A Message for Our Agency Partners
As your content partner, it’s our goal to appear as a natural extension of your team and services. To further this goal, we spend dedicated time preparing for each client interview.
During the pre-interview phase, we review all communications you send over, including:
- Client intake briefs
- SEO strategy
- Sitemap
- Current website (if it exists)
- Misc. client documentation (e.g., PowerPoints, PDFs, sales brochures)
The more information we receive before the call, the better prepared we are heading into the conversation.
Repeating Ourselves on Purpose
During the interview, you may hear us asking several questions that you may have already covered with the client. Please know this isn’t because we haven’t done the prep work.
We repeat these questions for three main reasons:
- To get the client talking. Through our
years of running content interviews, we’ve found clients often come into these
calls unsure of what to say or worried about saying the wrong thing or…well,
you get the idea. If we can get them talking by covering basic information and
general points, they’ll become more comfortable with us and will open up
more—without even realizing it.
- To dig deeper. Once a client has answered
a question, they may have spent time revisiting their responses. Repeating a
question allows the client to answer again, either to confirm their first
response or to provide a different and/or deeper response. This often mines
gems that were previously hidden.
- To hear the words they use. One of the best things we can do as ghostwriters is to use the client’s own words in their copy. These aren’t the words you hear them say over and over again, though. They’re the one-off statements that make an impact, that get to the heart of things, and that matter most. When we can capture those words and find a home for them in their new web copy, they see it and they feel seen. This often leads to happier clients and better-targeted content.
Questions We Ask During Every Interview
Contact Information
- Business Name
- URL
- Phone
- Address
- Social media profiles
Business Basics
- Geographic area served?
- Date started?
- How many years have you been in this line of business?
- Do you have employees? If yes, who are they and what are their roles?
- What is your slogan/tagline?
- What can you tell me about your business’ background/history?
About Your Clients
- How do you refer to your clients (clients, customers, other)?
- Who is your ideal client? Who do you serve?
- What problem does your business solve for your ideal clients?
About Your Business
- What specific services do you provide?
- What process does a new client go through to receive those services?
- Who is your competition?
General Content Direction
- What POV do you wish to use?
- First-person plural (We, us, our)
- First-person singular (I, me, my)
- Third person (It, their)
- What tone do you wish to use?
- E.g., Friendly/approachable, detached/reserved
- Are there any websites that feature content you like? Don’t like?
*We also discuss every page we’re set to write to get specific notes and direction.*
Thank you!
We’re thrilled that you’ve chosen to partner with us to deliver connection-focused, search-optimized copy for your clients. If you have any questions about what we’ve included here or about our white label copywriting process in general, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
