Welcome to a newsletter themed at the intersection of longevity and wine history. 🍷
If you’re wondering, the photo is not me. Adobe stock image.
Last year, I set out to build my first podcast tour. My goal was to introduce more people to the Gemello Winery story as interest grew around the 50th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris on May 24. For those of you who are new to my Substack, my grandfather’s 1970 Gemello Cabernet took first place in the 25th anniversary rematch.
A podcast tour is a series of coordinated guest appearances across multiple shows timed around a certain event, like a book release, a movie launch or a historical anniversary. Podcast guesting doesn’t need a travel budget and can reach a global audience from any location. After appearing on a few wine and history podcasts, mostly based in the U.S., I started getting invitations to appear on shows hosted by podcasters located in Italy and England.
It has helped me connect with wine, history and genealogy professionals and expand the Gemello story’s reach. Here’s a list of podcasts episodes I’ve been interviewed on.
Developing a podcast tour strategy and qualifying podcasts that speak to the right audiences can be time-consuming and sometimes frustrating. Searching for shows with “wine” in the title on Spotify or Apple Podcast has obvious strategic holes. Some related podcasts, like Beats Vines and Life can be overlooked. The other problem with that process is you have to manually search to find if a show is active. The podcast universe is littered with inactive shows, or ones that haven’t released new episodes in a year or more.
To better understand the podcast ecosystem, I used an analytics research tool called Rephonic. It provides the demographics and podcast information to quickly uncover the best shows in my niche. It helped me figure out which shows offer the most promising audiences and get the right contact information so reaching out is seamless.
From a productivity standpoint, I was able to slash my research time by more than 50 percent, while also fine-tune my targeting to the right types of shows that spoke to the audiences that were interested in the Gemello story.
After searching for a topic with the keyword “wine,” I’m able to narrow my search by clicking a checkbox to reveal only shows that have released episodes in the past 60 days or ones that regularly feature guests.
You can also filter for audience size, demographics and age group. This allows you to review estimated listeners per episode (based on downloads) and monthly audience size to ensure the show’s reach matches your level of experience, authority, or campaign goals. These are ballpark estimates.
Rephonic acknowledges its tool isn’t suitable for small podcasts, or shows with less than 500 downloads per episode, according to a review last year by the PodcastHost.com. It notes that shows with downloads in the 500 – 2000 range were Rephonic’s accuracy sweet spot.
After doing an interview on a podcast and the recording had stopped, I often asked the host to verify if Rephonic estimates were close to accurate.
Rephonic’s People tab provides a searchable list of previous guests, which can help you understand the types of guests they prefer. If you see a guest in your related field, it can be a quick way to customize your pitch email so it connects with the host. This will let them know you’ve done some homework or even listened to their show.
It can be tedious to manually search podcast contact information via shows’ Web sites. Rephonic provides a tab where you can access email information quickly.
Overcoming Your Inner Critic
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Jun 22
Discover how nine podcast appearances improved my storytelling, communication skills, interview preparation, and relationships with podcast hosts.
I’m the author of 🍷 Rain on the Monte Bello Ridge,🍷 my forthcoming memoir about health, aging and winemaking. (Read the origin story of the book.) 🍇
The Centenarian Playbook is my newsletter, which features:
🧑⚕️ Healthy aging/longevity tips
🍷 Wine history & stories of the Gemello Winery
📚 Ancestry & family research tips
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