Podcast guesting was one of my first marketing tactics when I launched Inner Workout in 2019. I did all the pitching myself, and it worked! The newsletter got bigger and the follower count steadily ticked up.
When my book came out in 2023, I doubled down on podcast guesting. I paid a podcast PR firm thousands of dollars to scale my efforts. I’d probably still have them on retainer if I had the budget.
Despite the limits of my wallet, being a podcast guest is still a key part of my marketing strategy. I’m just DIYing it these days. When it works, it really works, but it’s not for everyone.
Let me break down what podcast guesting does and where it’s not a fit.
What podcast guesting does
Grow awareness
Sales and marketing don’t work if you’re only talking to the people you already know. Even if you don’t care about hyper growth, you have to get in front of new people to sustain your efforts.
Podcast guesting sits at the top of your sales funnel. Most of the guests press play on the episode having zero idea who you or your business are. By the time the outro music fades in, they could probably tell their friend something about you.
How wild is that?! You’re spending 30 minutes with the listener, and, if the interview’s done well, they get a good sense of what you’re about. It’s like fertilizer for your awareness-building efforts.
Some listeners may even slide further down the funnel into interest and take a next step to get to know you better. (More on that in this post.)
Build credibility
When I started podcasting and being a guest on podcasts, I was surprised how much people valued what I had to say. It was a near-instant credibility boost.
While I don’t think podcasts interviews still bring instant credibility now that everyone and their brother has a mic, I still believe in the power of borrowed credibility.
Listeners already view the podcast host as credible. So when you drop gems rooted in your own experience and expertise, they’re more likely to view you as credible, too.
Most podcast hosts would tell you that having someone as a guest is not an endorsement. As listeners, we know that fact, but our brains don’t always experience it that way.
Your credibility expands as you share your knowledge, frameworks, and lived experience via podcast interviews.
This credibility isn’t just with the listeners, it’s with the hosts, too. You never know what referrals and recommendations they might send your way.
Boost SEO
Ok, so this podcast guesting benefit was a happy accident for me. One way search engines determine website rankings is by looking at how often other websites link to them. The technical term is backlinks.
And guess what happens when you are a podcast guest? You get those sweet, sweet backlinks.
Inner Workout’s domain authority is 2x the domain authority of my personal website, and I think all the podcast guesting and press backlinks contribute to that statistic.
Growing awareness, building credibility, and boosting SEO is podcast guesting does really well, but podcast guesting not an afternoon spent with a cup of tea and a book—it can’t fix everything.
What podcast guesting isn’t for
Immediate conversions
If you need sales ASAP so your business doesn’t go under, podcast guesting is not the strategy for you. It’s the beginning of a relationship that will hopefully last a long time.
Being a guest on podcasts speeds up awareness, but it can’t rush people through the entire sales cycle.
Hearing yourself talk
I bring this up a ton in Grow Your Brand by Podcast Guesting. Standout podcast guests focus on providing value to the listener. As much as our egos hate to hear this, listeners don’t inherently care about your story. They care about how your story relates to their life. If you want to monologue about your brilliance without connecting it back to the listener, podcast guesting is not the strategy for you.
Building the plane while you’re flying it
You know how standup comedians go to local open mics to test out new material? They’re scribbling notes in their little Moleskine based on how the audience responds. Yeah, podcast guesting is not like that.
It’s hard to build credibility when the framework you mention on the podcast episode differs from the one on your website, which doesn’t match the framework in your lead magnet.
Do your experimentation with your own audience. Play with your point of view. Let your ideas evolve. Clarify your perspective before you send those pitch emails.
So based on what you now know and where you’re at, is being a guest on podcasts a fit for your strategy? If you’ve taken off your rose-colored glasses but still feel a flutter of excitement about the potential of podcast guesting, the Grow Your Brand by Podcast Guesting mini course is for you.
