How To Get Featured On Podcast As A Guest

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Updated: September 12th, 2024

What Is Guest Podcasting?

Guest podcasting is an opportunity to speak directly to a vast number of podcast listeners who might be your potential clients. Ideally, guest podcasting allows you to reap brand exposure and engage your target audience.

According to insider intelligence, the number of podcast listeners will reach 117 million in 2021. Besides, out of consumers aged 35 to 44, half will listen to podcasts monthly. Therefore, guest podcasting is a great opportunity to reach a wider audience.

In this post, we discuss the benefits of podcasting and how you can get featured on a guest podcast in 2021. Keep reading to find out.

Guest Podcasting Key Takeaways

Every great podcast host is always looking for the next guest
Speaking on podcasts is an opportunity to engage a highly targeted audience.
Adding value to the audience will get tons of traffic to your website, shop, or podcast

How Guest Podcasting Works

Guest podcasting is when you get an opportunity to be interviewed on top podcasts.

As the guest speaker, you get a chance to advertise your brand on a podcast

Compared to different online marketing strategies, guest podcasting is pretty easy to do and does not cost money.

Besides, guest podcasting does not take very much time, and anyone who is willing to demonstrate their expertise can become a guest on top podcasts.

Guest podcasting comes with tons of benefits to your brand. Here is an overview of some of the benefits of considering guest podcasting.

Exposure to a highly targeted and engaged audience

When you appear on top podcasts, you can count on being heard by a highly targeted and engaged audience. Consider that when an audience spends 30 to 60 minutes listening to you, it is clear they are interested in your offering.

Build Relationships With Influencers In Your Industry

Podcast hosts are considered influencers, as they have a sizeable audience who listen to them and even follow them on social media.

Therefore, building relationships with influencers is generally a great idea, as they give you access to their audience.

An opportunity to highlight Your Expertise and Build Respect

Podcast hosts choose guests who are knowledgeable and have the ability to present valuable content to their esteemed listeners.

If you are articulate, interesting, and ready to share your thoughtful insights, guest podcasting is the right platform. You get an opportunity to cement your position as a thought leader.

Develop A Real And Personal Connection

Podcasts are close and personal. In that regard, guest podcasting provides a calm environment where you can share your story with thousands of listeners.

Ideally, podcasts bring the power of personification, where you can establish an intimate relationship by speaking to a highly engaged audience. .

Real World Examples of Guest Podcasting

1. How Stacy Caprio Experienced Growth after Guest Posting

Stacy Caprio of Her.CEO, is our first example of how guest podcasting can help your business grow.

After being interviewed on Nick Lopers side hustle nation, hundreds of live listeners visited her website and even signed up, while others reached her on email.

In the episode, Stacy spoke about her journey towards financial independence through investing in websites. Throughout the podcast, she sought to establish listeners' trust by sharing her story in an intimate manner.

From this example, we see that building a personal relationship with your audience during a guest podcasting can help in conversions.

2. How Katrina McGhee Landed Several Clients After Guest Podcasting

Katrina McGhee is a life coach and a digital nomad who after so many years of posting on Forbes, realized that guest posting was not targeting the right audience.

She switched to guest podcasting on Extra Pack of Peanutspodcast, and immediately after her first appearance 50 people shared the episode directly from the extra pack of peanuts websites.

Soon after, she realized increased web traffic, with several guests converting.

The engagement and connection went on for several months after the guest podcasting.

Have you tried other digital marketing strategies with no success? Probably it is time you switch to guest podcasting. Just like McGhee, your first guest podcast could turn into a fortune.

How to Start guest Podcasting

Appearing as a guest on podcasts is a great way to reach new audiences, build trust, and establish yourself as an expert. So it's probably something you should have on your radar at some point in the future.

But finding the right podcasts and getting them to accept you as a guest isn't easy. You can end up wasting a lot of time doing outreach, for no results.

So here's a step-by-step guide of what worked for me. Including the exact cold email which got me this reply...

here-s-the-pitch-i-used-to-get-featured-on-top-podcasts-in-my-industry

Step 1: Find some (relevant) podcasts to appear on

Now, as you probably know (and I quickly found out), podcast discovery is broken.

So I tested a few different ways to find podcasts that have the same audience as my product.

Here are the top 3 that worked really well for me:

podcasts I either already listen to or where I know the host
going to communities where my audience hangs out and asking them what podcasts they listen to
searching for podcasts that featured guest episodes with people who are like me, but 1-2 steps more 'internet famous' (eg Val Geisler, Courtland Allen)

The results?

In total, I found 19 ideal podcasts with about ~15min work.

After making sure I'd listened to a good chunk of each podcast (and discounting ones that were way too big/small/not recently updated/quality wasn’t quite right)I was left with 13 'perfect fit' podcasts to reach out to.

