244 | Podcast Guesting: The Best Marketing Strategy of 2022? with Paul Zelizer
This week on the pod is our montly solo episode with Paul Zelizer. Paul is the Founder & CEO of Awarepreneurs and the host of the Awarepreneurs podcast. He's also been a coach for social entrepreneurs and conscious business owners for more than a decade.
Episode with Paul Zelizer on Podcast Guesting
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:02
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many lives. Except for today, it's time for our special once a month solo episode on a topic that I think you all be really excited about. Before we get into that, I want to ask you a favor. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on, do a rating and review. It helps tremendously. So today we're going to explore the topic of Podcast Guesting: The Best Marketing Strategy of 2022 And it's with me, Paul Zelizer, the host of the intrapreneurs podcast, the CEO and founder of aware printers, and a business coach who has been working with social entrepreneurs and conscious business owners for 15 years now. So this whole idea of a best marketing strategy, can we just start there? Normally, I'm not like, Oh, this is the best one size fits all strategy. A matter of fact, I'm pretty against that. But it is something that I've been talking a lot about. And for a lot of social entrepreneurs, the topic of podcast guesting is coming up, and I want to talk to you about why, what the opportunity I see who it's a fit for who it's not a fit for, and just help you look a little deeper about why podcasts guesting for people who want to have positive impact and grow an enterprise can be a pretty incredible opportunity and 2022. Now, let me just say, over the long haul, over a course of three to five years, the Awarepreneurs podcast is almost five years old. Now at five, year five, I'm getting more return on being the host of a podcast, then I you know, it's like, it's like investing over time. You get compound interest, you accrue interest when you have your own marketing channel, I call it your featured marketing channel. And in general, for most people, that looks like a blog, a YouTube channel, or podcast. There are exceptions. But to make things simple, that is something that over the long haul is hard to beat. It’s a huge thing. But let's say you've got something that you want to really see a lot of movement in the next six months, or 12 months,
Paul Zelizer 02:36
A podcast or a YouTube channel or a blog, that's usually for most people longer build three to five years, and you want to do something with an enterprise a new course, a launch of something, you got a launch of a community new product, and you really want to move the needle in a much nearer term. That's where I think the opportunity is.
Paul Zelizer 02:58
So again, long term, build your own channels, it's an incredible return on investment that will set you up for a lifetime positive impact, and a really good livelihood for you and anybody who works for with you. But if you've got something that's right here, and now, let's talk about podcast guesting. So want to give you a little bit of data and a little bit of like experience from kind of on the ground in the podcasting world. And a lot of the data points that I'm going to name, there's eight points here that I want to cover, and a lot of them are referencing a Buzzsprout article, or blog post on podcast statistics in 2022. I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Paul Zelizer 03:46
One of the things to understand is that over the past couple of years, the podcast space has exploded. And that's you can just see that from the numbers. You know, you go back two or three years ago, and there were under a million podcasts. And today we're somewhere between 2.5 million and 3 million depending on who you ask. Right? At one point in 2021 COVID hit podcasting was growing so fast that you it was hard to find a podcast microphone, a decent one anywhere on planet Earth. There were long waiting lists are just like sold out messages in continents around the globe. Now that's no longer true in terms of the equipment you're getting now get a podcast, bike and other equipment you might need. But you get a sense, it really has exploded in the past three years. So that's one thing, just the whole space. Big players have come in with significant amount of capital, whether we're talking about Spotify, or Amazon or Facebook has now got Facebook podcasts, etc, etc. So the whole space has grown tremendously and that's a very exciting time to be thinking about what could this mean for your impact business? Number two,
Paul Zelizer 05:01
think about podcasting this way. Imagine somebody said, Hi, Mr. or Mrs, or non binary impact leader, social entrepreneur, I've got a proposition for you. I'm going to invite 500, maybe 1000, maybe 5000 people, but a significant audience of people who are super passionate about your topic, I'm going to fill a whole auditorium, we'll set up the chairs, we'll do all the marketing, we'll make sure that the temperature is right. It's a great room, right. And I'm going to give you 40 minutes to share about a topic that you're super passionate to this incredibly engaged audience who also is super passionate about this topic and looking for new ideas and leadership and resources, right? The hitches I can't pay you to talk in front of these 5000 people. But what I can do is allow you to pitch within reason, anything that you offer that would be useful to these people on this topic, would you do it? Most people would say, that sounds like quite an opportunity, right. And in a sense, that's what podcast is like the host already has, if you take the time to find a podcast that already has a significant leadership. And we're going to talk about how to do that in this episode a little bit later on. But assuming you know how to pitch and get on podcast where the host has already done the work. Again, I've been building this podcast for five years, almost now.
