How to 10x your revenue with podcast guesting with Max Novak

Welcome to another captivating interview by Marketer Interview!

Today, we’re thrilled to have Max Novak, the Founder of Novacast, joining us.

Max’s expertise in podcast guesting and his knack for developing a proven system that books sustainability founders and CEOs on top-rated podcasts have made him a standout figure in the industry.

Let’s explore his journey and gain insights into podcast marketing and beyond.

Can you share how you ventured into marketing and eventually founded Novacast?

My story began 7 years ago when I entered into marketing. I liked it, but it didn’t get me fired up just yet. Only when I discovered podcasts and saw the authenticity in that medium did I truly begin to love it.

I first became a heavy podcast consumer, then thought, why not just go for it? I founded Novacast in early 2020. In my first year, I sent hundreds of bad email pitches for the best ones that get people to speak on podcasts.

Back then, I still had no confidence I could scale the agency, but I just kept taking action and trying to find the perfect system to get podcast hosts to say “yes” to all of my pitches.

Listening daily to podcasts and speaking to hundreds of podcast hosts did help a lot! So slowly, I became better and got my clients booked on better and better podcasts over time. I am now living my dream of serving sustainable brands and CEOs to grow their business via podcasts. I’m running my agency from Bali, which has been a dream for quite some time.

Podcast guesting is your forte. How did you become so passionate about this aspect of marketing?

Well, podcasts became my Google. I now learn everything from podcasts and consume them daily.

I became passionate about them because they changed my life. It’s like reading from books but when driving or running. I consume them and learn so much from the world’s best of the best.

I pick the brains of experts in any industry I want to learn from. I can learn in 1 hour of authentic conversation while being in traffic about the whole life of Da Vinci or Churchill or learn more about anything in marketing from the world’s best.

Podcasts are excellent in every aspect you look at. Even for brands, you can learn more about their product or service from the founder, which is fantastic.

What do you believe sets podcast guesting apart as a powerful marketing tool, and how does it align with your passion for storytelling?

What sets them apart from podcasts is the authentic conversations they create.

A podcast host can ask as many tough questions as they like to their guest speaker, meaning they have to be transparent, and transparency can only breed trust. You can generate more effective marketing by leveraging a whole new audience that wants to hear more about you, and you can repurpose that to your audience by sharing the podcast episode with them.

So, you get to speak to a new audience and your audience by redistributing the interviews you make. It aligns with my passion for storytelling because anyone loves a good story, and podcasts allow you to tell your backstory when introducing yourself and giving examples of your statements.

People don’t remember numbers and dates. They remember good stories. And who doesn’t love a good story?

Your role involves developing creative solutions to problems. Could you highlight an instance where you tackled a marketing challenge particularly innovatively?

Well, yes, it’s difficult to track the results of your podcasts. You don’t get to know the ROI because this is a long-term strategy. It’s unlike a Facebook ad where you can see who clicked and when.

So I came up with the idea of having an excellent soft call-to-action for my clients, which gives out a low-cost offer, a discount, or a gift on a specific landing page that only the listeners of that podcast episode receive. That way, we get to track the results of every podcast a person gets on.

Your commitment to helping people share their stories is inspiring. Can you share an experience where you’ve witnessed the impact of storytelling in marketing firsthand?

Well, simple, to give you an example, after 4 months of working with a specific client, we got to generate 122k listeners, with a cost of about 16 cents per listener, and after that, they started having “clients walk in the offices saying they listened to one of the podcast interviews and came to check them out.”

But in the end, all great marketers are great storytellers. People sometimes don’t just want a product. They want to believe in a story. Look at all luxury brands. That’s how they up their prices to incredible heights, with storytelling.

How do content quality and engagement contribute to successful marketing campaigns, especially in podcasting?

Content quality and engagement go hand in hand. For content quality, I don’t mean making things beautiful. Still, with quality, I provide relevant information to the end user and, most importantly, a great offer!!!

Quality content is only valuable with a great offer and call to action. Podcasts open many doors for the ones who understand they need to use storytelling to captivate an audience, but you only get results if you can bring listeners to where you want them to. We are not poets trying to entertain but rather storytellers who propose a great product or service that can help people’s lives if they are interested.

Collaboration and networking are often integral to marketing success. How do you approach building solid connections in the podcasting and marketing communities?

Well, one of the main things I teach is leading with value.

Think not only of how you can leverage the audience of the podcast host and “steal” them away from that podcast but rather what you teach that audience. How can you serve the podcast host to create more great content on his podcast and grow and monetize his show?

Imagining you have done an excellent podcast interview, you can still monetize your relationship with the podcast host by doing affiliate marketing and helping each other out. If you do that with every podcast host, you slowly create a real empire while growing your brand.

As a seasoned marketer, what are some of your favorite tools and software that you rely on to streamline your work and deliver top-notch results for your clients?

Well, I’m old school. My famous podcast guesting tracklist is made on Excel sheets, where we keep track of every podcast research, email sent, and the answers we got.

To automate email follow-ups, we use Apollo, while Activecampaign is also good. For researching the podcasts themselves, I use Listennotes.com to check for global ranking and listenership and Chartable.com to check for ratings and reviews.

Keep it simple: You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars monthly to speak on podcasts and grow your brand. I prefer organic marketing over anything paid personally.

Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of podcast guesting and the evolving marketing landscape, and how do you plan to stay at the forefront of these trends?

Podcasts will only grow; they have doubled since the global pandemic, and it has already become a billion-dollar business. More and more podcasts will become high-quality and give us insights we dreamed of before.

Marketers will understand that transparency is needed to gain people’s trust, and already, all great marketers and brands have many podcast appearances. I plan to continue perfecting my system depending on how podcast hosts evolve.

My podcast guesting system is based on my knowledge of podcast hosts, so as long as I keep learning from them, I’ll stay at the forefront of the industry. Being playful and innovative is vital. I constantly A/B tests everything I do and will always do that.