203: Podcast Guesting Meets Marketing Strategy with Berlyn of Planted Marketing

Ready to make your podcast guest appearances work harder for you? This episode is all about taking the power of podcast guesting and amplifying it with smart marketing strategies.

I’m joined by Berlyn from Planted Marketing, a community-centered marketing strategist for purpose-driven brands and the creator of The Greenhouse: Marketing Hub for Solopreneurs. Together, we break down:

• 🎤 Why podcast guesting is one of the best visibility tools for solopreneurs and entrepreneurs
• ♻️ How to repurpose one guest interview into blogs, emails, and social media content that builds authority and connection
• 🚀 Simple marketing systems you can use to stretch your visibility and maximize your time
• 🌱 How to blend guest speaking + content marketing for long-term growth

If you’ve been showing up on podcasts (or plan to) but aren’t sure how to make the most of it, this conversation is packed with practical, doable steps to help your message reach more people—without adding more to your plate.

📌 Learn more about Berlyn and her work at plantedmarketing.com or connect with her on Instagram @plantedmrktng

Podcasting for Authority: signature group program
🎟️ Learn more here: https://stan.store/CandaceDudley/p/signature-group-program

🎙️Hosts + Guests -> Join the Matchmaking Community [HERE]

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:19

This week's podcast episode is a special repurposed Instagram live that I did a while back with Berlin. It is packed with so much value and actual tips for you to turn podcasting, podcast guesting into the ultimate marketing strategy. Berlin is the founder of Planted Marketing, a community-centered marketing for purpose-driven brands and the marketing hub for solopreneurs. Her expertise is phenomenal in this episode. And I talk you through all the podcasting pieces. Hope you love it.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Well, why don't you kick us off? What are some good tips for podcast outreach? Pitching yourself, what should you do on a podcast? Give us the whole experience.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

The outreach part is something that people always ask. How long should I follow someone? How do I find the show? There's a lot of questions around that because so many of us, especially if we host our own show like I do, you know that there's a lot of ick in the pitching and the emails you get from publishing or marketing companies that are trying to book their client on your show and it might not be a match at all. I do have a very streamlined system, very value-led approach. Part of that is reaching out, that pitching part. What I tell my clients to do is really two things. One, it's to make sure you've done your homework. You have to have listened to the show or hired someone like me to make sure that there's some type of alignment. If there isn't anything that matches with your values, your mission, your if nothing fits, then it's going to be a waste of time for both parties. It's not going to be this great community that you're building, networking and connections that you're making like it could be. And then the other part of that pitch after doing your homework and making sure there's that alignment there and showing that host that you've done that homework, we can feel good that you have listened to our show. It's very important to us, right? The other piece is what we're really concerned about is are you going to bring value? Because we've spent so much time making sure that our audience, we've built that no, like, and trust, and we could try to bring them value every single week. That's really important. So my first step in my process is to pull out your niche speaking topics, speaking topics that are in your zone of genius that really match well with your offers and what you're all about. And when we do that, that pitch becomes really easy because now you can say, hey, I've listened to your show and I see you you've had someone on about marketing, but here's my take on it. Or you can say, I know I could bring so much value to your show with these three topics. And when you really lay them out really specific and get very clear on that, it becomes such an easy yes or no for a podcast host. Sometimes we take a no to be this huge thing when really it's like you are so honed in on your message and who you help that it's so easy for the right aligned podcast or speaking engagement to say yes to you. So it's a great thing. For example, I do a lot of teaching and talking on podcast guesting, guessing on other people's shows. And so I'm not gonna say, hey, I love to speak on podcast guesting. I might say something more specific. Let's say the show is an introvert entrepreneurial podcast, and I've been on a show about that specifically. And I might say why podcast guesting is the best kept secret for introverted entrepreneurs. So you can get so much more specific so that it's an easy yes. So that retail up that pitching, as long as you're showing that you have done your homework, that there is some alignment between you and the host, and what you're gonna bring value and not gatekeeper, gonna bring some actionable steps to that show. That's really all a host really wants to know. And then just be prepared for a yes, a no, and a ghost because it's all gonna happen and it's just part of the process. We can follow up. I also say to do it in a DM if you can. Emails, I just know from the hosts that I've talked with in the last year, especially we're just sending those to the spam folder, the junk folder, because it's just done not in a great way. If you can send a DM or even a voice note, that's gonna go a lot further in building that connection. And then your social media is right there. They can uh check that out, which I know you can speak to and help us make sure that's ready for someone to view it and be like, yes, this person is super aligned with me. So that's that outreach part.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

