Episode 52: Five quick tips for finding the right podcasts to become a guest on, to help build your brand and get your small business out there
Want to start your own podcast? Check out my new course How to Start a Podcast, a self-paced quick online course to help you with starting your own podcast.
In today’s coaching episode, Fiona shares her experience in starting the My Daily Business Coach podcast and talks about how to find the podcast to be a guest on and how it can be beneficial to your business. Listen now as she shares her five easy steps you can follow if you’re interested to do it to promote yourself and your products or services..
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
How To Start A Podcast Course
On Starting the My Daily Business Coach Podcast
Five Steps In Finding The Right Podcasts to Guest On
Know yourself
Know your audience
Do your research
Come up with a list of groups
Give it a go
Conclusion
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
Hello, and welcome to episode 52 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Now I'm guessing the fact that you're listening to podcasts, uh, means that you're somebody who likes this media. And I have spoken before about the power of voice marketing in business today. But in the last, I guess, five to 10 years, we've really, really seen an explosion of podcasts as a form of marketing. I mean, my podcast is a form of marketing and obviously, you know, they're also educational and informational, sometimes entertaining - all sorts of things, but they are a huge marketing vehicle for so many businesses. And so in today's episode, I wanted to touch a bit more on podcasting. Now, before I get started and discuss sort of some really great tips that I think will help you when it comes to podcasting, particularly being a guest on somebody else's podcast.
I wanted to let you know about a new online course that I have developed, it's called, and it can't really get much simpler than this, How To Start A Podcast. And it's basically a short course online. It's completely self-paced that will help you, not only with how to start a podcast, you know, which microphone to buy and all of that, because you can actually find so many checklists out there on that. But what this course will do, that's quite different to so many others is it'll actually show you the systems and processes I have in my business that have enabled me to produce and put out a podcast twice a week, every week. Now, like I said, there's so many, there's so much information like everything else in business, there's so much information out there, um, on podcasting particularly right now. Cause it's so hot, but I do find that you can get all this education and you can download these checklists, but unless you actually put it into a process or a system that's going to work for you, you will either never start it or you will start it and then get overwhelmed with, you know, "Oh my gosh, there's so much to do with the podcast."
So you might, you know, have it going for a few months. And then you're like, Oh, that doesn't work because there was no system in place. It's much like everything else in business. I talk about systems quite a lot, particularly when I'm coaching with people, but this course is going to really show you how you can set yourself up, you know, technically in which platforms, what microphone, all of that stuff that I use. And I pretty much use a very affordable stuff. It's no great, amazing setup. Um, so I'll show you that, but I'll also actually go through the systems so that you can actually create a podcast that doesn't overwhelm you and that you're actually going to stick with as a marketing tool, or it could just be an education tool, but yeah, I have that course, it is called How To Start A Podcast.
You can find it at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. And of course we'll link to that in the show notes. And I could just say quickly, I can, because it's my podcast, but a side note, if you are on the fence about podcasting, but you're kind of really excited about it, but you're just sort of like, "Oh my gosh!", Just give it a go. Honestly, that would be my advice to anyone thinking about starting a podcast at the moment I launched mine, gosh, just a few months ago now. And I was able to get the podcast to rank really quickly in iTunes, in the areas of business and marketing and actually overall podcasts listened to in my country. I think now we're up to gosh, more than 40,000 downloads. Um, and it's consistently brought in a lot of inquiries, a lot of new traffic to our website. Um, and it's just, it's been great. I think it's a really awesome tool because people get to know you a little bit more, even for your quirks and, eccentricity is all sorts of things. I just wish I'd actually started it sooner. So if you're interested in starting a podcast of your own, whether you want to buy my course or not, um, I would definitely think about it, consider it, look at your timelines and get a system and process in place so that it doesn't become overwhelming. Okay, let's get into today's episode.
Like I said, at the start, this is related to podcasting and I don't really need to go into too much detail about how great podcasts are, but today I wanted to talk you through a episode around how to find the podcast to be a guest on now actually think being a guest on somebody else's podcast is a really great way to learn about how podcasting actually works and the things that you like about being guests. You know, the experience that you've had, being a guest on somebody else's podcast, as the interviewee and perhaps things you didn't like that you would change if you were going to start a podcast for yourself or have a podcast as part of your marketing toolkit, being a guest on somebody else's podcast can be really, really beneficial.
