How to Pitch Yourself to Podcasts

An easy, fun, and effective way to build your audience and position yourself as a thought leader is securing press features. This being a guest on podcasts within your industry that directly speak to and educate your ideal clients. Although the idea of finding and pitching yourself to podcasts may seem overwhelming and time-consuming, you can put this task on autopilot once you create a system that works for you.

In fact, through our podcast pitching process for Dash of Social’s own marketing efforts, we were able to land 11 podcast interviews out of 22 pitches! Interested in finding out how you can achieve the same results? We’re diving into our exact system for podcast outreach and explaining how it works.

Easy Podcast Pitching Process

Brainstorming Interview Topics

The first, and arguably the most important, step for pitching yourself to podcasts is determining relevant topics you can discuss on these episodes, as the topics will determine everything else you do. Brainstorm a list of 3-5 potential subjects you could easily and confidently talk more about on a podcast. These topics should:

Reflect your expertise
Relate to the services that you offer
Provide value to the podcast’s intended audience

Additionally, they should be engaging and unique enough that they will pique the host’s interest, as podcast hosts receive so many pitches a day and truly only seek out the ones that have out-of-the-box ideas. You’ll want to offer something that makes them stop and think.

Create a Media Sheet

Once you know your talking points, you can create a media sheet to easily organize your bio, interview topics, previous press features, contact information, and more in one space. It should be a one-page PDF that allows the podcast host to quickly scan and gather relevant information about who you are and what you can talk about. This media sheet can be attached to any pitch that you send via email to allow for easy access.

An alternative would be to create an entire media page on your website, such as this one, where folks can download your headshots, grab your bio, and save important links related to you and your company. This is a great workaround to have when you’re only able to reach out to the host via a contact form and can’t attach any documents to it. Instead, you can paste the link to the page on your website!

Write a Pitch Template

Save yourself time when reaching out to podcast hosts by writing a pitch template that you can rinse and repeat, slightly tweaking when needed. Although it’s okay to reuse the same email template when reaching out to hosts, it’s crucial to include a section that’s catered to the podcast or host itself to show that you’ve done your research and have taken the time to get to know the host and podcast.

These templates can include:

A section for a personal note
A brief (keyword: brief) introduction of who you are and what you do
A list of potential interview topics
A fun fact about you
A note to check out your media sheet or press page
A CTA to reach out to you with any questions

Save this template in your drafts so you can quickly copy and paste as you do more outreach.

Research Podcasts

Here’s where the fun, although time-consuming part comes: researching potential podcasts. Although it may take some effort on your end, it’s actually fairly easy. All it entails is using Google or a podcast player (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.) to search the types of podcasts you’d like to be on. For example, if you’d like to talk about your entrepreneurial journey, you can search “entrepreneurship podcast.” If you’d like to speak to the tech startup crowd, you can search “tech startup podcast.” These searches will populate dozens of results that you can come through and see which ones would be a good fit.

Look out for the following in these podcasts:

Whether they bring on guests or not: If these podcasts are a solo show, they likely won’t be interested in having you on as a guest.
The types of guests they bring in: If their guests are within the realm of the work that you do or closely align with your story or success, you may be a good fit for the podcast.
How often they publish new episodes: If they haven’t published a new episode in several months or longer, that may be an indication that their show is no longer active.
Who their audience is: If their audience consists of listeners that may be ideal clients for you, it would be a good fit.
The topics they typically discuss: If their topics relate to the work that you do, you could be a potential guest for their podcast.

If the podcast checks all of the boxes you’re looking for, you can add them to your list!

Additionally, a great way to research is to see which podcasts other folks in your industry have been on. Chances are, if the host has already shown interest in a topic that you specialize in, they’ll likely be interested in what you propose, too!

Send Consistent Outreach and Follow Up

Set a goal for your podcast outreach that isn’t too overwhelming but also encourages you to be consistent with your efforts. Whether you choose to pitch a new podcast once per week or once per day, set a cadence that works for your schedule and sets you up for success. If you find that you’re easily able to send the number of pitches you’ve put as your goal, you can increase that number.

Following up on pitches you’ve sent is just as important as, if not more important than, sending the initial pitch. There are a variety of reasons why a podcast host might not answer your pitch once you send it: they’re busy, they forgot about it, or they’re in the middle of planning future episodes. No response doesn’t necessarily mean the answer is a no! Send a followup email a week or so after the pitch, and depending on the podcast, send another followup email a few months later. You can create a Google spreadsheet to keep track of your pitches and your communication dates.

Refine Your Process as You Go

Your pitching process may not be perfect right off the bat, and that’s okay. Be open to refining your pitch and system as you go to ensure that you’re as successful as possible with getting on the podcasts you’ve found. Write a new template or seek out a different niche for the podcasts you’re finding, and see if that alters your results in any way.

Partnering with a Marketing Agency for Success

Delegating for Streamlined Support

A common roadblock mentioned here as it relates to pitching yourself to podcasts is not having enough time. You get what you put into your marketing, so if you find you’re struggling to stay consistent with building your online presence, it may be time to consider working with a marketing agency who can support you and your needs.

Reach out to Dash of Social for a free consultation to learn more about what we offer.