Paul Zelizer 06:35
There's podcasts that have much larger listening listeners ships, than were printers to us. But we have a very substantial audience for people who are super passionate in our case about social entrepreneurship and having positive impact in business, right? The host has done the work for you and you get to leverage their platform. But not only once, let's say like a TED talk or something like that, not only once, and then you have to spend months trying to get on the stage. Again, podcasting, there are millions, we already talked about that podcast and in your space, there's 1000s, or maybe even 10 1000s of podcasts that have audiences that would be really interested in what you're doing. And you can do this as often as you're willing to make a commitment to pitch, right, you can get on shows that have 500,000 2000 5000 10,000 100,000 listeners. And if you do that, let's say even twice a month, you get a sense of where I'm going with this, it's a really incredible opportunity to leverage existing platforms, there's not too much else out there like this. And if you do it well, and you do it several times a month, and you're good about showing up and providing a lot of value. And you're not getting people hiring you then something's happening when you're on those shows that we can talk about and refine. But if you're in front of the people who care about your topic, you're doing a great job, when you're on the show. And you're sharing something, you're consulting your product, your sustainable fashion item, you spent a lot of care with your team creating, and you're taking it to as a sustainable fashion, you know, podcast and nobody's buying it, then there's something happening there while you're actually on the show. But we know that the audience is already there. The third point I want to share with you is that podcast listeners in general have a higher income than general population. In the United States, over 66% of podcast listeners, their household income is over $75,000 a year. And it's almost half people that are making six figures. So they have the kind of income. They're also in the kind of more leadership roles and at work, where they have more influence and decisions, and they have more money. So that's a great opportunity for somebody who's looking at how do I connect with people that can, you know, invest in my company and purchase, you know, products at a fair market rate, not with the externalities that Walmart does the cheapest thing, right? We know about fast fashion and how Walmart, you know, does horrible things in the communities of people who are making clothes that go in or other products that go it gets sold a Walmart and all the different things they're not paying attention to include environmental repercussions when you pay attention to that products oftentimes cost more if you're a service provider, to charge her you know what it takes to actually live a quality life as a service provider. It's going to cost more than somebody who's you know, outsourcing something in a country and not paying you know, paying somebody $7 an hour to be a VA or, as opposed to like paying your contractors a living wage. Somebody who does business ethically. Whether it's a product or service oftentimes has to charge a little more podcast listeners are they have the resources to invest in ethical products and services. Number four or let's think about the relationality or the intimacy of podcast medium itself. Then my mentor, the guy who kind of helped me have a big aha moment. So wonderful podcaster named Keith Carlson in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Keith was a neighbor. And he's also a colleague, and he's a friend, known Keith, for a long time, is one of the longest running nursing podcasts on the Internet called the nurse Keith podcast. And as Keith and I were talking and just over the years sharing tips and strategies, about everything from LinkedIn to podcasting, to consulting and what's happening in the marketplace, key support. I think there's something for you in podcasting. For years. I was like, oh, Keith, I blog, right. I'm good at you know, I've gotten okay at it and get results. Why would I want to start a podcast? That sounds like a lot of work? I was intimidated by the technology of it eccentrics. He said, Paul, just just hang in there with me for a moment. Think about how do people listen to podcasts? So I don't know, what do you mean? And he said, here, but the large majority of people. Now people use air pods a lot, right? So they're wireless, but you literally put something into your body, the large majority of podcast listeners, it's an incredibly, they're inviting you into the space between their ears.
