Farzad Rashidi on How He Reached 2M Traffic with Podcast Outreach

Linkbuilding is hard, but it gets a bit easier if you find the right untapped strategy that your competitors are not using.

Podcast outreach is a rather unpopular yet effective linkbuilding technique that helps you build influencer partnerships and backlinks at scale without breaking the bank.

It’s all about having the right framework and then the tools to streamline it, which is exactly what Farzad Rashidi has done wit Respona, the linkbuilding tool he created to help Visme increase organic traffic from zero to 2 million monthly visitors.

Farzad Rashidi will show us his podcast outreach system that helped Visme build quality backlinks at scale, and reach over 20 million active users (no wonder it’s one of our top free tools to create infographics!).

A brief story of Respona and Farzad Rashidi

Before Respona, I was the first marketing hire at Visme, and helped the company grow to 3.5M+ organic traffic and 20M active users.

I was charged with building our customer acquisition engine, and as a bootstrapped company with limited resources, we had to rely on organic channels to bring an evergreen flow of customers to our platform.

We started writing content and followed traditional advice of keyword research and site optimization but with a twist… We spent only 20% of our resources on content creation and the remaining 80% on content promotion and link building, which is what propelled and keeps propelling Visme forward.

What inspired you to start Respona, and how did you validate the business idea?

We were focusing on link building to scale Visme, but all the other tools available on the market didn’t quite hit the spot. Say getting high authoritative was the key driver of organic traffic at Visme, and we were doing manual outreach which was not scalable.

We experimented with other tools, but they were either mass outreach tools, or completely manual CRMs that lacked the flexibility, or were too cluttered and time-consuming to use. Turns out the process of content promotion and outreach is a lot more difficult said than done. It was taking a considerable amount of time to make the process work manually.

So we built an internal tool, which worked so well for our internal team that we decided to release it as a standalone app.

Respona was born.

Why did you choose to focus on cold outreach to podcasts?

Three reasons why podcasts outreach works:

1. Establishing trust and awareness with our target audience
2. Rubbing elbows with industry influencers (the podcast hosts)
3. High authority backlinks from the show notes

Podcast outreach has a great ROI
We only send a dozen pitches weekly, and it gets me at least one podcast booking every week. This is because podcast hosts are usually happy to get free help in putting together an episode, so giving some free advertising to their audience and backlinks to your website in return is a good deal. Nobody is spamming anyone, because both get value from this collaboration.

How do you choose the podcasts to be featured on?

3. First, make a list of other podcast guests in our space (other founders and influencers). For example, other guests that have been on Omer Khan’s SaaS Podcast.
4. Then, find other shows that they have been on as a guest. We use Respona for this – just paste the names of the guests in the tool, and it’ll find the episodes in bulk, automatically.
5. Browse the episodes, and listen to as many as you can to get a good understanding of the host’s expertise and interests. This will also help you personalize your outreach email in a way that resonates with him/here.

What do your cold outreach emails look like?

Another team member sends this pitch with an icebreaker and asks if they’re open to introductions, and then if they say yes, I get copied into the thread and take things from there.

Here is one template we use to propose a collaboration:

How do you make your icebreaker and social proof more convincing?

We reference the podcast interview we found them on, and point out something interesting they have discussed on the show, to help personalize the pitch and stand out.

Also, we bring up other episodes I’ve been interviewed on for social proof – More specifically, I send the link to a list of podcasts I’ve been interviewed on (over 60 podcasts).

However, if you’re from a lesser-known company and don’t have much social proof, then spend more time on personalization to help stand out. Also, don’t jump straight to big podcasts if you don’t have enough experience, start small, and pitch the big guys once you have a few interviews under your belt.

How do you keep the new relationships going?

I always connect with the hosts on Linkedin, and like and comment on their posts anytime I see them. By establishing a relationship beforehand, you will increase your chances of getting a reply to your email pitch and get an interview on the podcast.

Once the episode goes live, we do our part to promote the episode by sharing it on social and submitting a review on Apple podcasts. We also always offer to help support the show by referring other guests, mentioning it in our newsletter, and so on.

How do you think Google’s Search Generative Experience will change SEO and Digital PR?

With the rise of AI-generated content, the barrier to entry for content creation is low. The internet is getting flooded with new content pieces, and Google has to rely on credibility and reputation factors to prioritize what’s shown to users, now more than ever.

Credibility has historically been judged based on the website’s backlink profile, and in my opinion, Google has to rely more on off-page metrics over time as more websites optimize their on-page content since it’s significantly “easier” to control.

Also, Google’s SGE uses several sources to generate responses to user queries, and it’s no longer enough to get your pages ranked for your target keywords. You now have to connect with other relevant, authoritative sources to also vouch for your business in order for it to be included in the generated responses.