How to Get Guests to Promote Your Podcast

It can be a struggle to get guests to promote their podcast interviews. So what are some strategies to get them pumped to share the episode? I'm Jordan host of Podcasting Q&A, where we answer your questions about how to start, grow and monetize a podcast. This week's question is from Marie.

My name is Maria and my podcast is culture and leadership connections. My question is, how do you get your podcast guests if you have an interview format to continue to promote their episodes? My podcast guests will promote for a while but then they stop. So that's my question. And thanks for answering.

Great question, Marie. So to help me answer this question. I have Kate Casey guesting on the podcast. Kate Casey is the host of Reality Life with Kate Casey, where she interviews the directors, producers and stars of unscripted television. So she is perfect to answer this question.

Here's the honest answer is they're going to promote it one time, so you better make a great because it's not their show. They have their own lives they have their own things to do. You have to come up with something that makes them sound great look great, and is easy to promote. So do an audio gram, ask them ahead of time. Can you send me your favorite picture? If you send an ugly picture and promote an ugly picture? They're never going to ask them advance? Do you have a picture that you love that I can share? Find the clip that shows them in the best way. They're only going to promote at one time. They're just not going to and if you have this expectation that they're gonna continue to promote, they're not your chief marketing officer. They were a guest on your show. That's it.

Yeah. So I totally agree with you that there is a level of managing your expectations when it comes to your podcast guests. Do you think that maybe the threshold of expectation should be one share? Or should the threshold be, you know, what they might not share at all? That's the threshold. I've been doing this for six years, I've had over 500 episodes, not many people share the episode. I mean, I do everything in my power to have these hilarious clips or insightful clips. And most people don't aren't, are not tech savvy. They don't know how to do it. I interview people who have media teams. And then their media team sometimes has other priorities, like you don't fit into what their priorities are that week, not just for that client. But for others, you have to make things so easy. And still, they may not promote it at all. So my expectation is always the hope that at least one time they'll promote it. And sometimes the strange thing is the people that are the most famous will promote it. And the people that are the least famous will go out of their way to avoid promoting it. Which makes no sense to me. Because in the end, I'm helping you. I'm promoting you, I made you an all star on my show, I gave you a voice. And I don't understand why you wouldn't promote it. So the best thing that we can do is have a very low threshold of expectations. But we set the tone for other people, especially those in podcasting, because I started my show six years ago, and now all these people that I had asked for an interview in the beginning, and we're like, What the heck is a podcast? They have their own. And they're only now getting it. So you have to be very clear. You know what, when I finished an interview, I say I would love for you to share this. But I always with the caveat. You sounded fantastic. That was a great interview. My favorite part was when you said blah, blah, blah. So they're already sort of preparing themselves for the interview to come out. And they're excited about it. Sometimes people second guess themselves, they thought they were a s****y guest. And they think, oh my god, I sounded so stupid. The last thing I want to do is listen to it. Most of the guests that you have won't listen to themselves on your show. They don't like to hear themselves talk, actually, they get caught up in other things. I think the the worst lesson for anybody. And this probably is So we have expectations. And then we also have the quality of something that Jimmy Fallon probably would say too, is that the content, in that you have to have a show that people are ultimately you're a very small part of their week and their going to want to share so if the audio quality is really bad or month, you just have to understand that the best thing maybe the format's a little clunky, or you know just you can do, and the only control that you have is to have a something like that, your guests are not going to want to share fantastic show. And you can do as much as you can to try to get something where even the audio itself sounds really crummy. And then also something that you mentioned that I think is people to listen to your episode. But in the end, that's actually a really, really great point is to compliment the guest the only thing you can control is your own show.

