How to Find New Podcasts Worth Appearing On: A Guide for UK Founders

To find new podcasts worth appearing on, search a podcast database such as Listen Notes, Podchaser or Rephonic for your topic, then filter by audience size, recent activity and guest quality. The goal is a short list of shows whose listeners are the exact people you want to buy from you, not the biggest download numbers you can find.

Most founders get this backwards. They chase the largest audience they can reach and end up talking to the wrong room. A show with two thousand of the right listeners will do more for a B2B business than a general-interest chart-topper with a hundred thousand.

This guide walks through how to find those shows, how to vet them properly, and how to turn each booking into actual demand rather than a nice clip nobody sees.

Key Takeaways

• Match matters more than size. A small, targeted podcast usually beats a huge, unfocused one for B2B outcomes.
• Use real databases (Listen Notes, Podchaser, Rephonic) to search by topic, then filter by recency and guest history.
• Vet every show for publishing consistency, guest quality and audience fit before you pitch.
• Pitch a short researched list of 10 to 15 shows, not a mass email to hundreds.
• Personalise every pitch. Reference a specific episode and give the host a reason their audience will care.
• Guesting builds reach fast. Your own show builds an asset that compounds. Serious founders eventually do both.
• One appearance rarely produces leads. A steady run plus repurposed clips is what creates recognition.

Why "Find New Podcasts" Means Something Different for a Business

Search "find new podcasts" and most advice assumes you want something to listen to on the commute. If you run a business, the intent is different. You want to find shows to appear on, so the right buyers hear you explain a problem you solve better than anyone else.

That reframes the whole task. You are not browsing for entertainment. You are building a media list, the same way a PR team builds one, except the medium is audio and the barrier to entry is far lower.

Podcasting has scale on your side. Listen Notes, one of the largest public podcast search engines, tracks several million shows across almost every niche imaginable. Somewhere in that pile are dozens of programmes talking to your customers every single week. The work is finding them.

Step One: Build Your Search Terms Before You Search Anything

Before you open a single tool, write down how your buyers describe their own problems. Not your product language. Theirs.

A manufacturing MD does not search for "operational efficiency solutions". They talk about "shop floor delays" or "late orders". A finance director does not want "financial transformation". They want to stop closing the month manually. Use their words as your seed terms.

Then expand each seed into adjacent topics. If you sell to hospitality operators, your podcast list should include shows about hospitality, but also independent retail, franchising, local business and regional entrepreneurship. Your buyers listen across categories, not just the one with your industry in the title.

Step Two: Where to Actually Find New Podcasts

A handful of tools do the heavy lifting. Each has a free tier that gets you a long way.

Start with Listen Notes for reach. Search your buyer's language, read the episode titles that come back, and note any show that keeps appearing. Then cross-check the promising ones in Podchaser to see who has guested before. Past guests tell you the calibre of the show and whether you fit alongside them.

Rephonic is worth the occasional paid lookup when you need a rough audience size to prioritise a shortlist. Treat its estimates as directional, not gospel. No third-party tool sees a show's true numbers.

Step Three: Vet Before You Pitch

A long list is easy. A good list takes judgement. Score every candidate on four things.

Publishing consistency. Open the feed. If the last episode dropped nine months ago, move on. You want shows that publish on a rhythm, weekly or fortnightly, because those hosts are actively feeding an audience that shows up.

Audience fit. Read three episode descriptions and the reviews. Do the topics circle the problems your buyers have? Do the reviewers sound like your customers or like students, hobbyists and randoms? Fit beats size every time.

Guest quality. Look at who has been on. If past guests are credible operators and recognised names in your world, the host has standards and the audience expects substance. If the guest list is a parade of people flogging courses, be cautious.

Reach you can verify. Estimated downloads, social following, review volume and how hard the host promotes each episode. A host who posts clips, tags guests and drives their list to listen is worth ten hosts who publish and vanish.

Anything scoring well on three of the four goes on your active list. See how we apply the same vetting to production work in our case studies.

Step Four: Pitch Like a Human, Not a Bot

Here is where most people lose. They find good shows, then send the same lifeless template to all of them. Hosts can smell a mass pitch from the subject line.

A pitch that works does three things. It names a specific episode and says something real about it. It offers a clear angle the host's audience will care about, framed as a topic not a plug. And it makes the host's life easy by suggesting two or three talking points they can react to.

Keep it short. Five or six sentences. You are asking for twenty minutes of a stranger's attention, so respect it. A researched list of 10 to 15 personalised pitches will out-perform a blast of two hundred generic ones, and it will not torch your name in a small industry where hosts talk to each other.

Step Five: Make Each Appearance Work Harder

An episode goes live, you share it once, and then nothing. That is the pattern that convinces founders podcasting does not work. The appearance is the raw material, not the finished result.

Get the audio and, where possible, the video. Cut it into short clips for LinkedIn and your other channels. Pull the best two or three lines into written posts. Add the episode to a page on your own site so it keeps earning attention long after the host's feed moves on. One conversation should feed weeks of content.

This is the difference between a nice chat and a demand engine. The founders who see real enquiries from podcasting treat every episode as a small campaign, not a one-off.

Guesting Versus Launching Your Own Show

Guesting is the fastest way in. You borrow someone else's audience, you learn what lands, and you build a body of appearances that proves you are worth hearing. Start here.

Your own show is the compounding asset. You own the audience, the archive and the format. Every episode is a permanent piece of your marketing that keeps working while you sleep. The catch is that a poorly produced show does more harm than good. Thin audio, no editing and no distribution plan signal amateur, and your buyers notice.

Most founders should guest first, learn their angle, then launch once they know exactly what their market wants to hear. When you reach that point, production quality and a real distribution plan are what separate a show that builds authority from one that dies at episode six. That is the work we do at The Wave. Read more about The Wave and how we approach it.

FAQ

What is the fastest way to find new podcasts to appear on? Search a database like Listen Notes, Podchaser or Rephonic for your buyer's language, filter by audience size and recent publishing, then shortlist shows whose listeners match the people you sell to.

How many podcasts should I pitch at once? Start with 10 to 15 well-matched shows. A small researched list gets far higher reply rates than a generic pitch sent to hundreds.

How do I know if a podcast is worth my time? Check publishing consistency, listener estimates, guest quality and whether past guests are people your buyers respect. A small engaged audience often beats a large passive one.

Should I appear on other podcasts or launch my own? Do both, in order. Guesting builds reach quickly and teaches you what resonates. Your own show gives you an owned asset that compounds. Most founders guest first, then launch.

How long before podcast guesting produces leads? Think months, not days. One episode rarely moves anything. A steady run of appearances plus repurposed clips builds the recognition that turns into enquiries.

Ready to Turn Podcasting Into Demand?

Finding the right shows is the easy half. Turning appearances into recognition, and eventually into your own authority-building show, is where most founders stall.

That is exactly what we build. If you want a clear read on where podcasting and video could produce demand for your business, book a Discovery Audit with The Wave. We will map the shows worth your time, the angle that lands, and the production standard that makes buyers take you seriously.