Podcast Guesting

What is podcast guesting?

Podcast guesting means appearing as a guest on other people’s podcasts to talk about the problem you solve, so their listeners get to know you and visit your site. You borrow an audience that already trusts the host, and you get 30 to 60 minutes of their full attention, which no ad or social post can buy.

For an early founder, the sweet spot is SMALL, focused shows: a podcast for dental practice managers, for vegan bakers or for women freelancers in Berlin. These hosts need guests every week, answer emails, and their few hundred listeners can be exactly your buyers. Episodes also live on: listeners find them through podcast search and show notes for months.

When should you use it?

Good fit:

• You sell to a defined group that has its own podcasts: a profession, an industry, a hobby, a life stage.
• You can tell stories about the problem without turning every answer into a sales pitch.
• Your buyers need trust before buying: services, coaching, B2B software, higher-priced products.

Skip it when:

• You sell a cheap impulse product to a very broad audience. Ads or short videos fit better.
• You have nothing to say beyond your product’s features. Talk to 10 customers first with problem interviews so you have stories.
• You need sales this week. Episodes come out weeks or months after recording.

How do you do it, step by step?

1. Build a list of 30 small shows. Search Listen Notes, a podcast search engine that searches show notes and transcripts, for your customer’s job or problem: “bakery owner”, “practice manager”, “freelance translator”. Repeat on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Put each show in a Google Sheet with: name, host, topic, last episode date, guest format (yes or no), contact.

2. Qualify ruthlessly. Keep shows that (a) published in the last 30 days, (b) interview guests, and (c) speak to your buyers. Listen to 10 minutes of 2 recent episodes. Note one specific moment you liked; you will need it for your pitch. Drop any show that charges guests to appear.

3. Find the right contact. Look at the show’s website, the podcast description, the host’s LinkedIn or Instagram, or a guest form. A personal email to the host beats a generic contact form.

4. Send a short pitch with 3 angles. Template: “Hi Sam, your episode with Petra on pricing wedding cakes made me rethink deposits, especially her line about ‘no deposit, no date’. I run a small booking tool for home bakers and spent the last 6 months interviewing 40 of them. Three topics I could cover for your listeners: (1) the 3 messages that cut no-shows for custom orders, (2) why home bakers undercharge for decorating time and how to calculate it, (3) what changed when 5 bakers moved to deposits. Happy to adapt. Here is a 2-minute clip of me talking on this topic: [link].” Our rule of thumb: pitch 10 shows a week and expect 2 or 3 yeses from 20 to 30 pitches. Follow up once after 7 days.

5. Prepare 3 stories, and one surprising number. Write bullet notes for:

   1. Your why story: the moment you saw the problem up close.
   2. A customer story: one person, their struggle, what changed (with permission).
   3. A contrarian take: something your niche believes that you think is wrong, with your reason.

   Add one number from your own work (“of the 40 bakers we interviewed, 31 had no written deposit policy”). Stories and numbers get quoted; feature lists get skipped.

6. Make one specific call to action. Create a short page just for this show: yoursite.com/bakerspod, with a free resource from your lead magnet and a line greeting the listeners. At the end say it once, clearly: “I made a free deposit-policy template for your listeners at yoursite dot com slash bakerspod.” A unique link also tells you exactly which episode brought which visitors.

7. Sound good on the day. Wear wired headphones, use any USB or clip-on microphone, sit in a small room with soft furniture, close other apps and put your phone in another room. Keep answers to 1 or 2 minutes and end each with a hand-back to the host.

8. Share and thank. When the episode goes live, post it with a clip and tag the host, send it to your email list, and send the host a thank-you note. Ask: “Is there another host you think I should talk to?” One warm intro is worth ten cold pitches.

What does a worked example look like?

Say Hana runs a scheduling and deposit tool for home bakers who take custom cake orders. She finds 34 podcasts through Listen Notes and Apple Podcasts searches for “home bakery”, “cake business” and “cottage food”. After qualifying, 14 remain: active, guest-based and talking to small bakery owners.

She pitches 14 hosts over two weeks with the three-angle template, each pitch naming one moment from a recent episode. Four say yes. She prepares her why story (her sister losing 300 euros on a cancelled wedding cake), a customer story from a pilot user who approved it, and the contrarian take that “small bakers should charge deposits even to friends”.

Each show gets its own page on her site, ending in /cakepod or /bakerspod, offering a free deposit policy template. Her analytics show visits from each episode page, and she counts which shows bring sign-ups, so her next round of pitches goes to similar shows.

Which free tools help?

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Pitching big shows first. A show with a million listeners gets hundreds of pitches. Start with shows of a few hundred listeners where you are the perfect guest.
• A pitch about you. Hosts care about their listeners. Lead with what the audience will learn, and prove you listened to the show.
• Selling in every answer. Mention your product once or twice when it fits naturally, and save the call to action for the end.
• A vague ending. “Find me online” sends nobody anywhere. Give one short URL with one free thing.
• No tracking. Without a unique page per show, you cannot tell which podcasts bring buyers and which only bring compliments.

How do you know it worked?

Our rule of thumb:

• 10% or more of your pitches turn into bookings.
• Each episode brings visits to its unique page within the first month after release.
• At least 1 in 4 episodes brings sign-ups, emails or sales you can trace to it.

Go: some shows send buyers, so pitch more shows like those. No-go: after 6 to 8 episodes almost nobody visits your pages. Check whether the audiences are your buyers and whether your call to action was specific and said out loud.

What should you do next?

Turn each episode into clips, quotes and a blog post with content repurposing, and pitch the same angles in writing through guest posts on niche blogs. For printed and online media, the niche press pitch method uses a similar approach. If you want to sharpen your founder story and test your idea with an AI co-founder, try the startup game for women by Fe/male Switch.

FAQ

How do I find podcasts to be a guest on?

Search podcast directories and Listen Notes for your customer’s job, industry or problem, then check which shows interview guests and published recently. Also ask every host you meet for a recommendation.

Should I pay to be a guest on a podcast?

For an early startup, no. Plenty of small niche shows look for guests every week, and a show that charges guests earns from guests, which says nothing about whether its listeners are your buyers.

What equipment do I need for podcast guesting?

Wired headphones and a simple USB or clip-on microphone in a quiet, soft room. Remote recordings run through a browser link or a video call, so you need a stable internet connection and a laptop.

Updated 26 October 2026 · Written by the Fe/male Switch team

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