Being a guest on a podcast is good for marketing. You tap another audience.
In recent months, a handful of people asked to be a guest on my podcast.
I’m flattered that a few up-and-comers think my little podcast is worth hopping on.
To date, I’ve declined them all.
I do it nicely. I’m Canadian. I have a reputation for being polite to uphold.
What do I tell them?
I explain my podcast isn’t the interview format. Instead, it’s just me yammering on about what I do to grow and run my little online publishing business.
I’m not remotely interested in interviewing other people.
I’m missing out in one respect because it’s a proven win/win model. Both parties bring their audience to the table.
But I don’t think it’s a bad decision on my part.
My aim is for my email and podcast to be me where I share info, experiences, tips, etc. about blogging. Occasionally I go on a frolic and talk about other things.
There are no shortage of podcasts and video channels that do the interview format. Everyone wants to be the next Oprah or Joe Rogan. Who can blame them? Oprah and Joe ain’t hurtin’.
It’s easy too. You don’t need to have your own original content. You just ask questions.
I also don’t think we need yet another interview-style podcast.
I take the road less traveled. I’ll stick to talking and writing about what I do.
As you can tell, I have a lot to say. I get repetitive here and there. I can be long in the tooth. My business model is stupid simple. There are only so many ways to tell you what I do.
Nevertheless, for now, I don’t interview people.
I don’t want to do the research.
I certainly don’t want to send out a gazillion emails asking people to come on my podcast.
And then there’s the tech. I can barely record myself let alone try to record two people at the same time.
I’d rather talk about myself than listen to other folks talk about themselves.
I’m amazed at how much research some of these folks do on me when I’m a guest. It’s impressive.
I ain’t doing all that work.
Since I have a lot to say, it’s easier to flip the record switch on and start talking than spend hours researching somebody else.
It’s different for niche sites
Text-based interview articles can be outstanding content for any niche site. Fairly easy to produce too. If you run a podcast or YT channel, interviews can be great as well.
I really should do more of this on my niche sites.
You get expertise and the content is pretty much done for you. You just need to come up with the questions and do outreach to cajole experts to answer your questions.
The interviewee gets exposure and a link.
You get top-notch content without spending much money.
Win/win if ever I saw one.
Yeah, I need to do more of this. In fact, I’m going to ask one of my writers to put together questions for various experts.
Putting together a list of questions is the heavy lifting. It’s a balancing act.
You want to ask good questions and enough questions to get a nice chunk of content. But you don’t want to ask so many questions that they tell you to get stuffed. Nobody wants to dedicate an hour answering questions for some blogger.
Occasionally bloggers ask me to provide answers to questions for an article. I’m happy to do so ONLY IF THERE AREN’T TOO MANY QUESTIONS.
What about the round-up model?
The round-up model is coming up with 3 to 5 questions and having multiple experts provide answers. The answers form the article. It’s been done to death in the “how to blog” space but less so in your regular niches.
I’ve published round-ups on my niche sites. I think it can be very good. I’ll do more of it. It solves the problem of having to ask too many questions. Instead, you ask 3 or 4 questions but get the content volume by having multiple experts to chime in.
The downside is you have to do more outreach to get 5 to 10 experts to weigh in.
Here’s where most bloggers drop the ball with round-ups…
Most bloggers copy and paste the answers and slam them into their site and click publish.
They’re missing what could be the best part of the content and that is turning all those answers into a linkable asset such as a chart or table.
Whenever you have repetitive content, there’s a table or chart that could be made.
You might have to play around with visual asset concepts but if you have 10 experts all answering the same 5 questions, there is surely a way to create a table or chart out of that.
Keep it simple and use Google Sheets.
The follow up
A good practice is to let your expert(s) know when it’s published and provide them a URL. Suggest they mention it on social media. Thank them profusely.
If you created your nifty visual asset (chart or table), provide that to your interviewees as well for social media or their site. Now they may not be interested in it because it includes responses from other experts, but you never know.
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
