Top Mistakes To Avoid: The Worst Podcast Guest Pitches Ever Received

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to feed your brand. I'm Tom Hazard with my co host, Tracy Hazard, and today we got something really fun in store for you. I've been looking forward to this one since we put it on our calendar. Top mistakes to avoid the worst Podcast guest pitches ever received. Now, Tracy, we've received our fair share of guest pitches over the year, and I'm sure a lot of you podcasters who've been podcasting more than probably 25 episodes have received guest pitches, either from PR agencies or maybe individuals who would like to be a guest on your show. And boy, you can tell good ones from bad ones, can't you, Tracy? People who really did their homework, listen to your show and are making a, I would say, legitimate heartfelt pitch or a generic pitch. And that's what we're going to talk about. Mistakes to avoid and share. Some of the worst ones you've ever gotten.

Yeah, I mean, the worst ones I've ever gotten I probably outright deleted. So I'm finding some that are bad, but they're not. Probably the worst that I remember. But here's a couple of things that I want to say, is that sometimes it's what you don't say, it's who you're presenting yourself as that comes through that is the problem to begin with. So I want to start there.

All right, let's start there.

Okay. I love when people come through and they say they are a million dollar podcast guest. They've made a million dollars off podcast guesting. That is in my email right now. That is in my LinkedIn. You're saying direct message. The guest being pitched at the title of their LinkedIn title. They've made a million dollars from podcast guesting and that's what their LinkedIn title pass. You're going to make money on me, but you're not going to pay me.

Well, not only that. I mean, the reality is if they're saying I the guest, I am all that and I have made a million dollars by being a guest on shows, it really is talking all about them, right? Not what's in it for you. To have them as a guest. Right.

It's saying they're going to sell on your show.

Yeah.

Why would you invite them on your show? So right there, that's the hard path. Also, if they say anything about broadcasting or Emmy Award winners or any of those things, I don't have the kind of show that I want to listen to that. So for me, that's a screener. You might have something in your industry is too, Right. Like maybe you just don't want to have CPAs on your show. No offense to all the CPAs out there. Right. You just don't want that. So that's a screener right there. So just keeping in mind that how you title yourself and your outreach makes a difference to begin with. And I see Your name on LinkedIn and your title before I ever even get to your message, and that's the number one screener right there. So if you're doing cold outreach that way, that's the way to do. That's the biggest problem right there. The next one I see, Tom, is those that tell me that they have a show, right? They have their own show, and it's X number on the charts. That's a no for me. Immediately. When you tell me you've made it to this point and Listen Notes like you're the top 10% in any category, I just want to laugh.

Oh, my goodness.

You don't know what you're doing in podcasting, and I don't want to. You know.

You know what? This one is a pet peeve of mine. Everybody who says, oh, my show is in the top 5% of listen notes. Okay, well, kudos to Listen Notes because they've done a really good job at making people think that is something that matters and something that makes their show special. But let me tell you something. Top 5% on listen notes. Pretty much any show that is breathing, any show actively posting, that's posting new episodes is in the top 5% on listen notes. And here's why. And I know this is going to burst a lot of people's bubble, and I'm not saying your show is not good if it's in the top 5% on listen notes. I'm just saying whether it's good or not has nothing to do with that. Is that There are almost 3 million shows now in the entire podcast ecosystem, but there's only about 300,000. It depends how you measure it. But 300, 350,000 that are actively publishing new episodes that are not dormant. Their 5% number is on the entire podcast ecosystem. So guess what? 5% is the top 150,000, I believe so now, that's pretty good. But you can get in that top hundred fifty thousand and have a couple thousand plays a month or not even.

