I absolutely love ‘guesting’ as a strategy to increase your reach and authority. If these two objectives are part of your content strategy, then guesting (think blogs, podcasts, videos or providing content of value to another business or person) should definitely be on your hit list this year.
Guesting can come in many different forms and can be tweaked slightly depending on the audience and collaborator. However, I thoroughly recommend a common message or theme with your guesting, so if the same person comes across you through two different appearances, then they won’t be confused!
Why guesting is an important part of your content strategy
Guesting falls into the top part of your sales funnel. It’s a way to attract new people into your audience so that you can begin to filter them through your funnel and into conversion. Here’s a few reasons why guesting is an important part of your content strategy.
Widen your reach
It’s easy to get stuck in the same circle of people. The same Facebook Groups, hanging out with your biz besties. Whilst this is still an important part of connection in your content strategy, it is often useful to go outside these comfort zones to broaden your reach. Guesting allows you to do this by accessing someone else’s audience.
Increasing your perceived expertise
This is important because if you are seen as an authority on a subject, more people are likely to be drawn to you. The more guesting that you can do, the higher your authority. As a key person of influence in your given industry, you then have access to even more opportunities, will attract more clients and can charge higher prices.
Achieve your objectives
The driving force of every content strategy is its objectives. Do you intend to use content to build your email list, increase social media followers, increase your authority? Guest blogging can help you achieve all of these! Your call to action on your guesting content can be to download a freebie and get them on your email list, enter a competition or giveaway, join a 5 Day Challenge or webinar (although these last ones are time sensitive) or simply follow you on social media for more tips.
Build your email list
I always encourage list building as the primary call to action with guesting as it usually involves evergreen content (a subject that is relevant across time). This means that someone might come across a podcast you were interviewed on a year after it was published, but could still download your freebie and become an activate part of your sales funnel.
Repurpose and cross promote
Just because your content isn’t published on your channels, doesn’t mean that you can’t repurpose it! Grab a testimonial from your collaborator, quote yourself, take a screen shot of the interview taking place, use some of the content in a FB Live, shoutout your collaborator or create a montage of weird face screenshots from an interview! There are so many different ways to use your guesting content.
How to guest
Now you understand why guesting should be a prominent part of your content strategy, here are a few tips on how to go about finding or reaching out to someone to collaborate with.
Find someone with a similar audience or ideal client
This is the first item to tick off your list for two reasons. The first is that a content strategy is all about attracting your ideal client as they are the ones that will resonate with your message and existing content. An audience full of your non-ideal client is only going to be detrimental to your content strategy engagement and indirectly affect the reach of your message.
Warm is better than cold
Just like converting a warm lead is easier than a cold lead, the same goes for people you wish to pitch to. What do you usually do with those emails you get that sell SEO expertise with promises of increasing your rankings? Delete. Make sure that you are following your potential collaborator on social media, subscribed to their podcasts and start interacting and connecting with them (in an authentic way of course) by liking or commenting on their social media posts.
Tailor your topic
Think about whether you need to tweak your topic to match the knowledge of your collaborator’s audience. Have they heard about your topic before? Have they heard of you before? Do you need to go back to basics? Or would they already have some knowledge of your topic and you can dive into more advanced concepts?
Have a funnel in place to capture new leads
This includes having a kick-ass freebie that’s related to your guesting topic, a welcome series and further nurture series to help convert them to paying clients. Don’t waste this opportunity to build your email list!
If you’re interested in learning how to pitch to guest on a podcast, I thoroughly recommend following Mai-kee Tsang. An absolute Mastermind in the area of pitch and strategy that will help you refine your topics and pitch to make your collaboration a success.
If this blog has totally bamboozled you and I lost you at the words “content strategy” then come and follow me on Facebook and Instagram where I talk more about the components of content strategy, how they fit together and how to use them in a cohesive manner that feels right for you!