How to pick the right guest to grow your Podcast
Most podcast strategists will say that an interview style Podcast is the best way to grow your show, and increase your brand’s awareness for free. That’s absolutely true! But how do you do that, and how do you know if someone is the right fit for you and your show? I’m here to give you the framework that will help you decide if a guest aligns, brings value to your community and will help grow your online reach!
Here are the right prerequisites:
Their values or messaging aligns with your Podcast.
They add value to your community.
Their audience is similar (or complementary) to yours.
They have a platform to share their content to.
So let’s dive in…
Values or messaging aligns with your podcast
Would you do business with a stranger without looking for references or what they stand for? I’m guessing the answer is no. Same goes for your Podcast. Finding a guest that aligns with your podcast’s mission and values will have a stronger impact in the final product. Booking the wrong guest can actually muddle your messaging and remove intentionality. If you’re booking just about anyone, what does that say about your Podcast? It may convey that you have no overall strategy, that you’re just filling in slots, and in the long-term it will alienate the listeners that you’ve worked so hard to gain! If your guest doesn’t share your same values, it can create distrust with your community: this happens if a host gets requests for paid spots and is trying to monetize those as much as possible without strategy in mind.
Having content pillars will help you plan the Podcast in the long run and help strategize guests spots.
They add value
Have you ever listened to a podcast interview and thought to yourself ‘What the heck was that about? It was just a 20-minute commercial about someone’s business - ugh! The host became a sellout’. This can be considered a death sentence for the trust between the listener and the host.
The only way to keep a healthy relationship between your audience and yourself is to make sure that the content that you’re putting out there is always about adding value to your community. This is the secret to long-term success in any business. Pick guests that you know are knowledgeable, bring interesting and fresh views to the topic that you’re talking about, and that you know your audience will like. They can still promote the work they do, but it all has to go through the audience’s viewpoint ‘what’s in it for me’: the narrative has to be about their why, not about their product.
A similar audience = organic growth
If you’re running your podcast with no budget for paid advertisement and you’re growing it organically, tapping into your guest’s network is the easiest and fastest way to grow your audience! Think about it like a friend’s recommendation: if you trust them, and have similar opinions, you’re likely to go with their recommendation without much friction, but if on the other hand, someone who has very little in common with you mentions a product, podcast or business, you’re unlikely to follow their opinion. This is a free way to tap into networks that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise -just make sure you follow up with your guest to promote the episode!
Having a platform matters (as long as they use it)
If your guest has a social media reach of 50 to 50K people, and an email list of 50 to 4K people, that’s a potential of at least 50 organic new listeners - how amazing is that? If both parties are podcasters even better: you can maximize your time by recording one episode and broadcasting it on both podcasts with different intros and outros! But negotiating promotion is a must before the interview is even scheduled.
It’s funny that even though we’re living the era of the internet, many people still resist the need to have an online footprint (more than you’d actually think)! We use Google every day for almost everything and if someone doesn’t have a website or social media presence it’s like they don’t really exist. So when you pick a guest to help you grow your community and you don’t research their online footprint, you may be doing nothing but providing unilateral value (and that’s fine too, as long as both people know that).
So many times in the past podcast hosts that I worked with didn’t take the time to research their guest’s social media behaviors, and after the broadcast they were surprised to learn that their guest wasn’t really tech-savvy and that also had no intention to share the show with their community.
So the tip is here is to not assume anything: even if you’re working with a big brand! Have a written agreement to create clear expectations for both sides.
Does this rule still apply when you receive a random guest pitch in your inbox and you’re desperate for content?
Yes. Never give in to this trap! If a pitch’s narrative doesn’t align with your strategy, is generic and doesn’t include a single mention to your Podcast, politely decline. One line should be enough - if the person pitching didn’t spend the time to research your podcast, then it’s fair to say that their feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t provide a lengthy reason why.