How to Get Booked as a Guest on a Podcast: Tips & Tools
How to Get Booked as a Guest on a Podcast: At-a-Glance
- Appearing as a guest on another podcast is a great way to grow your audience.
- It’s also a highly effective way to promote your products or services.
- But, just emailing a lot of podcasts and saying “interview me” isn’t going to work.
- There are much more personalised and effective approaches.
- There are also services out there that can help you.
- Read on for the full guide…
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Being interviewed on other podcasts is one of the most effective ways to grow your audience and expand your reach.
When you’re chatting about your topic on someone else’s show, 100% of the people you’re reaching are already podcast listeners.
Doing an interview on another podcast in your niche lets you offer the sort of value that’ll win these listeners over to your show. They get to hear your voice, your tone, and your delivery before they’ve even heard your own podcast.
If they think what you’re saying is useful or engaging, they’re only a couple of clicks away from hitting subscribe on your show.
However, it isn’t just as easy as emailing other podcasts and saying, “Hey, interview me, please!” So, let’s look at how to actually make this strategy work.
Podcasters being interviewed on other shows is one of the many ways listeners discover new content, according to our 2024 Podcast Discovery Survey.
How to Get Booked as a Guest on a Podcast
First up, have a think about the podcasts you’d like to be interviewed on. What great interview shows in your niche are out there right now? Be sure to listen to a few episodes of any podcast you plan to reach out to.
When you decide on a specific podcast, give them a thorough proposal on what you can offer their listeners. What unique insights can you bring to the table? What value can you bring? Make this ALL about their audience!
Ultimately, what the podcast owner will want to hear, is:
- What you would like to chat about
- Why it would be useful and interesting to their audience
- The benefits their audience will get from it
- Credibility – a little about you, and why you’re well-positioned to help
- What keywords or search terms might you be targeting in relation to the episode title
- The ways you will share the episode to drive traffic to their show
Reaching Out to Other Podcasts
Next up, instead of reaching out with a text-based email or message, create your proposal in audio or – even better – video form. This personalised approach will be much more likely to resonate with the podcaster. It shows that you’re not simply copying and pasting the same email to hundreds of other shows. If you send someone a personalised video, the chances are, they’ll watch it.
They’ll also be able to hear your voice right away, and that you’ve got a good level of audio quality. This, combined with the value you promise to offer their audience, makes it difficult for them to ignore, and easy for them to say “yes”.
Create a Personal Podcast Guest “Media Kit” or One Sheet
Another “extra mile” step beyond the usual copy-and-paste-message approach is to create a media kit-style document for yourself. This is also known as a One Sheet.
You might already have a media kit for your podcast, and this follows the same principles. It should be a well-designed document full of succinct, skimmable info about you as a podcast guest. You might want to include info such as:
- Your bio and the topic you are well-positioned to speak about
- Your podcast and content creation experience
- Podcasts you have been interviewed on before
- Short references or testimonials from podcasters who’ve interviewed you
You could also provide clear links to any booking software you use, and even a little about gear and software, if that’s an area you feel confident and assured in.
So far, these tips for being interviewed on more podcasts have been pretty manual and DIY. There are alternative and more scalable options, too, though. Let’s take a look at those now:
Services That Help You Get Booked as a Guest on a Podcast
You can put yourself out there as an available podcast interviewee on these useful platforms. A quick heads up that some of our links are affiliates, which means we’d earn a small commission if you decided to sign up through any of them. Our affiliate income helps support all the free content we put out on the site!
PodcastGuests.com
Podcast Guests links up those who want to find podcast interview guests with those who want to be podcast interview guests.
You can list yourself as an expert guest on their basic package for $20 a month ($15 if paid annually).
They also have a $ 45-a-month premium package. Again, you can save by paying annually.
This allows you to
- Link to 3 websites instead of 1
- Be listed in 2 categories instead of 1
- Have your profile featured above “basic” members
- Be featured on social media on a rotating basis
- And have your profile featured in a rotating newsletter to over 47,000 subscribers.
IndiePod Community
The IndiePod Community is a free place for podcasters to interact with one another. It’s a great place to share experiences or tips and to get or give advice. There are also sections where you can find a podcast guest, or make yourself available as a podcast guest.
In your post, you should include:
- Your name and contact info
- A link to your website, if you have one
- What topics you’re qualified to speak about
- Suggested questions to make the host’s job easier
- A list of any other podcasts you may have been on
- Quick info about how you will promote your appearance
MatchMaker.fm
MatchMaker markets themselves as “like Tinder, but for podcasters”.
You can use it either to find podcast guests, or to put yourself forward to be a guest on other shows. You can connect to MatchMaker.fm via your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts.
It has a free tier, but you can access many more features on the Pro tier, which is advertised as “from $15 a month” (suggesting this may be based on paying annually).
PodMatch
PodMatch is an online platform designed to connect podcast hosts with potential guests, streamlining the process of finding compatible matches for interviews.
It functions like a matchmaking service, using detailed profiles and an algorithm to pair podcast hosts with guests based on their expertise, interests, and preferences.
For $29 a month, you’ll receive three new matches every hour and can start six new message threads every six hours. You can also add a video pitch and collect public reviews, too.
There’s also a Pro tier at $62 a month, offering upgrades on everything in the standard tier and top placement in match results!
Podchaser Pro
Podchaser is often referred to as “the IMDb of podcasting”. They have a range of excellent features for podcast listeners and podcasters alike.
In our interview with Podchaser founder Cole Raven, he talks in-depth about how you can leverage the platform to grow your show.
The platform enables you to create your own profile and then link that profile to all the shows and episodes you’ve ever been involved in.
Their Podchaser Pro tool is packed with incredibly useful features for podcasters, one of which is focused on podcast guest link-ups. It’ll help you quickly find a list of shows that are a good fit and worth looking into. It’ll make it easier to reach out to those podcasters, too.
12 Podcast Guest Tips: How to Be a Great Podcast Interviewee
Read article called: 12 Podcast Guest Tips: How to Be a Great Podcast IntervieweeNext Steps to Help You Get Booked as a Guest on a Podcast
Now that you’ve got a few irons in the fire, you should start preparing for when you do get booked as a guest on another podcast.
After all, if you do a poor job with your first interview, it could hamper your chances of being invited to any other podcasts as a guest.
You might be thinking “I’m already a podcaster, this part will be easy.” – but being in the guest chair can be quite different in a lot of ways.
With this in mind, we’ve also compiled a handy guide on being a great podcast interviewee. That’ll lead you past all the potential pitfalls and help you do a great job as a podcast guest. Not only can this lead to more subscribers to your own podcast, it can also lead to a lot more guest bookings, too.
And remember, in the IndiePod Community, you’ll find a section where you can list yourself as an available podcast guest for free. On top of that, it’s just a great place to get or give advice, and to interact with other like-minded independent podcasters!