It can help you be seen as an authority in your space.
It can help to increase brand awareness, especially if say you're launching into a different territory or a different area of the world or a different niche.
It can also be a great way to humanize your brand by showing the real person or people behind a business.
And like I said, at the start voice marketing is a huge component of that. When you listen to somebody's voice or hear them laugh, or just hear the different intonations, the way they speak, you feel a sense of connection that you actually just cannot get through other mediums, not at the same sort of level. So many of you are listening to this. You're small business owners. I know that because I'm getting so many DMs from people. Thank you so much. Um, but you know, that being on a podcast is important. You know, that being on a podcast or podcasting is part of modern marketing, but the question that remains often is, well, how do I find the right podcast to approach? How do I find the right places to be a guest on that can be a really hard thing for people to overcome. And it can be an obstacle that actually stands in our way of promoting our business. So I wanted to walk you through five steps, I guess you could say for finding the right podcast to be a guest on.
Know Yourself
I know that can seem like a really big question, sort of like, "Oh my gosh, who am I?" But I think it's really, really important if you're going to go onto a podcast asking yourself, what am I a subject matter expert on, um, you know, what do I want my brand to be the go-to for? And you want to create a document. I find it's very simple document. You can create an excel. You can literally just use pen and paper and you have a document with four main headings, all right, your listening experience, skills, interests, brand. And then underneath each of those, you're going to list out what the areas are that relate to those around you as the figurehead of your business. So for instance, experience, what experience do you have that could be interesting? Perhaps it's you switched careers later in life, perhaps it's you had a trauma happen that then led you to starting your business, perhaps it's, you know, you just got this really amazing origin story for your brand.
Maybe you had the experience of really bad customer service and that's how you started your business. Or maybe you have the experience of, I'm not sure becoming a mother later in life or becoming a parent or a foster parent or not becoming a parent at all. And that is actually an experience that will set you apart to discuss when it comes to getting you onto a podcast. So then you want to think about, okay, the other, the other areas that I wrote, you asked you to write down where like skills or brand or interests. So, you know, what are you really interested in? Maybe have a real interest in hula-hooping or maybe have an interest in, I don't know, flower arrangement or something else that doesn't necessarily sit with the niche that your business is in. So it's quite interesting for people and that's sort of part of your brand story.
Um, what is your brand the go-to for? So under the fourth title of brand, you want to start listing out, well, what am I the go-to for? What do I want to be known as the go-to for, until you've kind of got this document, or you might scribble like me on pen and paper, but that is going to start really conjuring up ideas for how you then pitch yourself to different podcasts. And it's also going to conjure up ideas of, "Oh wow. I came from a really, you know, corporate background where I came from the banking industry and now I'm in home wares." And so you then be thinking, Hmm, okay. Maybe this is a really interesting thing to go on a leadership podcast or to go on, you know, a careers podcast or something else. That's going to get your brand out there, but also allow you to tell your story. So that's the first step know yourself.
Know Your Audience
Big, big, big, big, big one. So you want to be asking, you know, who do you want to talk to? And what sorts of things might lay be listening to? So what sorts of podcasts might they be listening to? Is it a new small business owner who's hiring somebody for the first time who needs to upskill in people management. So for instance, they might be listening to leadership or management podcasts. It could be that you run fitness classes and your niche or your audience is stressed out managers. So again, listening to leadership podcasts or trying to upskill quickly, um, on small business or management podcasts, or perhaps your audience is parents who are super, super busy and maybe even parents who run their own business. So you've niched down a little further and they might be putting their health on the back burner.
And so you want to take your kind of ideas that you've conjured up from step one, which is knowing you and then think about, okay, how do I apply those to my audience? And then where might my audience be seeking out that information? I hope this is making sense.
So the first is to know yourself, the second is to know your audience. And if you're like, gosh, I have no idea where I even start with that. Survey them, put things on, you know, Instagram stories. What podcasts do you listen to? What are your favorite podcasts? Ask a couple of your clients. Have it as a question at the checkout, when they're going through the e-commerce store. There's so many places to get this information. So it's, it's, it's just a case of actually putting in tactics to get the information. So, you know, what are they kind of listening to? What sorts of terms are they looking up?
