Hey, everybody. Welcome to the marketing guides for small businesses podcast. I’m Ken Tucker. And today I’m joined by my other guides. Paul, Jim, Dan, and Ian. So welcome guys. Thank you. Yeah. So today I’m going to talk about something that I know a lot of us talk about. And some of us do some stuff with it, maybe more actively than others, but it’s just an absolute, real marketing and a content powerhouse.
And that’s guest podcasting. Let’s just go ahead and get started here. A lot of people, when they think about podcasting, they think, I don’t have the energy to go create a podcast. I don’t know how to get it distributed out there. You know what that’s okay. Because guest podcasting is phenomenal.
Jen, my first question is for you. How does one go about getting booked as a guest on a podcast? Oh, it depends. It can be relatively easy or relatively challenging on that, depending on who you are. And depending on the size of the podcast that you’re looking to, guest guests I guest on podcasting has been around for a long time now.
And in the last. Probably four to five years, it’s been a lot tougher to get onto podcasts. And it was in the beginning, right in the beginning. I know that podcasts where she’s seen much like logs, much all of the new channels, they’re just people are raising an eyebrow at it until it gets gained some traction.
And then it becomes a real channel. Paying attention to so a couple of ways you can get on to be a guest on a podcast is number one, seek out the podcasts that you want to be a guest on and email them yourself and apply. The other way you can do it is there are firms out there. That are podcast booking firms that you sign up with usually on a monthly commitment and they are the ones that go and try and get you to be a guest on there.
Now it’s the type of thing where, you have to be able to have your, why about you. Why should you be on that podcast? What do you bring to that pod? What is the podcast, so that in the host and audience going to get out of listening to you as a guest on that podcast, and, even before that, you got to make sure, is your website is your social media, all your digital profiles up to date.
When the podcast does get your application, they can, figure out who is this person? Why should they be on our podcast? A few other easy ways. You can jump that hurdle is by listening to a couple of the podcasts that you think that you might want to guest on and being able to have some comments about.
In LA, in the last podcast, you guys talked about ABC, here’s, here’s a different point of view or here’s what I can add to, to, to your podcast, to your audience. And you gotta be sure that you’re coming to give a lot of value to the person who’s going to be interviewing you as well as as the audience.
So typically you want to get that all altogether and Good luck with it. Absolutely. It can be very easy. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There are a couple of systems out there that you could subscribe to, to like matchmaker.fm, I think is one that’s out there that, you can go put a profile out there and try to, try to get that, people go search.
That or they’ll search charge chartable to find, good podcasts that maybe you want to reach out to, but you’re absolutely right. You got to have a reason for them to want to bring you on as a guest. Ian, next I want to ask you, have you ever been a guest on a podcast? And if so, what’s your experience and if you haven’t why haven’t you done so.
Yeah. Yeah. I have been one a few times I haven’t actively gone out and pursued it as a marketing strategy for my own business. Part of it’s just because of, I can’t stretch myself too thin and that’s actually a strategy that I think is worth the effort. You need to put effort into it in order to get good results from it.
[00:04:00] But yeah the ones that I’ve been on have been great experience. First of all the people that were interviewing me or hosting me have been doing it for a while. So they were very organized. I would say similar to how we run this podcast when we have guests we’re we try to be very organized and we try to be.
Talk through with them ahead of time. What questions are most appropriate for the topic we’re going to be covering? What do you bring to the table? So I’ve had very good experiences. I think it always, I’m sure there’s confrontational podcasts out there. I have not been on one of those thankfully.
But no, they’ve all been fantastic experiences. If there’s anyone out there that’s hesitating because they’re worried like, oh, what am I going to say? Or are they going to put me on the spot and make me feel terribly uncomfortable? That’s not usually what happens because it’s been it’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
The host is trying to elevate their platform by bringing on guests that are going to bring value to their listeners. And you’re trying to be on an [00:05:00] elevated platform with someone that has a broader audience or. Part of an audience that you’d like to get in front of. Or sometimes you might just be doing a favor to a friend.