So you do recommend doing uh DM outreach. That's really interesting. So no emails, because I know as soon as you get a business email, you're just spammed. I'm the same way. Almost everything in there I just delete. That's interesting. And then do you recommend sending links with that or the pitch deck, or is it literally just like, hey, this is how we're aligned, this is what I want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I personally just start small with that quick brief message. I think you can easily then take it to email, exchange emails, um, send a link if you have other speaking things that you've done where you can send that over. I host my own show, so it's pretty easy to send that type of thing. But you don't have to have hosted your own show to start speaking on podcasts. That's the other myth or hang up we have. That's how I do it, just because that's my style. I want to be brief. I'm a mom of three. We're busy. I know you work with solopreneurs who are wearing a lot of hats, and I feel like people's time just needs to be really respected. So if we can keep it very specific and then let that conversation naturally happen, just be very human and genuine in how you would talk to someone. Because for the most part, the shows you're most likely pitching are going to be those indie podcasts where they're like me, I'm editing my own things, I'm putting that together. Or maybe they have an editor, but it's not a huge production team. It's just a person behind the screen. And we just got to keep that in mind because I think we're all kind of craving that community, that authenticity, especially since the years and things that we've made it through. That connection can be built so quick and so much stronger in that way versus those emails. Definitely take it to email, definitely exchange the links or book the call or stuff to that.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

So I've been doing lots of podcast guesting myself. I pulled my audience the other day because I was, I'm curious. You know, I am not a big podcast listener. So when I do listen to podcasts, I never take that next step. Like, who's the guest? How am I gonna reach out, connect with them? So I pulled my audience for the podcast that you listen to. You do you take that next step with the guest? If it was somebody that was like super aligned and had a great message, and overall, no. So we're all just listening and that's about it. So, what are your tips to get people to take that next step if you're a guest?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

That's such a good point because that's a place where we can really drop the ball when we guests on shows. It's a great talk and you build that connection with the host, but then maybe listeners, let's say they listen to your whole episode. Obviously, they're interested, they're they're a warm market because of doing that homework and making sure you and the hosts are aligned in some way. So it's it's different than just scrolling on reels or something on social media. It should be this um sped up process where they do want to take the next step. So, one, we need to give them the next step and we need to have a place to send them. That's definitely part of my process is um making sure we have one call to action, one place we're sending them. For example, I had a client and she had five amazing quality, free resources, free downloads, but we can't mention all those in one podcast episode. That's too much. It's going to make you kind of feel like a generalist or it's just gonna be an action. There's too many choices. It's not that you can't have that many, but I recommend when you speak on a show, you're gonna have one thing that you're sending them to. That's a no-brainer, that's very valuable. So the ones that really resonated with you while you were speaking, that's where they're going next. Because you're right, if we don't get them into our community and bring them over into our neck of the woods, that's gonna fall flat. We also want to keep in mind the host of a podcast typically is someone that a lot of people come to for referrals or questions. So if you can keep your um connection with those hosts that you had a really good vibe with, and your hour that you chatted with them flew by, you'll know the feeling in connection with them. They are going to be your biggest resource network community that you can build, and it's so great to all of a sudden feel like there's people on the internet cheering for you. And sometimes entrepreneurship can feel so lonely. So don't discount that relationship either. If you don't see a lot of new followers or new um email subscribers, that process is um still gonna work for you in the background. Another thing that can help with this is to really hone in on those niche topics, which is why it's my first step in my process because we don't want to get on a show and talk about five different things. When I first years ago started dabbling and guesting, I made all these mistakes. Don't expect yourself to just, you know, walk into the arena and be this expert. We need to let ourselves start where we're at, but we can do things to minimize these mistakes. And one of them is to really make sure that you have picked those niche topics. So you get on a show and you're getting asked questions that are in your zone of genius. So you feel really confident answering them. When we get on shows, we don't have that thought out, we don't have that planned out, that's when you're gonna get questions that are you're gonna feel uncomfortable. You're gonna be like, I don't really know the answer to this. So that's huge. Keeping it honed in on one thing. It doesn't mean that you don't have other offers or other expertise, but one podcast episode, if we think of our general uh attention span, we can't talk about five different things. When that host gets asked, hey, I need help with this, you're not gonna be top of mind. If you just stick to this one thing, you are going to be top of mind. You are going to be who they refer you to. That is really powerful to see happen. And in typically, I don't know about you, but if someone refers me that I know, like, and trust already to someone, I don't even need to check them out too much. I can hit buy or I can hit sign up really fast because people have been burned so much that we need that connection. So if you can get really specific on what you're talking about for that episode and it and you can do other shows where you end up talking about a different niche topic or something, but making sure that that is thought out, again, don't do anything before you've done that planning. That's gonna help you bring those people into your your neck of the woods. And I know what you're gonna hit on this next, but making sure then that those topics align with what's on social media so that you don't give that talk and then they go to your social media and they're like, oh, this doesn't match at all. And now I'm just confused. I'm excited that you're gonna bring that together for us.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