Paul Zelizer 11:21
It's one of the most intimate, or I think, perhaps the most intimate form of mass communication the world has ever seen. And it leads to a certain kind of relationality and intimacy and connection that I haven't experienced and other forms of leveraged communication. And Key said that to me, I'm a really relational guy, as our you listeners, many of our listeners really care about humans and community and communication. He said that to me, I kind of stopped, I can remember, this was maybe six or seven years ago, it took me a while to launch I think it was about six years ago. But when he said it, it stopped me in my tracks. I was like, oh, oh, oh, I get it, Keith. And I made the decision that day and started doing probably about six months of work of like, what does it take? And how do I pivot from blogging as my main marketing channel to podcasting, but that insight, was an incredibly powerful insight to this day, I'll never forget what it means I hope I never forget the intimacy and trust of, of what it means when a listener comes back to a podcast over and over again, and is allowing our voice and the conversations we have on podcasts, into their being in such an intimate way. Not much like out there. And if you're somebody who knows what to do with that, and you're somebody pays attention to emotional intelligence, boy, is that an incredible opportunity to influence and become in relationship with somebody in a way I've never seen before ever experienced before. Thank you, Keith, for that big shout up. The fifth thing I want to just bring to your awareness or help you think a little bit about why I think podcasting is a pretty cool, pretty unique opportunity. There's a what I like to call synchronistic. Marketing. So this is only in the case of we're mostly in the case of if there is a interview podcast. So there's a host and a guest. If that podcast goes well, then the both of these individuals in both of these brands, oftentimes on multiple channels will go out and market it. So for instance, when somebody comes to the AWARE printers podcast, and I go out, you know, aware printers has a Facebook page, and I have a personal LinkedIn profile. And the guests might be really active on Instagram, or I'm not super active. And I have a Paul zelizer.com email list and aware printers has an email list. And the guest probably has an email list and maybe their brand has, you know, its own email list, you see where I'm going with it, right? It can go out and quite a number of different channels. And when it's like that synchronistic effect when an episode goes live, and if it's interesting, and if it's on a topic that people are interested in, you can get a lot of search benefits from that sort of surge, like wow, there's a lot of activity from a number of different channels. And let's say Google, their algorithms will notice like oh, this is this is a quite a surge, right? And if both the host and the guest have somewhat decent marketing platforms, or even ideally really significant marketing platforms, all kinds of good things happen from that synergistic marketing. Number six, this is from that article in Buzzsprout 80% of listeners to a podcast listen to all or Are most of the episodes that they start? Think about that. The next data point, let's just combine the two, podcasting is a deep dive format, right, so at least 69% of all podcasts are at least 20 minutes long. And almost 40%, a little more than 39% of all podcast episodes are at least 40 minutes long.
Paul Zelizer 15:26
So when you put those two together, what you have is, once somebody clicks on a podcast, they're going on a deep dive journey with you that they're likely to get most of the way through, right? It's not like tick tock or a real on Instagram. Not that those are bad. But do be aware pinners audience, our listeners, we have these deep, complicated, nuanced brands that are looking at various kinds of intersections. And it's not like, it isn't always super easy to figure out how do you translate that into a 22nd Tick Tock video, there are people out there who are doing fabulous job with this, this isn't picking on tick tock, but it's kind of intimidating to me, and many of our listeners, I'm a deep dive guy, I want to look at those kinds of intersections and nuances, right. And it's in what Seth Godin calls an attention economy or I like to like Nuance as an attention deficit economy, got all these social platforms, and our attentions getting pulled in so many directions. And then you have this impact business, or this social enterprise that's really trying to make a dent on things that have been happening for generations and marginalized communities or, you know, how women are dealing with inequality and work, whatever the kind of businesses that our audience start and work for. That's complicated to know, how do you find the room and, like, bring in those nuances? Well, podcasting, by its definition, is more of a deep dive kind of a format and more of a deep dive kind of a platform or echo system, then most of what's out there. And to me, that really fits for the kind of depth and how I'm wired. I'm an introvert, right? I'd rather have, like, a few conversations really go into nuance and you know, get into the richness of a conversation and talk to 2700 people in a day or whatever it is, right. It's literally how I'm wired. But it's also it's not just a personal thing. I think it's a space thing. When you have an impact focus brand. You're not just trying to by definition, it's not single bottom line, right? Single bottom line, businesses are just like, I just want to make money and I don't really care about anything else. Our businesses, there's multiple things going on. I think podcasting by its very definition of having a more deep dive norm, those 2030 4050 minute episodes, some