Every podcast producer that features guests on their show knows that it’s tough. It’s tough to find great guests. It’s tough to book great guests. And it’s tough to get those great guests to share that episode with their world.
However, it’s also tough being a great guest. You are giving up your precious time to help make someone else’s show more compelling. You will almost certainly be asked to share it, often without being given a lot of context or materials to make sharing easy.
Sometimes as podcast producers, we forget to think about it from the guest’s point of view. We should be grateful to our guests and we should make it easy for them to spread the word.
Last week at Podcast Movement in Orlando, Matt Sutton and I presented the marketing strategy for Facebook’s original podcast, Three and a Half Degrees: The Power of Connection. One of my favorite strategies Matt and the Facebook team came up with was thanking the guests who appeared on the show and making it easy for them to hear and share the podcast.
First up, the Facebook team wanted the guests to know how much they appreciated their participation in Three and a Half Degrees: The Power of Connection. So they sent a personalized note to each and every guest. And they included promotional materials, like the personalized poster below, that are specific to the episode that the guest appeared in. How blown away would you be if you got this delivered after you guested on a podcast? 👇
Next, Facebook sent guests material to help them listen to their episode and share it, both in real life and online. Check out this box of promo merch: t-shirts, pins, posters, and stickers. They deliberately included more than necessary so that it was really easy for guests to give out the swag to their family, friends, and colleagues.
Plus, coolest of all, they bought an mp3 player and loaded it up with one item only — the guest’s episode. And the episode included a personalized greeting from the show’s host, David Fischer. Again, how blown away would you be as a guest if you got sent your episode on an mp3 player with a personalized audio greeting from the host? And how much more likely would you be to share the podcast because the show you appeared on made it really easy?
So what was the result? Shocker… the guests loved it. And they were so surprised and delighted that they talked about it on social media, took photos with their swag, and shot unboxing videos. For a new podcast, this is an awesome result. 👇
Is this extra work? 100% it is.
Is it a huge amount of extra work? No.
To record a personalized greeting for every episode took an extra 20 minutes in studio. To source and put the shows on mp3 players probably took a few hours. And relative to other podcast marketing costs — like advertising in other podcasts — this didn’t actually cost that much to execute, especially since they were based on pre-existing creative for the podcast.
However, the value of recognizing the contributions of the guests and letting them know how much they were appreciated is invaluable.
You don’t have to be Facebook to do something like this. Any podcaster of any size can come up with a unique guest thank you solution that meets your budget and resources.
The keys to any good outreach strategy:
- Never forget that your guests are doing you a huge service by appearing on your show
- Let guests know how grateful you are for their participation
- Personalize your thank you wherever you can
- Make it easy for guests to listen to their episode
- Make it easy for guests to share their episode
Facebook’s show is about ‘The Power of Connection’ and this strategy ‘walks the walk’ by showing that they understand the value of connecting with their podcast guests.
How can you better appreciate the value guests bring to your podcast?
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