That happens a lot too. If you’re in business and somebody has a podcast and you just want to show them some love and they need some help to get more guests, they have a spot open. That’s a great opportunity as well. Yeah. Okay. And I should also mention that Mrs. Ian cancel. And I were on a podcast together.
I was thinking about the book that we wrote with Ken and mark fortune and Ray Perry which was from this guy right here, who has a book? John James. So good plug, man. Yeah. So both books are great reasons to be able to get booked on a podcast. When you have a new book, that’s a great way to help get booked.
And we did it in a way that even if you’re thinking about, oh gosh, can we do to. People. [00:06:00] Yeah, you can, because to Ian’s point you, if you’re going to help that host asked the questions of this person or that person and it’s well structured, then you can absolutely make it work. And we did.
It was a great podcast. I think it was probably John Jansen best podcast he’s ever had. Dan yeah. The way the most listened to. Yeah. So Dan, what’s a one sheet and why do you need one? If you want to be a podcast? Yeah. Podcast being a podcast guest is not in my mind and experience where you put your feet up and go ask me some questions.
No, that’s probably not a good idea. So I think as we’ve started to talk about, you got to help the podcast host who is potentially going to bring you on with a one sheet. Talks about some of the things that you may speak about or that you, some topic directions, usually having a few of those, I’d say four or five is probably a pretty good idea.
Having some [00:07:00] information about you something to hit the ground running, they’re going to probably ask you to fill out, a form if they want you to actually be a guest, but you’re helping them paint a clear picture. Of the kind of person you’re going to be on this thing and the experience and knowledge that you have.
It’s no different really than a speaker sheet where we say, Hey, You want to be a speaker. You got to say what you’re going to speak about and the finer points of that and give them a clear picture as possible. Use the front and back. Even of that one sheet. If you’ve got two, but don’t come to me and say, I want to be a podcast guest because I talk about leaving.
Oh, you get in line with the 10 million other people who talk about leadership that I’ve never heard of anything about that before. You gotta really, in certain topics, there’s things that are so saturated right now. That’s the only way to stand out is to really use any presentations [00:08:00] or any, anything that is trending.
Anything that you have a deep knowledge of. And help them out, give them some topic directions to feed them so that they don’t have to work as hard. Any the more work your podcast host has to do the less likely they’re going to, have you on, because they’re not because you’re, you there’s certain people that, yeah.
Okay. There’s famous folks and everything, a lot of. Or not on that level and we need to stand out and that’s the best way to do it is really feed them as much information as humanly possible on one sheet. Yeah. Okay. Paul, let’s get to you. So why is guest podcasting such a powerful SEO or search engine optimization tactic.
Okay. That’s if you think of, if you think outside of the convention, Box of SEO, podcasting. First of all, you can take that podcast and transcribe it and put it on your website. And that’s [00:09:00] easy content, easier than writing a blog post as a long form content. Yes. It’s long form content, but it also, it gets you in front of audiences that you may not otherwise get in front of it expands your online presence because.
A lot of these podcasts have huge listenerships and I think it’s something like 35% of Americans listen to podcasts at least once a month. And over half of them wind up at the very least inquiring about the product or service that the guests on a podcast offer. So it helps not just with SEO, but it helps with your.
Online presence, if you will, and helps you get in front of audiences, that you may not otherwise be able to get in front of get you introduced to those people so that they know who you are and that you exist. There’s [00:10:00] one big thing. I think you missed two and that’s you actually have, we’re all scrambling as a SEO focused.
On how can we get high quality inbound links for our, for ourselves or for our clients. And a guest podcast opportunity gives you the ability to basically write and create your own inbound link to that page that you want to try to get uplift for from an SEO perspective, every guest podcast that you appear or.
They’re going to provide the podcast or is going to provide a link out to whatever pages you tell them, or at least a page that you tell them in your socials that you want to include. And so if you’re going to be talking about, fractional COO services, for example, and you then send them to that fractional CFO page on your website.
