In order to keep your marketing content interesting and your audience engaged, you must tap into many sources for your material. One that is sometimes overlooked but that can deliver excellent results is expert interviews. The insights provided by someone who has expertise in an area related to your offerings can be interesting and helpful to your customers and prospects, and can keep them coming back for more.
What do I mean by “related to your offerings”? Let’s say you sell camping gear designed to be especially weatherproof and you notice that an author has just published a book about great places to camp in the Pacific Northwest. You could arrange an interview with that author during which you might steer the conversation toward the kind of gear needed to enjoy an outdoor adventure in that often-soggy area. When this respected expert says something like, “A tent that is fully and reliably waterproof is essential,” you’ve got yourself a nugget of content marketing gold.
Why You Should Schedule Some Expert Interviews
Below are eight reasons that you should add expert interviews—whether published in written form, as audio recordings, or as videos—to your content marketing library.
- They build credibility. If you find people to interview who are respected in their field, your company gets some instant secondhand credibility, so to speak.
- They are quick and easy to produce. Some content takes weeks or even months to produce, with outlines, first drafts, review, edits, etc. However, people expect an interview to be candid and unpolished. So, other than a little editing for clarity if needed, an interview can be ready to publish within hours of when it takes place.
- They are a “palate cleanser” of sorts. While it’s great that your audience has gotten to know and appreciate your corporate “voice,” they will likely enjoy the occasional change of pace and perspective from an outside subject matter expert.
- They expose you to a new audience. Although your intent is to develop content for your audience, it is likely that the expert you interview will share the results with their audience as well.
- They spawn backlinks. Interviews often get broken into snippets that are used by other organizations on their websites, in which case that site should have a link back to yours. And the search engines love backlinks!
- They are a win-win for you and the expert. Subject matter experts live and die by exposure. The more often they get their name “out there,” the more people look to them for information, buy their books, etc. Consequently, they tend to be happy to lend a hand with your content creation initiative.
- They can become a series. If an initial interview engages your audience, it’s easy to continue the conversation and turn one discussion into many.
- They can be conducted from anywhere. With today’s technology, you can connect with an expert anytime they have a few free minutes—at the airport waiting for a flight, in their hotel room the night before a speaking engagement, while they lounge by the pool on a working vacation. If they’ve got an internet connection and a willingness to answer a few questions, you’ve got yourself some content!
Helping Marketers Maximize the ROI on Their Content Development Efforts
Producing great material to fuel your content marketing strategy is crucial. So is getting eyes on that content. That’s where 30dps comes in. From our offices in Colorado Springs, CO, and Springfield, MO, our skilled and experienced teams help clients in a wide variety of industries—from manufacturing to consumer products to mental health services—get the attention of their target audience. If you’re ready to leverage your expert interviews and other content more effectively, give us a call!
