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Who Should You Interview (when writing)?

By Michael Stelzner

Let’s say you’ve been tasked to create a white paper (or an article, blog post, …). Who should you interview in the process of preparing to write?

This is an important question.

It came up while I was training a group of engineers on writing white papers.

Let me address it here…

First, are you doing interviews at all? If you’re not, you should. The best content is inside someone else’s head. Just think about all the time you spend reading and researching as part of your daily job. Now think about the experts you need to speak to. They have access to information you could never expect to find on your own.

So to the question: Who do I interview?

The first thing to think about is this, “What do I ‘not know’ and who has the knowledge I seek?”

As you prepare your project, a number of names will likely cycle through your mind.

When I do a white paper, here’s the types of folks I enjoy speaking to:

  • Salespeople: These folks know how to best position messages for maximum uptake with customers.
  • Product directors: These people tend to be responsible for the product, have thought about the industry issues and understand the needs of their customers.
  • Marketing: Marketing people are sometimes guilty of drinking a bit too much of their own Kool-Aid, but can be excellent sources of information.
  • Book authors: These guys (and gals) live on PR. Try getting a quote from them.
  • Bloggers: The folks behind industry-specific blogs often have amazing access to information and people. Be sure not to overlook them.

Who am I missing? Lets hear from you…

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Writing White Papers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Ntarugera François
    Mike:

    It is my in view that we should interview anybodythat will attract your audiences. But you can also interview anyone that is the angle of what people are doing

    Ntarugera
  • I have to agree with a few posters that customers are often the source of unique insights.

    Jim
  • Ntarugera François
    Mike:

    Whoever denies the consumers as key information holders are far away from information realities. But we have to move forward and combine both producers and consumers if we want to deal with information management.

    A great combination of information comes we really that industry as a development pillar in all sectors.

    What will without information?

    Ntarugera François
  • Don'r forget about consumers, sometimes they can provide you with agreat piece of information or idea
  • Hi All;

    Check out this cool photo cartoon on this very topic:

    http://plushiesinaction.com/2008/08/14/intervie...

    Mike
  • Ntarugera François
    Mike:

    I thank you very much for your recommendation of Peter. I somehow agree with him but I do not agree with him that : Chances are always there for the people who knows how to deal with them. In most of cases, projects fail just because we do fail to trace genuine information, and when we get such chances we never handle them for both interests because we need to keep such good relations for a long term business with information people.That is what sales is for.



    Ntarugera François
  • I totally agree with Shane and Jasmine Lim. While doing a white paper it will be not bad in addition with salespeople, product directors, marketing people, book writers and bloggers to interview the customers. In most cases you have a chance to get very useful information for your project.
  • I know I'm late now to suggest adding customer into the list. But honestly, the first time I read the title of this article the first word in my mind was customer. We try to offer solution to customer through our writing. Therefore, an interview with customer is important.
  • Jasmine;

    Very interesting link. Thanks for providing it!

    Mike
  • To Maria:

    Yes I absolutely agree with you that CUSTOMERS are perhaps the best resource for feedback because they are the people Marketers need to convince. I've worked on several white papers as a B2B lead generation tool and even approached PROSPECTS for their first hand experience in their buying process.

    Customer quotes on white papers have to be used carefully, as it could have a negative effect. Unlike case studies, I try to avoid using customer quotes on white papers because it becomes all too "salesy". I can already see eyes rolling because people are thinking it's a "disguised" white paper when it's actually just-another-marketing-message.

    I found this Using Testimonials Effectively webinar by Marketing Experiments very really useful:
    http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-w...
    Some unexpected findings there.

    -Jasmine
  • Maria
    CUSTOMERS!

    Maybe I'm biased as I write more customer case studies than white papers, but I find that if you can talk to a customer, you can usually get a great first hand perspective which usually sounds better than the official marketing messages. (I go through the sales rep to set this up.)

    Customer quotes can be interspersed in the white paper or used as call outs, or short case studies can be used as sidebars.

    --Maria
  • Ntarugera François
    Mike:

    This question of who should you interview just came in the right time when I was thinking of how more than 55 journalists lost the flow of information from Mr Michael Cachman, the special envoy from EU to Rwanda.

    He came especially to lead the team of 2008 parliamentarian elections.

    While introducing him self, he finally gave the flow to journalists to ask whatever they wanted to be clarified. My ears was going almost to be twisted if I wasn't professional enough just because the questions were primary and disoriented some how just because they didn't know what they do not have and what they wanted from him.

    So , if this is the person you wanted to hear, here we are Mike.
    We always meet important people with knowledge above their shoulders.

    But we do not know how pick that leaf of information out from them.

    Ntargera François
  • smc
    Hi Mike, I have 2 thoughts related to your excellent question above...

    (1) If it's a technology whitepaper (or business whitepaper on a particular technology and its trends/applications/etc.), I think it's important to also interview the scientists or researchers behind that technology if possible. (If not possible, primary sources such as journal articles can also provide amazing nuggets). I think adding these authentic voices can help counteract the "marketese-promotional" speak that the valuable interview sources you list above tend to engage in. (As writers it's hard sometimes not to get caught up in using the words we're hearing, no matter how much we try! Even if the audience expects to hear things in this language, I think it adds credibility for certain whitepaper audiences.)

    (2) If you're producing a whitepaper for an organization, sometimes the question isn't just "What do I ‘not know’ and who has the knowledge I seek?", BUT "what do I already know, but need to confirm/verify with other stakeholders for political reasons or to gain 360-degree perspective?" Because sometimes whitepapers and other writings become tools for creating consensus, and it helps to conduct these sorts of interviews up front to confirm buy-in and align viewpoints... and accelerate the editorial-approval process later!

    My 2 cents, literally;)
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