Even if you know your stuff inside out, you need to make time to prepare for a radio interview. No matter how good you are, it can be daunting to talk about it live on air. Having a mic stuck under your nose, or getting caught with unexpected questions can rattle you.
Radio airtime is worth a fortune and is a prime PR opportunity to talk to large audiences for you and your organisation or business. So you can’t really afford to blow it! You can, however, make it a little easier by using these inside tips on how to prepare in advance:
How To Prepare for a Radio Interview
- Be clear about what it is that you want to say in the interview. In other words, what are the distinct messages you want to get across, the messages you want the listener to hear and understand. Jot these down in BULLET POINTS ONLY on one side of a single page! It’s best to stick to 2 or 3 points only as you may not get time to cover everything…and make sure you know which of these points is most essential.
- Think about how you are going to back up or illustrate these points. These can be with figures & statistics, other factual evidence or with anecdotes which help to make your case. Be careful with figures and statistics though and don’t overdo them….long lists of figures don’t come across well on the airwaves. Best to stick to rounded figures e.g. instead of saying 11,139, say over 11 thousand. For statistics, best to simplify them by say e.g. 1 in 4 instead of 25%. Add these to your bullet points using keywords and figures only – this page can then be the ONLY thing you bring to the interview with you. (Writing out long points that you read off the page sounds stilted and false on the air)
- Make sure you get to your essential points as early as possible in the interview, in case it is shorter than you expected – it usually is… You can prepare for this by writing out a list of both nice and nasty questions you might expect to be asked, and then practice your answers in a way which works in your main point.
Armed and ready to go, you can now approach your radio interview with confidence, always remembering that you are the expert here…. Your interviewer covers tons of topics day in and day out all through the year and can never know as much about your subject as you do. So relax, and use a simple conversational style and you never know, you might even enjoy it!
If you need help or advice with media interviews or PR, you can contact Trish Hegarty at Inis Communications on +353 86-1740057 or email trish@iniscommunications.com