Create an Q&A column that the audience loves

Authors note: We surveyed about a dozen of Q&A-style columns in magazines before finding a stand-out that generates a consistent flow of high-interest content for the home page of the website, RHJ, a tabloid trade journal for property managers. Here how it was created, and how to replicate this success. 

Five years ago, John Triplett, a newspaper veteran and founder of Desert Path Marketing, a content marketing company, reinvented himself again. When the owner of Rental Housing Journal (RHJ), one of his clients, retired, Triplett bought the company.

Triplett needed to bring the publication into the digital world, creating a new website, newsletter, and digital ads. He also wanted to create a Q&A column.

The first step was to identify a focus for questions. The magazine centers on management, maintenance, and legal issues property managers face.  He set out to find columnists who could answer questions on those topics.

Instead of looking for writers, he looked for industry experts. A landlord attorney, Brad Kraus, whose firm is an advertiser, was tapped as the legal expert, and now answers questions like, “How do I prove my tenant is smoking marijuana in violation of their lease.”

To find a great property manager who was willing to write a regular Q&A column; however, was more difficult. John started asking property owners he talked to if they had a great manager.  He was ultimately referred to Hank Rossi, now Landlord Hank, who manages a portfolio of properties in Florida and Atlanta. He is now a prolific, popular columnist responsible for a large share of the content that runs on the website’s home page.

When John called Rossi the first time, he responded, “You mean like Dear Abbey or Anne Landers?”

“Yes, you’ll be the Ann Landers of the pretty manage world,” Triplett said.

Readers ask questions using a formfill under the column, and other locations on the website at the rate of around two or three a week.

They are typically stumpers that range from  “Can you charge a pet deposit for an emotional support dog” to “Should I renew my tenant’s lease or go month to month?”   When a reader asked, “Unauthorized pets in my rental, what do I do?”  it led to an opportunity to put a cat photo on the home page of the Rental Housing Journal:

Dear Landlord Hank,

My name is Carolyn, and I am a landlord.

I understand the need for pets, but I am wondering about a tenant who brought in two dogs – and now I’m seeing a cat in the window a couple of years later, and there may even be two cats.

She said she told my husband about the cats, but my husband passed away and never mentioned it to me. The gentleman is wheelchair-bound, I don’t know if you needed to know that. Thank you in advance for your time.

-Carolyn

Hank’s answers give practical advice in about 300 words or less. The two columnists produce multiple question-mark headlines with a buzzy air of immediacy on the home page of the website.  The nickname Ask Landlord Hank, along with a photo and bio, adds a touch of celebrity. The form to ask a question sits below every column.

“We get content I could never think of creating by myself,” Triplett said. The audience “is a lot smarter than we are.”

“They will tell you what they want to know. That is more relevant than something I think they are interested in.”

Topics that fail to generate questions demonstrate a channel that is not interesting to the audience.  hitting a home run, such as Ask Landlord Hank delivers a fire-hose of user-generated, articles.

The column is marketed along with other headline news in a weekly newsletter and has proven to be one of the most popular items.  Last week, when the newsletter alerted landlords to Oregon’s new rent control law, the “What to do about pets” headline got about the same attention: 1117 clicks, compared to 1180 for the rent control alert.

As for Hank,  besides the occasional listings that come into his firm,  he doesn’t get paid. “He just wants to help other landlords out of the goodness of his heart.”

Takeaways from this use case for publishers interested in creating an Ask an Expert column include these:

• Identify key areas the audience really cares about. In this case, legal advice and management issues were definitely on their minds!
• Look for columnists who are experts and willing to write, rather than writers.
• Keep the tone or answers direct, and the answer brief, conversational, and to the point. Even non-writers can easily manage a conversational response if they know the material.
• Put the Q&A form on the column itself.
• Persistence is your friend.  Triplett has made other attempts at finding ask-an-expert-style columnists, but they petered out either because the audience did not ask, or the writer lost interest.

“I think no one thing in this business is a home run. You just need a series of singles,” Triplett said.