How Interviews Can Help You Grow Your Audience

The other day I was listening to a podcast of one of our clients. It was an interview and the guest was also a podcaster. This was the second time this particular guest was on our client’s podcast. The stuff he talked about was pretty interesting so, I searched the name of the guest’s podcast on Google and here’s what I found on the first page of Google.

Link 1 – Podbean page of the guest’s podcast.
Link 2 – Guest’s podcast on Google Podcasts
Link 3 – Our client’s website, link to the previous episode with this guest
Link 4 – A video from our client’s Youtube channel with the guest

How it works

This an excellent example as to how you can leverage interviews to introduce your show to new listeners. But how does it work? There’s a psychological aspect of it that comes into play here. People love to promote the fact that when they’ve been interviewed by someone. That makes them appear more credible and feel more credible and confident. So when you interview someone on your podcast, chances are that person will share that podcast episode in their website, blog and all over their social media to show their audience that they were interviewed by you. This process will introduce you to you guest’s audience.

Role of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Then comes this SEO aspect of interviews. When you interview someone in your podcast and mention their details in your website and podcast shownotes, people who search for your guest may see search results from your website or podcast platform, just like what happened in our client’s example. On the other hand when they mention your info in their website, people who go to their website from searches may get to know about you too. This is another way doing interviews can bring you new listeners and that’s one of the reasons why cross interviewing is very popular among podcasters.

Using this Strategy with Companies and Products
Other than interviews with people you can also use this strategy to leverage potential companies.

You may not have companies that can advertise in your podcast directly but you probably know companies or people with products related to your field. And if you talk about one of those products in your podcast and let them know about it, chances are they’ll promote your podcast episode to their audience saying “Hey look! someone’s talking about our product”. This also exposes your podcast to a new audience.

Now, does all this mean you should only do interviews? No. Your listeners are with your podcast because they enjoy listening to you. They respect you and they know you’re an expert in whatever field or niche your podcast is about. So while you leverage interviewing other people you should also focus on doing solo shows and talk to listeners about what your’re passionate about. Happy Podcasting!

Supun H.
Founder / Audio Producer
Podlab Digital Media