Why Are Interviews Important When Writing A White Paper

Interviews with subject matter experts are essential to capturing important information you'll use in your thought leadership content. As a content writer, I've interviewed plenty of sources, from tech experts to CEOs.

Based on those conversations, I offer the following 8 tips for executive sources as they prepare for thought leadership interviews, whether it's for a case study, an ebook or some other piece of content.

1. Be prepared, but don't over-rehearse

It helps you to know the general nature of the questions ahead of time, so I usually send those in advance. You should come up with some key points you'd like to share for each question.

But don't write out all of your answers and read from a script. I've encountered this a couple of times, and my reaction is two-fold:

Written answers sound unnatural. It's not how most of us speak.
If the interview is transcribing prepared statements, then this might as well be an email conversation.

Remember, the goal of the interview is to gather information in a structured yet informal setting. It's a conversation, but it's also an opportunity for me to hear how you express your ideas, not just what the ideas are themselves.

Listening to you talk helps me capture your personality and perhaps the tone that the content will have.

2. Be flexible

Iimage to demonstrate why execs should be flexible during white paper interviews

Photo by GMB Monkey on Unsplash

I just told you to be prepared. I will be, too. However, since we're having a conversation, I often ask follow-up questions that aren't on the original list. This is usually in response to something that needs more explanation.

So you'll still have to wing it. And this is good, because the most memorable quotes are not planned. They happen during the course of the conversation and drop into my hands like little gifts.

It's one of the reasons that interviews conducted solely via email are dull and boring. Because people who carefully craft each answer are thinking too much about what's "correct" and "appropriate."

Here's a quote I included in a white paper about Scrum and Agile. The source, Michael de la Maza, said the following:

"The role of ScrumMaster, as it's defined, is an awesome role. Here's this person who's an expert in organizational change who can also talk to VPs, interact with teams, remove impediments, and so forth. It's difficult to find a single person to do that."

If he had written down that same idea, he wouldn't have used the word "awesome," he wouldn't have said, "Here's this person," and ultimately he wouldn't have sounded like he was having a casual conversation.

In other words, it's ok to go off script. That doesn't mean you're off message. And you always get a chance to revise.

3. Think of compelling examples

Examples help illustrate your key points. It's one thing to claim that a software tool offers a particular benefit to customers. It's another to provide an example of how it works or how a particular customer benefited.

Examples essentially back up your claims. And they add interest to the content. It's the same thing with sportscasters, whether it's basketball or ice skating. You've got one person commenting on the facts: what happened, who's doing what, like that 3-pointer Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors just landed.

via GIPHY

And you've got another person providing color commentary, explaining how Curry, at a mere 6'3'', became one of the greatest shooters in NBA history. He did so by teaching himself a new shooting technique in high school to get around players who were taller than him. He also uses intense dribbling drills and works out hard at the gym.

See? Now we have some context that added important info and fleshed out the story. The same goes for examples you give in your interview.

4. Be ready to explain

I've done my homework. I've researched your industry, your company, and your topic. But it might be new to me, or something may not be easy to understand. So I'll ask you to explain something.

If you have to clarify something, think about comparisons that could make the point easier to understand. I've had subject matter experts describe how loud or big or expensive something is by comparing the concept to something else.

You know the expression "bigger than a breadbox"? That's a simile, and it offers a useful point of reference, especially for complex subjects.

One other thing: your interviewer may be new to your industry. Be ready to spell out acronyms and break down industry lingo.

5. Offer up some numbers

Image for blog post about tips for white paper interviews

Image by Kolleen Gladden

Numbers are compelling data points. They're often highlighted in a sidebar, a pull quote or a table.

During the interview, my request for data may come up this way:

If you state that your company has a lot of large contracts, then tell me how many.
If your service dramatically increased sales for a particular client, tell me by how much.
If you significantly reduced the days it takes to hire candidates, tell me by how many days.

Numbers are like examples. They back up claims with additional information and help to persuade the audience reading your content.

6. Don't worry about speaking in perfect sentences

Most of the information collected for an interview is not presented verbatim. It's rewritten and massaged into presentable copy.

Your "ums" and pauses, even those moments where you blank out on a name, won't matter. Unless we're making a speech at the United Nations, most of us are expected to talk like regular human beings.

As we wrap our heads around ideas and formulate answers, we may move forward in fits and starts. That's OK. This is not a Q&A or a podcast where every utterance is captured.

Perfect sentences don't matter. Just get your ideas across in a coherent manner.

7. Pause and take a breath (darn cell phones)

I'm not talking about yoga breathing, although that's helpful, too. I'm actually referring to problems with cell phones.

Many of us use our cell phones rather than landlines for interviews. This means when we're talking, we hear only ourselves and no one else. Until we pause. This can be frustrating, because we're often talking over each other.

Sometimes I need to interrupt to ask for clarification. If I don't interrupt, I may not understand everything that follows the confusing part.

So my suggestion is that you take a breath and pause every once in awhile as you tell a story. This allows the interviewer to jump in and ask another question.

8. Avoid hard sells in your content

The goal of most white papers, case studies and blogs is to represent your company as a thought leader. You're discussing a topic that's top of mind for your customer, and they're looking for solutions.

This isn't the time to talk about your product or service for 30 minutes or however long the interview is. If you do, your content will read like a sales sheet or product brief, and that is not the ideal intent. In fact, 96 percent of respondents in a Demand Gen survey said they'd like B2B vendors to curb the sales messages, thereby improving the content. How do you do that?

I recently wrote an ebook for a leadership training company, and the client and I agreed to a 70/30 split: 70% to address the problem the potential client has and the ideal solution, and 30% about the company's specific solutions.

In a lot of white papers, for example, the solution offered by the company is only mentioned at the end, in the boilerplate about the company.

Remember, this isn't the New York Times

If you're a source for thought leadership content, you'll have a chance to review what you've said. This isn't investigative journalism where you wait until something is splashed across the Internet.

My point is, the goal of the interview is to gather information and data, and to make you look good. Thought leadership content is marketing content, after all.

Need help with thought leadership content? Let's talk about your project!

Bonnie Nicholls is a freelance writer specializing in thought leadership content: case studies, articles, white papers/ebooks and blog posts. She supports industries such as Agile/Scrum, defense, cybersecurity, and business services.