Interviewing Questions for Blog Posts

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Interviews are a vital aspect of nonfiction writing, Don Vaughn explains in Writer’s Digest. and freelancers often turn to subject matter experts or to everyday people with unique experiences, perspective, or opinions. Vaughn suggests five key questions be posed to interviewees:

  1. What was your inspiration for…..?
  2. Why is your accomplishment important?
  3. What were the greatest challenges you faced?
  4. What do you get personally from your work?
  5. Who else would you suggest I talk to?

In a sense, blog posts might be viewed as “reverse” or “flip-flopped” interviews, with prospects interviewing the business, rather than the other way around. At Say It For You, we teach content writers that searchers are recruiting help, evaluating the content in light of their own needs. But, as a blog-content-writer-for-hire by business owners and professional practitioners, I’ve found that actually interviewing the founders or principals of a business or practice can make for very effective marketing content, often more compelling than the typical narrative text. How does that work? In a face-to-face (or online) interview with a business owner, executive, or professional practitioner, I capture their ideas and some of their words. I then add “framing” to the post with my own questions and introductions.

Interviewing subject experts will give your content depth, credibility, and perspective, explains Dawn Wolfe of thesimonsgroup.com. For one thing, industry experts are in a better position to make a topic meaningful for non-insiders. As a side benefit, Wolfe suggest, the experts you interview are more likely to share the content with their own networks, increasing your reach. In fact, Wolfe recommends providing interviewees with “teaser copy” they can post to their own social channels, making sure to include relevant hashtags. Wolfe has practical suggestions for locating subject matter experts to interview, suggesting analysts, authors, consultants, government agency and nonprofit personnel, universities and professional associations.

The STAR method of conducting a “behavioral” interview has become quite popular, The interviewee is asked to describe a Situation they were in, a Task they needed t accomplish, the Actions they took, and the Results. But, whatever format our Say It For You content writers select for an interview with a SME (subject matter expert), the goal is to elicit new insights into the subject matter. Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to contain opinion and insight, not only information and products.

 

 

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Retelling Your Marketing Story

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Of course they’ve heard it before, and reusing ideas is certainly nothing new, Toni Fitzgerald explains in the Writer magazine. “From Biblical stories to Homer’s Odyssey, conceptsget adopted and tweaked for the audience.” And just why do writers retell stories?

  • to honor a work that made a big impact on them
  • to amplify an important message
  • to explore a theme from a new direction
  • to add diversity and additional context
  • to force readers to rethink things they may have taken for granted

“Stop us if you’ve heard this one,” Fitzgerald tells readers: Headstrong young woman bucks the expectations of society and of her family. She meets a young man who seems immune to her charms, falls in love with him, learning that things are not always what they seem and that being vulnerable is the only way to move forward… Sure, that’s the story of classic novel Pride and Prejudice, but that plot also fits Bridget Jones’ Diary. The big advantage of recasting a novel is that, since people are already familiar with the story, you spend less time setting up the plot, earning automatic “buy-in” from the readers.

Storytelling is a strong business skill, SCORE explains, with the power to boost business in a number of ways, creating product awareness, improving customer loyalty, and increasing profit. Business stories today, the authors add, are created around eight topics:

  1. Who we are
  2. Why us
  3. Our vision
  4. Good business
  5. What we have learned
  6. How we design it
  7. How we do it
  8. Meet our customers

“Transferring values and beliefs is done through your story’s character having an epiphany because your audience will also experience this,” the SCORE authors explain  As Fitzgerald sees it, “We all want to be the heroes of the story.” But, because different segments of your audience will experience your story in different ways, audiences must be attracted with different “digital honeypots”, on24.com explains. To create a compelling story, you need to understand your readers and who will respond and take action, defining your “buyer persona(s)”, Hubspot advises.

“As marketing strategists, we stress the importance of repetition. Retelling your story – through traditional and digital media, advertising and face-to-face sales – is the only way to ensure your value points are heard, understood and remembered,” says Robin Miller of publicity.com. “If you’re going to be in the marketing or advertising business, if you’re going to be in sales, you’ve got to tell your story over and over, and over and over, and over and over again. Then you’ve got to tell it one more time,” he advises.

Of course they’ve heard it before, we explain to our Say It For You clients. The very secret of success lies in the retelling of your marketing story!

 

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Things-You-Never-Knew Content Marketing

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“Time to take a look at how amazing (and a bit freaky!) we all are,” says Patricia S. Daniels of National Geographic. And we want to do this why? To: 1. discover healthy living 2. improve function 3. explore the latest discoveries. The special issue offers no fewer than 100 things you never knew”, in the form of “tidbits” of information about the human body..

Things-you-never-knew tidbits are super-valuable when it comes to content marketing. For one thing, tidbits showcase the knowledge and expertise of the business owners or practitioner, while at the same time softening the effect of any strong opinions expressed in the article or blog.

