One of the most effective ways to expand your podcast’s reach and influence is by bringing on expert guests to provide extra insight for your listeners. However, podcast guest booking can be time consuming and intimidating.
If you don’t want to pay for a podcast booking service like Podcast Bookers or The Expert Bookers, there are a few key ways you can save time and maximize your organic outreach during your podcast guest booking process. Read on for those tips, along with the benefits of joining Ossa Collective to help with this process.
Make Sure You’re Connecting With The Right Person
Let’s say you want to bring on a mega influencer you follow on IG for an interview spot on your podcast. Your first instinct might be to reach out to them with a direct message, which may or may not land in their primary inbox. Larger IG accounts filter messages into “Primary,” “General,” and “Requests” so that the influencer isn’t overwhelmed with constant DMs. This means it’s unlikely your message will be seen unless you’re following each other.
To make sure you’re getting through to them, check their bio to see if they have a preferred method of contact. They may have a personal IG account that they use for collaborations, a PR representative that will respond to messages on their behalf, or a direct email address. More often than not, the influencer will have some sort of representation or network that handles all of their partnerships. It will save you time and give you more credibility if you reach out directly to their representation.
Craft A Thoughtful & Personal Outreach Message
Instead of sending a carbon copy message to everyone you’d like to interview, make sure you’re adding personal touches to your outreach messages. Did the expert just publish a book? Were they featured on another podcast or television program? Maybe they just got married or had a child. Make sure to mention how much you admire their recent endeavors and congratulate them on their efforts. This will let them know that you’re looking for a genuine connection, not just a promotional opportunity.
Your outreach message should also communicate the value of being a guest on your podcast. What’s in it for them? Do you have a massive IG following and you’d love to refer some followers to their account? Do you have a super loyal, highly engaged niche audience that is looking for exactly what this expert is offering? Does your show’s super unique interview format allow them to tell their story as they never have before?
Adding these extra touches to your outreach message will increase its impact and get the expert guest’s attention much more effectively than a standard outreach message. Make sure it’s concise and please – PLEASE – do not forget to include listen links and social media handles so they can check you out.
Have A Clear Ask & Follow-Up Process
Finally, when looking at your outreach message, make sure it answers these questions:
- What topic would you like them to speak about?
- How much of their time are you asking for?
- What can you offer them? (Tip: check out their website to see if they have guest booking fees and make sure you can budget for them prior to sending your outreach message.)
- What’s the next step? Should they book a time on your calendar? Should they submit a podcast guest booking intake form?
- How can they contact you to follow up with questions about this opportunity?
Having the answers to these questions seamlessly integrated into your outreach message will make it much easier for the guest expert to say yes.
To maximize this guest interview, make sure you have a clear ask in terms of follow up and promotion as well. There is nothing more discouraging than landing a HUGE guest, publishing the episode, and not getting any promotion from them on their channels.
Make it easy for them: Would you like them to promote their interview on their social media or in their newsletter? If so, how? Will you provide materials for them to do so? When can they expect them?
Let them know when they can expect their episode to go live so that they can plan out these promotional materials ahead of time as well. Doing all of this pre-interview prep and follow up will make the entire podcast guest booking process a more enjoyable and beneficial experience for everyone involved.
Join Ossa To Connect Directly With Awesome Women In Podcasting!
Not a fan of the cold pitch email/IG message? Looking for deeper connections with over 1,000 fellow women in podcasting who are also experts in their respective fields? Tired of one-sided guest promotion? Join Ossa Collective to get access to our exclusive Pod Swap program.
Ossa’s Pod Swap program is an even-exchange collaboration opportunity for our podcasters. This opt-in directory allows you to connect with fellow women in podcasting in the specific niche or topic you’re looking for. All Pod Swap podcasters are Ossa members and have also opted in to this service, so you know they’re open to pitches AND you already have a point of connection! Once you’re on the platform, you may also receive some pitches yourself from other women in Pod Swap.
While you can use Pod Swap for podcast guest booking, we also welcome our podcasters to get creative with their collabs. Try a quick promotional spot on each other’s shows for three episodes, or swap social media episode posts on each other’s feeds. The more touch points with each others’ audiences, the better! The only “rule” involved with the Ossa Pod Swap program is that everything is even exchange – whatever you do for a fellow podcaster, she will do for you as well. No guest booking fees or one-sided collabs involved.
Even if you’re a one-woman show, you can still land high quality podcast guests easily and frequently with these tools! Get the message out there and grow your show with high quality podcast guests.