I love that you talk about the relationship between like you and the podcast host or that host and yes. It's also important as the podcast host to have a social presence as well, even if you're like, oh, this podcast alone is working really well for me. Like I did a uh episode a couple months ago, and I loved the lady that I would talk to. We had such a great conversation. We did like a pre-interview and like we chatted for a long time, but she doesn't have any social media, and I'm like, okay, well, I'll just see you when I see you. Like that relationship essentially, unless you want to do a zoom every month or something. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And and I love podcast guesting because I feel like social media can feel like a grind, a feeling I've done things in the past when I was like, I just wish more people would see this. I need to be more visible. And so I joined like 30 reels in 30 days, those kinds of challenges that people were getting, like 5,000 new followers. It didn't have those results. And that didn't work for me. And it felt like I put all my eggs in one basket, and then now I'm a month and I haven't done anything else because that was so time consuming. If you're feeling really confident in your business, you're feeling like I just need more people to see this. Podcast guessing is a really great place to put some of your time. Like you said, it doesn't mean that we don't have anything on social media, right? So it it could be like we're not posting every single day, but weekly or once or twice a week. So you can say I'm gonna put more time and energy into this and take things off your plate, but there is that partnership, that unity that we do need that piece to go along with it, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, you have to you can use social just simply to like nurture your existing. I don't need to put like a whole strategy and separate thought process into it.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

What are your thoughts on like pond match and resources like that? I haven't really gotten into those myself just because I've found it easy enough to follow the process that I use to build those connections. Threads has been a really great place for podcasting and building those connections. The algorithm over there really hones in on that really quickly and adjusts. So I have not gone down those routes, but I do know people that have, and it's a paid service, or hiring someone like me that does those things as well. Either one can work for you. It's what kind of commitment or what kind of time do you have? A lot of those services would be more like DIY. You're gonna have to put in the effort. They might not be as tailored as a real human being would in helping you with that and speeding up that process. I haven't found that I need it because of following my own process.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So do you train people like your clients on like what to say? Like even throughout this whole conversation, you've been like, you talk about what you do without like selling, and I'm like, oh, that's like what I need to work on is like how to leave in what I do and what I offer into the conversation naturally. So is that something that you help your clients do?

