How to Become a Podcast Guest

A guide to becoming a guest on someone’s podcast

Landing a guest podcast interview is the number one strategy to establish yourself as an expert in your industry.

Guest podcasting allows you to speak directly to new podcast listeners in your target audience. Additionally, guests on podcasts reap all the upside of a podcast’s exposure, without requiring you to create your own podcast.

This is incredibly advantageous if you have your own podcast to promote, since the audience is already listening to podcasts, meaning they’re much more likely to subscribe to your own podcast.

Even if your goal is not promoting your own podcast, there is tremendous value in guest podcasting.

But how can you get booked as a guest expert on someone else’s podcast?

In this post we’ll cover everything you need to know about getting on podcasts as a guest. You’ll learn how to find the shows most relevant to you, track your outreach, perfect your pitch, and impress listeners during interviews. Plus you’ll be able to kickstart your search with a podcast booking platform that simplifies the process for you.

The strategies I outline below are how I have been featured on several podcasts, including:

Advantages of Guest Podcasting

1. Position Yourself as an Authority Figure

Podcasts are an amazing way to establish yourself as an authority figure within a particular niche or subject area.

The format of a podcast — typically a one-on-one interview with you being asked about your opinions and insight — naturally lends itself to establishing you as an authority figure.

Even indirectly, being a guest on a podcast can lead to other opportunities to build authority.

Some example of opportunities guest podcasting can lead to:

• Guest Blog Posts
• Public Speaking Engagements
• YouTube Appearances
• Creation of Your Own Podcast (if you don't already have one)
• Hosting Online Webinars and Courses

2. Podcasts are Rapidly Growing in Popularity

In 2006, only 22 percent of the adult population in the United States was aware of podcasting. By 2020, this figure had risen to 75 percent.

Podcasting is an increasingly popular pastime in the U.S. and there were an estimated 88 million podcast listeners in the country in 2019. Forecasts suggest that the the number of podcast listeners will surpass 160 million in 2023 after increases of around 20 million each year.

AudienceProject data shows that the share of people saying they listen to podcasts on a weekly basis rose across all seven of the markets in which it conducted its 2020 survey. The largest share of listeners was recorded in the United States. The 34 percent in 2020 represents a 17 percent (5 percentage points) increase on 2019’s 29 percent. The largest increase was found in Finland where the jump from 16 to 21 percent makes for a 31 percent increase. Sweden, the home of Spotify, saw a rise of 15 percent.

3. Audio Expands Potential Audience

The audio component of podcasts make podcast guests much more relatable to listeners than other forms of media, such as guest blog posts.

It also expands the potential audience for content creators since many consumers of content engage with podcasts more frequently and with greater interest than they do a series of blog posts.

How to Become a Podcast Guest

There are three main ways in which people become guests on podcasts:

1. Podcast Reaches Out to Guest
2. Guest Reaches Out to a Potential Podcast
3. Guest and Podcast are Connected by Third Party Platform

Strategy #1 — Podcast Reaches Out to Guest

This strategy is the hardest to proactively prepare for as a potential podcast guest. However, there are a few ways to increase the likelihood that a podcast host will have an easier time reaching out to you.

• Leave a note in your social media profiles. Podcasters aren’t mind readers. They have to know you are interested in being a guest on their podcast. And if you haven’t already been a podcast guest, there is no real way for them to know you would be interested. So include a note in your social media profiles, explicitly noting that you are open to appearing on podcasts.
• Create high value content and hope that a podcaster sees it. This is a very low probability method, but creating high quality content that, if referenced on a podcast, is sure to increase your chances at being a guest.
• Appear as a guest poster or offer a quote to an online publication. Many podcasts are looking for a constant stream of new guests, and subject matter experts (as indicated by being published giving a quote in a relevant article) can increase your chances at being invited onto a podcast as a guest.

Strategy #2— Guest Reaches Out to a Potential Podcast

This strategy is the most effective when it comes to being a potential podcast guest. By proactively reaching out to podcasts, you can greatly increase the odds of being a guest.

Identify which podcasts you’d like to target

The first technique is to find a “media doppelganger” whose appearances you can replicate. For instance, if you are a blogger who discusses passive income strategies, find other well-known authors or thinkers on that topic and go to the media page of their website and see which podcasts they’ve already appeared on. They’ve essentially done the sourcing for you. You know those podcasts hosts are interested in negotiation as a topic, so you can add them to the outreach list.

Using myself as an example:

If someone were a blogger who discusses passive income strategies, they might have stumbled across my article Passive Income Ideas, when running a Google search on the topic:

I would then be there “media doppelganger” whose appearances they would try to replicate.