Right? And a lot of that 300,000 are seasonal and. Or posting once a month and not every single week. So you can get into the top 5% by posting every single week. That's your only requirement. Right. Which is good. I do want an active show. So, like, it's not a bad thing. But it is. Meaning that it tells me that you don't know what you're talking about in terms of podcasts. If you outreach to me and say, I see that you're in the top of this chart or you're in the top of this, it shows me what you want out of a show and not what I want out of a guest. And so that, to me is also a red flag. So those right there, just wanting to let you know that sort of how you frame and how you start these emails or these direct messages, it matters more than what you say when you get all the way into it. Although I'm going to dive into some of those now. I'm going to say this is not exclusive to email, direct message, or pod match, because I even get those messages in pod match that are badly done. Mostly I find that they're done by agencies because I find the guests and hosts are a little lazier and like, so they'll write shorter things. But if an agency is pitching you within PodMatch, or an agency is pitching you within LinkedIn, they're the ones who feel that they need to write this whole diatribe about you, and it's actually hurting you. Because I just. The longer it is, the worse it is and the less I want to read, especially if you don't capture me in the first sentence.

And that's the thing. The PR agencies that are pitching people and trying to phone it in and not really do much hard work are just sending these blanket generic messages to every podcast. They're not doing their homework. And the most obvious ones, I mean, I have had more than one show that I've done that literally has no guests ever. Do not have guests ever. And they're pitching me a guest to be on my show. Well, I don't think you've really done your homework because you'd know that I don't have guests. Right? I mean, that's the kind of thing you get from those kind of agencies.

So I have a feed called Getting Interviewed. Tracy Hazard getting interviewed. And it is a feed of where I've been a guest on somebody else's show, and I get pitches for that one every single day.

So clearly they've done their homework, pulled.

A list in listen notes, and then sent the same email out to everyone. And so this is where you get men pitching shows that are exclusively for women. And you get shows that are exclusively, have no guests and are exclusively topic. And you get the mismatch that is the shotgun blanket approach that they think that if they just hire an assistant and say, send the same email out to everybody, then it's going to work. Or send the same direct message out to everyone, it doesn't work. And that means that 99% of the message is all about them and not about your show. Although they do tend to customize it. And so they'll say something like, oh, I just love your show. Like, it's so great what you've done with. And then it's the show name, and that's the trigger right there, right? When they put that full formal name of your show. Right.

Well, especially when all they're doing is auto filling it from a spreadsheet or a list because the context, they haven't bothered to adjust the context because it'll say for your show, the binge factor might work. Right? But if you have a podcast, and I actually don't recommend people doing this called the most. Well, let's take the podcast we produced for Popular Mechanics magazine, the most useful podcast ever. If you were pitching them, you'd say, hey, I believe I'm a ideal guest for your show. For the most useful podcast ever podcast. Now, that last podcast is a part of their email template and the word podcast being in your title make no sense. Smart people will actually, yeah, you can set up emails to go in an automated sort of way, but you want to take the time to just look at that context and adjust each one so that it doesn't look stupid, honestly.

Right, So I get the binge factor podcast, right? The binge factor. I get that one all the time. It's the number one. And then it's an immediate delete. So you didn't even get to your message. I don't know who you are. I never saw it. That's what I want you to understand, that doing these things are more harmful because us podcasters are sick of reading them. So we get them all the time. So if you cannot take the time to reach out to me directly, then you don't deserve to be on my show. You're not going to make a great guest. That's what I found time and time again. So that is just the number one tips that we want to go to. But some of the things that I've got going on here and I want to read you some of them, like, they're just, it's like too salesy. It starts out to salesy and say, would you enjoy a convo with Facebook ads crusader on the savviest Facebook ad strategy that will be working in Q4? And I'm the head of performance at this agency and I've profitably spent this, this and this. And this is what I want to talk about. It's a webinar. Like at the end of the day, you're trying to do a webinar on my show. Why would I even agree to that? Those ones are the worst. And I immediately unfriend those people so they don't even just get deleted in terms of the message. If they friend me on LinkedIn, they're gone. I don't want to see what they have to do most. They're too pushy, they don't know anything about my show because I never talk about Facebook ads on my show. But that's just a good example there. Tom, do you have any that you've got going on that you want to share?

Well, I have one that I want to contrast. That's not the worst, but actually one of the best ones I got.

Oh, good.

