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Want 5 quick ways to improve as a podcast host or guest?

Quick Wins For Podcasters

Creating Return on Investment on Your Podcast For You And Your Guests

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In this session, Wade Galt shares what he’s learned about inspiring his podcast guests to share their interview episodes with Wade on their social media while he builds relationships with them. It can be very frustrating to invest hours of time and hundreds of dollars or more into an episode, only to have it receive little or no support from the person you interviewed. Wade shares how to create a promotional experience for your guests that goes above and beyond their expectations, so they are excited to share your episode and promote it as best as they can, while you receive maximum exposure and downloads.

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How do you maximize the relationship and marketing return on investment with your podcast guests?

If you have ever done and published a podcast, you know that some people will share your episodes and others will not.

Sometimes you think you’ll make friends with a guest, only to never talk to them again.

Other times you have really famous people on your show, but they do not share it or it does not resonate.

In my 20+ years of experience in this business, I have found that things like traffic, trends and downloads come and go, but relationships can stand the test of time.

I am going to give you some ideas on how to maximize your podcast ROI with your guests in a very simple way.

Related: How Podcast Guests Can Maximise Their ROI

Interview Guests Who Will Actually Share Your Content

The first thing is to only interview quality guests that you believe you will build a lifelong relationship with.

You also want to connect with people who are likely to share your podcast on their social media.

Sadly, this can sometimes rule out some of the really famous people. They just have a lot going on in their calendar and will probably not share your episode unless you are a big deal.

I have no objection to that. I can definitely learn from people like that. That’s not to say you should not, but in most cases, 80% of your guests need to be people who are likely to share the content.

You need to be sure that you have established a connection with them and that it’s more than just a transactional activity.

Conduct Pre-interviews to Build Rapport with Your Podcast Guest

Conduct what I like to call “second date” interviews. I’ll bet you’ve been on an interview as a guest before where the podcast host did not do any research.

I remember one day I showed up on a podcast and the host said, “Oh, I thought you were someone else. Well, while we are here, why don’t we just do this?” This felt transactional and weird.

You want to know enough about your guests to go deeper into the conversation with them when you record the interview.

Even if it’s a 30 or 50-minute interview, you’ll get more information than just the standard canned answers.

If your podcast interview sounds like everyone else’s, there’s no reason for people to listen to you.

Think about some of the best interviewers: Larry King and Joe Rogan, they pull something out of their guests that not everybody else gets.

Pre-interviews help you do that.

Create Professional Quality Video Episodes

Often, you will not always get a lot of traction on the YouTube video episode itself. But the assets you create from it are tremendous and shareable.

As much as I appreciate Zoom for its convenience, you should look for something more powerful. Something like SquadCast or Zencastr. Or software that records locally to create higher-quality videos.

A lot of the time, people have lower-quality videos and then pay their freelancers to improve the quality.

Personally, I rather have great audio and video quality from the get-go.

If the video does not look good, people are more likely not to share your episode, even if it was a great interview.

So we want to have the best possible assets and the best possible video.

Podcaster recording a quality video during an interview with guest

Produce and Share Top-notch Video Clips

I encourage you to follow the current trends, be it on TikTok or Instagram Reels. I get a lot of views there (at least for now).

Pay attention to the conventions and adapt. For example, on LinkedIn, if you arrange the videos squarely with the captions underneath, have a nice caption, and look professional, people will see that.

Make sure you follow your guests and tag them in the episodes.

This will make it much more likely that they will share the episode. Send them an email the day of the release saying, “Hey, I just wanted to let you know. I have tagged you in these areas. Please go ahead and share those.”

We want them to know they want to work with you long-term by seeing how you handle the little things.

Create a Personal Touch with Thank You Videos

Whether it’s Loom or Vimeo, there are plenty of other companies that create these little videos.
After the interview, just take 30 to 60 seconds to tell the guest, “Hey, thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate what you shared with us.”

And do not do it with a pre-written message, but by looking the guest directly in the eye and telling them something unique about the conversation you had.

If nothing unique happened or the conversation was very transactional for you, then you should ask yourself this question. Were there signs beforehand that made you think this was not going to be something special?

We want to create special episodes.

