How do you Get a Celebrity Guest on Your Podcast show?
A Celebrity guest can really boost the appeal and influence of your podcast show, but you will need to consider a few points first!
Celebrity guests can boost the influence of your podcast show, and attract a much bigger audience. For podcasters who are just starting out, the idea of landing a celebrity guest for an interview might seem like a long shot to begin with, but Rome wasn't built in a day!
Knowing who to contact and how to reach out to a celebrity can improve the success of booking a celebrity guest for your podcast show!
Booking a celebrity for a podcast interview is a bit easier than trying to book a celebrity for a guest appearance.
Who to Contact & Why?
Celebrities are always looking for opportunities to promote themselves, their brand, and other projects that they may be involved with.
A podcast with a good size audience might be a minimum time commitment, allowing them to successfully promote themselves and generate positive publicity.
You should never attempt to directly contact or communicate with a celebrity.
The publicist that works for a celebrity will be your point of contact. If the celebrity doesn’t have a publicist, you can attempt to contact the celebrity manager about the podcast show.
Publicists are in charge of generating as much positive media coverage and exposure as possible for their celebrity clients.
How to Contact a Celebrity Publicist:
Email is the most respectful form of initial communication with a celebrity publicist. Unsolicited phone calls might seem invasive, especially for celebrity publicists that manage the publicity of many clients.
In the email, you will need to summarize who you are, the subject, the focus of your podcast show & previous high profile guests who have participated in your podcast, with numbers/statistics regarding the size of your audience.
No long, emails that take up too much time of a celebrity publicist who probably has an endless list of people contacting them. Keep the email short and to the point…
It is a good idea to let the publicist know why you think the celebrity is a good fit for your podcast.
What you Need Know:
Before you contact a celebrity publicist, it’s important to know what the publicist will be looking for. This will allow you to make sure that you cover all the bases before making first contact.
Be sure to include the following;
- Place of the Interview: The publicist will want to know whether or not their client will need to travel, if the interview will take place in some other setting/location, or if the celebrity can be interviewed remotely. Due to COVID-19, most celebrities will probably prefer remote interviews for your podcast.
- Video: Some podcasts are just audio, others can include video Facebook Live and other streaming channels. The celebrity publicist you plan to contact will want to know whether the interview will be recorded with video or will it be just audio?
- Phone number: When ending your email to the celebrity publicist, be sure to include a phone number, should the publicist want to discuss the opportunity with you!
- Concerns: You will most likely have to adapt your schedule around the commitments of the celebrity guest.
- Fees: Most interviews with celebrities on podcasts are done for FREE as they are a promotional tool for the celebrity. When writing the celebrity publicist, be sure to include in the initial email information regarding your total audience. The larger your audience, the more publicity and exposure the celebrity will benefit from the better chance you will have in securing the celebrity.
- Podcast Questions: You should also provide the publicist with a list of the questions you are thinking of asking the celebrity. Most publicists will require a pre-screening of the questions, and will most likely suggest some changes depending on the content you wish to cover with the celebrity.
Summary:
Do all you can to book your first interviews, so you can get some real momentum, and once you do you’ll discover that booking more podcast interviews will happen a lot easier!
By Pete Moore