Admittedly, this is not a cheap one. Okay. Whoever did this had a serious marketing budget and admittedly they had a book that they were had published a real from a publisher and the publisher is trying to promote the book and get them pitched. But I got a phone call. Now this is somebody who had to do their homework because our phone number is nowhere listed on anything having to do with our podcast. So whoever did this, they found our show. I think it was feed your Brand and it was a marketing related book and guest and I literally got a phone call and said, hey, we've got a client of ours who's this author has written this book. Do you think that might be a fit for your show? And I thought maybe, I mean, we don't always have guests on feed your brand. In fact, we rarely have guests. But that sounds interesting. And they actually sent the book to me to read, to review the book and to check it out and see if it was a good fit before even getting the guest on the show. So at least that was a legitimate Good guest pitch that was personal and wasn't generic. Now, I still could make the judgment if it was a good fit or not. And ultimately, I actually thought it was not a good fit for our show, and we did not interview that person. But it was a good pitch because while it was an agency and not the guests themselves, it wasn't super pushy. They were giving me the choice and giving me the information, and they took the time and money to reach out via phone. So that's pretty good. Now, I don't expect most of us are going to do that. Right. We're probably going to use a tool like Pod Match and get matched up with what at least are compatible shows. If you do your profile right on podmatch or you get a referral from somebody.

Right, right. But what I find is, is that it's very obvious over there when somebody has checked out my profile, like, they understand my show and they'll say the number one thing. So, like, here's a typical one I get in LinkedIn, and this one's better because it's shorter. Right. So it at least starts the conversation. It says, I'm a fan of your podcast. I could relate to it significantly, being that I was once a million dollars in debt and now I stand here today. Would love to connect and explore being a guest. Obviously, he doesn't know anything about my show, or he would know that topic has no resonating value with any of my six podcasts of which he mentioned. I love your podcast, but I have six of them and they're all listed in my profile. So which one are you talking about? Right, so I know that, but the issue is, is that that's a mismatch right there. Instead, someone who comes back and says, hey, listen to the binge factor. I have a show. I have 50 episodes or more, and this is the tip I'd love to share. Done. Or my favorite is when somebody comes in and says, I have an audience on LinkedIn of 10,000 people who are in the digital marketing space, and I think they'd be a good match for your audience. Awesome. I'm done now.

That's what's in it for you?

That's what's in it for me. You just did it. But so few people do that. They go with themselves first. And that's really where every mismatch goes wrong from that point forward.

Well, my favorite ones that are really bad are when they're pitching me for a show that I have not published an episode of in several years. So again, they're just taking a list of podcasts they're not even bothering to look up. Are you actively publishing, like, for WTFF, which was our first podcast on 3D printing. Still get pitches today for people that want to be a guest on that. Guess what? We haven't published a new episode of that since, I think, 2020. And so, look, we have lots of active podcasts. That's just not one of them. And so if you're pitching to be a guest on a show that is even active, you're definitely doing a shotgun approach. And why am I going to give you the time of day and even let you know, oh, I have another show that you might be a fit for. I mean, I don't know, maybe people that are really desperate for guests might do that, but I don't waste my time. Right. It's kind of like all of these different solicitations we all get in direct email marketing for all sorts of things. Like in the United States, the employee retention credit for tax. I get CPS pitching me this all day long every week. I don't understand what's going on there, but I'm sick of them. And I don't look at any of them because, first of all, I've known about that for about a year, and if I needed that help, it wasn't now. But it's just. You have irrelevant pitches.

Yes.

That's never gonna achieve your goal.

So here's our big advice here. Do it yourself. Pick your shows. I can tell you that I have never reached out to a show that refused me. If I personally reached out, said why I thought we were compatible. No one has ever refused me. It's never happened.

So you're going to have maybe 100% ratio. Maybe you'll still at least get 8 out of 10, because I can't imagine you get less than that. It is not going to be any better odds using an assistant. Using someone else. Or have your assistant do that part and then do the final. Send yourself. Double check what they wrote, save them in draft, double check everything. Make sure it really sounds like you. Make sure it's really what you want to do. Say at the end of the day, have them do the research on the shows, click through them. I mean, podmatch, that's why I like it, because I can just simply click through, check their website really quick. It takes me one minute to go and see if someone's compatible. I can see it instantly and I know whether it's worth the time for me to draft A quick little message, three sentences maximum.

