How to Keep Podcast Guests Happy
You invited someone to be a guest on your podcast and they accepted! Awesome. But now what?
Now the fun begins.
Podcast guests can boost your downloads and expand your podcast's reach to a broader audience. But maintaining your relationship with podcast guests can be difficult because every guest is different.
After interviewing 60 people on my podcast, I've learned a few things about how to make the guest management process simpler for the guests.
But you do not want your podcast guests to read your mind. Let them know what to expect and keep the guests informed with the tips learned in this blog.
This blog will give you a few tips to make guest management easier so that you can have the happiest podcast guests. This blog is split into two important sections, things to do before the podcast interview and actions to take after the podcast interview.
Before the Interview
When I started the You Are A Lawyer podcast, my biggest concern was spending as little money as possible. Emails were free. Calling the guests was free. Zoom was free. Sending guests email reminders was free. Free was really important. But I overlooked a lot of great apps that have incredible FREE features. Let me share a few with you.
Research Your Guests
Before you speak with your guest, you need to learn more about them and research your podcast guests.
The simplest way to research your podcast guest is to allow them to talk about themself. You can send emails to the podcast guests or have a quick conversation with the guests to learn more about the guest.
When I interview guests on the You Are A Lawyer podcast, I send a pre-recording questionnaire with 8-10 questions for the guests to complete. This questionnaire allows me to ask things that are not immediately shown on the guests' LinkedIn profiles or on their other social media pages.
This questionnaire is also a chance for the podcast guests to get understand the type of questions and the subjects that I want to discuss on the podcast.
Apps and Things
Once a guest submits their questionnaire, I send a follow-up email to the guests and share my Calendly app for scheduling guest interviews. This two email process is another simple way to communicate with your guests. Ask the guests to complete one task per email. Your guests are smart enough complete a checklist of tasks but make recording easier for them by having one task per email.
You don’t want your guests to overlook any tasks or feel overwhelmed by activities. People are busy and your email might be sandwiched between 40 other emails and requests.
While communicating with podcast guests, use as many electronic forms or apps as you can. The pre-recording questionnaire that I mentioned above was created through Google forms. This way, the guests can complete the form, and upload their biographies and photos, then I receive an alert when the form is completed. This puts the guest in control and makes them feel included in the podcasting process.
Prepared guests are calm guests.
Researching your guests is more important than using a fancy form. For over a year, I sent document attachments with the podcast questions attached (and I often sent the wrong version or drafts). Use whatever method helps you the most, but also, you can learn from my big mistakes and make things simpler with electronic forms.
For example, I use Zoom to record with podcast guests. But Zoom interacts with Calendly and Google Calendar, two other free apps that make guest management ver easy.
Calendly allows guests to see your recording availability and choose a date and time that fits their schedules. Also, when a guest needs to reschedule the interview, the guest can reschedule seamlessly through Calendly and the Zoom app is automatically updated with the new recording details.
Calendly works by reviewing your calendar and ensuring that you do not double book or schedule a recording while on vacation. You can use any calendar app, but I like Google Calendar. As soon as a guest is booked, the event is recorded on my Google calendar and added to whichever calendar app the guest uses. All of this is to say that the guests will receive reminders when it is time to record the podcast.
Recording Reminder Emails
The fun of recording with podcast guests is having their energy and personalities amplify your podcast. This also includes their schedule changes and different life events that cause multiple changes to your recordings.
Because life is unpredictable, I send emails to each podcast guest and remind them that we have a podcast recording the next day.
This email is a quick two-sentence message that reminds the guests of the recording, reminds them to sit in a room with soft surfaces, and provides a link for the guests to reschedule their interview if necessary.
Now, it seems like I am giving the guests a chance to skip the interview and reschedule, but that’s not true. I am making things very simple for the guests and have only had two guests take advantage of the option to reschedule and move their interview. Remember, I already provided the link and am allowing the guests to choose a date that will fit their schedule, but it is nice to let the guests know that there is the opportunity to reschedule as needed.
After the Interview
The guest showed up, you recorded the interview, and everything is done, right? Sort of. The You Are A Lawyer podcast episodes are released biweekly, so there can be a long gap between when a guest schedules their interview and when the podcast episode is released.
All The Details
A week before the podcast episode is released, I send an email to the podcast guest and let them know the date the podcast episode will be released and how to listen to the podcast.
Tell Your Guests What You Want
I also ask the podcast guests to share the episode with someone that they know. Whether a podcast guest doesn’t like their voice or isn’t comfortable with self promotion, you need the guest to tell everyone they know about your podcast. The best way to do that is to ask the guest to share the podcast with other people.
I’ve noticed that guests react positively when you let them know how they can help you. Let your guests know that they can help you by telling other people about the podcast and telling the guests where they can listen to the podcast.
Make Life Easy for Your Guest
The last thing that I do when I remind the guest about our podcast episode is attach graphics to the email. Providing your podcast guests with the graphics and your podcast branded images is the easiest way to get your guests to help you promote your podcast.
Sharing the graphics with your podcast guests removes any possible excuses that your guests could have about why they may not want to promote their podcast episode. So simplify the process and ask your guests to help you.
After reading this blog, I hope you understand why it is beneficial to keep your podcast guests informed with the podcasting process and how your guests can help your podcast. Remember, happy guests mean happy podcast hosts.