you know, Tim Ferriss does like three hour episodes, sometimes that's a little long for my taste, but it exists. And he's very popular podcast, right? We just have space, and once somebody hits play, they're likely to get most or all of that conversation that is really unique in today's world. So number six was that 80% of listeners once they hit play, listen to all or most of the episode in number seven of helping you kind of wrap your head why I think podcasts guesting is an incredible opportunity in 2022 is that it's that deep dive format, that when an episode goes live, it's likely to be at least 20 minutes, 69% of all episodes are at least 20 minutes, and 40%, almost 40% Or at least 40 minutes long. So that's a unique opportunity. The last data point, there's a lot more in this article. And you can do some other research, but just want to give you a sense, like why am I making this claim that's kind of, or at least pointing in this direction is maybe we're for a significant portion of our audience. I think this could be or even if not everybody, but I think for many of our listeners, if you want to do something that really moves the needle in the next year, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a better solution for the majority of people in that situation. Then podcast guest the last data point that I want to highlight on this show and then we're gonna talk about what how do you do it? What are some of the strategies and tips for actually implementing a pot houseguest guesting strategy? The last one is that 60% of all listeners to a podcast have bought something from an ad that they've heard on a podcast. Think about that. 60%. Right.
Paul Zelizer 20:19
And another data point that's very similar is that ad one person, podcast listeners say they pay more attention to ads on podcast than on similar ads on radio, TV, social media, newspapers, etc. So there's something about the podcast medium itself, that again, once somebody pushes play, they're gonna hang in there. And if you do some ads, and that's another podcast episode, what does an effective podcast ad look like? And what do you even want to sell or not sell on a podcast? You have questions about that, feel free to email me a little beyond what we can get into today. But the basic idea is that when there's an ad and a podcast, it's more effective in many cases than other mediums both are getting people's attention, they stay with it, they remember it, they are more engaged by it. And 60% of people buying from hearing an ad on a podcast. That's a pretty good rate. And I oftentimes get the question, Paul, does podcasting even sell stuff? Well, we're now starting to get the data like this that says, As a matter of fact, it's a very powerful advertising platform. So those are those eight suggestions. Again, a lot of that comes from this bud sprout article. I'll put the link in the show notes. So let's say this is making sense. And you're like, Huh, that's a pretty interesting set of data. Points. Paul, you got my attention, right? Yeah. Tell me a little more. If you're thinking about either doing a gusting strategy, or I've had people, quite a few people. I've been doing actually a lot of consulting sessions with people who are wanting to deepen into a podcast guesting strategy and be more intentional about it. So but you've never done it before you've done it, but then kind of haphazard. Let's talk a little bit about getting started some suggestions if you're a very, very beginner. And if you really want to go pro, like you really want to move the needle in that six to 12 month timeframe that we've been talking about in this episode. What do I recommend for somebody in that position? So regardless, if you're fairly new, or you're like wanting to lean in a little more to guesting strategy, you've been doing it but you want to get more results. You want to be more intentional, you want to be more professional, and you want to get more return. The very first thing I suggest is to sit down and come up with three to five guesting topics. Just like if you were somebody who was doing the speaking circuit. In the speaking world, there's something called a one sheet right. And now podcasting, many people are using a one sheet. One sheet would be you know, you'd have your bio. And one of the common things are what are the common topics that a speaker or in this case, the podcast guest would be interested or available to talk on. Now, that doesn't mean you could only talk on those three to five things. But doing this will make everything such a more smooth, and a more you'll get more return on your investment. Because you want to think about things like your titles, what are, you know, three to five topics that your ideal client, the kinds of people that you want to help social entrepreneurs in my case, or maybe you're somebody who wants to help people think about podcasting for impact, right? Or women, you know, leaders or people from marginalized communities and thinking about health and well being, whatever your audience is, I want you to do is to sit down and really craft the titles. Now, this is important to understand, because remember, earlier, we said, you get somebody to push play, they're like 80%, likely to either listen to all of it, or most of it. But when somebody is looking at a potential podcast episode to listen to, let's say on Apple podcasts, or Spotify, or any one of the apps, all they see is the name of the podcast. Let's say they subscribe to where printers. Then they see that our printers is a new episode and they just basically see the title, they get very little information besides that title. And usually they see about seven or eight words. So these titles want to be six, seven, no more than eight words, and they want to be highly engaging kind of to the kind of people you want to help.