From that podcast guest appearance. So that’s huge. That’s a great way to build inbound links. It’s a great way to build large form, [00:11:00] thousands of words for a blog post from the transcription of a podcast, guest appearance super powerful technique. I think.
I think, one of the things that absolutely resonated with me several years ago, I think we saw at a summit we all attended, there was a fellow by the name of Ken Singleton, bill Phil Singleton. And he was this guy is certainly an SEO expert and he said, I wish I would’ve known about doing this, or I wish I would’ve done this years ago.
It’s the most powerful thing I have ever done for myself. And I think that just has always stayed with me. If this guy was saying. Oh, my gosh, this is the thing. This is the number one thing. And it’s just amazing that with the show notes that might come from that show and [00:12:00] other types of links it has some staying power, no question.
Part of the reason that podcasts have grown so much in the last few years is because a couple of years ago, I don’t know if it was 20 18, 20 19, Google actually started to rank and index pod. Cool.
Yeah. Good point. So let’s see here, Jen, let’s come back to you. What advice do you have. To provide somebody who’s making their first guest podcast experience. Okay. First guest podcast experience. Once you get the note that says, you’ll, you are welcome to be a guest on our. Typically what we have found with our clients.
They’re typically a couple of weeks out that might be one that’s very close. Two months out. Some of these podcasts do record quite a bit in advance. So just make sure that you got that all set settled. If you haven’t already, before. Are on the [00:13:00] podcast, listened to a couple of episodes.
So you want to do that so you can get the feel of the flow. Is it going to be a 20 minute podcast? Is it a full 60 minutes? Does the host spend time introducing you or are you just thrown into a conversation right off the bat? So you want to be prepared for that? Flow of the show is going to go and you’re going to want to be able to, of course have all your technical things set up to, I have to tell you some people do the podcast and with video, some are still just on audio, somewhat Skype, whatever it is.
So you’ve got to get the, make sure that the technical side. Of your setup is prepared as well as a, as you mentally and ready to share with the audience. When it comes on to wrapping up and you’re done your podcast if you could do a little debrief with the podcast host, see how it wins and maybe they have they have recommendations of other podcasts they can introduce you on to others, just like the referral that way.
The last thing I would say is I’m going to assume you had an enjoyable. Time on the podcast [00:14:00] and leave a review because that does help. Yeah, absolutely. That’s a, those are great points. A couple of those I’d actually forgotten about. I’ve done a lot of guest podcasting and you’re exactly right.
I think. I’ve probably done a couple dozen and I probably had to be prepared to connect through probably up to 10 different technologies, so when you get that notice to say, Hey, you can be a guest. It’s okay, that’s all. But you have to make sure you do test out the technology and make sure it works so great point and running review is also really, and I would just add to that topic is, if you’re thinking about applying for your first podcast appearance, some of these have a, quite an application process some of them are like, Sure.
Just give us your name and links and away you go. And some of them are just like here, fill out this thesis about why you should be a a podcast guest. And I’m like, no, it’s, I’m not doing [00:15:00] that. Number one, look at their application process. Number two, as Jen said, I think one of the key things, when you look at the episodes, you will see some of these guys.
Put in something where they’re like, it’s they’ve seen the guest for the first time. Like they’ve just been handed information about that person for the first time. Jen, it’s great that you are at new initiatives marketing. Tell me more about, literally like that and it’s, and it sounds like the show might sound great.
They may talk about all of the exposure that you’re going to get and all the eyeballs and whatever. If your host sounds like a fricking robot, then it’s not going to be something you want to promote. And so the quality of the host really matters and you should check it out in advance just to make sure they gotta be a fit for you as much as you for them, unless robots are your target audience, unless robots are your target [00:16:00] audience.
