How to Be a Good Interviewee

You’re an expert in your field, and you’ve been tapped by a content marketer or your company’s internal marketing team to be interviewed for a piece of online content. How do you convey your expertise in a way that will make for compelling content? Here, we provide 9 tips on how you can be a good interviewee. Being a good interviewee is a key step to helping your content agency or marketing team create great content—and great content is the key to customer conversion and retention, and to making your business stand out in the online sea of businesses.

1. Start things off right—confirm your availability.

Your content writer has a jam-packed schedule making great content for you—and she knows you’re busy doing what you do best! Most content writers will send you an interview invite when they set up an interview (at Comma, we typically send our content experts a Google Calendar invite). Make sure you confirm your availability and set aside time on your calendar so you can devote your attention to the call or video chat with your writer.

2. Prepare for your interview.

Before the interview, both your content writer and you should know the specific topic you’re focusing on. Whether you’re providing editorial direction or your marketing team or agency is, it’s important that everyone’s on the same page before the interview. Topics may be shared in the form of a creative brief, an email summary, or a description on a shared editorial calendar. Prepare for your interview by compiling helpful information on the topic at hand and taking a few minutes to brainstorm how your expertise applies to the topic. Let’s say you run an e-commerce shipping service and you’re providing information for a blog post on how to handle seasonal shipping. What examples and information can you provide on this specific topic? Jot down a few ideas before your interview so you can remember the points you want to make.

3. Get the basics straight.

At the beginning of an interview, it’s never a bad idea to confirm the article topic and make sure everyone on the call or video chat shares the same direction. If your content writer doesn’t take this step (and most will!), feel free to jump in and ask any clarifying questions you still have. 

4. Think about your audience.

Who are you trying to reach with this piece of content? Clarify your audience with your writer so he knows to whom he is writing. And when you’re answering your writer’s questions, think about who you’re trying to reach, and what information will be most helpful to that particular audience. Tap into the audience’s concerns. Take the example above—if your audience is e-commerce business owners, you want to think about what that audience is most concerned about (think shipping costs and speed) and tap into those concerns when you’re providing information.

5. Be specific.

This is the golden rule of being a good interviewee. When your content writer asks you a question, provide specific information about the most important things you want to convey about that point. It might be helpful to make a list of the two or three main points you want to get across on this topic. Then, for each point, provide specific examples and data that will help your content writer tell a compelling story. Follow up by sending a research round-up to your writer—you’re the content expert, and your writer wants to know what research you have on hand before she starts her own research process. 

6. Give all of the relevant information you can.

Don’t hold back! One time, I was interviewing a real estate expert for a success story on behalf of a capital lending company. I asked him if he’d done any deals like the one in question before. He said yes, he’d done plenty of deals! It took 15 minutes and several more questions before I realized this was the biggest, most complicated deal he’d done and represented a big leap in his real estate strategy. It may feel uncomfortable to provide information to someone you’ve never met before, but good interviewees get specific and think about the context of the information they’re offering.

7. Stay on track.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you’re an extrovert or someone who loves sharing your knowledge with others, streamline your thought process. Trust us when we say we love hearing from people who love what they do and are confident about their area of expertise. But we also need information that will help us build the best content possible. When you’re answering questions, keep in mind the triangle of relevance. Ask yourself: Is this relevant to our business objectives? Is this relevant to our audience? And is this information timely—is it seasonal, up-to-date, or related to current events or research? Don’t shy away from providing an on-point anecdote—but catch yourself if that anecdote leads to two more stories.

8. Don’t be afraid to rephrase or pause.

No one says everything perfectly. We don’t, and neither do you. So if you feel you could express your point better, feel free to say, “Let me start over,” or “Let me try that one again.” Trust us, your content writer won’t mind at all. And on that point, don’t worry if you need to pause and ponder for a minute. A good content writer knows it takes a while to gather your thoughts, and that a pause might mean you’re about to come up with something brilliant. And if you think of a point you forgot to make, don’t be afraid to circle back.

9. Think like a content marketer.

When your content writer is interviewing you, they have a few things in mind: What is the goal of this piece? Who is the audience? Where will this content be published? What are the main points of this content? What is this business’s content goals? What information do I need from my content expert to write this piece? What stories or angle will make this content stand out? Be a content writer’s dream interviewee by considering what he needs to write amazing content—and delivering a curated version of your own expert voice.

Your content marketer or agency exists to save you time and increase your reach by turning your expert voice into beautifully written content. Do you have a lot to say about your business—but need someone to help you say it? Schedule a free 15-minute consultation with Comma now. We’ll discuss your business goals and walk you through the content-creation process.