10 to 15 minutes to get a feel for the podcast host’s style.

When you’re happy with your list, it’s time to contact the podcast and pitch.

Contacting and pitching podcasts

Many podcasts have a guest booking form on their site.

If they do, supply the requested information and send.

I prefer to send personal emails addressed to the podcast host.

Sometimes their email address is very easy to find by plugging the domain into a site such as hunter.io or voilanorbert.com.

If nothing comes up there, you can use mailtester.com and try a few email variations.

For example: podcasterfirstname@theirdomain.com or firstname.lastname@domain.com

If you don’t have success after using the above techniques, then perhaps the podcaster doesn’t want you to email them! It’s time to move on.

Keep in mind, popular podcasts get pitched all the time. If you don’t have a lot of podcast or media experience and also don’t have a large social following, you might want to start pitching smaller podcasts first. After your experience and reputation grow, then you pitch those top 100 podcasts.

What to write in your Email

I recommend sending emails out in batches of ten or twenty.

You want your email to stand out in their inbox and your subject line is key to getting noticed.

Some experts recommend highlighting that you are sending a pitch and summarising your key message.

That can work.

You could also try a subject that is more humorous to get their attention (maybe even add emojis).

Humour can go a long way.

It is worth testing subject lines to get a feel for what works.

But getting your email opened is only part of the battle.

In the body of the message, your pitch needs to explain clearly how you will bring value to their listeners.

Here is an outline to get you started.

Your greeting should address the podcast host by name.

If you have listened to some episodes of the podcast, point out a particular episode or guest that resonated with you.

Ask to be a guest on the show and then use bullet points to explain what value you can add to their audience.

Mention more about your background (briefly) and anything significant, for example, if you have 20K subscribers on your Youtube channel or you have been featured in the media.

Provide a couple of links to your website and most popular social channels and then a gentle call to action.

Try this template

Hi [use their first name]

I discovered your podcast last week [or whenever you discovered it] and really enjoyed [be very specific about something you liked] {only if true! Hosts can smell b.s. from a mile.}

I would love to be considered as a guest on your show.

Here’s why:

• I am [what you are awesome at] and can share with your audience how to [solve a specific problem or challenge they might have]
• I have 5 years experience and have worked with [any recognisable names]
• I have built a buzzing Facebook group with over 5000 members [or wherever you have built an audience] where I will promote the heck out of the episode.

Check out my website [here].

Let me know if I will be a good fit!

All the best,

If you don’t receive a response after 5 to 7 days, follow up.

It is possible they didn’t see your email or planned to respond but got busy and didn’t have the chance.

It is also worthwhile to connect with them on social media.

I don’t mean hound them with direct messages but engage with their content before sending the follow up.

When you get a yes, most podcast hosts will direct you to their calendar in order for you to select a date and time which is suitable for you.

Acuity and Calendly are the two most popular at the moment.

You will get an email notification of the booking; make sure that you take note of the scheduled date.

Many popular podcasts can book months in advance and you don’t want to forget or double book on that date.

A no-show to a podcast booking is no bueno!

Setting up your landing pages

This part is incredibly important.

I have listened to countless podcast interviews where at the end, when the host inevitably says, “How can our listeners learn more about you or your business” (or something similar) and the guest says: you can reach me at xyz.com or email me at allaboutmyself@xyz.com. This is a huge missed opportunity!

You may get some traffic to your site but you would get so much more if you give the listeners an incentive to visit your site as soon as they have a chance.

By creating an offer or a resource that is valuable to the listeners, you have a greater chance they will visit your site, get the offer and give you their email address and permission to market to them in the future.

This is often called a lead magnet or “carrot”.

It can be a checklist, template, discount code, first chapter of your book, anything that will be of real value to the listener right away.

Here is an example of a simple landing page with a challenge lead magnet.

You might want to create two or three that you can use depending on the specific podcast you are appearing on.

Now that you are clear on the offers, create landing pages on your website for each offer.

There are a load of options for landing page creation such as Leadpages, Instapage and Unbounce.

Or you can keep it simple and use a landing page in your WordPress theme.

Use email automation software like Convertkit, Drip or ActiveCampaign to capture email addresses.

A tip for you to test: Try creating a unique landing page for a specific podcast interview.

Borrow some of the trust and familiarity of the podcast’s brand by including their colours and, (with their permission), their logo on the landing page.

The visitor will see the link between the podcast they like and your page with your offer and this often helps increase conversion rates.

Also, try including a video on the page welcoming the listeners of the podcast to your page.