Paul Zelizer 24:50
And then the next thing I suggest you do is have three to five talking points for each title. So three to five topics, and then three to five strategies. These are tips if we're going to talk about well being in nutrition and communities where maybe you know, you've heard of food deserts or like nutrition deserts, like in certain urban communities, because of all sorts of structural violence and racism, sometimes it's really hard to buy quality food in certain neighborhoods, in the US and around the world. Right? So let's say you were doing a topic on like, how can people in marginalized communities, you know, really take care of themselves and their families around and eating really well, and for optimized wellness, and also do that in maybe an affordable way? You know, so like, here's some strategies for actually doing that. Can't just go down the street to even a supermarket, let alone a supermarket that has organic food, there are communities where that's not an easy thing to do. And transportation is getting more and more expensive, etc, etc. So you want to have both that 678 word title, and then three to five strategies that you've just bullet pointed out? I like to encourage people to do a podcast guesting journal, a journal that's just focused on gusting those, write them down in there. And then as you're going along, and actually doing the podcasts, you know, you're learning and shaping. And so this one went really well, this one I kind of tripped up over I, you know, I think there's a better way to language it, you'll get better at it, if you track that kind of stuff at the journal. So put three to five topics, three to five talking points in a journal. And you're going to be much more prepared than the average podcast guest. So that's my first suggestion. Right? You've already been doing it? Do you have those topics? Do you have those talking points and make sure you're really providing value. And if you're just getting started, this is a great place to start. We can also talk about like, you know, pitching something, and having your product or your service at the end. There's all kinds of strategies about that. But for now, what I would just say is try to like have topics that relate to your products or services in a pretty organic way. So that it's not like this big stretch. It's like, Oh, I've been talking to people about let's stay with our example, nutrition and well being in marginalized communities. Okay, well, I have a guide, or we're doing a an online course, exactly on this topic, right. So it's, it's, it flows easily, and it syncs up with your products and services. So if you keep in mind, who your ideal client or customer is, what some of their challenges are, and you have products or services that are synched up with that, if not, you've got an issue that's bigger than podcasting. That's, you know, there's something to work on there. But if it is, then create topics that naturally lead into your products or services, you're just kind of naming it. And it's not a big drama, there's not a lot of friction, you're just kind of building on what you've done all episode blah, usually that pitch or that invitation to get a free guide, or take the workshop or buy the book, or use the app. Usually that happens towards the end of the episode. And each host will have some guidelines in terms of how they do that.
Paul Zelizer 28:18
So let's talk about weird you actually find podcasts to guest on. Now, if you're very new, or you're still pretty shaky, and you haven't done a lot of presentations, or you haven't done a lot of podcast interviews or you haven't been a guest very often. Then there's a bunch of different platforms. Think of them like bikes with training wheels, right, that are designed to help you kind of get up and running. My favorite one is a platform called matchmaker. It's matchmaker.fm. I'll put the link in the shownotes. Created by one of our guests on the web printers podcast James Mulvaney. He is the founder of a podcast hosting service like where you actually upload your podcast episodes if your host so that it goes out to all the places, Apple podcasts and Spotify and Google podcasts and Stitcher etc, etc, right. And they saw the need for something he calls it like the tinder of podcasting, where hosts and guests can meet each other beautifully designed platform wonderful user experience. There's a free version that's very robust. They probably have several 10s of 1000s maybe 3040 I don't know if they're up to 50,000 different podcasts listed on there, lots of people using it. And it's really very friendly to like kind of you put up your profile and you can approach somebody else but you don't need like a professionally designed one she hosts can approach guests guests can approach hosts very, like warm and welcoming way. To get started, there's a number of platforms like this Matchmaker is my favorite, there's pod match, gosh, I don't even remember all of them. And I'll tell you why in a second, because I have another recommendation. If you really want to move the needle, and you're a pro, and you want to get pro results, these are not the best strategies. But they are a great place to kind of build your repertoire. Most of the podcasts on there have are lower in their downloads, maybe newer podcasts, or just podcasts. Maybe it's somebody's kind of hobby, you'd find very little like really world class podcasts