Step 2: Reach out and ask to be a guest

The next thing I needed to do was reach out to the podcast hosts and convince them to book me as a guest in the next few weeks.

And this is easier said than done - even smaller podcasts get 5 pitches for each available guest spot.

So I put together a unique cold email for each host. Consisting of...

'proof' that I listen to the show and am serious
a clear, powerful explanation of the value to the host of having me as a guest
a short but powerful explanation of the value host's audience would obtain by having me as a guest
a few, tailored topic suggestions to make it easy for them to say yes

Because I was using Pigeon as my CRM (inside of Gmail), writing and sending each email only took ~2min/each for a super tailored email.

Here's one of the emails I sent, which got that amazing response from above...

Step 3: Follow up

From the first emails I sent, 4 replied saying "yes", 1 replied saying "yes but not in the next few weeks", 1 was an out-of-office autoreply, and the rest hadn't replied at all after 2 days.

So I sent a short follow-up message to the no-replies. Pigeon made this super easy to automate and track.

This leads me to the final results after ~3 hours invested over 3 days...

The results...

5 podcasters agreed to have me as a guest within the next 6 weeks
1 wanted to check back in the near future
7 didn't reply (yet)

That might not sound like a lot. But it's a big deal...

it means an additional >30'000 potential customers who'll hear me speak and discover the S4F course over the next ~6 weeks.

For free.

Not a bad return on a few hours of work.

Key takeaways...

Podcast discoverability on the major apps is broken. Use the hacks I mention in step 1 to find the perfect podcasts for you, fast.
Podcast hosts get a lot of requests and rarely answer them. To give yourself a chance...
listen to the podcast (and make it obvious when reaching out)
lead with the value for the podcaster and their audience
make it easy for them to say yes (eg by suggesting topics their audience would like)
follow up!

This is a great example of how having the basic sales mindset and skills will make you more successful in every aspect of your business, from product to marketing.

Case Study

But finding the right podcasts and getting them to accept you as a guest isn't easy. You can end up wasting a lot of time doing outreach, for no results.

So here's a step by step guide of what worked for me. Including the exact cold email which got me this reply...

Step 1: Find some (relevant) podcasts to appear on

Now, as you probably know (and I quickly found out), podcast discovery is broken.

So I tested a few different ways to find podcasts that have the same audience as my product.

Here are the top 3 that worked really well for me:

podcasts I either already listen to or where I know the host
going to communities where my audience hangs out and asking them what podcasts they listen to
searching for podcasts that featured guest episodes with people who are like me, but 1-2 steps more 'internet famous' (eg Val Geisler, Courtland Allen)

The results?

In total, I found 19 ideal podcasts with about ~15min work.

Step 2: Reach out and ask to be a guest

The next thing I needed to do was reach out to the podcast hosts and convince them to book me as a guest in the next few weeks.

And this is easier said than done - even smaller podcasts get 5 pitches for each available guest spot.

So I put together a unique cold email for each guest. Consisting of...

'proof' that I listen to the show and am serious
a clear, powerful explanation of the value to the host of having me as a guest
a clear, powerful explanation of the value to the host's audience of having me as a guest
a few, tailored topic suggestions to make it easy for them to say yes

Because I was using Pigeon as my CRM (inside of Gmail), writing and sending each email only took ~2min/each for a super tailored email.

Here's one of the emails I sent, which got that amazing response from above...

Step 3: Follow up

From the first emails I sent, 4 replied saying "yes", 1 replied saying "yes but not in the next few weeks", 1 was an out-of-office autoreply, and the rest hadn't replied at all after 2 days.

So I sent a short follow up message to the no-replies. Pigeon made this super easy to automate and track.

Which leads me to the final results after ~3 hours invested over 3 days...

The results...

5 podcasters agreed to have me as a guest within the next 6 weeks
1 wanted to check back in the near future
7 didn't reply (yet)

That might not sound like a lot. But it's a big deal...

it means an additional >30'000 potential customers who'll hear me speak and discover the S4F course over the next ~6 weeks.

For free.

Not a bad return on a few hours work.

Key takeaways...

Podcast discoverability on the major apps is broken. Use the hacks I mention in step 1 to find the perfect podcasts for you, fast.
Podcast hosts get a lot of requests and rarely answer them. To give yourself a chance...
listen to the podcast (and make it obvious when reaching out)
lead with the value for the podcaster and their audience
make it easy for them to say yes (eg by suggesting topics their audience would like)
follow up!

This is a great example of how having the basic sales mindset and skills will make you more successful in every aspect of your business, from product to marketing.

Louis Nicholls, on starting Sales For Founders (/month) full story ➜

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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