Whichever approach you take, ensure you have analytics set up on your site so you can track visits and conversions.

When you measure, you have the necessary data that will help you make educated changes to your strategy and improve your results.

For example, you may need to test a few offers before you find the one which brings in the most email subscribers.

Another thing; the URL of your landing page should be short because you will repeat it in your podcast interview and you don’t want it to to be complicated.

Most podcasts have show notes which will include a link but just in case…

Equipment you will need

Great audio quality is critical to a successful podcast interview.

You cannot rely on the host to try to improve the sound quality on their end during the editing process.

If you’re serious about podcast guest appearances as a long term marketing strategy for your business, an investment of a couple of hundred dollars is tiny compared to the impact on your revenue and goals.

Many podcasters recommend the inexpensive Logitech Clearchat for podcast interviews.

You can also look into entry level microphones such as the Blue Yeti or the ATR 2100 and a pair of good quality headphones. If your budget allows, you could invest in the Heil PR40 and a sound absorbing isolation shield that can be fixed on your desk.

Your environment and mic technique will also impact your sound.

Try recording in a room with carpet and lots of soft furnishings. Or throw down towels on all the hard surfaces near your recording space.

The host will tell you which software they will be using to record the interview.

Chances are it will be Skype or Zoom but take a look around before your interview if it is something you are not familiar with.

What To Do Before The Interview

At the pitch stage, you should have listened to five or ten minutes of the podcast to get a feel for the show.

Now that you’re booked, I highly recommend listening to at least one episode before your guest appearance.

You will get a clear picture of the vibe of the show and the type of questions the host will ask you.

If you are not a seasoned podcast guest or speaker, you might want to ask the host to send you through the list of questions they have planned for the show.

Most will use the questions from your one sheet as a jumping off point so have those well prepared.

Before the interview starts, turn off the notifications on your computer, log out of your email and turn off your phone.

I remember listening to a podcast just this week and I heard the guest’s phone buzz three times during the course of the interview.

It was annoying and unprofessional.

Remember, you can’t rely on the host to edit out these errors.

Double check that all of your technology is working.

You don’t want to discover that your internet connection is slow or Skype isn’t loading at the very last minute.

Of course, if there are unforeseen delays, contact the host as soon as possible.

Respect their time as you respect yours.

Be calm. Turn up a bit early to settle your nerves (if you have them!) and gather your thoughts.

Chatting with the host a little bit before she hits record can also help with the flow of the interview.

During the Interview

Keep in mind that your guest interview is about providing value to your host’s audience.

You have twenty minutes or maybe even up to an hour where they are listening to our voice and your message.

This isn’t the time to sound like a sponsored ad. Open up and share your best material.

The host wants your interview to be a success as much as you do. It truly is a win-win situation.

They have content to share with their audience and you get to enhance your personal brand and maybe welcome them into your tribe.

The host will ask you to tell the listeners how they can find you or learn more about your product or service at the end of the podcast.

This is when you direct them to the landing page you created earlier.

If this is one of your first podcast guest appearances and it didn’t go too well, don’t worry. You will improve with every interview.

What To Do After The Interview

After the interview, don’t just thank the host and be on your way.

Sometimes, the relationship you build with the host is the biggest benefit of the entire strategy.

Depending on your industry and your goals, the host might even be your ideal client.

Tell the host that you enjoyed the experience and are happy to leave a review or provide a testimonial for their website or social media channels.

Ask if there is any way you can be of further service to them or their audience.

Find out when the show will be published and get ready for promotion around and on that date.

When the episode is live, be prepared to share it with your audience.

You should have social media images ready, tweets and blurbs for your different channels.

Send the host a small thank you gift.

Tag them into any social media outreach so they know you are driving listeners to their podcast.

Let them know if you have any guest recommendations for their podcast.

Just keep the relationship going.

Now it is time to repurpose the heck out of the episode.

Audio snippets and quotes can be used on Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram.

Get a transcript of the episode and post on your blog (if the host has not done this on their site).

You can turn the episode into a content upgrade on your blog, a slideshare presentation, an email sequence and more.

You can get a few weeks worth of content out of a single podcast episode.

Podcast guest appearances can make a huge impact on your business but keep in mind, like most marketing, consistency is key.

Don’t expect to appear on one or two podcasts and then the traffic and leads will flood in.

It’s possible but not likely.

You might need to have 10 or even 20 appearances before you start hitting your goals.

Get to work on the steps I have outlined and you can be well on your way to podcast guest superstardom!

Think you might need some help?

Contact us to chat about how we can help you get booked on podcasts.