How to Grow Your Business with Interviews

Both interviewing an expert or being interviewed present exceptional opportunities to expand your credibility, authority & respect to grow your business.

Benefits of interviews

1. Tell Your Story

Everyone has a story to tell. It’s often the easiest thing to talk about. You don’t have to worry about writing a funny or thoughtful post. You just have to interview someone, and listen to or tell your own story. The first one takes prep time, but once you have a set of questions you can use that as a template for every other interview.

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2. Networking

Every person you interview becomes part of your network. So while you are creating content for your blog, you are also creating a website visitor and possibly a potential lead or referral source. Connecting in this way is non-salesy. Next time you call them you have a great opening “Hey, this is Jane, I interviewed you for my blog last month…”

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3. Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways to market yourself. Every person you interview is going to check out your blog, and tell their friends to check out their interview. They might even tweet it or Facebook it to thousands of their social contacts. Then every one of those people might tell their friends…you get the idea. Interviewing people is a great way to get people talking.

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4. Vary the Format of Interviews

Long distance interviews can be recorded over a free platform like Skype. In-person interviews can be done as audio or video. You can also email a set of questions to do a text interview. This is great because it adds variety to your blog.

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5. Repurpose into Different Formats

Once you have your audio or video interview, you can repurpose it into other formats. You can use a simple audio interview to create print content. Post your questions or a summary as a blog post. Have it transcribed and use one interview to produce several articles, emails, and blog posts. Combine a few interviews and create a long report or eBook. Take quotes from it and turn it into sharable graphics. Consider how your audience may best utilize your interview content and then provide it in a few different formats.

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6. Share with Your Email List

Your email newsletter can include a summary, with a link to the full interview or an email attachment. Maybe it’s an exclusive bonus to your email list, either to current subscribers or as on opt-in gift to increase the size of your email list. Before your interview, you can ask your subscribers to send in questions, or even recommend people for you to interview.

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7. Share on Social Networks

Building relationships on social networks requires producing quality content. Link to your interview from your social media pages and connect with your interviewer on social networks to thank them for the exposure. Continue the conversation and draw others into it.

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OPTION 1: Interview an Expert

Credibility, Authority, Respect

When you interview experts in your niche, you immediately put yourself in a better position. Your readers, prospects and customers will view you with added respect. Your credibility and authority as an expert will grow. You may also experience an increase in subscribers and social media followers. For example, the owner of crafting blog will gain a huge boost in credibility if they interview Martha Stewart for their blog.

Reach and Awareness

Interviewing experts also helps broaden your website’s reach and awareness for your brand. Each person you interview comes with their own following. They’ll visit your blog to read the interview. This is an automatic increase in traffic and awareness. And assuming you have a blog jam packed with value, they’ll stay, have a look around, and become new prospects.

Booking People

Start with bloggers who are in your niche, they are usually open to doing interviews, especially for a backlink (link back to their website to boost search engine optimization). You can even contact other experts in related fields for interviews. They can be very interesting and are usually looking for outlets to market themselves. You can also interview local businesses in your neighborhood. They want exposure and this is a great way to network with people.

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OPTION 2: Be Interviewed

Have a Conversation

If you are at a loss for words, a good interviewer can help play the role of your target audience and ask questions that will lead to the answers that your ideal client wants to hear. A conversation style is an easy way to start if you are nervous. You’ll be able to relax and play off their energy. You can have the interviewer off camera (or audio) and take a long pause after the questions. Then give yourself 1-3 minutes to answer each question. Break this into smaller segments (like a FAQ) or edit together in a longer format.

Gain Exposure

The marketability of interviews is a two way street. You can gain a lot of exposure when you’re interviewed by others. A single interview published on a high traffic blog can send hundreds or thousands of new readers to your blog.

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TAKE ACTION: Review your marketing strategy & see how you can use interviews.

Next Steps

• Identify people you’d like to interview and approach them.
• Be ready to pitch what the opportunity has to offer them.
• Share your knowledge and information with other audiences and grow your business.
• And as you’re networking, don’t hesitate to provide yourself as a potential candidate to interview.

Let’s talk about using interviews to build your brand »

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