Why I'm reaching out like your show, this show is really great. And why we're matched and what I'm going to bring to your show, not me bringing it, what I'm going to bring value to give you on the other side of it. I'm going to promote you by doing this. I'm going to bring you an exposure to the same style audience. I'm going to cross promote you. I'm going to do a Instagram co op kind of model. We're going to do something really great together because we're matched. That's what you have to get across. That's it. If you do that, you will not fail. But if you give me all about you, you, you, you, you, you or all about your client, it is never going to work.

The only thing I think that does work that's about you is if you have a huge email list or a huge newsletter subscription or a huge social media following and you're guaranteeing you're going to share your guest appearance on my show with that large audience. I mean, there could be some things about you that are relevant that I think would be helpful. But if it's really all about you and your resume and trying to convince me that I should be standing in a long line to be able to get a chance to interview you or something, I mean, that's just silly.

So here's the other thing. I've never opened a one sheet ever. Look, I've created them for a lot of people, but I never opened one.

Why?

Not going to download anything off the.

Internet through an email.

Not going to do it. A PDF, I'm not going to download anything. Just not going to happen. You're cold. I don't know you. I don't know you well.

And what we've done for some of our customers because of doing production for them and working on their websites is created a digital one sheet page on their website. And so that's a link to a webpage, right?

And I highly recommend that be on your about page so that if I don't want to click a link, which can happen still, I still get worried or it gets flagged because it actually went into spam so it could get flagged. And so then I am nervous about whether or not I should click it. So then if I go to your website, which I can do, I can find TomHazard.com and I go to TomHazard.com and I go to your about and there's your one sheet right there. If I wanted to take a look at it, great. I can do it right there in that whole space. Perfect. That gave me what I needed and you still got it across. But one sheets are self serving and so they're all about you. And it just is not something that you would use. I mean, most average podcasters do not want. We want to have a great conversation, not a pitch fest. And you're starting out the relationship wrong. If you're pitching me wrong in the first contact that you make for my show, what are you going to do to my audience? That's what's going through my head every time. So get your ego out of there. Think more about what's in it for the podcaster because they are struggling to keep their show alive, right? They are struggling to make time for this. They're likely doing it for free. They're barely getting paid enough for it. So if you want something from them and you want them to support and promote you, then you better do something for them and you better start out that relationship with a giveaway.

I do think the law of reciprocity goes a long way here, right?

And if you want the first give, subscribe to my darn show and show me you did it. Write me a rate and review. Have you ever decided to start a pitch with that? Say I just subscribed to your show, downloaded 20 episodes and rate and reviewed your show. I'd probably open that email.

It makes sense, right?

You gave first.

So now today, most of what I do is I only invite other podcast hosts on my show. And it is the structure of my show. But it's all of our shows we do that with, right? We only invite other podcast hosts because at least they get it. They know how hard it is. They know what it takes.

And one thing I think we should mention and completely respect people bootstrapping it and doing this themselves. Also respect if you don't have the time of day in your business to make a lot of these, do the research and make a lot of appeals to podcast hosts. But you can get support agencies that will place you on other shows. Now, if they're good agencies will do a good job doing that research, make an appropriate heartfelt pitch. But the reason I bring this up is not so much to pitch these other agencies. But there are agencies that will only pitch podcast hosts to be a guest on other podcasts. Now, there are some that'll take anybody who is not a podcast host, has a book, or has a reason they want to go on other shows. And they'll make that pitch, but some of them will only do other podcast hosts. And Tracy, I believe you told me, and you have really the most experienced odd Pod Match among us here, is that you find that because you are both a podcast guest and a podcast host, that the AI within Pod Match actually does a better job of matching you up, doesn't it?

I think it does a better job of matching me up because I do have both sides completely filled out. So there's a lot more information for it to utilize. That's part of it. But I also think it's because I've also done a lot of no, yes, no, yes, pass, keep. Right, like. And because I've done it, it's been a year, I've trained it so well that I can do it once a month and get great results on both sides.

But I thought you had also mentioned to me you had experience with some people that were not a host and only filled out the guest side don't get as many offers, right?