In content writing, word tidbits and tag lines are both designed to help readers remember something– a concept, a company, a product, a service. But, while a tag line may be catchy, even memorable – it’s pure advertising, revealing little to nothing about product or service, the company or the experience in store for the buyer. The right word tidbit in contrast, can capture the sense of the owners and how much those owners care about continuing their decades-long relationship with customers.

The “things-you-never-knew” concept is successful because it relates to the fact that web visitors tend to be curious creatures, particularly when it comes to testing their own knowledge and learning more about themselves. In fact, “self-tests” tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to the information presented in a blog or other marketing content On the other hand, online searchers are looking for more than just information; they need perspective. Yes, the National Geographic issue is designed to help readers become aware of these fascinating details of bodily function, ls, they need help discovering what to do about those details in order to achieve a more healthy lifestyle.

Business blog posts, for example, much like those individual things-you-never-knew pieces in National Geographic, should be designed to spark reader curiosity, playing on our natural desire to self-test, then offer technical information “in chewable tablet form”.

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Some Tasty Content Prompts

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Stuck finding new ways to present marketing content? No matter your content marketing topic, Poets and Writers magazine’s Aimee Nezhukumatathil suggests thinking in terms of food. At Say it For You, we think that’s a great idea – no matter what product or service you’re promoting, here’s our take on a few of these tasty content prompts:

Write about a mistake you made once while preparing food.
We teach content writers to include stories of past mistakes and failures. Such stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame not only adversity, but the effects of their own mistakes! Messages that deal openly with customer complaints, with the “apology” or the “remediation measure” open to readers go a long way in building trust.

What foods would you serve someone you wanted to impress?
The most powerful tool you can use to stand head and shoulders above your competition is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), Certified Business Coach Andrew Valley says. Your USP communicates the singular, unique benefit that your customers can expect to receive when they favor your business instead of your competitor’s – stated in specific, graphically illustrated terms

What spices do you like to add to food and why?
At Say It For You, our content writers are always seeking to vary the ways we present information on a single topic in many different ways. Not only are we on the lookout for different “templates” in terms of platform graphics, but we try to use different formats to “spice up” the information about any business or professional practice. Collating advice from different experts helps “spice up” content and add value for readers.

What is your earliest memory of peeling a fruit – what did the peel remind you of?
In a blog post or email newsletter, introduce readers to the history of the brand, using stories about founders, current employees and alumni to “humanize” the content. Sharing history makes the focus less on what the company does and more about what it is, giving readers a sense of look-how-far-we’ve-come” togetherness.

“Tasty” prompts can help temporarily “sidelined” content writers get back in the game!

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Blogging the Whys, Whats, and Talking Points

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Carmel Rotary and the City of Carmel, I learned from the Carmel Monthly magazine, are preparing to host the Deputy Mayor of Cortona Italy, Carmel’s new sister city. As part of an “authentically Italian experience”, titled Arte d’Italia, Attesti, a world-renowned pianist, will perform at the Palladium and at the Carmichael.

Exciting cultural news, but as a content marketer, I was quite impressed with the way writer Janelle Morrison presented that news, including the three elements that need to be included in blog posts designed to inform readers about new developments in a business or practice:

The Whys
The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs. But, as we stress at Say It For You, it’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to present new developments, as well as giving readers a deeper perspective with which to process the information and show why it’s important. The first part of the Carmel Monthly article explains the various ways, according to Mayor Brainard, any city that is a member of Sister Cities International benefits in terms of international goodwill, student educational exchanges, and expanded business relationships.

The Whats
Morrison then went on to detail the “whats”, meaning the details of the upcoming plans, representing opportunities to “showcase some of Carmel’s finest and most beautiful venues and organizations”. Hotel Carmichael’s Chef Jason Crouch have curated “an amazing menu focused on the rich culinary influence found in this region of Italy”. Carmel Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director Janna Hymes worked via Zoom with Attesti to design a whole new program featuring Italian and American pieces. In blogging for business, it’s simply not enough to provide even very potentially valuable information to online searchers who’ve landed on a company’s corporate blog. The facts (the “whats”) need to be “translated” into relational, emotional terms that compel reaction – and action – in readers.

The Talking Points
Prepare talking points for each interview, is the advice offered by Sally Cates to financial advisors in Financial Planning Magazine. Business bloggers need to prepare talking points as well, curating and properly attributing materials from different sources to support the points and add value for readers. Some of the powerful talking points included in the Carmel Monthly piece are these: Music is a universal language. Mayor Attesti explained that the Italian legislation, more restrictive than that of the U.S., makes approaching sponsors for cultural activities a challenge; he hopes to learn about economic sustainability of cultural initiatives. On the other hand, he hopes to suggest ways to increase tourism and cultural life in Carmel.

In blogging for business, all three elements are important for success – the whys, the whats, and the talking points!

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