Hey there! Welcome back to the episode. I’m so excited that you’re here. In today’s episode, we’re chatting about booking guests for your clients’ podcast. We’ll be diving into if you should include guest management in your standard podcast package, how to actually manage the guest process without going crazy, and more.
Okay, let’s dive in!
So first let’s start off with if guest management should be included in your standard podcast package or not. Now, this is honestly going to be completely up to you. I have found that about 25% of our clients like for us to manage their guest outreach process and the other 75% prefer to do it themselves.
However, we do send the what I like to call “you’re live” email to all client’s guests the day the episode goes live with any graphics, audiograms, and live links regardless of if we do the outreach for the client or not.
So while I typically include it as a part of our packages, a lot of our clients don’t end up using it which is completely okay. I have a dedicated team member at my agency who is responsible for guest outreach and podcast pitching so if they decide they want us to do it in the future, we can handle it without issue.
So let’s talk about the guest management process, shall we? Because it can be a lot of work if you don’t have solid systems in place.
So our main tool that we use for guest management at Savvy Podcast Agency is Airtable. Each client has their own Airtable base that we are already using for episode management, stats tracking, etc. but we also have a tab called guest outreach and this is where we keep track of all the potential guests that each client wants to invite to be on their show. This includes their name, email address, and potential topic as well as fields to keep track of when we reached out to them and when we plan to follow up with them if they haven’t responded and/or booked the interview.
We also have a guest submission form within Airtable that our clients can use to collect their guest’s headshot, bio, and topic so that everything is kept in one place. I am a huge fan of keeping everything streamlined so we love it when our clients use the systems we created for them to ensure consistency and efficiency.
Now that you know how our setup works, I wanted to share a few tips with you on actually managing this process because it can become overwhelming if you aren’t strategic about it.
Create templated outreach emails – First, you want to craft your outreach emails for the client. This will include a quick intro of the client and their podcast (if you’re reaching out to someone your client doesn’t have a previous connection with), a topic or several topics you are interested in having the potential guest speak about, and then the link to your client’s calendar so that the guest can easily book the interview. You can certainly include more than what I listed here if you would like but this is just the bare minimum.
Set up a podcast guest onboarding system – I like to figure out what information the client wants to gather from the guest like their headshot, bio, topic, and maybe even a few questions to ask so that once the potential guest has agreed to come on the show, they cannot book the appointment without submitting these few materials first.
This can be done using most appointment scheduler’s intake forms or a lot of our clients use the Airtable form that we have created for them so everything is all in one place but it’s really based on your preference. In their appointment scheduler, you can set up custom reminder emails that contain their Zoom link, recording instructions, and pretty much anything else your client wants them to know about the upcoming recording. Also, make sure that you connect with Zoom or any share the link to your client’s preferred recording tool (Riverside, Zencaster, etc.) so that the guest has everything they need for the interview in advance.
The art is in the follow-up – When it comes to booking guests for your clients, the art is truly in the follow-up. The initial email may have ended up in spam, the potential guest was interested but forgot to reply, and the email was accidentally overlooked. I could go on here with so many reasons why you didn’t get a reply to your first email so don’t be afraid to follow up 3-5 business days after the initial outreach email is sent. Obviously, you don’t want to be too aggressive with this and follow up every day because that would be incredibly annoying and turn people off but following up once or twice is completely okay as long as there are at least 3-5 business days between follow-ups.
Now I want to know, do you currently handle guest management for your clients? Let me know over in the DMs on Instagram @jenny.suneson – let’s chat.
