Promoting the Podcast You're a Guest On | Kara Goodwin

Most podcast guests miss out on one of their greatest opportunities, promoting episodes they're featured in! For serious podcast guests who want to get invited back and get recommended among podcast hosts, promotion matters! In this episode, Kara Goodwin explains what hosts are really looking for when choosing guests and how simple promotional actions can lead to more opportunities and stronger relationships. Get ready to become the kind of guest every host wants!

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/365

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Podcast Guesting
02:57 Flipping the Mindset
06:13 Presenting Value to Hosts
09:06 Building Collaborative Relationships

Takeaways

Flip your mindset about podcast appearances.
Collaboration can be a win-win for both parties.
Consider what value you can offer to the host.
Invest energy in building your social media presence.
Mention your social media following when pitching.
Offer to promote the episode to your network.
Embed the episode on your website for added value.
Communicate your willingness to collaborate on promotions.
Follow through on your commitments to hosts.
Building relationships can lead to more podcast opportunities.

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/365

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Podcast Guesting
• 2:57 Flipping the Mindset
• 6:13 Presenting Value to Hosts
• 9:06 Building Collaborative Relationships

Transcript

Hi, my name is Kara Goodwin. And today I want to talk about how you can stand out as a podcast guest and create massive value for the host. So I created my podcast in 2018. I have released about 450 episodes at this point, and I get pitched all day long. I get guests.

all the time or their publicist who come to me and send me emails and want to be a guest on my show. So I have lot of experience of what makes the guests stand out. And also because I am a guest as well, I have learned through experience how to craft my messaging and get the conversation going to guests on other people's podcasts. So the first thing that I want to encourage you to do is to flip your mindset.

because you may be thinking, I want to appear on podcasts. These are the types of podcasts that I want to be on. And the host is going to be so lucky because my expertise is so aligned with the show. So if you're pitching to established shows, the hosts likely have a lot of candidates reaching out for them who are highlighting their expertise, who might be offering topics that can be discussed.

And what really makes guests stand apart for me is when they're thinking about how we can work together, how we can collaborate, and our collaboration can be a win-win. As a podcast host, you're investing typically a lot more time and energy and money into the collaboration than the guest is because we have the upfront research to do on each guest, on each episode, where

obviously spending time in the recording. We've got all of the financial costs of the software and the equipment. We've got our established reputation and guests are coming in and kind of riding the wave of what we've already created. So it really catches my attention when a guest acknowledges that they can add some value back to me. And it's not just about them wanting exposure, but they recognize that they can

assist in this collaboration and they're not just here to ride the wave of what I've already created. So what are some ways that you can present value to the host? So I want you to take some time to think about what do you have access to that is valuable for a host? And here are some ideas. One is social media engagement. If you have a platform, if you have

a following on one of the social media platforms. I would want to encourage you to try to build that a little bit. Maybe you have a presence somewhere, but you haven't really been feeding it. This is typically one of the ways that hosts are going to go and see if you've got some traction in your field is, are you out there? Are you putting yourself out there? Are people resonating with what you talk about? Do you have experience? Is there a lot of

behind the scenes things that your engagement on social media can tell a host. if you, for example, with me, Instagram and YouTube are two bigger ones. So because I invest energy in those platforms, I go and look to see if the guests are engaging there. And if so, are they posting regularly? Do they have followers? It's not all about followers, but

If you haven't established any sort of presence on social media, that can be a signal to a host that you don't really have a lot to offer in the equation, that you may desire the exposure that a podcast appearance can give you, but you don't have a lot to return. So it would be worth your time to pick one platform and

invest some energy in there. You may need to get a little bit of professional help for short time to build up your presence there, but it could be worth your while if you're wanting to have some regular guest appearances on different platforms. So when you contact a host, you can say outright, I'm active on this such and such platform. Maybe, you know, if it's worthwhile, you could mention how many subscribers you have or followers you have and kind of spell that out.

and then explain how you can use that platform to help them. So let's say you're active on Instagram. Reels are very big on Instagram, and if your host is also using Instagram, then you can do a collaboration where you're both sharing a post and then your network and their network are both seeing the same post, the same reel.

And so you can suggest that I'd love to collaborate on posts to promote the episode. Maybe you have emails, you have an email list. It is wise to mention I send out communications to my community regularly. If you have more of a substantial following, it's worth saying I've got X amount of people, hundreds or thousands of people on my email distribution list. And if you send me a clip or some highlights,

or the summary or artwork, I would be happy to include it and promote to my email list. Maybe you don't have any of those, but you can still offer to share the episode. I would really be honored to join you for an episode and I would love to help spread the word. I will be sure to send it on to my network and just leave it at that. If you're still building up your network, even just

suggesting that you have the forethought to be able to send it to your friends and family. You don't have to say your friends and family. You can just say your network and kind of leave those numbers out. But I have had some guests who don't have a big following, but because they are really passionate about collaborating, they will text the episode out to their friends and say, I was just on this episode is really great. I'd love for you to listen.

And it's been fascinating to see the traction that I've gotten from people who on the surface don't have a very big following. Another thing you can do is you probably have a website and you can embed the episode into your website. So you could have like a speaker page where you talk about some of the appearances that you've had and you can link the podcast.

the YouTube video or whatever it might be, you can actually embed it. You don't need the host to send you the file. In fact, it's more beneficial if you embed their file. You can ask them, like, you give me the code to embed? Or you might be able to find it on your own or one of your techie friends can help you find it. It's not hard to get, but that helps the people. It just adds to their count. So rather than you having a raw file, let's say,

that you put a raw file on your website, the people who watch that way don't, it doesn't go back into the count of the host. But if you embed, so let's say you embed the YouTube video, then anytime somebody watches it on your site, the numbers then go back to that YouTube video and call that out to the host when you're pitching to them. I would be really happy to also embed

the episode into my website. So be sharing upfront with the host what you're willing to do on your side to help to promote the episode. Again, you can collaborate on social media. If you're not active on the same social media, let's say they're on TikTok and you're on Instagram, you can ask them if they can share the reels so that you can put them on Instagram and

share the work, or you can even create your own reels if you have access to the video and tell them that you'll share the episode in your emails if you have email subscribers, or that you'll send it out to your network, that you'll embed it in your podcast. All of these things are ways to communicate to the host that not only are you wanting to get exposure from the work that they've already done,

to build up their podcast, but that you wanna help them expand their reach. So again, be sure you're communicating this upfront so that your host is seeing that this is a partnership. And then finally, follow through. There may be a gap between when you create your episode with this host and when they publish it. So you may wanna have...

some way to track, some database to track so that you can know and keep in your visibility what shows you've been on and if you have helped to promote yet. And you want to be sure that you're following through because you could get invited back on podcasts. And also your hosts, as you pitch to more hosts and they're researching you to see, is this somebody who's going to partner with me?

If they're going on and they're seeing, they were a guest and they posted from this other podcast, look, they're promoting this other podcast. That means that they're gonna promote my podcast. Or they notice that because of your efforts to promote, your episode got traction. It's got more people who are engaging with it or listening to it than other episodes. Then they might be inclined to...

host you again, invite you back on the podcast, or if you pitch to them again, they will be more inclined because they will feel this connection that you have and this partnership that you've cultivated with them.