After reading my article, they should explore my profile, to see whether I have been featured on any podcasts:

They would then find all the podcasts I had been featured on:

They would then look up these podcasts, find the host’s contact information, and send them a message, knowing that there was an increased chance that the podcast host, is more likely to be responsive to a similar “media doppelganger.”

You can then organize these leads to help keep track of which have responded to you, and which have said yes or no to booking you.

Nearly every podcast will have a website that includes contact information for the host or producer. If you haven’t interacted with them before online, you can email them with your pitch. It should be short — no more than a couple of paragraphs — but offer enough information for them to judge if your material would be a good fit. Include a couple of sentences about you, explain your background and credentials, mention information on what you’d like to discuss on the show, explain who your existing audience is and what you bring to the table in terms of marketing the podcast.

Many people forget about this last part.

Podcasters want high quality and interesting guests. But they also need to be able to promote their podcast to new listeners. If you can demonstrate you have a following in a relevant niche, then a podcast host is more likely to invite you on as a guest.

Some Credentials and Stats You May Include:

• Professional Qualifications
• Awards Related to Topic
• Links to Relevant Websites
• Social Media Stats (followers, views, likes)
• Your Website Traffic (page views)
• Newsletter (size of audience)

Strategy #3— Guest and Podcast are Connected by Third Party Platform

The third option involves using a third party service which connects guests and podcasts. As podcasts have become more popular, a number of these services have popped up online.

Podcast Guest Services

There are more podcast networking options than ever before, so becoming a guest on a podcast has never been easier. Below are some of the most popular platforms.

Poddit

Podcast interviews are a fantastic way to get more of the right people to know, like, and trust you. That includes podcasters looking to grow their own audience.

Poddit is the best way to connect for your next interview. You can create a guest profile and one for your podcast too. This service is perfect for the DIY podcaster looking for an easy way to find new listeners!

Pricing: Free w/ optional $29/month upgrade (better first impression, higher exposure)

Features:

• Free podcast profile
• Free guest profile (optional upgrade)
• Find high quality guests for your show
• Get interviewed yourself to add new listeners

Expert Bookers

Expert Bookers does all the leg-work involved in booking you as an expert guest onto quality podcasts.

Pricing:

Features:

• All interviews will be on shows within your areas of expertise and with your target audience type.
• We only book well-established podcasts that are consistently producing good quality content and interviews.
• We only book with show hosts who are in the habit of posting their interview episodes on their website back-linking the guest’s site…we don’t want you missing out on those valuable SEO benefits.

PodMatch

You no longer have to sift through hundreds of podcasts to find one that is a good fit. PodMatch uses A.I. to automatically match ideal podcast guests with podcast hosts to produce high-quality interviews.

Once you create your guest or host account and set up your profile, PodMatch automatically connects you with ideal matches based on your expertise. The platform also offers built-in messaging to schedule interviews.

Pricing: Free (with optional Professional plan upgrade for $47/month)

Features:

• Public profile page for hosts to find and book you as a guest
• Automatic matching with ideal hosts and podcasts
• Message, book, and schedule interviews directly within PodMatch

Podchaser Connect

Connecting creators is still a work-in-progress for the podcast community, but Podchaser Connect is a massive step toward making the process simple and effective.

You can create your Podchaser profile to centralize your show, give credit to creators, sell merchandise, and network with the community.

Then, sign up for Podchaser Connect to let the data-driven platform sift through its database of over 4 million creatives to find relevant guests (or podcasts).

Pricing: Free

Features:

• Custom profiles
• Data-driven matching
• Simple placement
• Audience analytics & feedback

PodcastGuests

PodcastGuests is an excellent resource whether you want to pitch to podcasters looking for guests or find a creator to interview for your own podcast.

Once you tell the platform what kind of guest you’re looking for, they’ll send you a list of interested guests you can choose from. If you’re looking to get booked on a podcast, just fill out a form to apply to relevant opportunities.

A PodcastGuest membership gets you listed in their directory, a custom profile, promotes your show in the site’s newsletter and puts your name in front of thousands of like-minded podcasters looking to connect.

Pricing: $9/month (with optional Premium plan upgrade for $29/month)

Features:

• A profile featuring information about you and your podcast
• Access to other podcasters looking to connect
• Ability to send messages to and receive messages from other podcasters

— Casey Botticello

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Casey Botticello is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Blogging Guide, an online community of writers with an award-winning newsletter. He is also the creator of the popular Medium Writing Course and the Substack Newsletter Course.

Casey previously worked at several tech startups, a lobbying & strategic communications firm, and has created several businesses of his own. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.

You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, follow his Medium publications, Digital Marketing Lab and Medium Blogging Guide, or reach out to him directly on his personal website.