Yes, you guys. Just what you were talking about there, especially what, where you left off Jen? It reminded me of a prospect. I was talking. And she’s mortgage financial broker. So she brokerages large commercial mortgages. And she had started a podcast a few years ago and I thought this was one of the most brilliant ideas I had heard of for somebody starting out was that she wanted to start a.
A commercial mortgage podcast for that industry. And so what she did was she just grabbed a few of her friends and she would have two guests on each podcast and what those people had to do at the end of that podcast, not live, but at the end, they would actually. Tag somebody or I don’t know what else to call it.
Refer a friend phone, a friend tag, somebody you’re it. But they would recommend, each of them would recommend who to people they thought should be on the podcast. And this lady had a never ending Of people, especially starting out, like you [00:17:00] might be searching, like who should I have on my podcast or should it just be me?
And I thought that was a fantastic way to do it. And it’s been a highly successful podcast. So successful that it’s become more of a women in business podcast because most of her guests were women. And so she altered it because they were able to explore a lot more topics that way.
But I thought that tag. Method of, once you pull somebody in, ask them to tell you have to two other people that could be potential guests. Why aren’t we doing that? All right. So even that does lead to a question I wanted to ask you. Part of the great thing about being a guest pod a guest on a podcast is you don’t have to worry about the production.
You don’t have to do a lot of the behind the scenes things you don’t, you’re not worried about building an audience the podcast or themselves have already built that audience. And they’re naturally going to do a lot of promotion, to announce every upcoming episode and things like that.
But still, I think Dan, maybe you talked about it. You just don’t want to show up, it’s not, you [00:18:00] just don’t show up and answer a bunch of questions, although you can, and there’s still a lot of value if that’s all you decide to do, but you’re creating a really valuable asset.
What should the podcast guests expect to do in terms of helping to promote their appearance on a specific episode for that pod? Yeah, I love that question. I think it actually leads to a question that we haven’t really explored yet. And that is why am I on this podcast? And so there’s white, BNI has that givers gain philosophy.
It’s a similar approach with podcasts. I think. Why am I there? What am I trying to get out of this, but also, what am I trying to give to the listeners? And also to the host the person running the podcast. So think about what your end goal is and what you can be giving the people at the end, you talked about, having a funnel or having a giveaway or having a landing page or something.
But all of that starts with the getting as large an audience to. Podcasts as possible. So yeah, I [00:19:00] absolutely think a guest as a guest, you should be exploiting every possible avenue you have in order to bring people to your guest posts. You should be sharing it on social media. You should be putting it in your email newsletter, or even sending out a quick blast.
Everybody like, Hey, I’m going to be on, the super show coming on and listen. Because it’s beneficial to everybody. What else have I missed? You could advertise, you could do Facebook ads, anything you want, but yeah, I think it really is, don’t be passive be proactive about it, but again, do it with.
Yeah. So Dan, this is something that I just thought of actually, as Ian was talking about, we had lane Hoke on a couple of weeks ago and there’s real power in building, this new form of press release to drive traffic back to that blog post appearance, when you put it on your website.
So you could actually create a press release about it. Oh, absolutely. And you were, I was, we were, we are of the same mind. That’s exactly what I was [00:20:00] thinking too. Yeah, I think what you w can do is really think about it this way. When someone has a book, God bless them. They have no problem sending out 50 Facebook posts to all their friends.
Continuously about, Hey, I’ve got a book, I’ve got a book, I’ve got a book. Yes. We know we, you have a book we’ve we understand. But with that in mind, what is the harm of suddenly sending out three or four different types of press releases through that kind of tool where you are then sending hundreds of potential social signals?
So yes, we definitely. I think that the best thing to do in many cases now, as a result of lane being on and we’re going to actually start this next week is we’re going to do a press release that is created by it, that lives in a social wall and lives on, in a media room on [00:21:00] the client’s web.
This is just a fantastic way to drive traffic back in a way that we never thought possible and the podcast can play a fundamental role in that. People always struggle, it’s like what in the world is press worthy about what I’m doing in my business. The podcast is very much press worthy, so it’s perfect.
