Over 50% of marketers use podcasts to reach their target audience.
Just imagine how many podcasts and listeners are out there, waiting to hear all about you.
Building podcast email templates and working on a solid podcast pitch will help you get featured on many popular shows.
Benefits of getting featured on podcasts
Podcasts represent a content channel that has the wind in its sails. Investing time in getting featured is a smart strategy for your business, but also for your personal brand.
Being a guest on a podcast will allow you to:
- Raise awareness of your brand
- Put your business under the spotlight
- Connect with people and grow your network
- Attract talented people to consider joining your team
- Position as an expert in your industry
Podcasts can bring traffic to your website and a nice backlink as well.
Being connected with reputable websites within your industry is always a good idea.
Btw, if you want to know more, check out this in-depth article on how to get backlinks.
Ultimately, the main idea behind being featured is to grab attention and take advantage of the audience that other podcasts have captured.
Of course, you need to be able to bring value in return too.
It’s known that podcast hosts are always looking for great guests, but you have to be interesting for their audience. And if you have strong distribution channels to help them promote their podcast… that sounds like a solid win-win deal to me.
Let’s now see the process of how to create podcast email templates that bring results.
How to pitch a podcast
Now that we’ve seen the importance of joining a podcast, let’s see how to proceed and pitch a podcast.
1. Build your list to be a guest on a podcast
First things first, keep in mind that relevance is key.
You should aim to contact relevant podcast hosts that have exposure to your target audience. It’s always quality, never quantity.
Get featured on both big and small shows, because they both represent brand awareness, as long as the targeting is done accordingly.
Assess the relevant podcasts by simply typing “your industry + podcasts” on Google search.
You can also go directly on platforms such as iTunes or Spotify.
Enter your keywords in the search bar and check out the results.
Or, you can also use Listen Notes. This is a podcast search engine that will suggest podcasts according to specific keywords you enter.
Once you have a solid list, start to gather information.
Begin with classic info such as first names of hosts, names of podcasts, email addresses, etc.
Btw, we’ll leave you with the easiest ways to find someone’s email address.
And then the true research and qualification begin. Understand their listeners, listen to some episodes, and spot important insights you can leverage in your cold email templates.
With this information, it’s going to be much easier to come up with icebreakers and identify common ground with the host.
In any case, remember that it takes time to build REAL relationships.
Best outreach practitioners don’t become the best when they send a campaign, but in the steps they spend preparing it.
2. Create the perfect podcast pitch
In order to make your pitch valuable, focus on building a relationship based on value first. You don’t want to go in blatantly asking for a favor without giving something in return.
We’ll leave you with some tips to follow to craft the perfect pitch.
Create a catchy subject line for your podcast email
The goal is to make people open and read your email. So you want to stand out and set the right expectations.
For example, avoid going for “Guillaume Moubeche on {{podcastName}}”. Because, if your hosts don’t know this name, they’ll put your email in the bin.
Typically, hosts want to feature quality guests, so you want to play with FOMO and curiosity, for example:
“I have a story for you {{firstName}}”.
If you need more help crafting cold email subject lines, we’ve got you covered.
Personalize the intro line of your podcast pitch
Human intro lines show you’ve done your homework and you know what you’re doing.
Don’t focus on yourself and write things such as…
- “We’ve just raised $20M…”
- “We’re preparing a new recruiting campaign…”
- “Your audience would be a perfect fit!”
Instead, focus on them first.
For example:
“Your idea of making the sales leader the person who crafts heros is the exact style we’ve implemented at lemlist.The advice that you give is really shaping sales teams and helping them stay ahead of the curve!”
As we mentioned earlier, by conducting thorough research you’ll be able to know exactly how to approach your leads with a more personalized approach.
Here are a few intro line examples from one of our campaigns that got a 92% open rate.
Don’t forget you can also create icebreakers automatically with lemlist.
Your podcast pitch
In your pitch, make sure to highlight what kind of value you bring to this collaboration.
Make the prospect of hosting you exciting and not just like “simply another guest”.
