I have just completed two major projects requiring interviewing. The first being my new eBook where I interviewed 12 experts including Ann Smarty, Tamar Weinberg, Linda Bustos, Marko Saric, Glen Allsopp. And I also interviewed Andrew Warner about how he interviews inspirational business people for his interview site Mixergy.com.
But the reason I share this with you is not to brag, not to promote but to show you that it can be done. And it can be done by new webmasters or people with little or no authority. I only started by website 2 and a half months ago and I certainly haven’t created a media storm, yet anyway : )
But still I managed to get interviews with all these experts. How did I do it? That’s what I am going to share with you today.
Step #1
Identify at least 30 experts you would like to interview. As Andrew Warner said in my interview with him “if you have a 1% chance of success you might as well send out 100 emails”. Note I said at least 30 you can create a larger list if you like.
Step #2
Write an email that you will send out to these people. There is no need to personalize it for each expert. Your email should only be 3 sentences long. These experts are busy and will appreciate you getting to the point. Your email should include these vital points:
- A short “who you are” sentence.
- What you want to interview them for and the topic of the interview.
- An exact time and date you would like to interview them.
- And most importantly as many links as possible to your past work, make sure to pick only your best pieces of work. It isn’t necessary that you link to interviews, your most popular articles or blog posts are useful too.
Step #3
When you get a positive response from somebody, do some research on them (if you don’t know them well) and send them a longer details with all these details:
- A much longer “who you are” paragraph.
- The exact topic of the interview and some sample questions.
- What exactly you are looking for in the interview.
- How you will conduct the interview, for example Skype, over the phone, etc. You might want to ask the interviewee their preference on this one.
- A reminder of the time and date of the interview and a confirmation that, that time is good for them.
Step #4
Two days before the interview send the interviewee a confirmation email with the time date and some more sample questions.
Step #5
Come up with at least 10 questions you are going to ask. Don’t stick to the general what’s your name and what do you do questions. Branch out, ask about what you want to know, not what you think your users might want to know.
Step #6
Be prepared, test your interviewing software (Skype, phone, etc) and make sure that whatever you are using to record the call works. I use VodBurner to record my Skype calls.
Have your research done, with pen and paper in hand and be in the right mindset for an interview. Be prepared to push your interviewee a little and come up with questions on the spur of the moment (that’s want the pen and paper is for). Write down questions as you go along and ask them at the end.
Special tip: Allow your interviewee to talk, you’re there to ask the questions not give your opinion. For sure there are times to share your story and opinion but keep it to the minimum.
Step #7
Make the call and record the interview.
Finish up with a thank you and tell the interviewee you are going to follow up with and email and a copy of the interview.
Step #8
Edit your interview. This is a crucial part of the process, don’t edit too much or any of the main interview but take away the hello and goodbye parts.
Step #9
Record a short (1-3 minute) introduction about the interviewee and slot it in at the start of the interview.
Record a short ending for your interview with a thank you for the interviewee and a few action steps for your listeners/watchers to take.
Step #10
Create a text transcription of the interview. You can do it yourself or send it off to the multitude of transcription services.
Step #11
Send a copy of your interview to the interviewee and make sure to ask them to promote the interview. If you don’t ask they probably won’t do it. And be specific ask them to Tweet it if you know they have a large following, or blog about it if they have a popular blog. Even offer to write a guest post/article about it for their blog/website.
Step #12
Promote it, this is the most important part about releasing an interview that gets read.
The best ways to promote a new interview are:
- Write a few guest posts around the same topic of the interview on powerful blogs in your niche.
- Write a press release and distribute through PRWeb.com. This is real news and a press release is ideal for the occasion.
- Make a YouTube video out of the interview.
There are so many other ways to promote a website or more specifically an interview but these are the ones that in my opinion work best.
The key to a successful interview is not how fancy your software is. It is the information you get out of your interviewee and how well you promote it.
You will learn from your mistakes so don’t worry if your first one or two are a bit crackly or you are a bit nervous. I made plenty of mistakes in my first interview with Shawn Collins. The main one being I sent him a nearly 1 and a half page email or should I say letter, telling him why he should do the interview.
The most important thing to do now is go and come up with a list of 30 names you are determined to interview and contact them. If they say no wait till they are looking for some media attention like when they release a new product or service and ask again.
If you want proof of my interviews or to see how a newbie can do it check out my eBooks landing page: Link Building Mastery.
