One of the best ways to promote your company is to appear on other podcasts. New listeners will extend your company reach. However, you are leaving money on the table if you don’t wring out every available part of this promotion opportunity. Taking advantage of your podcast appearance boils down to three areas: preparation, executing the interview, and then post-show promotion.
PREPARATION
1. Pre interview research
Go to Apple Podcasts
If you are going to appear on the popular The Social Pros Podcast, please read the description of the podcast. It should include general formatting for the podcast. For example, Social Pros has two hosts from separate companies in different cities. Listen for the transitions and exchanges between host and guest, determine where you will fit in.
Some shows have established traditions. Best to prepare rather than have the “deer in the headlights” look when they ask you to name your favorite book on marketing.
You can listen to the last six guests to get a flow of the conversation and level of vocabulary. It is always good if a company event happened to the moderator recently. She could have released a book, given a conference presentation, or launched an online course. These will be-top-of-mind for the moderator and may come up in the interview.
Apple Podcasts will give you the number, length of episodes, and topics. At the bottom, it has “Listeners Also Subscribed To.” If your goal is to distribute your message to many podcasts, make a list and ask to be a guest on those related podcasts.
When you are on Apple Podcasts, the lower left has “links” which will direct you to the website for the podcast. Take a close look at the show notes for the podcast. It will let you know if the podcast will provide a link to your company blog. You can also see if the produced needs a professional publicity photo.
Go to Twitter
See if the podcast has its own Twitter page. If it does, scroll down through a month or two of Tweets. List the top hashtags in use. These can be used as conversation pivot points, and they can be used for your podcast promotion on Twitter.
The best practice is to go to hashtagify.me and write down related hashtags. When you include these similar hashtags in your Tweets, you will extend your brand awareness.
Go to Google Trends
Just because you think you have a fascinating topic doesn’t mean the audience will agree. Please go to Google Trends and type in the phrases you want to discuss. Don’t forget that topics trend over time. If you are on a technology podcast and want to talk about “Zero Trust” you will see it spiked in 2004 and now has a resurgence. Explaining that trend could have tremendous value to the audience.
2. Email previous guests
During your preparation, assemble the names of previous guests. You can get the person’s email through services like ViolaNorbert. Contact them and inquire about the interview. Ask what their experience was like and how they could have improved their appearance.
THE INTERVIEW
3. Freebie
One fantastic way to grow your email list is to have listeners sign up for a giveaway. This digital goodie can be a checklist, guidebook, or even a set of slide templates. Consider the audience and prepare a “knock out” offering ahead of time. You can structure the request by contacting the producer and asking, “I have come up with something that will be of value to your audience – what do you think?”
Before the interview, ask the producer if you can use your company’s website for the giveaway. For example, for a cybersecurity checklist, please go to guest.com/zerotrust to get it. Listeners give emails; they get the offer.
If you have a podcast and are not satisfied with your number of downloads, you may want to attend the free, live 45 minute webinar How to Promote a Podcast
The second option is to have your offer hosted at the site of the podcast moderator. For example, in the middle of the interview, the moderator can say, “if you would like a 127-page guidebook of how to reduce cyber threats, go to moderator.com/zerotrust.”
4. Please remember people will not be listening at a desktop
In other words, they won’t be sitting at a desk with a pencil writing down a difficult website or title. Your job is to make it easy to connect. You certainly have a web site – but it may be hard to remember; Cyxtera is easy to pronounce, but difficult to spell. Listeners may not be able to reach the website because of spelling.
The remedy – you come up with a dedicated URL that is easy to remember in an oral format. Come up with a name and register it. For example, I mention “How to start a podcast dot com,” and I can redirect it to wherever I want. This can be a video, a webinar, or a checklist for optimizing a show notes page.
5. Studio options
If you are lucky enough to sit in a studio, please get someone to take a photo of you in front of a microphone with a “flag” in front of it. A “flag” is the logo that is attached to the microphone.
In a perfect world, you will hire a professional photographer and have a series of great shots. Keep the high-resolution images for print. Crop and reduce the balance of these pictures for use in social media.
POST INTERVIEW PROMOTION
6. Quotes
You can go to REV.com and get a transcript of the interview. They take a regular audio file or a website. From there, use your quotes in multiple ways – your blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or wherever your target audience is located.
7. Many Tweets
Once you have written a blog talking about your appearance, you have a target for your social media promotion. Let’s start with Twitter. Structure a Tweet with an image, hashtag, handle, quotes, and a link back to your blog.
In your Tweets, include the handle of the podcast and the hashtags you discovered in your show prep. One promotion tactic is to run three different Tweets and see which one gets the best response. Take that Tweet and run it for three months.
Another tactic is to run 65 Tweets over the next six months. The cadence is three Tweets the first day, two Tweets a day for the first week, then two Tweets a week for the next six months.
8. One (and only one) LinkedIn status update
The structure for a LinkedIn status update is very similar, but not identical, to the format as a Tweet: image, hashtag, short text, link to the company. With LinkedIn, remember to focus on the business value of the status update. From there, post your blog on your LinkedIn company page.
Although you can use services like Buffer, Hootsuite, MeetEdgar; whatever you select, please focus on engaging with the audience. When it comes to Facebook, use an exclusive update with personal information on it.
9. When to send email?
It is not too bold an assumption to say that every company should be constantly developing a segmented email list.
Co-Schedule has all kind of great information about when to send emails. Going by their advice, the best time to send out an email is Thursday at 10 AM. Use very punchy text and one link back to your blog. On Saturday at 10 AM, resend to the “no open” list with a new subject line. Always direct listeners to a show notes page that has an opportunity to collect their email.
CONCLUSION
We have just presented nine ways to optimize your podcast appearance. A podcast invitation is a golden opportunity for your company. Review all the concepts presented above to select one or two you will actually use. The focal point of your promotion will be a simple blog post. The summary content itself should include the offer you made in the interview. Make it easy for new listeners to connect to you.
My mantra: one hour on the interview and ten hours promoting it.
How to leverage your guest podcast appearance FAQ
What is the key to being interviewed on a podcast?
Think how you can tell your story in short, memorable stories. Use specifics that will resonate with listeners. Make sure you make a point and then pause for the moderator.
How to act on a podcast?
Short clear sentences. If your company has a strange name, make sure you spell it out because people listening will not be writing it down. You may want to register a dedicated URL that is memorable.
How do you make a successful podcast?
Think what would be of value to the audience. That can be done through surveys, interacting at trade shows, or even calling listeners. First be of value and the listeners will follow.
How to promote a podcast?
65 Tweets over six months. Develop an email list of listeners and send out weekly updates. One LinkedIn status update with a hook, a handle, an image and a link to your show notes page.
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