A Q&A can be a powerful marketing (or co-marketing) tool, putting your subject — a client, a partner or a subject matter expert (SME) — front and center to tell a compelling story.
But they’re also deceptively difficult to do well.
That’s because the narrative of the article has to come from the interviewee. And if the questions aren’t laser-targeted and the answers aren’t carefully edited — or your subject just doesn’t understand what you’re going for — it can quickly turn into a disjointed mess.
That’s why preparation, strong interviewing skills and precise editing are key for a good Q&A. Here’s how to do it right.
1. Craft a narrative with your questions
Every Q&A should start with an outline. You’ll want to roughly map out where you want the piece to go, narratively, and develop your questions accordingly.
I usually take a chronological approach, walking the SME through their journey — whatever that may look like — one question at a time.
2. Prep the SME thoroughly
Giving your SME a chance to organize their thoughts before the interview will make for much easier editing later. As a baseline, you should send over your questions well in advance, so they have time to think about the main points they’d like to discuss.
But I recommend taking it one step further by sending over a 2-3 sentence article brief, as well. Write down your objective for the article, where the subject fits into it, and — if it’s appropriate — suggest a couple key points that could be discussed. This will help the SME visualize the greater “why” behind the story, and tailor their answers accordingly.
3. Stick to your list, but allow for spontaneity
The strength of your Q&A relies on your interviewing skills. You need to keep your SME on message enough to maintain a narrative throughout the interview, but allow enough freedom to add texture and color to their responses, since these will liven up your story.
Each SME requires their own approach, since some subjects let their answers wander more than others. If your SME tends to go off on tangents, gently circle back to the question list to get the info you need, and assure them you will get back to their tangent later. If your SME is focused on your questions, ask more follow-ups to get more detail to flesh out the piece.
Read more: 5 tips for remarkable SME interviews
4. Edit ruthlessly
Surprising but true: editing a Q&A often takes much longer than writing an article from scratch. During the editing process, you’ll not only need to remove any repetitive phrases and placeholder words, but often condense paragraphs of transcript into a few sentences or less.
To do this effectively, you need a strong grasp of the narrative of the article, and the ability to pinpoint moments in the interview that are critical to your story. Sometimes, you’ll need to combine answers to multiple questions, or move a comment from the end of the interview to the top of the article.
After the interview, I usually create an updated article outline, and copy and paste in the parts of the transcript to include under each question. Then I revise until the copy is clean and concise — often paring 4,000+ words down to 800 or less.
5. Share the story with your SME
In journalism, sharing a story with your source before it goes live is a serious no-no — but in marketing, it’s fair game.
Running the story by your SME helps strengthen your relationship, since they’ll feel confident that you’ve accurately captured their voice. It also gives the SME a chance to fill out their answers with anything they forgot to say, adding nuance that makes the story more helpful and bringing in pops of color that bring the piece to life.
The bottom line
Q&As are surprisingly challenging to do well, but preparation and strong interviewing skills, combined with robust editing, lay the foundation for an outstanding story.
If you need support developing a Q&A, I’m here to help. I can leverage the expertise I’ve gained from conducting 200+ interviews and writing several Q&As to craft a compelling story that builds new relationships, enhances your brand image and brings in leads.
When you’re ready, click here to get in touch and set up a discovery call to see if we’d be a good fit to work together.
