How to Extract Unique Insights Without Traditional Content Interviews

Here's a problem every content agency faces: Your clients want content that showcases real expertise. They want unique insights from their subject matter experts. They want articles that couldn't be written by anyone else.

But actually getting time with those experts? Nearly impossible.

The product team is busy. The technical leads are in back-to-back meetings. The executives are traveling. Everyone agrees the content should include their expertise, but nobody has time to be interviewed.

So you end up writing surface-level content based on publicly available information, and everyone wonders why it doesn't stand out.

I've been thinking about this problem a lot, and I realized: We're approaching it wrong.

The Traditional Interview Problem

The way most agencies handle SME content is to start a project, identify topics that need expert input, and then try to schedule interviews with the relevant people.

This creates friction at every step.

First, you have to convince busy experts that talking to you is worth their time. Then you have to find a time that works in their schedule—which usually means waiting two or three weeks. Then you have to hope they actually show up and are prepared to talk thoughtfully about the topic.

And even when it works, you're asking people to context-switch. They're in the middle of their regular work, and suddenly they need to think deeply about content strategy and messaging and what makes for a good article.

Most people aren't naturally good at this. They either give you way too much technical detail that won't work for your audience, or they give you surface-level talking points that don't add much value.

The whole process is slow, frustrating, and inconsistent.

Embedding Expertise in Onboarding

What if, instead of treating SME interviews as a separate content creation step, we made them part of the standard onboarding process?

Here's what I'm proposing: During client onboarding, we already have a series of kickoff calls. We're meeting with stakeholders, learning about the business, understanding goals and challenges.

What if one of those standard onboarding calls was specifically with the product team or technical experts, and the explicit purpose was to discuss the content strategy?

Not "we'll interview you later when we need quotes," but "let's talk through the topics we're planning to cover for the next six months and get your perspective on them."

It's 30 to 60 minutes. We come prepared with the five or six topic clusters we're planning to build content around. And we just... talk about them.

What's happening in this space? What do customers misunderstand? What are the common objections? What's changing in the industry? What do your competitors get wrong?

We record the call. We train our AI agents on the transcript. And suddenly we have authentic expert perspective woven into everything we create for the next several months.

Why This Works Better

There are several reasons this approach is more effective than traditional SME interviews.

It eliminates the scheduling friction. This isn't an extra meeting we're trying to squeeze into someone's calendar. It's part of the standard onboarding process that everyone expects to participate in.

It provides better context. Instead of asking experts to comment on individual articles one at a time, we're discussing the entire content strategy at once. They can see how everything connects, suggest different angles, point out gaps we might have missed.

It feels collaborative, not extractive. We're not just taking their time to get quotes. We're involving them in the strategic planning. Most experts actually enjoy this kind of conversation because they get to shape the direction instead of just responding to questions.

It captures natural language and authentic perspective. When experts are talking through ideas conversationally rather than answering formal interview questions, you get much more natural, authentic insights. The way they explain things, the examples they use, the points they emphasize—it all comes through more genuinely.

It scales across multiple articles. One conversation gives you material you can pull from for months. Instead of scheduling a new interview every time you need expert input, you've already captured their perspective on the entire topic area.

What You Actually Get

Let me be specific about what comes out of these onboarding calls.

You get pull quotes you can use throughout your content. Not generic marketing speak, but actual expert perspective in their own words.

You get specific examples and use cases that you wouldn't have thought of on your own. The real-world scenarios that experts know about because they live in this space every day.

You get insider perspective on industry trends. What's overhyped? What's underappreciated? What's coming next that most people aren't paying attention to yet?

You get common misconceptions to address. Every expert knows the things their customers consistently get wrong. Those make fantastic content angles.

You get competitive intelligence. Not in a trash-talking way, but in understanding what differentiates your client's approach from alternatives in the market.

And you get all of this in one efficient conversation instead of trying to extract it piece by piece over months of sporadic interviews.

Training AI on the Transcript

Here's where it gets really powerful: Once you have that recorded conversation, you can train your custom GPTs or AI agents on the transcript.

Now when you're creating content, your AI isn't just working from generic knowledge or publicly available information. It's drawing from actual expert perspective specific to this client's business.

The AI can reference their examples. It can adopt their way of explaining concepts. It can incorporate their perspective on industry debates.

Obviously you're still reviewing and editing everything. But you're starting from a place of authentic expertise rather than trying to manufacture it from scratch.

This is how you create SME content at scale without the traditional bottlenecks.

Making It Standard Practice

The key to making this work is positioning it as a standard part of your onboarding process, not an optional add-on.

When you're scoping a new project and outlining the onboarding calls, you simply include: "We'll need 30 to 60 minutes with your product team or subject matter experts to discuss the content strategy."

It's not negotiable. It's not something you'll "try to schedule later if needed." It's part of how you do onboarding, and it happens in the first couple weeks of the engagement.

Most clients will readily agree to this because it happens at a point when they're already expecting to invest time in getting the project started. The friction is much lower than trying to schedule expert interviews three months into an engagement.

And honestly, most clients appreciate that you're being proactive about incorporating their expertise from the beginning rather than treating it as an afterthought.

The Broader Benefit

What I love about this approach is that it doesn't just solve the SME interview problem. It actually makes your entire content strategy better.

When you have expert input shaping your topic clusters from the beginning, you catch potential issues early. You discover angles you wouldn't have considered. You understand the nuances that will make your content genuinely useful rather than just technically accurate.

You build a relationship with the experts on your client's team, which makes future collaboration easier. They've already seen that you take their expertise seriously and use it effectively.

And you create content that actually stands out because it reflects real insider perspective, not just repackaged publicly available information.

That's the kind of content that drives results. And it all starts with rethinking when and how you involve subject matter experts in the process.

Want content that showcases real expertise without the interview scheduling nightmare? Winsome Marketing builds SME perspectives into every engagement from day one.