PROS & CONS OF BEING A PODCAST GUEST

Now we move to the less glamorous parts of being a podcast guest. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, especially if you want to take it seriously. There are risks involved and it may not be worth your time and money, depending on your situation and what you want to achieve with it.

Here are some things not everyone tells you about podcast guesting:

It’s time-intensive

Podcast guesting can be quite time-intensive. Even if you’re not doing all the legwork yourself, each interview takes about an hour to do on average. Plus you’ll want to do a bit of research on the podcasts before each interview, which is an additional hour before every interview. If you’re using a service like Podcast Connection, you’ll need around 4-8 hours a month for podcast interviews. If you’re finding your own podcasts and pitching yourself, you’ll need about 30-40 hours total per month.

Potentially nerve-racking

Unless you’re quite comfortable talking to people while being recorded, doing podcast interviews can be a very nerve-racking experience at first. If you have some public speaking experience or you verbally work with people on a regular basis, this mental hurdle is a bit easier to overcome. It does get easier the more you do it and nobody’s first podcast interview is perfect but that doesn’t make it any less daunting at the start.

You need to be okay with being vulnerable

It takes a bit of “thick skin” to put yourself out there over and over again at the mercy of your interviewer. Most podcast hosts are very nice and won’t throw you any curveballs, but others might ask some fairly confrontational questions, which you will need to be mentally and emotionally ready for. Some interviews also get very deep and require a fair display of vulnerability from your side. So if you’re someone who generally likes to keep conversations on a surface level, being a podcast guest might not be the best fit for you.

Unpredictability

Podcast guesting has its fair share of unpredictability across the board. 

• It’s hard to say who will accept or decline your podcast guest pitch
• The interview might not go as planned at all
• Which podcasts will get you the most customers, leads, or even just traffic is very unpredictable – even if your podcast agency gives you an estimated reach
• Every podcast host has a different process and set of requirements
• Things may go wrong during interviews such as technical issues, etc.

Time zone differences

With podcast interviews being predominantly conducted online, the time zone differences can sometimes get tricky. The top three English-speaking countries for podcasts are the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia – all three of which are in vastly different time zones. You might find yourself having to wake up a few hours earlier or stay awake a few hours later every now and then to do an interview.

A lower-quantity form of reach

Although podcasts boast highly targeted audiences, it does not often boast very large ones. At least, not to the same extent as e.g. Google or Facebook ads would. Yes, you will eventually get accepted by a large show if you keep at it but most of the shows you speak on will be small to medium size. This is not a bad thing – the smaller shows tend to be more niche, loyal, and get higher ratings (which is one of the great things about podcast guesting). But if your business relies on a large volume of traffic or leads, then podcast guesting may not be right for you. 

Lack of control

A hard pill for many podcast guests to swallow is that the podcasts hold all the cards. In other words, you need them more than they need you. This means that you as the guest have very little leverage for negotiation or to make demands. You don’t have much say (or are often not even kept in the loop) when it comes to a number of things:

• Which questions will be asked
• Which video conferencing app will be used
• Whether or not the podcast host will agree to a reschedule if you miss the first appointment
• When the show will be released (it can sometimes take more than 6 months)
• What the final product will turn out like after editing, etc.
• You may not get a backlink from the podcast’s show notes every time
• Some episodes end up not getting released at all (not often, but it happens)

It takes resilience, patience, and commitment

Being a podcast guest is a marathon, not a race. It requires doing lots of interviews, showing up consistently and giving it your best every time, repeating yourself often, avoiding rescheduling whenever possible, sharing every interview with your followers (if you don’t want to burn bridges with the hosts post-interview), making interview appointments a priority, and doing all of this for a long time before seeing results.

That being said, the payoff is so worth it in the end – it’s just that not everyone has what it takes to stick it out for long enough to get to the good part.

A long payback period for ROI

Following on the previous point, most podcast guests only start seeing Return On Investment after six to nine months of doing podcast interviews. Naturally, there are exceptions but it’s likely that you will need to keep going for some time before seeing a return.

Check out this case study for more details.

There is a learning curve

Podcasts are quite unlike most other forms of marketing and PR and has its own set of challenges. Firstly, the way in which you should promote yourself or your business is quite different. You may also need a podcast-friendly funnel in place in order to see the ROI you want (your current funnel for social media and/or SEO may not work). Then there are the technical aspects such as sound quality, video quality, internet stability, etc. Your ability to effectively convey impromptu information verbally can also play a role in your success.

If you don’t like being challenged or usually find it hard to adapt, then this may not be the right fit for you.

Not high-yielding for low-ticket-item businesses

If your business model is low-cost high-volume, then podcast guesting may not be right for you. The last point in the “pros” section above (“Great for high-ticket-item businesses”) is also a double-edged sword. Podcast guesting will produce high-quality leads, but not necessarily high quantity. Podcast listeners generally have a much higher conversion rate than other forms of customer acquisition which is great for high-value sales, but that won’t help if your business needs a large number of small sales.

Some interviews may feel like a waste of your time

There are a lot of first-timers out there in the podcast world – people starting a podcast for the first time. If you’re something of a veteran public speaker, interviewer, or conversationalist, then you might find some podcast hosts quite boring, especially those of newer podcast shows.

But be that as it may, perception and reality are two different things. A good podcast guest can make an impression on any audience regardless of the host’s interviewing ability. And every podcast has some kind of following, smaller shows being (usually) more targeted than larger ones. Plus, podcasts grow over time, and some go on to become huge! If you get interviewed on such a show, you’ll be glad you did before they got too picky with their guests.

Nevertheless, knowing this won’t make these interviews feel any more exciting or worthwhile and if that is important to you, then you may need a much, much larger budget (or more time if you’re pitching yourself) to make it work, which begs the question of viability.