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Absolutely. So I help pick out those these topics and people assume that want to take it and run with it. One question that can get you started is if you're like, that sounds great, but I don't even know what I would say. One tip place to start is if you had a guest on a podcast tomorrow, there's no planning time, you can't prepare. What comes to mind that you're like, this is it? Because there's a speaking topic in there, there's your passion. Somewhere in there, you have something to talk about. That's a place so you can get started on your own. Obviously, I go deeper and I look at your offers and things and figure out what speaking topics are in those because that's what we really want to make sure everything is cohesive. But as far as like the coaching part, yeah, so step five is we have a call at the end. We make sure that you feel really confident in what you're gonna talk about. But a few tips I can give you is there's three parts I think of a podcast episode intro, the value in the middle, that's your expertise, that's how you're the thought leader, and then the outro, where you're gonna send someone. We've touched on that already. But if we go to that intro, one easy thing to practice is almost always they're gonna ask you something like, tell me a little bit about yourself. You know, how did we get here? And in my first guessing experience, I can laugh about it now and you learn these lessons, but I had a host cut me off during that question. And as she should have, because I was so excited to be there and I didn't really have anything planned out. I was just so excited to do this. So I started from like zero to where I was every pivot, every life story. That's just not how um you want to spend the first five to seven minutes of a of a podcast. Let's say it's 20 minutes or 30 minutes. If you spend that long just introducing yourself, that's gonna eat up a good fraction of the episode. So you wanna give enough pieces so that listeners can relate to you, or you let the host then ask you further questions about parts of your story that that they want to know and that fits their audience because they're gonna know that better than you. Keeping that really short, like 60 seconds, 90 seconds tops of just how you got to where you are and not sharing every bit of that life story, mentioning what you do now and who you help. That's gonna go a long way in helping kick that interview off to a great start. Other tips would be for that value piece, your expertise, if you're nervous, if you feel like I'm just gonna blink. When that happens in a lot of times, we're live, so we're just like straight shooting this. But a lot of times in a podcast setting, you have so much control over your environment. You can schedule it when it works best for you. Uh, those pieces tend to work well for the mom preneurs that I tend to attract and help and solar preneurs that are super busy. So that is a thing we don't think about. It's not the same as getting in front of a room of a hundred people and speaking. But a thing that you can do to ease the nerves is have a couple post-it notes written down. Let's say you have three pieces of advice or tips that you just really don't want to forget, just chat those down. So when you do have that mom brain or whatever, and you do space down, you get nervous, just glance down quick and no, no, no. And a lot of times most podcasts do some type of editing or light editing where they can cut that out. And it's very appropriate to ask the host if they do edit, or if they don't send you questions ahead of time and you really want to know some of those and prepare, you can, it's very appropriate to say, hey, I just want to make sure I do the best job and be prepared. Is there any specifics that you're gonna ask? I recommend not writing everything out because you don't want to sound like you're reading something because podcasting is um usually very laid back or it's a conversation and that's the fun part. Not being over-rehearsed if it eases your mind to get you going and get that band-aid ripped off. Well, there's some things that you can definitely do to help.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, you definitely always have like a bulleted list of like okay, I want to talk about. Usually I get completely off track, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

That sometimes is the beauty and the most fun when you just go way off script with the host because you're both so excited and you're aligned of what is coming up. And I love that too. That's like great magic happening.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

I've done pre-calls with people. There was one time a lady sent me a list of like what she wanted to talk about, and then beforehand, and then when we got on the call together, she's like, Here's what I want to talk about, which had nothing to do with the original list. And as we were talking, she didn't touch on either of those lists. So, like, it doesn't really matter how prepared you try to be, sometimes it just goes completely somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

For sure, and have fun with it because that's the fun stuff, that's the teachable moments and the the good part of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Cool. Well, any other final thoughts on um pitching, or I mean, you covered a lot of great things.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Final thoughts are to remember to let yourself be a beginner. Don't beat yourself up, don't be so judgy with yourself. So many people listen to their first episode and they're like, I can't even listen to it. I don't want to hear it's part of the process. Just have some grace with yourself. Your people are waiting for you, your take, your voice, your story. And I'm a firm believer in that that there is enough people for all of us, and we're not in competition, and there's abundance, right? Knowing in your heart of hearts that there are people waiting for me, and there's people waiting for me to help them can make you feel so much more confident in sharing where you are at that moment, not waiting till you feel like you're an expert. Keep in mind that this is just being a human, being genuine. If you leave with that value and that type of style, you're gonna build great relationships with hosts and um have a lot of fun doing it too. Thank you for all those great dips. I can't wait to dive in now. So let's say we've guested on a show, we have this awesome episode. Where do we go on this now?