Oh yeah. Yeah. If you really. Take this kind of thing. And you let’s say you were on for 30 minutes with somebody. Okay. Get that thing transcribed, let’s say. And cause I do think having text is a good thing too. And I bet you anything in 30 minutes you will be able to pull out four to six types of topic directions that can easily be 500 words a piece.
If I know if you’re talking to someone. For 15 minutes, that’s a blog post. Like it’s can be a lengthy one too. So if you are going to be a guest, they, they may or may not capture that for you. You have to err, on the side of saying they’re not because if they don’t and they’re like, oh yeah, sorry.
Hopefully they will. Yeah, but you got to make sure that you’re recording it too, and you are getting it down so that you can put that thing on your site and blast it out as part of a campaign, not a press release, but a campaign. And that’s the key. It’s it gives you a. The basis to create an entire marketing campaign, the guest podcast experience and so really that’s the critical thing.
There’s so many ways that you can repurpose your podcast content. You can chunk it out and turn it into an audio gram that you post on Instagram know we’ve talked about transcriptions. You can export little audio snippets, you can break it out into multiple blog posts. You can write a press release about it.
That’s why I think it’s such an SEO powerhouse because it’s multipurpose content that you have to just create. Once now there’s work in creating all of these extra assets, but it’s relatively easy compared to a lot of times the hard work of just doing that one thing. And it’s what in the world am I going to blog about?
That can create a tremendous amount of stress for people. Dan. Here’s another thing that that I found beneficial. I’m curious, your thoughts. W what about creating a guest, a page on your website where it just highlights all your guests podcast appearances? Yeah. You could definitely do that.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that whatsoever. But to what we were just talking about, I think we can go even one step further now which is. Let’s say that you’re on a podcast, but you’ve also had some speaking engagements and you’ve got somebody to record those as well. It’s very powerful to say, okay, I’m going to add a media room page.
I’m going to connect to social media channels, such as Reddit, such as Twitter, such as probably next week, Facebook on have some social signals that are generated as a result of me adding. All types of my media, all media to this one page, and we’re going to make that page as powerful as possible.
So yes, you can have a podcast guest page with the links, but I would say just how’s it in a media room page so that you can just have a awesome array of different types of video and audio content under one roof so that somebody. Whoa, this is some cool living proof of how this guy looks, sounds topics.
He talks about all of that in one place, make it easy on him. And then I think when you connect that. To your GMB your social media and use some of the tools that we’re using, then I think we’re in, you’re going to be in really good shape to get out there and have something that stays out there longer as far as your search results.
So that’s a, and I should say. This is one area where you don’t [00:25:00] necessarily have to go into great detail about the types of things that you speak on. Let your one sheet that I was talking about earlier, be that kind of downloadable thing. I w I would use that as maybe a content upgrade of some sort there on the side, fill out a little, have them fill out a form.
Here’s the kind of stuff I speak on. Boom. They download the one sheet, but don’t take up any real estate, just talking all about that. Let them watch the more they can watch. The more they can listen. That’s going to be a really cool interactive experience. Yeah, absolutely. You could also use the different guests blog posts you’ve been on as authority builders.
We always recommend to clients using authority builders on their website. Are you part of the chamber of commerce? Are you part of an association in your trade? Whatever it might be. But you could even have a section that’s, normally it would be appear. As appeared on the today show or something like that.
But maybe this is next tier down, as appeared on where you can share, I was on the duct tape marketing podcast. I was on the marketing guides for small business podcast. I was on. Whatever it is. And you can share that. So it’s a little bit more public. So people are like, oh, like they’ve been a it’s implied authority.
So that’s nice way to do it too. Great morning, Paul let’s let’s wrap it up with you. So what how do you go about finding podcasts to be a guest on? I know we’ve talked about a couple of these. Do you have any other ideas? I would say it’s easy to find. Podcasts. That’s not the problem.