Figure out how you can help them first and build leverage before presenting your pitch.
If we break the pitch down, there are a few things you can play with:
- Outline the credibility and popularity of the guest you’re pitching, demonstrating you are a follower.
- Suggest some topics you could bring to the table, do the work instead of the host so they can just say, “Yes, let’s book a slot”… but don’t be too pushy
- Showcase the strength of your distribution channels where you can promote the episode once done
- Do something for them (e.g. leave a review on their iTunes page)
Once again, if you propose win-win situations, there are no losers in the negotiation.
Include follow-ups
Let’s be clear. Just because you don’t get an answer to your first email, doesn’t mean you’ll never get featured on a podcast.
Sometimes, it’s just a question of timing.
The podcast season is already fully booked, the host is in the middle of big business projects, or they simply forgot to reply.
There’s a myriad of possibilities.
Leave the subject line empty so all the emails on the thread have the same subject line and your leads can easily trace them back and recognize them. Additionally, consider going multichannel on your sequences!
If you need some sequence inspiration, we recommend checking this article on how to send follow-up after no response.
3. Continue to nurture relationships with podcast hosts
Don’t be that person who just gets featured and disappears.
Connect with hosts on LinkedIn and other networks, and nurture the relationship. Continue to show interest and support them by engaging with their podcasts or on LinkedIn.
Why?
Because your network is your net worth.
Podcast guest pitch templates that got us featured on 50+ podcasts
Now that you know how to get on a podcast, let’s dive into some of our podcast pitch templates that worked really well.
1. Podcast pitch template with a 38% reply rate
This is an oldie but goldie.
This template is an actual screenshot of an email we sent to get featured in podcasts back in 2019.
You can see how the subject line teases the host. Every host wants a good guest who can tell a good story to their audience.
Then he shot his icebreaker with the custom variable {{sentence}}.
He explains his journey with lemlist for 1.5 years and what the tool is for.
In the next paragraph, he suggests a story he would tell the audience, with a promise of transparency and actionable content. Furthermore, he lists a few ideas that could be interesting to put on the table.
Lastly, he finished with concrete social proof with an example of an episode he recorded with a well-known business podcast.
Why did it work?
Because he also told them that having a community of 2.5K salespeople is an additional exposure for the podcast to find new listeners and fans.
If you don’t have a community, don’t worry.
You can mention your newsletter, the number of subscribers you have on your YouTube channel, the reach you have on LinkedIn, etc.
In other words, you can mention any distribution channel that shows that you have an audience.
This campaign got an 84% open rate and a 38% reply rate.
2. Podcasts that got us in front of 100,000 listeners
This one was from one of our PR campaigns that aimed to blow our top-of-the-funnel.
Since personal branding is an important growth factor at lempire, we try to get different members featured on podcasts.
{{teamMember}} and {{position}} will allow you to position any of your colleagues aligned with the topic and target audience.
Afterward, Daria adds figures for credibility. She reassures the host on the guest’s legitimacy, as well as outlining what’s in it for them in the bullet points.
This email was part of a multichannel campaign because Daria sent emails and did some actions on LinkedIn.
Here are her 6 steps:
Overall, she got a 92% open rate and a 30% reply rate on the email steps.
4. Build momentum around your brand
This is the podcast email outreach campaign we sent to tell this story on relevant podcasts.
We A/B tested his subject line in this sequence.
An A/B test aims to send half of your emails with version A, and the other half with version B.
To keep the email sharp, we added a video for more details, along with a question at the end to know if the host is interested.
This campaign got an 83% open rate and a 30% reply rate.
Last minute checklist
Well, I think you’re good to go now, you know how to write your podcast email templates and how to get on a podcast!
Here is your ultimate podcast outreach checklist:
✅ Build a list of podcasts that correspond to both your business and target audience
✅ Find relevant info about them to reach out with high-personalization
✅ Launch your podcast campaign to start building relationships
✅ Shine behind the mics
✅ Nurture your relationships with podcast hosts
Now go and launch your fire podcast email outreach campaign
