How To Grow Your Podcast Profile As a Podcast Guest
Looking to attract new listeners to your podcast? Become a guest on other podcasts!
Dedicated podcast listeners are already excited to hear new audio stories being told. Make the most of this under-rated marketing tactic and reach engaged podcast listeners by getting your host onto other podcasts that share a similar profile and audience.
Just like a book tour, or doing the rounds on late night TV, more and more people are looking to do ‘podcast tours’, to help promote a new book, movie, film, or even another podcast. In fact, Lauren Passell, who formerly worked at Little Brown, launched a podcast publicity agency in 2019 specifically to help non-fiction writers reach new audiences via podcasting. It makes sense, given that 80% of podcast listeners will keep on listening once they’ve started a podcast.
Because of its trust-building power, arranging guest spots on other podcasts is a tactic we have used to grow our own shows, as well as that of our clients. It works particularly well when you have talent with either industry expertise or an incredible personal story - and ideally both!
Benefits to Guest Podcasting
Here are some of the benefits we’ve found to guesting on other podcasts:
Exposure: A guest spot on another well-regarded podcast enables you to reach new audiences and taps into audiences who are already podcast fans. The trust and enthusiasm they’ve already established with a particular podcast creates a more positive first impression of whatever you have to promote.
Engagement: Podcast interviews are often richer than just reading text. Audio allows a new audience to spend real time with your host, and get more of a sense of them and what story they have to tell.
Positive Associations: With the trust between host and listener already established on an existing podcast, guesting on an episode is an endorsement that listeners are more ready to respond to. Benefit from a positive association for a great first impression.
Examples of Guest Podcasting Successes
David Yarrow’s In Focus
One of our proudest examples is the work we did for David Yarrow’s In Focus podcast. Our strategy was to target a range of podcasts that were either industry aligned with David’s work in photography, or topically and thematically aligned with lifestyle, adventure and travel.
In the end, we managed to have David guest on The Good Life by Wondery, The Adventure Podcast, Photography Daily, and A Small Voice Conversations with Photographers. This totalled over 4.5 hours that new audiences spent with David. It made a huge impact to David’s listenership, and helped cement him in this topic area as someone with a unique story to tell. Read more about the approach we took and the outcomes we achieved for David here.
Conflicted
For our podcast Conflicted, we knew a long form style would be the best way for Aimen, one of our hosts, to tell his amazing story. There are a huge range of political shows out there, but when we surveyed listeners about how they discovered Conflicted, 8.5% had heard Aimen and Thomas on other podcasts, such as Blethered, Changed My Mind, Jordan Harbinger, An Intelligent Look at Terrorism, and TRIGGERnomentry. In a busy market, guesting on other podcasts helped Conflicted stand out from the crowd of strong opinions and personal takes on the issues facing our world today.
How to Approach Other Podcasts for a Guest Spot
With the benefits and success stories in mind, how can you go about actually securing a spot on a show that will help boost the trust and reach of your own podcast?
1. Nail your pitch
Before you start reaching out to anyone, make sure you know what your pitch is and how you position the story you’re telling - why would anyone want to listen to you or the talent on a podcast? What unique angle can you offer? Does the story or the individual fill any gaps or add a new dimension to an existing discussion? Build a picture of this in your pitch. Make sure you’re clear about the talking points that you can present, and the value that you or the host/talent has to offer by being a guest.
2. Build a shortlist
It’s time to do the research! Search for podcasts to approach that you think are both relevant to your prospective audience, and where you are able to offer something to their audience. Consider those overlaps with the existing audience or thematic coverage of the podcast you hope to approach - the podcasts you approach ideally need to have both audience alignment as well as a high topical relevance to really be impactful. By tying your value to their audience, you create a far more impactful pitch. And, of course, make sure to actually listen to the shows you are pitching!
3. Make your approach and send a strong pitch
While pitching can be time consuming, it’s really important to get this right. Draft your pitches so they are specific to each podcast you hope to approach. You could team up with a PR agency for this. But even if you do this yourself, it’s important to really make sure you’re speaking clearly and concisely about why you or the talent would be a good guest for this specific podcast, and always include specific talking points.
And there you have it! By creating systematic podcast outreach, you can maximise the power of guesting on other podcasts to start introducing yourself or your story to the world.
If you’re interested in conducting a campaign like this, get in touch.