Getting the Most Out of Email Interviews

Photography: smiling da vinci

One of the things that we’re hoping to see more of at Scribat is articles that make use of interviews. Not that there’s anything wrong with content writers producing expert advice or well-written opinion pieces – there’s a market for those too – but interviews always bring extra depth to an article. And if you ask the questions by email, they’re dead simple to do. Sure, you’ll miss the free-ranging chat that a phone interview can bring, and the connection with a contact might not be as deep, but you won’t have to make notes, the subject can answer in his or her own time, and if you ask the right questions, you should still be able to get the information – and quotes – that you need.
You just have to do them right.

1. Plan Ahead
That starts with careful planning. The biggest advantage that phone interviews have over email interviews is that they’re instantaneous. Provided you can get the subject on the line right away – and let’s face it, that’s horribly rare – you can have the information you need in twenty minutes and be on line to meet your deadline. If you plan your article ahead though, email interviews can squish that advantage. While some respondents will shoot you back answers within a day, you’ll do best by sending out your interview requests at least a week in advance.

And you’ll do better by sending out at least three. Not everyone will reply, so the more requests you send, the lower the odds that you’ll end up empty-handed. And if everyone replies, you’ll have a better pick of the quotes.

2. Keep the Questions Down
Ideally, you’ll want the kind of long answers that are packed with information and are filled with juicy soundbites that you can toss into the article. The likelihood that will happen depends in part on the personality of the subject, but it also depends on your questions. Ask lots of questions and the subject is more likely to give short answers to get through them all. Keep the questions to ten or less and you should find that at least some of them produce answers that are long and full.

3. Get Stories
You can do even more to encourage those answers by asking questions that generate anecdotes. Questions like “What was your favorite project?” or “What was the biggest challenge?” might be journalistic clichés but they do produce good answers. Put at least one of them in.

4. Read the Website
It’s likely that you’ll have questions designed to get the basic background information out of the subject. Much of that information though is often available on the website – and what you get back might just be cut and pasted from the About Us page.

If you have that information already, don’t ask for it again (even in the hope of getting a usable, original quote). Instead, pick something out of the bio and ask for more details.

5. Interview Businesses
The biggest risk of email interviews is that you won’t get the replies, and when you’re up against a deadline that’s a big risk. If the deadline is hard and real, then it’s time to hit the phones but one way to increase the chances that you’ll get an easy email response is to send your questions to businesses. They’ll understand the value of the publicity and respond with good answers. Make at least one of your recipients a company, and you can be confident of receiving at least one set of answers.

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