One of the best ways to connect with your audience is via content marketing. However, while generating content itself is great, what matters most is that it’s informative and valuable for your customers. One of the best ways to do that is by tapping into a unique and practical resource—subject-matter experts (SMEs).
While not all businesses need to leverage the expertise of an SME, many brands can utilize their knowledge to full effect. With marketing, SMEs can help generate more insightful content that will resonate with customers far better than anything else out there. All too often, content just gets repurposed and repackaged, where it all remains surface-level. However, incorporating SME insights makes it easier for your company to dive deeper to deliver more meaningful marketing materials.
So, with that in mind, let’s look at subject-matter experts—what they are, what they do, and how they can benefit your business.
What Makes Someone an SME?
There are two primary ways for someone to become an expert in a topic: research or experience. Ideally, a subject-matter expert will have both, giving them a well-rounded perspective on a specific field.
However, if you had to choose between one or the other, we believe that SMEs with experience are far more valuable than those who have just researched a topic. Because research doesn’t always provide a comprehensive understanding of something, experience tends to offer more knowledge overall.
For example, someone could research and learn everything there is to know about the stock market. They know all the various terms and processes that happen with trading, and they can even provide models for companies or individuals to use to pick good stocks.
Compare that person to someone who has been working in the stock exchange and trading every day for years. They’re on the ground and see what happens in real time from a personal perspective. They may not know all the terminology or the theories around the stock market, but they know how it works inside and out.
Now, which person would you trust to pick stocks on your behalf?
The same method applies to subject-matter experts. It’s not necessarily enough to know everything about a subject. Instead, it’s often better to know how that information applies to the subject in the real world. So, a high-quality SME is someone actively involved in their respective field and has learned as much about it through research and experience as possible.
The “actively involved” part is also crucial, although it depends on the topic or industry. It’s best to rely on someone up-to-date on current trends and practices. Even better is if they can predict which trends will pop up in the future to give your brand a competitive edge.
Benefits of Leveraging Subject-Matter Experts
As you can imagine, there are some tangible benefits of using SMEs for marketing. Some of the top reasons to utilize their expertise include:
Reduced risks and mistakes
If you’re going to post content about a particular subject, you need to make sure it’s accurate and factual. While the internet can be a great resource, not all the content surrounding a subject is correct. In some cases, pieces may be misleading, inaccurate, or downright false.
Thankfully, when you have an SME on your marketing team, you can have them analyze posts and articles about their subject. Then, they can point out and correct any mistakes before the piece gets published.
Creative solutions to complex issues
One of the primary advantages of using an SME is that they’re often able to digest complex topics and discuss them in simplistic terms. This way, the topic is much easier to understand, allowing your audience to connect with it better.
For example, an SME may be able to take the raw data about a topic and show how it relates to common experiences. This way, readers will be able to connect the two and understand the importance of the subject.
Similarly, an SME might be able to help you create new content ideas around their subject. They may have unique insights into different aspects of the subject that aren’t apparent on the surface. This way, you can develop a more comprehensive content marketing strategy and yield much better results from it.
Building organizational expertise
A subject-matter expert has years of experience and knowledge under their belt. However, much of that knowledge can be shared with other people within your organization. By sharing these details, more workers can learn the ins and outs of the subject, making them better at creating content about it.
Sometimes, an SME may give a seminar at the office and teach information to attendees. In other cases, this knowledge may be shared more informally via a Q&A session. Also, an SME can share information with managers, who then pass it down to employees.
Another way for subject-matter experts to help with organizational expertise is to create a guidebook or manual about the subject. This book can be a reference guide for anyone generating content about the subject. The benefit of going this route is that the book is always accessible, even if the SME is not.
Internal vs. External SMEs
One of the big questions you may have about SMEs is whether you should hire one for in-house work or outsource the information from third-party experts. There is no “right” answer to this question, either. Also, in some cases, you may use both internal and external SMEs, depending on the situation.
So, let’s break down how both options work and when they may be the most valuable for your business.
Utilizing in-house experience
If your business exists within an authoritative niche, you should already have some subject-matter experts on hand to provide insight for marketing materials. For example, if you run a healthcare clinic, the workers inside the clinic can leverage their expertise regarding how the industry works.
In-house SMEs make the most sense if most of your marketing is centered around a particular subject. So, some businesses that can make the most of internal experts are:
- Healthcare Providers
- Legal Practices
- Financial Firms
- Insurance Agencies or Brokers
- Veterinary Providers
- Law Enforcement Agencies
In each case, it’s critical to utilize an SME whenever possible because the details have to be correct. For example, life insurance policies have specific procedures, payouts, and qualifying protocols. An SME can give valuable insight into each of these elements to make it easier for customers to navigate through the process.
Overall, companies that exist within specialized industries should leverage in-house expertise whenever possible. Usually, it will be much easier and more cost-effective to go this route than to hire external specialists all the time.
Collaborating with external specialists
For marketing purposes, there is a lot of value in talking with a third-party SME. External specialists can provide critical authenticity for your brand. So, even though you don’t have the expertise yourself, you show that you’re willing to seek out those who do. One of the best examples of this would be a journalist interviewing a specialist for an article about a particular subject.
However, even if you’re not running a news website, you can still take advantage of third-party SMEs. In some cases, doing so could help increase your marketing outreach and build your brand awareness online. For example, if you talk with a high-profile SME (i.e., Neil DeGrasse Tyson), their presence could increase your audience significantly.
Interviews are the easiest way to leverage external specialists, and there are three main ways to conduct them:
- Video – Video content is always the most engaging because users are more likely to watch a video than read through a lengthy blog post. Plus, with more video-calling apps available, it’s never been easier to interview an SME remotely.
- Article – Written interviews are still valuable because they’re curated and pointed. While a video could stray off course or run long, an article can be edited to be as targeted as necessary. Plus, the information can be part of a much larger piece, not the central focus.
- Podcast – More and more businesses are using podcasts to increase their audience size and attract new customers. Podcasts are fantastic for interviewing because it’s an essential part of the format. Virtually all podcast episodes involve interviews between the host and a guest, so users expect them.
The Bottom Line: Get Better Content With Subject-Matter Experts
Interviewing isn’t the only way to use SME insight to create better content. You can also connect with an SME who writes based on their knowledge and experience. WriterAccess is one of the best databases to help you connect with SMEs in a wide variety of fields. From healthcare to technology to finance (and more), our writer pool is diverse and highly specialized.
Better yet, you can start a free two-week trial to take advantage of WriterAccess and see the results for yourself. If you want to strengthen your content marketing strategy, now is the best time to tap into this valuable resource.
