3 Ways to Use Interviews on Your Website
Looking for ways to add depth and dimension to your website?
Consider adding some interviews.
If you want to, you can work with someone to do a “real” interview. You can record it and post the link to the audio or video on your website or blog.
Hint: You don’t have to pay $3000 or more to have a news personality do a formal interview. You can have one person in your company interview someone else. For example, you can have your marketing director interview your CEO.
If you decide to do a video, the easiest way to make it more professional is to do the filming yourself and then hire someone to edit it, adding a professional intro and conclusion. We worked with Pixability recently to do this and they did a great job for an affordable price.
You can also do the interview with webcams via Skype, if you want something very informal and inexpensive.
If you want only audio you can use Audio Acrobat (which is what we use) or one of the many similar services. Just do the interview over the phone, record it, and post the link to the recording.
But you can make it even easier…
Here’s how…
Just do a written interview. Write down the questions you want to answer, then answer them. Write it so it looks like a back-and-forth with an interviewer.
Here’s an example from one of our clients (I’m the Judy who did the interview):
Upgrading to iMIS 15: What Associations Need to Know
Can you see how easy that is?
And it has a lot of value. It has useful information, so it has value to web visitors. It’s keyword-rich, so it does well with the search engines, which helps bring people to the website.
Anyone can do interviews like this.
Here are 3 ways to use them:
1. Explain why your product or service matters
Lots of times, websites use formal language. They are written like a brochure, talking about what the company does, what the products do.
But that doesn’t tell you why people actually become customers.
You can explain that in an interview.
You can talk about how people use your products and services in an informal, casual way - what’s really cool about them, what kind of results they get, why they really buy - the way you would explain it to a friend or family member.
It’s a great way to add commentary to your website, to make points you can’t really make any other way, and to tell people what really matters.
2. Share your opinion on a hot topic
If you’ve got thoughts about a hot topic in the industry (and you’re not already blogging - or even if you are), this is a great way to get your opinions out there.
This is also a very useful way to bring traffic to your website, because there are probably a lot of searches on this topic. Just make sure you use the relevant keywords repeatedly throughout the interview.
3. Talk about what’s new
I bet you’ve got a new product or service that you introduced recently.
Do an interview about why you created that product or service. Talk about what’s great about it, why people need it. Share your excitement - let people see how much you care about this.
This is a good way to keep your website up-to-date. It also helps round out a launch and make it more interesting.
And it’s a good way to engage prospects and customers and bring them to your website - you can send them an email with a link to the interview and ask them to check it out.
So find a topic that would work for you and get an interview up on your site this month.
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Better Video Demos
Video is getting easier and less expensive to do - if you don’t have videos on your website you really need to add some.
My favorite uses for videos are:
- Give a high-level view of what your software does and why people need it.
- Have your CEO talk about what sets your company apart from competitors and why companies choose you.
- Have your head of R&D talk about what’s new in your latest version and why it is so cool.
- Do a quickstart that shows people something simple they can do with the software or how to begin learning how to use it.
If you’re looking at doing a video that shows your software, here are some tips:
1. Keep it short - 2-5 minutes is ideal.
2. Follow the “why, what, what if, now do” sequence that trainers recommend.
First tell them why they should listen to you.
Then tell them what you are going to tell them.
Then tell them - explain the details and the process.
Finally, tell them what to do next.
3. Write the script first. Then figure out how to show that visually.
4. Show something that is excruciatingly simple. Remember, these folks haven’t seen your software before, so even if it is very simple it will be a lot to take in. You want to keep the steps simple so your software looks easy to use.
5. Tell them explicitly at the end of the demo what step to take next. Do you want them to download a trial? Watch a couple more videos? Sign up for a webinar? Say so, and provide the link. Optimally, set up the video so if they click on the screen at the end it goes directly to the page where they can take the next action.
A company that does a good job with their demos is Bill4Time. Take a look to see how they do things.
SoftwareCEO also has an article this week on how to do better video demos that includes some good ideas: Win more sales by improving your demos: 8 tips. It will be public for another week or so then it will slip into their archive, so take a look now.
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