Why should I choose your service over your competitor? What happens after the contract is signed? How can I make sure I don't spend too much money on Z? Whatever your prospect wants to know, your content should address it . For these answers to be complete and convincing, they should come from your subject matter experts. In order for your company to be able to produce the best content, SMEs need to contribute. These SMEs can be sales professionals , product designers , customer service specialists , or company leaders —anyone with knowledge and authority on the issue at hand.
When SME is part of the content production process, the results are even stronger. However, these SMEs are busy people. How can they help in a industry mailing list that doesn't burden them? By sitting down with a content manager for an interview. What does it mean to help with content production? The way most subject matter experts help with content production is through interviews with content managers.
You can think of your content manager as your company's reporter. They need to write content that drives traffic and captures leads, but they don't have the first-hand knowledge to do so. So they interview SMEs to get the information they need, which they can then turn into full content. An interview for a single piece of content should last no more than 20 minutes - so it shouldn't be a huge burden on the SME. During the interview, your content manager will produce one of three types of content: