One of the easiest ways to start building a mailing list is by interviewing experts in the industry you wish to build an audience in. But not just any expert. Ideally, you want to interview an expert who already has a big audience. They either have a lot of social media followers, Youtube subscribers or simply get a lot of media exposure on a regular basis so you can leverage their existing audience.

The reason why this method is very effective is because both the interviewer and the interviewee benefits. The interviewer benefits by aligning themselves with key people in their industry and building an audience. The interviewee on the other hand has an opportunity to grow their audience further too, share their message to even more people and potentially sell more of their products if they have any.

It’s no coincidence that Robert Kiyosaki, sold millions of copies of his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad after being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and some of the richest people on the planet such as Michael Parkinson are interviewers.

The first step when wanting to build a list through conducting interviews, is to find an expert.

There are many experts in the world, eager for more exposure, and it’s never been easier to get in touch with them.

• Websites such as expertclick.com can put you in touch with a range of different experts
• Companies such as interviewconnections.com can put you in contact with experts of your choice for a fee
• com lists all the authors in a given industry

Getting in touch with them is as easy as connecting with them on social media or sending them an email through their website.

The second step is structuring the interview as shown below:

• The introduction. The expert provides information about who they are, what they’ve done and their achievements.

Below are some questions you could use during the introduction:

• How did you become such an expert in xyz?
• How has your information/expertise/experience helped people?
• Do you have specific examples of people whose life has changed thanks to your knowledge?
• The content.

This part should invite the interviewee to share some knowledge and expertise and give listeners clear instructions and guidelines on what to do to achieve the result promised by the expert. The interviewer’s responsibility is to make sure that the expert doesn’t use any jargon that is likely to confuse listeners, and to ensure that the information shared is enough for people to implement. If the information shared is complex, the interviewer’s job is either to re-iterate what has been said, or ask the expert to illustrate it with clear examples.

The following questions will help extract that information:

• So, what steps should someone follow to achieve xyz?
• What are the common challenges people are likely to face when following these steps?
• What are the best practices in order to ensure success in xyz?
• How long would it take someone to achieve xyz?
• What is likely to stop people from achieving xyz?
• What are the common mistakes people make when trying to achieve xyz?
• The call-to-action. The presenter or expert offers an opportunity to the viewers to learn more, subscribe to something, buy a product, get in touch, etc…

The following questions can be used to introduce a strong call to action.

• You’ve created (name of the product or service); can you tell us more about it?
• How can (name of the product or service) help people in achieving XYZ (benefit of the product or service)?
• How fast can people achieve XYZ (benefit of the product or service) as a result of getting hold of (name of the product or service)?

This question is not applicable in all circumstances, but if the product or service can lead to specific results faster, it is important to mention this.

• What was your customer’s experience after they purchased (name of product or service)?
• For the people listening to this recording, do you have a special offer for them?
• Where can people purchase (name of product or service)?
• What’s the easiest way for listeners to get in touch with you?

Once you have outlined your interview, and listed the questions you want to ask, schedule the interview and record it using platforms such as gotowebinar.com or Skype. To make sure the recording is clear, make sure both you and the interviewee use a headset with a built in microphone such as the Logitech H390 headset, there is no background noise and you are not likely to be interrupted by anyone or anything.

Then, you’ll need to edit the interview. For editing, you can use software such as Camtasia or Screenflow. Should you wish to turn your recording into a video and not just an audio file, you can simply add images to illustrate the points made during the interview.

Finally, to turn your interview into a lead generator, you’ll simply need to set up a lead capture page (also known as squeeze page or optin page). To do so, you can use software such as LeadPages which needs to be integrated with your email marketing software (such as aweber, getresponse, etc…) and allows you to choose among many optin page form templates and “thank you pages” (a thank you page is the page people get redirected to). Once they’ve submitted their contact details, the thank you page usually says “congratulations for securing your copy of XYZ, your copy has been emailed to you”.

On the optin page itself, make sure you include a headline, the name and picture of the expert and a few bullet points of the benefits of listening to the interview. For example, should you be interviewing a public speaking expert about the secrets of successful public speaking, your headline could be “Public Speaking Secrets Revealed by America’s Highest Paid Speaker”. The bullet points could be the following:

Listen to John Smith as he reveals in this exclusive interview:

-The 3 biggest mistakes to avoid when speaking in public

-How to captivate your audience in 30 seconds

-The easiest and fastest way to find speaking opportunities

Once your interview has been turned into an optin page, start promoting the interview. The easiest way, is on social media, and tagging your expert in the posts so their audience can see it too!