SPEAKER_01 17:53

That's a huge question, and a lot of people kind of for like, okay, I did the podcast check moving on, but really the podcast is the start of it. So I am a content marketer, which means I want to put things on every platform. So if you're listening to this and you are a DIY person, just take what resonates with you and what you're already doing and use that. I like to think of podcasts as a big initial form of long form content and always ask your podcast host for the recording. So a lot of people will give you the Zoom recording itself or the audio recording. I really like to have that video content to one put on YouTube if they're okay with that, and then always credit everybody involved. So everybody's getting links there. I also like to turn that into blog content. So either you're posting a video on your blog page and then you're taking all the content that you're talking about and summarizing it as a blog post itself. So that's really great for SEO purposes, of course, and then backlinks and getting more exposure for everybody involved. The next thing I like to do is add that to a press page. So you're building a list of everything that you've been guesting on, workshops, webinars, anything like that. So that's kind of why I asked you about links too. If you're pitching, should you include your press page? And on that press page, I like to include like the speaking topics that you mentioned and summarizing that and who your ideal audience is and values and like a bio. So that way it makes it really easy for the podcast host as well. Okay, yeah, that checks this box and this box. I have their bio here, I have their picture here, social link. So everything kind of like combined into one page as well. And then I like to include that in email newsletters. If you're doing a lot of guest spots, you can always just have like a permanent footer of like rotating episodes of things that you've been on, or just have that as a whole newsletter itself. Like, hey, here's my recent episode I was on, here's what I talked about. Tap in if you want to listen to the whole episode. Then I like to get the recording so I can turn it into social posts as well. So just like breaking it out into little short clips for reels, and then again, always linking back to the podcast episode as well. Um, so that's how I like to repurpose episodes from one podcast. You can turn that into like how many clips, like five, six clips for reels or TikToks from a podcast episode. So, really, this is living on eternally. It's not just one podcast episode and you're done. You're using that for so many different pieces of content. And then you can repurpose that like forever, right? So if once a year or something, you like kind of revisit that podcast. The podcast episode itself is just one, the start of it all. Use this content to do everything. And like, as we said earlier for podcast hosts, if you just want to like focus on podcast guesting, you still need to be active on social media so you can just turn all of this into more content without like thinking about what to post on social media.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I love that. That's so much content that you just listed from one episode, which is amazing. And it just takes a lot of guesswork out of things. But for people that are overwhelmed by all that, is there one spot that you recommend starting, or maybe it doesn't matter? Maybe we're just picking one, especially people that are DIYing it, where they can start and then get that ball really moving. That's how my brain works.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

But if you do a lot of blogging and you're really focusing on SEO, just put it on your blog and call it a day. If you are more active on social media, then take some time to turn it into clips and do that. If you are more active in your newsletter, then do that. Find the platform that is aligned with what you're already doing and go that route.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

And then add from there, I imagine. Once you feel really comfortable in one spot. I know for me with podcasting, I just had to get started four years ago and I didn't know how to edit and all these things, but you can add the next thing because all of a sudden you're doing it faster or it's second nature and you're not thinking that hard about it. So I like that. What do you say? Podcasts, you can search for them, they're long form content. Really, the only other thing I know of that is the same is a blog. So is that where we wanna start? Is that where we wanna focus because of that thing for the book? Um, or what do you recommend?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

That's a great question. In terms of SEO, you're right. Like podcasts and blogs can be pretty similar. A lot of people are using AI to search now, so like your podcast or your blog is gonna show up regardless. But I find it really easy to do podcasting and blogs at the same time. I don't always recommend pulling the transcript, isn't like the best blog post, but you could do that. So let's say you just pull the transcript. Transcript from the audio and then you post it on your website or your blog along with a video or recording. Or you can take that into AI and say, here's the transcript from a podcast. Can you turn this into like a blog post and then optimize it from there? So you can make them really connected. This is all great evergreen content. Not talking about like here's something I'm doing next week. So even if you just want to start on social media or just your blog or something, you can always come back to these episodes when you're ready to add another level to your marketing. You don't need to be like, I did that podcast a year ago. It's it's too late. You can always pull information from it.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

