How to Make Sure Your Client’s Email Interview Actually Gets Used

A quick step you can take before sending off email interview answers that ensures your client’s quotes make it into the story.

Have you been getting asked to have your clients do more email interviews lately?

First, a quick look at why this is becoming more and more the trend:

Sometimes it’s the only way they can keep up. On any given week, writers are simultaneously working on many stories at the same time. And sometimes email interviews are the only way they can keep up with their workloads. Setting up a phoner, doing the phoner, transcribing it, reading through it, etc. can add so many extra hours to the process of churning out an article.

They might just need a quick quote: Very often, when a writer sets up an interview with a source, they don’t need a full 30 minute call. They often just need a few quotes here and there to supplement the article. In that case, doing a phoner where a source talks for a long time about a subject is something they don’t need to do. And this is also a way to not waste a lot of your client’s time as well.

It can be much more convenient: Different time zones, tricky schedules, email replies that drag on when a writer is on a time crunch… Email can bridge the gap.

It works better in some situations: Some clients are more comfortable writing than speaking, and journalists often respect that. We also find that some clients answer better when they have the questions in front of them and have time to really think the answers through versus “Give us 10 reasons why XYZ” on the spot, which can often be tricky.

We need a lot of sources: For a story, a journalist may be interviewing 5–10 experts. Email is the only way to manage that workload efficiently.

That said, you as a publicist can always push back and tell a writer your client prefers doing a phoner.

Save these asks for clients who you know do better on the phone, who aren’t going to get back to a writer in a timely manner via email, or will probably not answer the questions as thoroughly as a writer needs them to.

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Quick pause on this topic to let everyone know that we have a few more spots open in Jill and my upcoming presentation: How to ROCK 2025 Holiday Gift Guide Pitching

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Now back to this week’s topic!

So here’s how the traditional process of an email interview usually goes:

A publicist sets up an email interview with a client. Their client answers the emails. The publicist sends the answers over to the journalist. But wait, there’s one very important step that you’re missing out on here: Previewing your client’s quotes

This is a very crucial step in the process that can make the difference between a client’s quotes being used in an article and not making it in.

The Case for Always Previewing Interview Answers

When a journalist sends over interview questions, it can be tempting to forward them straight to your client and fire back whatever they send in return. Quick, easy, done.

But here’s the thing. Writers can always tell when a rep hasn’t looked at their client’s answers before hitting “send.” And more often than not, it costs the client a chance at being featured.

Here are a few of the most common issues I see:

1. Skipped questions:

A writer will send six questions and get answers to three. That leaves gaps in their story and makes them less likely to include the source.

This can put a writer in a big bind if they are relying on a source to be heavily featured in the article. The writer provided a deadline for the quotes to come in by, then sits down to write their article and realizes they don’t have enough from the source. Now they have to scramble to find someone else to interview to supplement the article.

This happened to me recently and boy was it stressful! I even went back to the publicist and said “can you see if they can answer the rest?” and then the source ghosted. I sadly, didn’t end up using ANY of that source’s quotes in the article. There just wan’t enough to work with. And fortunately, I was able to find someone else in a pinch.

See below for a deeper dive into this with 5 more explanations, plus tips on how to handle these situations instead!

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