AI is making podcast pitches worse. A movie scene
that has stuck with me for 30 years is from Men
in Black. Vincent D 'Onofrio playing an upstate
New York farmer named Edgar gets killed by an
alien who immediately puts his skin on and wears
it like a suit. I guess I should have said spoiler
and content alert here. Then, walking into his
kitchen, Alien Edgar immediately demands of his
wife, and here's my best Alien Edgar impression.
Sugar in water. Sugar in water for those who
didn't catch that. Dinafrio perfectly plays this.
Moving and talking uncomfortably as if he's actually
unfamiliar with how humans move. But it's the
request, sugar in water, that always gets me.
It's odd because even though most beverages we
consume have sugar or some sort of sugar substitute
in them, no one explicitly asks for sugar in
water. And while it's an odd request, Edgar's
wife obliges and watches in disbelief as he downs
the entire glass. It was so close to being believable,
but it was missing something innately human.
That's how I have felt about podcast pitches
as of late. Now, bad podcast pitches aren't new.
I've written about them a lot on my blog and
on social media. But in the age of AI, bad pitches
have become rampant. worse. More pitches are
coming in where the sender says hope this email
finds you well or they recently discovered my
podcast and it has quickly become one of my favorites.
The last one has very strong sugar and water
vibes. In fact, for the question on my form,
what episode made you want to reach out? which
I've since gotten rid of, but for a long time
and I got rid of it in part because it has become
useless. Someone straight up sent a chat GPT
summary of my episode. How did I know it was
a chat GPT summary? Here is the entire answer.
And again, remember the question was, what episode
made you want to reach out? In the episode Great
Things Require Time, Joe begins with an anecdote
about impatient customers waiting in line at
the best bagel shop in New York, stating that
if all they wanted was a bagel, they could have
gone to any grocery store, but the best bagels
would be worth the wait. This sense of dedication
was admirable that something great will not be
reached without patience and hard work. The three
most important values to building a successful
digital presence online our professional authenticity,
professionalism, authenticity, and consistency.
This framework encourages creators to ask themselves
and then three questions. So that's not an answer
to what episode made you want to reach out. That
is the answer to the prompt. Can you summarize
the latest episode of this podcast for me? And
it ticks all the boxes for a terrible AI answer.
It's a clumsy intro. It's written in third person
about the person that they're writing to, me.
Unnecessary 10 -point vocabulary word. Factually
incorrect. I was actually talking about bagels
in Pennsylvania, which as a New Yorker, it was
shocking that I was able to find good bagels
in Pennsylvania. Sorry, Pennsylvania. And it
doesn't even remotely answer the question. Bad,
bad, bad. But they don't... They don't have to
be bad. Pitches don't have to be bad. Last year
I had my friend Jenny Wright on my other podcast,
Streamlines Holopreneur, and her pitch was a
breath of fresh air. She focused on the audience,
sent the right sort of topics, and showed that
she at least looked at the episodes of my podcast
before pitching. I am under no delusion that
everyone who pitches my show is an avid listener,
but part of pitching is understanding the show,
who the audience is, and how you as a guest can
help that audience. Jenny and a few folks since
then have done that, and they had a great guest
page to boot. I knew having her on the show would
add a ton of value for my audience. So my advice
for pitching podcasts. What can you do if you
are pitching? First of all, make it relevant
to the show's audience. Don't just make it an
email about how amazing you as a person are.
Or if you are a podcast agent, don't just talk
about how great your guest is. That is spam filter
city. Second, check out the show before pitching.
Listen to an episode if you can, but at least
scroll through the back catalog and see what
kind of topics the show covers. Number three
is confirm they actually have guests. You know,
I've gotten pitched for my audio notes show,
which is super clear. Just me talking into my
iPhone about random stuff. Spray and pray is
a bad look. And if I get, if I get a guest pitch
for a show that famously doesn't have guests,
then even if they pitch my main show, I'm not,
I'm going to assume that they're not actually
researching my show at all. And finally, you
should have a great guest page. Make it easy
for the host to understand who you are and why
you're qualified to talk about what you're pitching.
So creating a good pitch does take more time.
This takes way more time than just blindly pitching
shows, but this is the sort of thing that will
actually get you good results. Now I will link
to an article version of this episode where I
have a podcast pitch template. It's usually something
like, I came across your show and love its mission
to help target audience. Here's how I think I
can help add value for your listeners. This is
after doing a bunch of research. And then you
actually write something that is not just like,
I'm so great. It's like, oh, you help busy, solopreneur
parents. I'm a single mom of three and I'm running
my own business and I'm managing, right? Like
that's a good answer. That's like the exact avatar
of somebody I just interviewed on my podcast.
And then, you know, I'm happy to answer any questions
you have. You can learn more about me here at
a page specifically for podcast guesting, right?
Notice that this template makes it clear who
the show is for and that you know who the show
is for. You're pitching three or a few irrelevant
topics and you're sending them to a page that
shows your credentials. This will achieve your
goal. Show the host that you actually care about
their audience. And for the love of all things
righteous and good, don't outsource this job
to ChatGPT or any generative AI. It's too important
if you're trying to forge genuine relationships
that will actually grow your audience and your
All right, that's it for this episode of Streamlined
Podcaster. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to
know what you think. Send your feedback over
to StreamlinedFeedback .com. That's Streamlined
with a D, Feedback .com. And until next time,
I hope you find some space in your week.