You’ve carefully crafted the perfect pitch and are ready to reach out to your perfect guest or podcast.  You send your email and you wait…and wait…and wait….and nothing happens.  You get absolutely no response.  So what do you do?  Give up and move on?  NO!

Here at Interview Connections, our expert booking agents have perfected the art of outreach, and I will share 2 of our top tips for getting a response when you reach out.

First, email is not enough.  Email inboxes can be a black hole for communication. Communication can easily get buried in the hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of emails that podcast hosts and guest experts receive.  So let’s get creative and reach out another way.  Try to connect with them on their social media accounts, and reach out that way.  Don’t just stop with a quick Facebook message.  Try LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. – whatever it takes to reach them!  Make sure you connect with a friendly introduction first before you request them.  When you establish a positive relationship from the get-go, you’ll be far more likely to get a positive response to your request.

You might ask, “Won’t I seem obnoxious if I am contacting the same person through so many different mediums?”  The answer is NO!  You never know where someone might be most available, and in my experience, hosts and guest experts are actually grateful for your efforts.  We often get responses like “Thank you so much for reaching out to me on LinkedIn!  My inbox is a mess, so I never saw your request.”

When other mediums fail, pick up the phone and CALL!  That might seem like a novel idea in this digital world, but you can literally cut days of email communication out if you can connect directly over the phone.

Second, follow up, follow up, follow up!  And after you follow up, FOLLOW UP!  This is key! People get busy and emails get lost, so make a note of when and how you reached out and set a reminder to follow up with them in a few days.  I love tools like Boomerang that will send you automatic reminders to follow up with an email if you haven’t received a response.  When you do this, you are showing a host or guest that you are serious about your proposal and will then have the best chance of getting a response.

Sound like a lot of work?  It is!  It takes tremendous time and effort to get quality guests for your podcast or get yourself booked on the best shows.  Don’t have time to do it on your own?  Partner with me and my expert team of booking agents at Interview Connections, and we’ll do it for you!