on these kind of platform. And then there's similar kind of strategy is there's a bunch of different Facebook groups, the one that I've had the most success on in use for a while when I was getting started both guesting, and as a host is called podcast guest connection, it's free to join, just a Facebook group. And again, there's 1000s of members, both sides and the mic, guests and hosts, people find somebody can post says, Hey, I'm looking, I'm looking to be a guest on these kinds of topics where somebody could say, I'm a host, I'm looking for somebody to come to my podcast. And if you're in those kinds of Facebook groups, or you are using platforms like matchmaker or pod match, you're going to get some shows, right? Don't expect to get like shows with huge audiences, it's going to bring in tons of business. These are great ways to kind of get used to guessing and get a little more comfortable. Now the pro strategy, like do you really want to move the needle for your impact business in the next six to 12 months. For the folks who are in that position, my single biggest recommendation is to use a free podcast focused search engine called listen not
Paul Zelizer 31:58
listen notes. They call themselves the best podcast search engine, they may be the only podcast search engine, they've certainly the only one that I've ever used. The thing about listening notes that is remarkable is they have indexed a huge number of very large proportion of all the 2.5 million, let's say podcasts on the planet. You don't have to apply. You don't have to join anything. You don't even have to create an account just like Google doesn't need Paul Zelizer to, you know, create an account for aware printers for our website to be indexed by Google, listen notes takes that strategy. So instead of having 1000 20,000 30,000 podcast, when you do a search on these other platforms, on Listen notes, when you do a search, you're searching, like the large, large, large majority millions of podcasts. And it's a very good search engine. So if you type in a keyword like social entrepreneurship, or sustainable fashion, or women's leadership, right, just like when you type into Google, you get some pretty sophisticated algorithm on Google, right? Well, listen, no, it's it's a pretty sophisticated algorithm that takes into account how long the podcast has been going. And some data like the number of reviews on iTunes, and all of it is trying to approximate, like, how many downloads and kind of like, what's the gravitas of this podcast in the podcast space? Right, on a podcast homepage, there are two metrics. That's why I love love, love, listen notes. And there's nothing else like it out there that I've ever seen. If you do a search on sustainable fashion as a keyword in this notes, it looks a lot like Google different colors. But basically, it's just a bar you know how to use Google, you know how to use listen. Now, if you go to listen, notes.com and you type in the keyword sustainable fashion. There's a couple tabs where you get results, I would suggest to start with look at the podcast tab, there's another tab with episodes, by the way of your hosts. That's a fabulous way to find really skilled guests on any topic you could possibly imagine if you're needing some help. But for the most part, to start with, if you want a guest, you type in your keyword, and then you look at the podcast, you go to the actual page, it's like a profile aware printers has a profile. And there's two metrics right on that profile. One is what they call a listen score. And that's a number between one and 100. And the second is a global rank, which is a percentage like a percentile. If you go to our printers today and you type in our listen scores like 43 and our global rank is 1.5. In other words, we are in the Top 1.5 percentile, all podcasts on planet Earth. And you can see that in seconds. And this is why listen notes is such an incredible tool. If you're getting started, what I would suggest is, the more important of the metrics of the two is the global rank. And I usually tell my clients, if you're building up a kind of getting into the podcast ecosystem, and you want to do it such that you move the needle, if you're looking at global ranks anywhere that less than 10%. In other words, this podcast is in the 90th percentile or higher of all podcasts on planet Earth. And you're looking for listen scores of like 25, or even 30. and higher, there's a really good chance you're looking at a podcast, if you find one that's you know, in the top 5%, or even top 10%. And the Listen score is 35. A podcast most likely has at least four or 500 downloads, if it's in the top 5%, or in the top 2%. Or better top 1% or point 5% rate, you can start seeing there's a really good chance of that podcast has 1000s or 10s of 1000s of downloads. So it's not exactly on the page, how many downloads. But those two numbers are trying to give you metrics, and you get them in second. And this is why when I talk to podcast booking agencies and PR firms, the vast majority of them useless notes, when they're vetting, what shows are leaders in the space and somebody paying for PR firm, right? They want to make sure that when they get on a podcast, it's worth their time. The vast majority of people who do this for a living, they either work for a PR firm, or they are in a podcast booking agency. They use listen notes. And I suggest that you do too.
