Let’s face it – there are days when the creative well is dry and you would rather go to the dentist than write some fresh content for social media or your website. After all, if you can’t create outstanding content, why do it at all? You may be tempted to chuck the whole thing and back to doing something more fun – like filling out expense reports.
I promise that you will be rewarded by your decision to stay the course and persevere with content marketing, but it will require a switch in mindset. There are some principles you must adhere to and a few “nice to haves” that you can improve on as you go along.
First, the three NON-negotiable elements:
- Everything you write must have a point, and preferably one that is related to the value proposition of your business. This is particularly important in B2B Marketing and specifically online content marketing.
- Although difficult to eliminate, keep the typos and grammatical errors to a minimum. People tend to get sloppy when they write for social media, but readers do notice. And when you show poor attention to detail, people tend to project that to a general impression about your competence.
- Establish a minimum acceptable output for your online content marketing efforts. The key word in the term fresh content is “fresh.” Create a steady stream of fresh new content. Remember that a stream doesn’t have to be a torrent — even a trickle will do, if it is new and interesting. But do keep it flowing, no matter what.
And now for the three negotiable elements:
- The quality of your copy: This is a big hurdle to overcome. Many business people agonize over every word in an article, blog post or tweet. The fact is that an extreme focus on quality can do you more harm than good.
- The length of your copy: Although there are some guidelines as to ideal text length (e.g. blog posts of 500 words), these are suggestions, not hard-and-fast rules. Many great blog posts are 200 words, while others are 1000 words and everything in between. As Voltaire said, “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.” So resist the urge to tell everything and leave a little to the reader’s imagination. Write as much as you think is necessary and then give your pen (or keyboard) a rest.
- Who writes the copy: Not every bit of copy has to come from the CEO, VP of marketing or product management. There may be others in the organization who enjoy writing and would be happy to support the corporate cause. In fact, multiple authors show that a company has energy and expertise outside the executive suite.
Find your workable balance between content quality and quantity. Then produce and prosper.
Had a similar quote (my post title) in the backlog of my mind to parallel your Voltaire citation. I believe it originates with Shakespeare. It’s certainly crucial in marketing messaging to use as few words as possible. Simplicity is key to consistent relevance. Quality vs. quantity is a good metric to apply to pretty much everything we do in the business world, so well said.