Do Your Research
So the one of the top places to look and, you know, there's a love, hate relationship with Apple from podcasters, but, you know, they are the biggest source of podcasts. Um, you know, where people will go to find a podcast to listen to. So definitely check out the Apple podcast app. You can just go to the browse section. You can put in key terms that you're thinking about from step one and step two. Um, you can also have a look at, you know, Spotify, all of the other ones, Google play. Um, you can also have a look for just key search terms in Google, you know, putting in leadership podcast, small business podcast, small business podcast Sydney, small business podcast Chicago, if you are a more of a local business that, or you want to get into a particular territory.
One thing that can be really beneficial and if you go to the desktop version of iTunes is to find a podcast, perhaps, you know, just browse, say you want to be in a business podcast. So you might go to categories business, and then you'll actually have Apple will have broken it down into management, marketing, careers, entrepreneurship, all sorts of things. So you can have a look that way, what you'll often find there are the top ranking podcasts, and sometimes they can be a bit hard to get onto depending on what your angle is, what your hook is. And so what you want to do is look at maybe the top ranking podcast. And when you open that on a desktop, there'll be at the top, you know, the information it'll say details. And so that's all the information about their podcast episodes. The next will be ratings and reviews. And I'll talk to that in a minute, cause it's really important to look at that section as well.
But the third will be related. And what you want to then have a look at is what are the other podcasts that are related to this one? So it might be that you've looked at a top ranking podcast that they might say, you know what, we're, we're fully booked with guests. We're fully booked for the next 12 months, but there are all of these related podcasts. And that means those are the ones that either people are subscribing to as well as this top ranking one or they're related somehow in subject matter. So for instance, it might be that you've clicked on something that's more of a leadership podcast. And so when you look at related, it'll show you other leadership podcasts. And it's almost like when you buy something on an e-commerce store, say you buy fashion and you buy some shoes and then it will come up with it. You might also like, so it's very similar. And I think it's a great place for you to start when you're researching which podcasts to be on.
Another amazing thing that you can do on this Apple iTunes on online on your desktop is to look at the ratings and reviews. You can do this on an app as well, but it's just, they make it really difficult. It's much easier on a desktop. So when you go to the podcast that you're interested in and you can look at details, ratings, and reviews and related, you go to the ratings and reviews and just read the reviews, not just to see, you know, is it a decent podcast to people like it, but also to see the sorts of things that people are saying, and you'll often find real gold in that. So say for instance, like in the example before, you teach fitness classes and you're going after stressed out, parents who also run a small business who have left their health on the shelf, you want to then have a look at the reviews and you might see somebody saying something like, "Oh my gosh, um, you know, I've neglected my health for so long after I had kids. This podcast is perfect for me." And you're like, bang, that is my exact audience. So reading through some of the reviews can be really helpful to see what type of people are listening to this podcast that you've found and seeing if it's the right fit with your audience, which you would have gone through in step two.
Come up with a list of groups
And you're thinking, well, where else might I pitch myself to be on a podcast is to get involved in existing groups, podcasts, like I said, at the start have exploded over the last 10 years. And you want to, you know, not have to start from scratch when you're looking at this. And there's so many platforms that make it really easy to find podcasts to become a guest on. So they are free Facebook groups, but there's also paid memberships that you can be in where say, for instance, I'm not sure you're a doctor and you want to get onto a whole bunch of health podcasts. You can go into some of these platforms and pay a monthly fee and you might just sign up for one or two months and get exposure that way and get access to all the great podcasts that are in the health space in your territory or in your area that you're looking to get brand awareness in.
Um, but like I said, there's also free groups to be part of. So one of the big ones is Find a guest, Be a guest (Podcast Guest Collaboration Community - Find a Guest, Be a Guest) that is on Facebook. And I think you can just find that at https://www.facebook.com/groups/podcastguestcollaboration/, and I think they have something like thousand members. So what you'll find in there is a whole bunch of people who have podcasts putting up posts saying, "Hey, this is what my podcast is about. I'm really looking for guests to talk about X, Y, Z. So this is what my podcast is about. I talked to stressed out parents. I'm really looking for people in the mental health space, in the physical health space and maybe in the organizational time management space" for example, and you can then just reply directly to them to get onto their podcast.
