The Secret Six and the Power of Intimate Interviews
Our next speaker on day three of World Internet Summit was Shaune Clarke. Yes, I know he’s been doing the World Internet Challenge, but this was his “proper” slot as a speaker.
After a preamble Shaune gave us his key nuggets for copywriting:
- Don’t settle for “good copy” - Know who you’re speaking to, the 2% who buy, not the 98% who won’t, Doing this make a big difference in the tone of your copy - it becomes much stronger.
- Read your copy out loud - this finds all the pauses, errors and disconnects.
- Use the nuances that create connection, believeability and lower resistance. Real-life tidbits, real-life events.
- Assumed language - it doesn’t need to be explained to those who buy
- Expressing understanding, compassion and empathy has a dramatic effect on response rates.
How to interview someone
After a little more standard stuff on how to find a niche, Shaune moved on to his main topic, the one he is an expert in - interviewing.
Shaune’s first comment was to say that you don’t just want an interview, you want an interview that:
- Produces provocative comments
- Gives a differing perspective
- Gives original content
- Gets the interviewee excited!
A passionate and exciting interview leads to a revealing interview. Then it becomes viral.
You increase the trust level of buyers by putting a photo of the interviewee and brief comment underneath.
How to get an interview
How do you get someone to agree to be interviewed? You use these four powerful words …. “can I interview you?”. You should probably preface them with a compliment, e.g. “I appreciate your perspective on …” or “I’d love to interview you about…”
If they’ve already been interviewed many times on a particular topic, ask if you can interview them about something else (and name the topic of course).
Question types for interviews
Shaune gave us a list of question types to ask which work the interview up from the initial friendly stage to the later ones where the real gold is.
- Rapport - Why is something important to you?
- Likability - What do you most want people to know?
- Persona - Tell me what you really like about…
- Revealing - What do you find easiest to sell?
- Digging - How do you know that? (Typically leads into a story)
- Emotional - How did that make you feel?
Working through these questions is a matter of the state of your emotional bank account with your interviewee. Shaune gave seven levels for this:
- Interview just ended
- Watching the clock
- Participating out of duty
- Interested
- Talkative
- Emotional (this is the level where you can ask anything)
- Completely connected
Effective techniques during an interview include allowing long pauses - let the interviewee dump some information and then pause. You may encounter some uncomfortable reactions, just stay calm and pause. Allow the interviewee to lead.
Overall I thought Shaune’s presentation was delivered well with lots of interesting material. He had a training course on interview techniques for sale, the only thing which stopped me buying was I couldn’t think of anyone I particularly wanted to interview in connection with our web business!
-Paul
Paul Quirk is a director at Know It Use It Ltd
http://www.ValuedClientSystem.com - From Prospects to Customers to Valued Clients
http://www.VCSHosts.co.uk – Create Your Online Business In A Box