Podcast outreach: How I landed 52 podcast interviews in one year.
Podcast outreach: How I landed 52 podcast interviews in one year.
Ever tried getting on a podcast?
I did. For months.
Hired PR consultants, Linkedin messaged hosts, emailed niche lists…
I didn’t get a single popular show.
Now I book one podcast interview EVERY WEEK.
On top shows like the SaaS podcast, Duct Tape Marketing, and more.
Why bother? Three reasons to be a podcast guest:
Establishing trust and awareness with your target audience, for FREE.
Rubbing elbows with industry influencers, AKA the podcast hosts.
Sweet, sweet backlinks from show notes.
Each podcast interview is equivalent to thousands of dollars of advertising.
It turned out I was playing the podcast game all wrong.
I followed the traditional advice and didn't stand out.
Finally, I found a better way: Track down where your industry peers have been interviewed.
I'm sharing the secret sauce. Step by step.
You can replicate my process and save months of work.
Ready to learn how? Let's get started.
Step 1: Make a list of podcast guests in your space
This one is easy.
Look through your favorite podcasts, and find who’s been a guest there recently.
Chances are they’re also featured on other shows.
For example.
One of my favorite SaaS podcasts is “The SaaS Podcast” by Omer Khan.
Looking through Omer’s site, he’s interviewed tons of other SaaS founders:
For this example, I’ll use Payman Taei, founder of Visme. 😉
Step 2: Find other podcasts that have featured the guest
Next, we need to find where else the guest has given interviews in the past year.
You have two options:
We built the entire workflow in Respona. It finds the latest interviews, gets the contact info, and automatically sends personalized emails. All in one place:
Use Apple podcasts or ListenNotes podcast database. If you got time on your hands and don’t mind manual research:
To find Payman’s interviews, we can look up: Payman Taei Visme.
Now we have a list of Payman’s latest interviews:
We know three things about these podcasts:
They accept guests - meaning they have interview-style episodes.
They’re relevant - they’ve interviewed someone in our niche.
Personalizing our pitches is a breeze - we can reference the interview.
Perfect.
Step 3: Get the contact info of the podcasts
If you’re using Respona, congrats. Almost all podcasts already come with email addresses:
If you’re doing good ‘ol manual research, you can find the podcast’s contact info by looking at their public RSS feeds:
Press Command + F (or Control + F on Windows) to search for: <itunes:email>
Now we’re ready for outreach.
Step 4: Reach out to the podcast host
The key to getting replies is personalization - podcast hosts can smell a mass email from a mile away.
A good template for podcast outreach looks something like this:
Subject: Interview with [Guest]
Hi [First name],
Just finished listening to your interview with [Guest] of [Guest’s company].
[Personalized paragraph - mention an interesting note from the episode].
I’m wondering if you’re accepting new guests on the show?
To give you a bit of background, [2-3 sentences about your background].
I’ve talked about my background more on [A popular publication].
No pressure if you don’t think there’s a fit, but thought I’d give it a shot!
[Signature - include your linkedin]
Let’s break it down:
Ice breaker: How did you find them? Reference the interview.
Quick intro about yourself: give 2-3 sentences about your career achievements. What are you a good fit for the show?
Social proof: Reference another podcast you’ve been a guest on. If another popular show has had you on, you must be a good guest, right?
For example:
Subject: Interview with Payman Taei
Hi John,
Just finished listening to your interview with Payman of Visme.
It’s mind-blowing how they bootstrapped their way to 8-figures in revenue, relying only on content and SEO.
I’m wondering if you’re accepting new guests on the show?
To give you a bit of background, like Payman, I bootstrapped Respona back in 2019.
We’re currently on our way to 10k active customers, such as Convertkit, Cloudbeds, and Userp.
I’ve talked about my background more on Omer Khan’s podcast.
No pressure if you don’t think there’s a fit, but thought I’d give it a shot!
Cheers,
Farzad
Here’s another tip: Avoid fake flattery. E.g., “Found your podcast on the way to work… .”
But if you know the podcast or the host, go all in.
Here’s the email I used to pitch Mixergy, another one of my favorite podcasts:
And with a bit of luck, you get responses like this:
That’s it.
TL;DR
Step 1: Make a list of podcast guests in your space.
Step 2: Find other podcasts that have featured the guest.
Step 3: Get the contact info of the podcast host.
Step 4: Reach out to the host - reference the interview.
Have a helpful tip for pitching podcasts? Let me know in the comments 👇