Can Being a Guest on a Podcast Expand Your Business Profile
According to the stats shared by Podcast Insights, there are more than 2,500,000 podcasts with over 50 million episodes. With topics ranging from finance to pop culture, podcasts have become a popular medium not only for people but also for businesses, so can being a guest on a podcast expand your business profile?
Being a podcast guest on a popular podcast related to your brand is a great way to expand your business profile. There are tons of small business owners who use podcasts’ power to gain respect from their targeted audience by being podcast guests.
It’s undoubtedly a long-term strategy, but it’s certainly easier than running and managing your podcast. This article will provide you with valuable information to help you become an ideal podcast guest to grow your business by targeting your potential customers.
Why Do You Need to Be a Podcast Guest?
If you’re a small business owner, you’d already know about guest blog posts that almost all small businesses use for digital marketing. Guest podcasting is basically the same concept but in an audio format.
It allows you to present yourself and your business in front of a whole lot of potential customers who prefer to listen to the podcast content.
While running your podcast comes with some unique benefits, it takes a lot of time and effort. Guest podcasting, even with the smaller podcasts, allows you to achieve somewhat the same results in a fraction of time and work.
How to Be a Successful Podcast Guest?
Keep in mind that just like a marketing strategy, being a guest on a podcast will only generate the desired results if you successfully impress your target audience. The following are some of the most important things you should do to be a successful podcast guest.
Perform Research
It’s essential to listen to a couple of episodes of the podcast on which you’re going to appear as a guest. It’ll keep everything from catching you off guard. While listening to the podcast, try to answer the following questions.
- Does the podcast allow guests to pitch their services and products?
- What are the themes and the main talking points of the podcast?
- Do podcasts have any recurring segments?
- Is the podcast an interview show, or do they edit the conversations?
- What’s the average length of each episode?
Prepare Yourself
Preparing is probably the most essential part of a successful guest podcasting experience. First, you must think about all the questions that the host can ask and write their answers down. Next, make sure your answers provide a concise message and then practice them to ensure that your response is focused and on track.
Your answers and way of presenting must allow your target audience to build a personal connection with your brand. The key is to offer valuable information to create new leads through your podcast appearances.
Promote Your Appearance
If you are going to a podcast as a guest, it makes sense to promote your podcast appearance as much as possible. You can also ask the host to do the same, and sharing helps not only your business but also the podcast itself.
How Do Podcasts Grow Your Business?
Regardless of the industry of your business, there could be hundreds of podcasts out there talking about the exact topics to capture a targeted audience. However, one of the best features of podcasts is that they can be consumed anywhere, anytime, without even a screen.
Podcasts allow you to share your brand’s message, and once your podcast interview goes online, you can use it to create audiogram highlight clips, social media posts, and image quotes.
You would already know that driving traffic and SEO rankings are essential for your business, and podcast guesting allows you to achieve both and make your brand more attractive to search engines. You can use the following tips to use the power of guest podcasting to grow your business.
Choose the Right Podcast
It’s essential to choose the podcast that already has the kind of following you want to reach. It’ll allow you to find new potential customers that would be interested in your business. So, listen to a couple of episodes of a podcast you’re interested in before reaching out to podcast hosts.
Look for Audience Engagement
Always choose the podcast that has a decent following and audience engagement. If you think that a specific podcast will suit your business, go to the host’s social media channels to find out the level of his audience engagement.
They don’t need to have millions of followers. You just need to find out whether or not each of their episodes gets tumbleweeds. If they do, consider it a red flag and look for another podcast.
Numbers aren’t Always Important.
Some small business owners refuse to go to small podcasts because they consider that listeners in hundreds are not worth their time. You don’t want to do that.
All you need to do is make sure that you offer personal experiences and stories that connect with the audience. This way, you sure will reach fewer people, but at the same time, the quality of that engagement will be astronomically higher.
Guest podcasting provides you with the chance to speak to a couple of hundred people every week to increase your customer base gradually. So do let yourself fall into the trap of ignoring podcasts because of the audience number in hundreds.
How Can a Business Benefit from Podcasts?
There are many benefits of guest podcasting, and some of the most important ones are listed below.
Builds Your Thought Leadership
Most hosts invite people who present valuable content to the podcast’s target audience. If you’re engaging and articulate and share tips and valuable insights, the target audience will consider you a trusted source.
Expands Your Brand’s Exposure to Engaged Audience
Another benefit of being a podcast guest is that it expands your brand exposure. Regular podcast listeners have specific tastes, and they’re highly targeted individuals. So you can bring awareness to your brand and gain exposure to new audiences by appearing in just one podcast.
Builds Respect
Guest podcasting also benefits from being endorsed by hosts that help you generate a stronger connection with podcast listeners. It also provides you with a reputation boost.
Creates More Content
The original podcasts are usually uploaded to Google Play, Spotify, iTunes, and other mediums, and you can use the published snippets of your podcast interview to target particular audiences by creating audiogram clips, pull quotes and social media posts with the links to the page where the podcast lives.
You can also share podcast content regarding the topics discussed during your interview with other media outlets as well. This way, you can even the fields with organizations that spend millions of dollars on advertising.
If you have other businesses with websites with existing backlinks, you can refer them to the podcast with you as a guest that will help you in the long run.
Enhances Your Brand Name Recognition
Every time you appear on a podcast as a guest, you have the opportunity to increase your brand name recognition by promoting your business in the market. In addition, it’ll help your target audience associate your brand name with your services or products.
You can also book yourself on multiple podcasts as a guest with other heavy hitters of your industry to target more people. This way, you’ll be able to help people associate your business with other industry experts and professionals to establish yourself as an industry leader.
What’s the Right Way to Pitch Yourself as a Guest on Podcasts?
Whether you’re reaching out to podcast hosts through an email or any other platform, getting your pitch right is critically important. Most hosts and managers of podcasts are usually very picky about their guests on their show.
They only want the guests who will allow their listeners to enjoy. In addition, the more popular the podcast, the more requests they receive, so your pitch must stand out. Otherwise, it’ll get buried with all the rest of the pitches.
The following are some of the most essential tips you must keep in mind while creating your message to get booked on top podcasts.
- Listen to a couple of episodes to understand the personality of the host.
- Avoid generic copy and paste techniques and personalize your pitch.
- Keep your pitch short, concise, and straightforward.
- Suggest some relevant topics that you can discuss.
- Proofread your pitch and remove all the mistakes before sending it.
Final Thoughts
Guest podcasting is undoubtedly a great way to grow your business, but at the same time, it’s a long-term strategy. If you have a defined target audience and products or services that solve real-life problems, you can appear on podcasts as a guest to capture more customers.
It’s one of the most powerful yet cheapest digital marketing tools you can use. You just need to stick to it and make sure that you follow the information discussed in this guide to expand your business profile.