I think I’d go back to, what Jen was talking about at the beginning is they need to be relevant to what you do and listen to them and see if, make sure that you would be a good fit. But yeah you can go out there and find podcasts and apply to beyond. You can use a service, like you mentioned, like Jen mentioned, but it’s really is the podcast.
Do some research. Is the podcast going to be a good fit for you? [00:27:00] And is it relevant? Because if you try to get on a podcast that has nothing to do with the business or industry you’re in that doesn’t help anyone. Yeah. Or, it’s not reaching your ideal customers. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. All right guys, any other thoughts or questions about a guest podcast?
And before you answer, I want to encourage anybody who’s listening. That we do accept guests if you’ve been paying attention to any of these that we do from one week to the next. So if you’re interested please reach out to us. And we, we’d love to see if it makes sense for us to bring you on as a guest.
So guys, what else do you think about guest podcasting? I would add, and this is not too. Bag on public relations, people at all. But I think sometimes these kinds of media appearances are the expectations are a little out of alignment. Really when you get on a podcast, when you get on a [00:28:00] radio show, when you get on a, any kind of appearance, You, I don’t care what you’ve paid for that you probably should have the expectation of this is building my brand.
It’s linking back to my site. It’s building authority, all of the good things that we’ve talked about. I think sometimes people get on this stuff and honest to God think like the phone is going to blow up with all of, with, oh my gosh. The phone calls of people who want to hire me now. I would not even think about that.
That is definitely not an expectation you should have, because you’re just starting to introduce yourself many times to a new audience who is getting to know you. They might be getting to like you too. And they may not even trust you yet. They probably have to go to your website. They probably have to learn a little bit more about you.
You’ve just taken an amazing step forward. That’s what you’ve done. So recognize it for what it is.
And for what it may not be, do not suddenly go well. Geez. I, I got on that show and I don’t know why I didn’t get any business from it. Because your expectations were nuts. Don’t go there, be happy that you’re on it.
You got something that can live on the web for a really long time and that’s going to serve you. In the future. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Building on that. You also want to, if you’re new to it, I would suggest you also want to start off. You don’t want to start off at the podcast that has 10 million listeners, start small get comfortable and then work your way up because when folks are trying to figure out whether they’re bringing you on to guest on their podcast, they’re going to see where else.
Where else have you been a guest? What does this person sound like as a guest? What do they contribute to the podcast? So there’s no harm in starting, starting small and working your way up to that 10 million listener podcast. That’s a good point. Yeah, I would add too. If someone [00:30:00] is considering actually having their own podcast guest podcasting is actually a fantastic way to get your feet wet and to work your magic a little bit before you actually start one you’ll actually learn a lot by being on other people’s podcasts.
So I would encourage anybody who’s concerned. They see the value in doing a podcast and running their own, but be a guest on a few and learn from the experts.
All you have any closing thoughts? I would just say, make, if you’re new to it, make sure that you knew. Wherever podcasts are on what they expect of you and what you can expect of them. A lot of times people forget about that and then they get on the podcast and they’re like what’s really expected out of me here other than the ASP answer some questions.
Yeah. All of our guests have to sing a tune when they come on. Is that what you, yeah, exactly. I just want to close out by talking about a couple of things that Jen and Dan made me think about. One is I’ve been on like I said at least 30, maybe even 40, 50 appearances as a guest, I’ve gotten to lead.
From all of those, that’s not why I do it. I do it for the authority building. I do it for the SEO value. I do it because I love what I do. And I love sharing and talking with other people about what I do. The leads come through other ways they don’t come directly because somebody heard you on a podcast necessarily.
Now having said that, I think it’s also important if you’re in a niche. Get on the association. Podcast, for example, painting contractor association, I’ve been on that podcast numerous times. That’s the reason why a lot of people reach out and find me not because I was on any specific one episode, but it’s just the overall awareness building and branding yourself as the authority in a particular niche.
So make sure you look, you want to be strategic about these. So guys, I think this was I think it was this short sweet and really powerful. So thanks so much. And we’ll catch you next week.