Is My Marketing Writing Too Long?
As a business strategist, I look at your business holistically – from end to end – to see what’s out of alignment. One of the spokes on the wheel of your business is marketing, and we have to make sure we do everything in our power to get a great strategy going.
Recently, one of my awesome talented clients received some feedback on her newsletters. The suggestion was made that while the material was good, it’s too long for today’s impatient audience.
This is a critical topic to consider – when are you writing or creating too much or too little? how are you supposed to get it right?
My client has just recently started her business and is networking to meet a whole new list of connections. Several times, people don’t really “get” what she does, so she spends a lot of time explaining. We decided to use storytelling as the format for educating her audience on what she does, how she does it, and who she does it for.
Does this happen to you? Do you find yourself wishing you could stop explaining what your business is all about?
I reminded my client, and what I’m offering to you, is that the initial series of newsletters should establish a baseline for your audience – you are educating them on what you do. So – until they “get it” we need to give the details and tell the story. When we’re storytelling, we connect with the audience in natural human terms.
I have seen other emails that are long explanatory content that read like a text book and no one thinks that’s attention-grabbing! In your marketing, you include short details of a brief personal or customer story and we can consume that easily and smoothly. Once you and your business develop a trusted and familiar brand, you can switch into a different format and it may be shorter (or not) but our first strategy is education.
All humans are different and learn in many ways. That’s why marketing offers different ways to grab and retain the right attention from the right audience.
- There are those who won’t bother read long newsletters.
- There are those who have no time and patience for social media.
- There are those who don’t read at all, and that’s where video comes in.
- There are those who want to read longer blog posts, like 600 – 800 words.
If we want to get the word out about our business, we must cover all our bases.
So my go-to strategy is to write one “longer” article and use that for your blog. Write a brief summary for your newsletter with a link for the full article on your website. Use the strongest pieces of your article to create shorter social media posts. Use the strongest social posts and make a video out of them. Recycling at its best!
Is your marketing too long or too short? Give value in a variety of formats to reach the audience who needs you.