I mean all all day long and complementing starts with the pitch for the get them on your show, you have to sound like they're the most extraordinary person that walked the earth. Otherwise, why are they going to take time out of their day, they're not going to get paid for the interview, they're going to do the interview, because they want to either promote something that they've created, or they're doing it almost as a favor. So I have a PR background, which has been very helpful in terms of marketing, and doing PR for my own show. And I walked into podcasting, just like I did with my previous clients, which were all global law firms. It begins with the pitch, and it has to make it seem like and it should be authentic, that you really care about this person and really understand who they are in the world and that contribution they've given. So for example, Mary, I would love to have you as a guest on my show, which is top rated in this category, because you are such an extraordinary thought leader in this space. I loved what you said in that book that you wrote in chapter five about basket weaving. Or when I saw you do that interview on 60 minutes on Sunday. It it occurred to me that you said that because of that previous experience that you had in life regarding XYZ. If you do a pitch like that people feel like they matter in the world, what they say matters and that it's not a waste of their time. If you pitch them like an afterthought, they won't give you the time of day. So you have to make somebody feel like a million bucks. So then that begins with the pitch. And then when you interview them, you have to do research. There's nothing that pisses people off more than an I find that even if I'm on a show like Oh, Hi, Kate. So what is it that you do again? Oh, so you do reality shows? And I'm like, No, I do unscripted. I do reality shows documentaries and Docu series, that very fact that you don't understand what I do for my show, means to me that you didn't do any research. So this has been a waste of my time. By the way, I'm from Philadelphia. But people are busy. An interview takes time out of their day. And they want to make their time matter. So you have to make them feel like they matter. So it begins with the pitch, then it goes into the interview at the end of the interview, you tell them what that interview meant the parts that you liked very much, you follow that up with a direct message. You say, I've been thinking about that interview I really liked when you said XYZ, then you do a great clip, you've already asked them for their favorite picture. Maybe you've been asked them, I would love to share the part where you said XYZ and see what they say. Maybe they like something else. Then once you've sent that promotion out, follow that up with screenshots, I had a guest who was wrongfully accused of a murder. And people hated her. She was all over the news in Europe, it was a huge global story. She was wrongly accused. It was Amanda Knox and she was freed. So I interview her and people have these preconceived notions about her I did a ton of research my my pitch to her was I am very, very passionate about a wrongful imprisonment cases, these are the other cases that I've covered here and links so you can listen to those episodes. For reference. This is what I would like to interview you about. And I gave her some sort of, you know, bullets like I want to go through the case, I want to go how they, the prosecution got it all wrong, that I want to edit this way and always say, and you can promote whatever you're working on, which was she started our own podcast at that point, books, anything you want to promote. So we do the interview, and then I promote it. And I also sent her her screenshots of things that people said about my interview in my Facebook group on Twitter on DMS, saying, oh my gosh, I had this all wrong. I'm so glad you interviewed her because it totally changed the way I looked at it. Those follow ups will give people more reason to continue to promote your episode, then they feel then they're like that wasn't a waste of my time. It mattered in this moment in the world, to other people and to myself. But you have to have keep those expectations low because unfortunately people don't really understand our medium. People who are accountants or teachers, they don't understand the value of how hard it is to make a podcast how to structure episodes, how hard it is to get other people to listen, to write a review, to ask people to go to live events of your show all those things they don't understand. I don't understand what it's like to walk into a classroom and put together a lesson plan for fifth graders. I have no idea unless someone explains it to me. So you have to give people grace. You have to be very clear what you're hoping for. But you've got to do your research and you have to make people feel like a million bucks.

What kinds of materials do you send to the guest after the episode is finished? So you said something about a sound clip and you have like their picture integrated? Is there anything else that you do,

I do audiograms, I'll do something for Instagram, I'll do something for tick tock, I'll do something for Twitter. I will also post the audio gram clip in my Facebook group. So all my social channels, I'm showing, I'm giving people a clip, I'm tagging them in everything. I have a newsletter that goes out every Monday where until I do a must watch list. This is your guide to what you've got to watch this week, I'm including links to those episodes, and make sure that you check out my episode on Friday with you know, Barry McGee, here's the link to it, I continue to promote, and people appreciate when you tag them, because it's just making life easy. So if you're going to do like an Instagram story, make it easy that they understand how to add it to their story. And then also, like for my business, I interview a ton of television personalities who don't understand technology at all, a lot of them are of a certain age, and they just have like a team of people. You have to become best friends with the person that runs their media team. And I have to like, basically annoy them sometimes. Did you get the clip, I'd love for her to share it. I'd love for her people just love it. You know, because so I have five children when they were little. And I'm still to this day, I'll do it. I would like to, I would like to say, So and so talked about you all day long while you're at school, they couldn't wait for you to come home. And it was a big fat lie. But the other kid was like, Oh, really, maybe they were distracted the whole day. But it made them feel like I mattered. Right? I had to social engineer situations to make my kids think things about their, their siblings. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of that to get people to promote those episodes. Because otherwise, it's going to fall off to the wayside. If they have no information. I want to know what the feedback is. Every person wants to feel like they matter. Their voices heard and their story was heard.

That's it. Thank you so much for being on this podcast and helping me to answer this question, Kate, you explain so well, how to lower expectations, how to really gas your guests up from start to finish and get them really confident in the interview. And then also providing them with the materials and making sure that it's easy for them to share the podcast as possible. So thank you so much for that. Thank you, Jordan. You're a great, great host. I hope this episode of Podcasting Q&A has been helpful to you. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on a future episode, go to pod inbox.com/buzzsprout or click the link in the show notes to leave us an audio message. And as always keep podcasting