Other people will post in that group saying I have these skills and I'd really like to be on podcasts. And so these are the topics that I'd like to talk about, or these are the things that my brand is the go-to for. And again, you've got a whole lot of podcasters there looking and checking and being like, "Oh, that sounds like a perfect fit." So that's another great place to have a look at after you've done your research, you know who your audience is and you know what you've got to offer.
So I'll put those links of course, in the show notes. And you can find those over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/52 as this is episode 52. So that's step four to get involved in some groups and platforms.
Give It A Go
You know, most important of all, you can do all this research. You can go into these Facebook groups, you can be a lurker or whatever, but unless you're actually going to put a deadline and just go out and contact some people, it is just going to stay that it's just an idea that you came up with that you didn't action.
So step five is to give it a go. We can be our own worst enemy and nobody, you know, no one goes to their first podcast interview like, "Oh my, my gosh, I'm totally chill. I'm not nervous at all." No one is nervous when they go into a podcast for the first time or even, you know, the third, fifth, six time, but you can't get over that unless you do it. So that would be my fifth step is to just give it a go.
So just to recap, those five steps that are going to help you find out the right podcasts to be on.
#1 know yourself
Do the groundwork to understand, well, what am I the subject matter expert at? What do I want my brand to be the go-to for? Where am I trying to build brand credibility in which kind of areas? And then what can I offer a podcast host? You know, what am I going to go on and talk about? That's going to help their audience.
#2 know your audience
And hopefully your audience and their audience really crossover. And so you can know your audience by understanding what sorts of things are they listening to? What keywords are they using? You can do polls and things like Instagram to see what are your favorite podcasts to listen to. Um, all sorts of things will help, you know, your audience better and understand which podcasts they are actually listening to.
#3 do your research
So when you understand, Oh, my audience is saying, they're listening to, you know, mums in business podcasts. Then I can go on and I can do some research places to do that. Uh, you know, literally just Googling it. Um, having a look on social media, often people will use I'm the podcast host of whatever in their bio. You can also go onto Apple iTunes, big one big, big, big one to find. Remember I talked about looking at the categories, looking at the top ranking ones and then going through related, so that you can find other ones that perhaps aren't as high ranking, but it just is fantastic. You can also then in that, do your research piece, go through the reviews and make sure that, you know, you're thinking or these are, and based on the root reviews, I know that they're actually listening to this podcast, so that is step three. Do your research.
#4 get involved in existing groups
Whether those are paid memberships, where you can go in and kind of promote yourself, almost like a directory to be on to podcasts or whether they are free Facebook groups. Like the one that I mentioned, which has, you know, close to 12,000 people in it, many of which are podcasts hosts, which also just goes to show you how popular podcasts are right now, but you can get involved in lots of different existing groups that are out there.
Literally just Google, you know, podcast guest groups, and you'll be able to find a bunch of them and then.
#5 give it a go
You can't find, you know, a podcast to be on and then do all this groundwork and not actually then put yourself out there. So obviously I'm not going into exactly how to pitch to be on these because the topic today is just how to find them. But really then the next step is okay, how am I going to pitch? I'm actually going to talk about that in a later episode so make sure you're subscribed to this and you don't miss it coming up in the next few weeks.
Like I mentioned at the start, I do have my own short course. It's very short. It's probably like an hour an hour or two hours. It's got a workbook and it goes through all the ways to set up your podcast, not only the technical tools that you'll need and the platforms that are best for hosting and all sorts of stuff, but it also goes through the systems and processes to get in place, whether you're doing this all yourself or whether you want to outsource it. And you can find that at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast, it's just called How To Start A Podcast. So super exciting. Of course, we will link to that in the show notes as well.
And of course you can find those at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/52 as this is episode 52. Thank you so much for listening. I know that you are somebody who's interested in podcasts. So if you are currently thinking about, okay, how do I get more brand awareness next year? Or how do I add certain things into my marketing calendar? That's going to really help my business definitely consider podcasting. And now you should have a few steps to get started with how to find the right podcast to be a guest on. Thank you again for listening. I'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening to My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
