Imagine sending ten pitches and receiving seven positive responses. It's a success rate many businesses dream of as each new connection opens doors and can cause business to surge.
This impressive stat belongs to Julie Fry, Founder of Your Expert Guest and matchmaker of all matchmakers. Specializing in podcast guest booking for female business owners, thought leaders, and authors, Julie's agency consistently achieves exceptionally high acceptance rates on behalf of clients (varying by client and industry, of course).
It's not always been so easy. The "Frankenstein" method, as Julie describes it, caused headaches in the early days. So what has helped them reach 2500 bookings and such a high acceptance rate?
Matchmaking experience in a similar niche
The birth of Your Expert Guest (YEG) was a natural step for Julie, having previously built a network for women balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship.
Julie explained, "There was a lot of matchmaking involved. Whenever a new member would join us, I would jump on a call and tell them "oh, you need to meet this person and this person."
With the business sold and the Covid pandemic disrupting in-person events, Julie spotted an opportunity in the booming podcasting industry.
"It was a different industry, a different kind of animal, but the same kind of work," she stated.
Drawing upon her wealth of experience and established connections, Julie has created a rich network of businesswomen and podcast hosts, where each successful guest appearance amplifies opportunities for future clients.
Improved efficiency
Your Expert Guest's research process was highly inefficient in the early days. The "Frankenstein" method involved multiple steps: using Google to identify podcasts featuring competitors, browsing Apple Podcasts for additional relevant shows, and gauging audience sizes on Listen Notes through global ranking statistics.
"It took hours and hours of research," she stated. "To find a pitch list of 50 shows for a client with Rephonic…we can do it in a third of that time."
That's because Julie and her team can now complete all these tasks on one platform, thanks to Rephonic's search tool, listener estimates, gender skew, audience location, podcast format, and other data.
The agency also takes advantage of Rephonic's recently added feature that makes discovering relevant shows even more effortless. Each week, Rephonic's tailored suggestions land directly in their inbox, prompting them to explore additional opportunities they might not have thought about.
Once a client is up and running, the YEG team uses Rephonic to set up alerts for client names just in case the host doesn't notify them when the episode goes live.
"We can still let the client know "Hey, this went live. Here's the link to share it and do your thing", explained Julie.
Excellent podcast matching
Securing perfectly aligned interview spots results in deeply impactful conversations, and this is the pivotal factor that keeps clients coming back for more. For example, one of Your Expert Guest's clients, who specializes in wine importation, approached the agency to connect with more people who would be a good fit for her wine club.
The YEG team followed their tried-and-tested method to find perfect podcast matches, first strategizing about the types of shows they would pitch, picking out wine and travel shows.
They used Rephonic's search tool to find shows covering relevant keywords and filtered the results. Since this client had never been a podcast guest before, the YEG team used the listener estimates filter to view shows with a small audience.
With a list of relevant podcasts to hand, they listened closely to each one to assess whether the style would suit the client. Once they pitched the target shows, positive responses started to roll in and the client made waves immediately.
"She quickly ramped up and is now guesting on shows with really huge audiences that are streaming the interview live," Julie noted. "She is rocking it and fully confident!"
After a six-month stint of successful podcast touring, the client took a brief hiatus to find new suppliers before returning to the agency, keen to embark on another round.
Final words
With 2500 client bookings under their belt, Your Expert Guest is a force to be reckoned within the podcast guest booking world.
When discussing the agency’s high acceptance rate, Julie emphasized, “It just speaks to the benefit of having a tool and a system that your team can use collaboratively that makes your team work more efficiently, and effectively gives you more time.”
Curious how Rephonic can save you time?