They don't. And it takes them a lot long to go through and filter offers to get it to be a better matching system because they don't get as many. You're not getting as much volume of it. Right. So it takes longer to get the AI to learn enough about you. Right. As it goes forward. But it's the case here that podcast guesting is a great model. Look, you can make a million dollars off of it. We did. I made a $1,200 investment to find 12 shows, made $120,000 immediately within the first six months off those shows, and then we made a million dollars in royalty off of products that we designed because of some of the shows we went on. And we ended up with a large long term client. So it all worked out for us. But I did 12 very specific shows that were a perfect match for what I could share with them. And I gave them something when I went on it, which was guarantee that I would give them things that they never heard before and an article and a promotion in my social profile and a LinkedIn post. And like I was giving them promotion for their show in return that they weren't going to get anywhere else. It's why they wanted me on the show. That's really the crux of it. If you have nothing to give, why should I invite you on?

Yeah, I think you have to think of the value you're going to bring to the show. Because I'll tell you another thing, why the pitch is so important and why these really bad pitches that people haven't done their homework are just not going to work for many shows. We have a relatively new customer at Potter Ties, fantastic show and has guests already booked out for a year. And I've told them I think that's too far because new guests aren't really going to love that. They get interviewed with you in September or October this year and they're not going to come out until August or September next year, which is sort of where they were at. I recommend maybe we ought to publish a few more per week instead of one and get that through that sooner.

Well, and ironically, it'd get you in the top 1% in listen notes.

Right. The more episodes you publish, I know you'll get up there, but the point is, if you provide what value is, guess what? The other thing I've counseled this customer on is you get a good one, accelerate them, move them up in the. Publish an additional episode, a bonus one. Don't just wait until a year from now. There's many things you can do in.

That scenario because the risk is is that if you are going to get them, if they're going to send out an email about you or they're going to promote you on LinkedIn, the sooner they do that, the more listeners you have for your show. So it is a teaser that can get you in and get you guesting faster on a show that you may be wouldn't be able to get on otherwise. Right. If you have something significant to give that is going to help the host promote their show, we're all in it. That's what the hosts are looking for. Just present that first. It's more valuable than what you have to say on the show.

Yeah. So it's interesting this has become a little bit more about what to do as much as what not to do and some of the worst pitches. But hopefully we're giving you some perspective. What are the worst pitches? The ones that have no context, the ones that are not providing value, the ones that are all about you, the guest, and not about the value to.

The listener and the value to the host.

Right. I mean it really, when you think about it, it's common sense, isn't it, Tracy? I think it should be anyway.

It should be, but it's not. Right. So the top mistakes to avoid is what we were talking about. It's like sort of the top of the thing. And so really look carefully at how you're titling yourself. If you're doing chat outreach, make really, really, really customize the messaging that you're sending and show that you've listened to the show. Show it. Don't just say it because it's not true and we know it. And really make sure that you've got something significant of value to give to a host if you want them to read on and read about you. There still might not be a fit. Like, there still is always the case that it might not be a fit. But we also know a ton of other podcasters and if you sent a good pitch to me and you weren't a fit for my show, I guarantee you I'd probably send you to somebody who you would be a fit for if you impressed me. So the podcasting community is small. Those of us who are active, right. And we do know each other and we are happy to forward it. I probably get most of my guests that don't come from Pod Match because of the way that I use it, come from a previous guest who refers somebody. That's it. Like, that's how it happens.

Referrals are fantastic. That's great. But again, there's a personal connection there somehow. This is really the cold guest pitch that is so often done so wrong. And it just doesn't work if you don't get my attention somehow really quickly in that subject line of that email.

Or in the first sentence at least.

Or, yeah, that preview line or first sentence.

It's done, it's done. I'm not even going to read it. It just don't have the time for that. So anyway, hope this helps you so that you can. Because guesting is honestly a fabulous way to grow your business. It is.

It's a fabulous way to grow your.

Show and to grow your show. So if you're trying to guest on other people's podcasts, but you know what, show respect to other hosts, right? You're a host. You know how hard it is. Show them the respect that you deserve in return. So let's not model bad behavior to begin with.

All right, sounds great. Well, hope you got some good value out of this and had some fun. You can see any. Get any of the links to things we talked about and any other details you want@potatize.com where you'll find feed, your brand page and a blog post for this episode, which is your resource for this and anything else podcasting. So thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time with another great episode. This has been Tom and Tracy Hazard on Feed.

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