Probably one of the best feedback I get is when one of my listeners tells me, “I listened to one of your episodes and I got into business with that person because of you.”

Thank you for coming to my show

Send Them a Sticky Gift

I happened to have written a book many years ago. I bought a bunch of them in the days when it was print on demand and today I have a bunch of them in my garage. Then I mail a copy to my guests.

When people look at your book, it will set an anchor.

For example, Chris Krimitsos‘ Start Ugly. I can just look at the cover of the book and it reminds me of three to five of the key points of the book. I do not even have to read the book again.

The same is true when they see your book on their bookshelf. They will recall the conversation they had with you.
I also like to send bookmarks with it.

There are other things you can do. One gentleman I interviewed had small coins with his company’s logo on them.

Promote Other People’s Work

There are several ways to partner with others and co-create products or just share and support each other’s work in a natural way. It’s not forced, it’s not contrived. It just flows.

When I have friends who are putting out a program or a course, they often have a post on LinkedIn. I then just share that.
I am not even looking for an affiliate commission. Sometimes I have an affiliate relationship.

Most of the time, I personally do not. I am not against them.

I just know that sometimes when I share it with my list, I get asked, “Oh, did you make any money off of that?”

Then I say, “No, that’s just a friend who has some good stuff, check it out.”

You can certainly make a lot of money as an affiliate, but you do not have to be an affiliate to support someone else’s work.

Invite Your Guests To a Virtual Event

If you want to build a longer-term relationship, invite them to speak at your virtual events.

I learned pretty quickly that out of 20 people who come to my show, about five to 10 of them will not share your episode. They will not share it, no matter how well you have done.

Even if you followed all the steps I explained, they just will not share it. This is kind of disappointing and frustrating.

There are many different reasons why this happens, and definitely do not take it personally. Later, the person would come back and say, “Oh, I have been really kind of tied up with this or that.”

Then there were about two to three to five of them that really shared. They followed me back, shared the post again, and kept in touch.

In most cases, these were people whose messages aligned with mine, and there was overlap in how we could serve our audience.

So when I did my first virtual event, I just looked at the list of these people and said, “Hey, I am doing this virtual event.  Would you be interested in participating?”

That’s what Alex, the founder of PodPros, does. He reaches out to people he already knows and has a proven track record with.
If you do that, you’ll find that there are a lot of people you have synergy with.

Image of a podcaster virtual event

Serve Your Guest

I want you to think for a moment about how you have shown up in all the relationships you have had as a host and as a guest. Did you serve or did you just show up to get things done transactionally?

There really is so much you can do to support the work of others.

You’ll find that for many of your guests, it’s not so much that you are making a million dollars, but that they are introducing you to something new or sharing an idea they just figured out that no one else has.

A lot of times people pick the person first and then figure out what business they want to do.

Think about it, are there people that you just meet and think, “I want to do business with that person.

What do they actually do?” You want to be able to deliver in a way that makes that possible.

When you are interviewing a guest, you should start with the intention that you want them to get 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 20 customers or leads from this podcast.

So I want you to think like you are working for this person for the period you are doing the interview.

What can you do to get the right people to come to them?

I explain to my guest that I am going to run the interview like a subtle webinar. We start with general topics as we get a little more specific.

Ultimately, I am all about getting the guest to the people they need to connect with and who need to hear their message and see their work.

I do not worry about what’s in it for me.

It’s not so much about selling something, because I do not earn affiliate commissions.

There’s no specific call to action or vanity URL. I tell the guest, “I want to make sure that the people who need to hear your message get it because I think you are doing great work. ”

I can say that because I have done the work and vetted them.

Even if I have read their books, I will do my best to get them to do a pre-interview, get to know them better and build a relationship with them.

I hope you find this helpful and build a better relationship and marketer Return on investment with your podcast guests.

About Wade Galt

Wade teaches Entrepreneurs & Professionals to create an abundant & sustainable 3-Day Weekend lifestyle so they can better enjoy their family, friends, and life. He’s a 20+ year Software Company Founder, Business Growth Coach, and Author of books on business growth, finance, personal growth, parenting, & spirituality. He & his family have lived ocean-side in North America & South America. He enjoys 3-day weekends and Fridays at the beach playing volleyball with friends + weekends with his family.