Business Email for a Podcast: Guests, Sponsors, Press and Listener Mail

A podcast is a small media company with four kinds of email: guests you want and guests who want you, sponsors and the agencies that represent them, journalists and other shows, and listeners. Running all four through one personal address means the sponsor reply waits behind forty pitches from PR firms. A domain for the show and four addresses fixes it in an afternoon, and makes the show look like something a brand can safely put money into.

Quick answer

Register the show's domain and create hello@, guests@, sponsors@ and press@, plus name@ for each host. Put sponsors@ in the show notes and the media kit, guests@ on the "be a guest" page, and hello@ everywhere else. Keep the listener newsletter in a newsletter tool, not in a mailbox. All four addresses are free on OquMail.

The addresses to create

• hello@yourshow.com as the public address on the website, the show notes and the social bios. A group with the hosts and the producer.
• guests@yourshow.com for booking guests and for people pitching themselves. A group with the host who books and the producer. Pitches from PR agencies are the bulk of it; the real guests are in there too.
• sponsors@yourshow.com for brands, agencies and the podcast ad networks. A group with the host who handles money and the producer. A sponsor who gets a same-day reply with the media kit attached is a sponsor; one who waits a week books another show.
• press@yourshow.com for journalists, festivals, award entries and other podcasts. The press address guide applies directly.
• name@yourshow.com for each host. Guests are invited by a person, and the person's signature carries the show.

Booking guests by email

A guest invitation that gets a yes has five things: who you are and what the show is, in two sentences; why this guest, specifically, in one; the format, the length and whether it is remote; two or three proposed dates or a scheduling link; and listener numbers if they help you. Send it from the host's name@, with guests@ in copy so the producer sees the reply. Once accepted, the confirmation from guests@ carries the recording link, the date and time with the time zone, the prep notes and a line about release timing. The meeting confirmation templates adapt well, and the introduction templates cover the cold approach.

Sponsors

Keep the media kit as a PDF ready to attach: audience size and where it comes from, the demographic you can actually prove, the ad formats and prices, and three past sponsors. Reply from sponsors@ with the kit, a proposed start date and a one-line next step. Invoice from the same address with the episode numbers in the subject line, and send the air-check, the clip of the ad as it aired, from the same thread. A sponsor who has a tidy thread with the kit, the invoice and the air-check renews.

Set it up in an afternoon

1. Add your domain in OquMail and paste the MX, SPF and DKIM records at your registrar. The DNS checklist has the exact values.
2. Create hello@ and each host's name@ first, then a name@ mailbox for each person who writes to clients.
3. Create the shared addresses as groups and add the right people as members. Each member gets a copy in their own mailbox, so nothing waits on one person.
4. Set a signature on every mailbox in webmail: name, role, phone, and any licence or registration number your field requires.
5. Put the new addresses on the website, the booking or contact page, the social profiles and the email signatures, then stop giving out the personal ones.
6. Turn on two-factor authentication for every mailbox, not just the owner's. Client data is what makes your inbox worth stealing.

Mistakes specific to the trade

• The show running from a host's personal address. When hosts part ways, the sponsor relationships go with the inbox.
• Sponsor emails buried under PR pitches because everything arrives at hello@.
• Sending the listener newsletter from a mailbox. For a few hundred listeners it works, with 250 sends a day per mailbox; for thousands you need a newsletter tool with unsubscribe handling, and the show's domain in its sending settings.
• No reply to the guests who pitch themselves. A two-line "not right now, but we keep a list" costs nothing and some of them become guests later.

Common questions

What goes in the show notes?

hello@yourshow.com for listeners and sponsors@yourshow.com for brands, and nothing else. Two addresses are what a listener and a media buyer can each find in a scroll.

Can the hosting platform send from my domain?

Most hosts send their own notifications from their own addresses, which is fine; those are not emails your audience sees. For anything audience-facing, use the newsletter tool with your domain authenticated, and keep hello@ for replies.

Two hosts, two cities, one show?

One domain, one workspace, a name@ each, and the four shared addresses as groups with both of you as members. Each of you sees every sponsor and guest email in your own mailbox, and neither of you holds the other's password.