By Steve Moran

Every week we are contacted by people who are looking for free publicity of some form or another. Mostly we pass, but sometimes we say yes. Which means we really like getting the requests. If you are someone looking for free press it can be frustrating because it feels like you get lots of rejections, mostly in the form of no response, and wonder what you are doing wrong.

I have an industry friend who responded to this recent Senior Living Foresight article Best Senior Living Podcasts for 2022 asking how to get booked on podcasts. You can google this and find lots of suggestions but here is what works from our perspective.

Payoff

Getting booked on a single podcast published at a single media website is often a matter of luck. But getting on one episode one time will not do you all that much good anyway. If you have goals, other than 15 minutes of fame, you need to be everywhere.

The payoff can be significant. I am currently booked to be on a panel in January where they expect an audience of more than 10,000 people. That was not luck, it was being out there a lot. And it could very well lead to other opportunities.

Getting It Done

  1. You have to have something interesting to talk about.
  2. You have to present the content in an interesting way. In fact, the hard truth is that if the content is great and you are boring, you will have a tough go. If the content is only average but you are compelling, you will find it much easier to be on someone else’s stage.
  3. While you may be talking about it the same way, you will need to be prepared for different kinds of audiences, you need to be thinking about what will appeal to the audience.
  4. You need to think about the needs of the platform you want access to. At Senior Living Foresight, we want stories that will help senior living operators do a better job. But we don’t talk about things like transactions and promotions. These things are important and there are other places that are a better fit, like Senior Housing News and McKnight’s.

    Because we have sponsors who pay for access, we don’t do vendor stories from non-sponsors.
  5. Make a list of podcasts, TV shows, digital publications you want to be on, then reach out and ask if you can be a guest. I know this sounds obvious, but some of our best guests have been people who asked to be on Foresight Radio and Foresight TV.
  6. When getting started, say, YES to every single invite to be on any “stage” that is available. You will get better at your craft and you never know where it will lead.

And finally, if you have a story or idea, we would love to hear about it.