Paul Zelizer 36:55
Once you find some podcasts that look interesting on your topic or on adjacent topics, then you how do you pitch them, it's not quite as simple as let's say matchmaker, because it's not like you pitch them in the app. But it's as simple as you go and see if they have a website, listen notes actually does have a tab and many podcasts will have some place, if you click on it that it will take you to their website if they have one. If not find the podcast or the host on social media. Or maybe it's like a podcast that has a different name. But the host has another business, right? It's not that hard to find anybody these days, just Google them, go check on LinkedIn go checked on Instagram. And if there's no like aware printers, we have a dedicated website where partners.com and our contact page literally has our guidelines. And that's how I encourage people to pitch if they do want to be on the show rather than private message on Instagram, for instance, or Facebook or LinkedIn. But if the podcast doesn't have its own website, or you're struggling to find it, then that's another way to get ahold of somebody. And it's very common, just reach out on whatever social platform it looks like the hosts or hosts spend the most time on if they look like Instagram, people private message them on Instagram, if they seem like they spend the most time on LinkedIn, and send a private message on LinkedIn. And what are you going to pitch? Well, that's why we started with those three to five casting topics. So you want to look at what is this podcast? Maybe take a look on iTunes or Apple podcasts, or look on their website, get a sense of what kind of episodes have they published in the past two months, three months, just look at the titles, try to get a sense. And then see what of your three to five topics, what feels like it might be most interesting. If they, you know, try not to pitch them something that they just did an episode two weeks ago on right. So that's why I'm saying take a take a look a couple months back. If you if it's a very large podcast, or it's really aligned and you want to increase the percentile, you know the chances of you getting on there, I would encourage you to listen to at least some of an episode or a couple episodes and spend that time to get a sense of like, what is the host style? What do they tend to talk about? How do they you know the quality of the conversation just get a sense of like who's listening and how is the host, you know, approaching these topics. And that can give you a better sense of which of your topics that you've really polished might be a good fit. So a lot more I could say about pitching podcast, but for now, gosh, we've been going for a while. You're probably tired of me. I think that's about it for today other than just let me say I really do think for all of these reasons that we talked about earlier. And also now having tools like this and notes that make it so easy to get a sense of where our Are those more leveraged bigger download podcasts, we've never had an easier time to find them and get a sense of what's going on there. Is it worth your time? Again, if there's 2500 people in a room and Europe front of the room for 45 minutes, and you invite people to buy your thing, product or service and nobody buys? Well, either, it's not quite the right room for you, or there's just something you're doing on that stage. So like, this is an incredible opportunity to get in front of very significant numbers of audience of people who are very aligned with what your business is all about. And if you're doing a good job of providing value, and they really connecting with the audience, and really helping them with the places that they want to make a difference and or improve their lives were changed what's happening in their work. If you can help them do that, and you have a product or service that's lined up with that, and it's not selling, then let's talk about what you're doing on that episode. I'm going to guess if you can do this, and you can do it regularly, not just one episode at a time, but like I said, at least twice a month is my recommendation. It's fun, it's relational. And in 2022, I literally for most impact businesses have no better suggestion. This is the single best marketing strategy I got. For our kind of businesses, for all the reasons we've been talking about.
Paul Zelizer 41:34
If you could use some help with a podcast guesting strategy, I do a strategy session, which is a one time you don't have to sign up for this giant contract, right? We'll sit down, you'll send me some things in email, I'll do my homework, getting a sense of like, what might be those three to five topics and doing a session with somebody early next week on that exact topic? Like what are what are her three to five topics that are really going to help her stand out to the kinds of people she wants to help? We're How do you find and pitch those top level podcasts? And what are some of the nuances so the strategy session that I offer, through my coaching business at Paul zelizer.com might be really, really helpful if you could use a thought partner and you don't want to sign up for a long coaching engagement. Go check that out. It's affordable and can really help you kind of get your, you know, bearings and kind of find your next steps with without a long commitment or a big expense. So go check that out. If you have any questions, just email me or use the contact page at Paul zelizer.com. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense time. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.