That's a great point. And actually, I just did that. I didn't have a blog set up on my website about a year ago. I was just like, I need that's the next, I need to turn these into blogs so I can double dip in the the back links, the SEO. I just did that same thing. Like you said, it's not too late. Yeah, I know you're also big on community, and I love that. That's one of the things that a collaboration between us matched. Tell me about that and collaborations or how you're building that with in creating content.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Well, and if you're in communities, that's a really great place to find collaborators for your podcast. And it's a really great place to get exposure for your podcast. So if you're in these groups, they're already, it's not like a cold audience. You're generally involved with a lot of people there. So it's a really good place to ask for guests or host spots. And then once it's posted or live, the podcast is live, then you post it in the communities and say, hey, this person was a guest, and here's what we talked about. And other people in those communities are either gonna know you or them or both of you, and then they're gonna be more interested in watching it. Um and you can also use that to like leverage more exposure for like social media. So be like, hey, here's where I posted it. Could you go interact with it there? Or ask for reviews. Reviews are really important for podcasts. So asking them, like, if you listened, please leave me a little review, that'd be great. If you know of good connections for podcast hosts, so like as you said, if referrals are obviously huge and the best way to grow, so you could use that to get podcast guests as well. Communities can play a huge role in everything.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

And do you have any recommendations on you know where to find those if people are like, that film's great. How do I get this?

SPEAKER_01 24:31

I actually have a whole list of community and networking groups, so send me a message because I've been like I spent a whole almost two years now, like gr really diving into communities and networking groups and finding new places where I just like compiled a list of all my favorites that I recommend. So I do have that, and I'm always open for ideas too. The the group the list can grow. So if you have other recommendations, let me know.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Oh what that's such a great value, not having to search yourself. I know we all hate that when you have to go search and you never know what for sure you're getting. And so having that, that would be amazing. Is there something else that we haven't talked about that you want to make sure to share about?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

I would say in terms of like podcast guesting that we covered a lot. We covered all the good stuff. Make good use of it. The podcast episode is just the start, and don't be afraid to revisit it, even if a lifetime has gone by.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Just continue to reshare your story and reshare your expertise. That's one thing that I also get asked, like, well, I've already posted about that, or I've already spoken about that. That's fine. You're on a new show, that's a new audience, and you're gonna keep on talking about it. And the great thing I've noticed is being forced to talk about your message, your offer, your business over and over, and your story makes everything else easier, makes writing your content easier, and really builds that muscle and puts in those reps where all of a sudden you are much clearer on who you help, much clearer on your offers. It's just like beautiful partnership and it goes out. And that was a ripple effect. I wasn't prepared for it.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah, it's a good exercise for you. Like, even if you're like, oh, that was a terrible episode, I don't have to prepare that. Like, it was good for you to like go through the process. But you made a good point. Like, you can say the same thing over and over and over and over again, even on social media. If you s use the same messaging in every podcast, you can still pull the same clips over and over. It doesn't matter because we don't retain what we're seeing on social. Can I even tell you the last five posts I saw right before this? So if somebody's talking about the same thing, you might feel like, oh, I bet they're tired of me saying this all the time. But nobody is really grasping that. So keep saying the same thing over and over.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Absolutely. It's similar advice I got early on that really stuck with me. If you aren't sick of your own story, people haven't heard it enough. There's statistics like it takes seven to twelve times for someone to even realize that you have an offer and not even form an opinion on it, but just notice that you do. So keep sharing it, keep repeating it, keep saying it in different ways because nobody's thinking about you that much. Nobody's remembering us that much. Only we are, which is which is great. You're gonna get better and better at it from all angles. Cool. Well, so much great information. Thanks for chatting. If people listen or they got this far, send me a DM. I would love to hear your takeaways. Or if you have a question that we didn't answer, please feel free to connect and and chat out. Same, same. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Well, thank you. So before, and I'll see you soon.