Being a guest on a podcast is one of the few marketing activities where the audience chooses to spend forty minutes with you. It also happens to be one of the easiest to pitch badly — a two-paragraph email that says "I would love to be on your show" and nothing else.
Hosts are not short of guests. They are short of episodes their listeners will finish. Pitch an episode, not yourself.
Pick shows where you are useful, not just available
Small shows with an engaged audience beat big shows that would never reply. Look for podcasts with 20–200 episodes in your niche, recent uploads, and a host who asks follow-up questions. Ten of those are worth more than one famous one.
Listen before you pitch
Pick two episodes. In your email, reference a specific point from one of them and explain what you would add. This is the single strongest signal that you are not spamming a list, and it takes fifteen minutes.
The pitch that gets a reply
Keep it under 200 words, plain text, no attachments:
- Line 1: why this show, specifically.
- Line 2: the episode you are proposing, as a title and a one-sentence promise.
- Line 3: three talking points, each something the host's audience has not heard a hundred times.
- Line 4: who you are, in one sentence, with a link.
- Line 5: availability and time zone.
Prepare like it matters
Forty minutes of talking needs about an hour of preparation: five stories with a beginning, middle and end; three numbers you can defend; one opinion you are willing to be challenged on. Do not read a script — hosts can hear it.
Make the host's job easy
- Send a headshot, a short bio and your links in one message, after they say yes.
- Test your microphone before the recording. A cheap USB mic beats a laptop speaker every time.
- Join five minutes early, in a quiet room, on wired internet if possible.
- Send a thank-you note the same day, and share the episode when it goes live.
What to do with the episode afterwards
One episode should become six pieces: a clip, a quote graphic, a short article from your main talking point, a newsletter section, a LinkedIn post and a line in your next proposal. That is the return on the hour you spent recording — not the download count in week one.
If nobody replies
Follow up once after ten days, then move on. Keep a simple list of twenty shows, pitch five a month, and note what got replies. Most people quit after three emails; the ones who do not end up as the regular guest on three shows.
Two common questions
What if I have never done audio before? Record yourself answering three questions on your phone, listen back, and fix the two worst habits — usually filler words and rushing. That is most of the preparation.
Should I pay for a booking service? Rarely. A researched list of twenty relevant shows and five thoughtful pitches a month outperforms most paid placements, and it builds a relationship you can use again.
An example pitch
Subject: Episode idea — why content briefs save more time than they cost
Hi Sarah, I listened to episode 84 with the agency founder who fired a client for scope creep — the part about pricing by outcome stuck with me.
I would like to propose an episode: "The brief is the product". The promise is that listeners leave with a one-page brief template that cuts revision rounds in half. Three points: why writers guess when the brief is vague; the four sections every brief needs; and how to run a 20-minute briefing call that replaces three email threads.
I run a small content studio and have briefed around 300 articles this year. Links below. I am free most mornings, PKT.
Two hundred words, one specific compliment, one concrete episode, three points, no attachment. That is the whole pitch.
