A question came up from my post of two-days ago around 2-Day information products via interviewing experts or authority figures in your marketplace.
The question was…”What if I am a complete newbie who does not have relationships, does not have a list to offer to the expert in terms of garnering publicity. Why would they cooperate with me?”
This is a very good question, one that we have direct experience with as we have entered 4 brand new markets (as a newbie) and been able to secure expert interviews in each market.
Here are some tips I used when I enter new markets as a complete newbie to get experts attention…
1. I look for experts that are currently doing a book or product launch, these people are EXTRA hungry for publicity as they are already operating in that mode so they are typically very receptive. You can find them by monitoring the new books coming out on Amazon, Clickbank or other ebook directories, searching on press releases (Google News, PRWeb, etc…) around your marketplace, and watch other authority blogs/social networks in your market to see who they are picking up for interviews.
2. You give them access to the interview (or part of it…I like to conduct the interview in 2-parts if they allow me where the first part is designed around giving them a tool they can use to drum up more publicity where the second part is kept private for my customers) – they can use this as lead generation, give-aways to their list, put it on their blog, etc…
3. I show them my blog and let them know (the entire interview if you are using the interview as a lead-gen incentive or part if you are selling the interview) that their content and links back to their site will remain on this blog feeding them traffic for months/years…even if you are a newbie, that is worth a good amount.
4. In very rare cases where I REALLY want to get someone I will offer them something else (write 5 articles for their blog, conduct a series of free interviews, cut the transcripts for the interviews, give them a testimonial, etc…) in order to get their attention.
Once you have the first few in the bag, you can play them off one another which works wonderfully too.
Above all else, do not underestimate your ability to persuade top names with offers of free publicity, inbound links and some champion-oriented testimonials – they really do not typically get offers like this very often.
