As a business owner or startup, the pressure to market your services aggressively is immense. However, in this competitive age, effective brand promotion is more an outcome of providing value and insights to the audience. A guest appearance on an established podcast is one of the best marketing strategies illustrating this. It allows you to be introduced as an expert by a trustworthy host to an enthusiastic and loyal audience. This audience is set to hit 164 million in the current year! Intrigued? Now, you may wonder about how to get invited to podcasts. This article gives a stepwise breakdown.
1. Optimize Your Online Presence
If you want to get invited to podcasts, the first thing to do is analyze your presence online. Podcast hosts book only credible figures whom they think can impact their audience. Now, if you want to get interviewed in podcasts, you already are a thought leader in your field. So, all you need to do is optimize your social media profiles. By that we mean the following:
- Include your recent experience in your profiles.
- Ensure that your profiles have high-quality headshots.
- Present some social proof, i.e., the previous podcasts you’ve been featured on.
- Put links to your website.
- Start posting quality content on your social media platforms to spark engagement.
2. Discover Relevant Podcasters
The next step is to connect with podcasters or podcast hosts. Now, this can be a lengthy process. Moreover, there are two significant ways to go about it. The first is to manually find relevant podcasters on popular platforms like Spotify and iTunes. The second is to use podcast-matching platforms. These services are powered by robust technology that allows you to find various opportunities based on your profile, website, and niche. You can find podcast guests or be a guest on other shows.
Note that the first approach also involves cold emailing hosts to get invited to podcasts. Since cold emailing is not a very effective way to find hosts, many people use the above mentioned platforms to get featured on podcasts for a nominal fee.
There are still some more tips on how to connect with podcast hosts. Try out the following techniques:
Join online communities pertaining to your niche. For example, if you are an artist, you can explore YouTube, Instagram, and DeviantArt to uncover some great podcasters.
Ask your audience on social media platforms if they know about a suitable podcast host.
Ask for suggestions for relevant podcasters in your niche on online forums like Quora and Reddit.
3. Check Whether the Podcast Aligns with Your Target Audience
Many people are in a hurry to collaborate as guests on a podcast. Entrepreneurs especially make the mistake of connecting with podcasts hosted by their competitors or whose audience comprises their competitors.
For example, suppose you are an accountant serving the bookkeeping needs of SaaS businesses, and your aim is lead generation. In that case, it’s a grave mistake to collaborate with accounting-focused podcasts. That’s because both the host and audience of that podcast will be accountants, i.e., your direct competitors.
Instead, the correct approach would be to identify SaaS business-focused podcasts. They would have your ideal customers as their audience. Also, the podcast host will not be an expert (or an accountant) in your niche.
4. Know the Traits of A Suitable Podcast
Getting invited to a suitable podcast will benefit you significantly more than featuring on an irrelevant one. So, do your homework and evaluate prospective podcasts thoroughly. Analyze the following:
- Check whether the podcast is active. It should have published an episode in the previous three months.
- The podcast you are pitching to should be an established one. It shouldn’t have just a few episodes.
- The podcast is not overwhelmingly dominated by a single-sided opinion.
- Content related to a commercial partnership is presented so listeners can differentiate between sponsored and editorial content.
- The podcast should be fully transparent about who was involved in its creation. It should list every entity that contributed to it.
*DO REMEMBER – It’s fine to get invited to podcasts with lower listenership as long as it checks the points mentioned above. In fact, doing so makes inexperienced guests more confident and comfortable on podcasts.
5. Contact Shortlisted Podcast Owners
The next step, which is contacting the podcast owners, is straightforward. Use these points.
- Open Google search and type the name of the podcast followed by ’email’ or ‘contact info.’
- You will see the podcaster’s website pop up.
- Look for their email on the website. It will be present in the Contact section.
- If this doesn’t work, go to the podcast’s social media accounts. They will be available on their website.
- After finding the social media account, send them your pitch.
Now, here is where the real test of your creativity and ability to write a personalized and persuasive message begins.
6. Create the Perfect Pitch
Pitch creation is one of the most crucial steps when you want to get booked as a podcast guest. This process involves a keen understanding of what the podcast host desires in their guests. The owner will invite you only when you are able to prove or answer the following questions in their mind:
- What is your topic of chat, and how will it keep the audience hooked?
- How does your chat align well with the podcast’s audience?
- The value that the audience will receive by listening to you.
- What makes you well-positioned to deliver the talk?
- How will you share the episode so it brings traffic to their podcast?
Elements of a great pitch that’ll get you booked
A great podcast pitch consists of several elements. Here are the salient ones to include:
- Address the host by their correct name. Now, start personalizing your message slowly by including a line about a recent episode you heard and a particular thing you liked about it.
- Next, explain a little about who you are and what you do.
- Now, elaborate on your unique point of view or POV. Your pitch or message should revolve around your unique perspective about your industry that you wish to share.
- Your POV can be about a failure you’ve experienced, a practice that should be embraced or stopped by your industry, a resource whose potential is untapped, or a surprising achievement.
- Your opinion or message based on your POV should be clear and concise. It should also align well with the podcast’s audience.
- Give realistic solutions to the issue you will discuss to enrich the listening experience of the audience.
- Provide data about your target audience demographics and listener engagement. It will help potential podcast partners to understand the size of your audience.
- Include some credibility, which means social proof, so that the podcast owner knows you are not making vague claims.
- Mention how you will be a great partner by sharing the episode. It’s an essential step to get invited to podcasts.
*DO REMEMBER – Keep the subject line under 50 characters and use action words. Never use spam words like ‘click here’ or ‘free.’
7. Prepare Follow-Up Emails
Your work isn’t done after sending the pitch. Podcasters get thousands of pitches every single day. What are you doing to keep yourself on top of their busy inbox? It’s here where the power of follow-up emails shows.
Note that there’s a difference between persistently following up and annoying the host. Your follow-ups should remind the podcast owner of your original pitch, not to reiterate all that you said before. This should be done while expressing ongoing interest in getting featured on the podcast.
The message you create this time should get them back to your original email. It’s best to send two follow-up emails at intervals of a week. If you still don’t receive a reply, accept their disinterest and move on.
8. Prepare for a Stellar Interview
Preparing for the podcast interview is equally important as pitching. Do not take this step lightly. Otherwise, it will pose a significant risk to your reputation. Start by listening to multiple episodes of the podcast to gain an idea of the host’s way of talking and the format of the episode.
Some hosts have an uncanny ability to throw tricky questions. Your goal is to identify them while listening to the episodes and prepare yourself.
A great way to ensure that your interview goes smoothly is to send an outline or talking points to the host beforehand. Alternatively, if you feel anxious about spontaneous conversation, ask the host to send a few questions in advance.
Every good guest has a great origin story that explains their reasons for embarking on their journey. It includes challenges, setbacks, and leaps of faith that brought them where they are. Your job is to prepare a great origin story that will engage the audience right off the bat.
Also, recall all anecdotes relevant to your topic of the episode and figure out how you’ll use them to illustrate your ideas. It will make your statements sound natural, and your talk will resonate well.
Summing up
The answer to how to get invited to podcasts is certainly not straightforward. It majorly involves a careful understanding of the value you deliver to a relevant podcast host and their audience and then crafting a thoughtful pitch. Much like marketing and lead generation, getting interviewed on a podcast significantly depends on the extent of your outreach. The more hosts you contact and pitch, the greater your scope of getting accepted by one. Nevertheless, it’s a great opportunity with an excellent pay-off that you should try to take advantage of.
