Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles
– Steve Jobs
While we’ve been told since we’re children that quality matters more than quantity, we do not seem to deliver a message, copy, or content based on that notion.
It feels that content is appreciated more or ranks higher on the ‘Internets’ if it is made longer and is more cumbersome; as if the amount of content you receive makes the product or solution more worthwhile, or it further proves its value proposition.
But more words and pages and content don’t make the value any clearer to your audience, rather drowns it and makes it more difficult to find WIIFM from the 12-page e-book, or the 4 part blog post series, or the hour and a half webinar.
If you’re so valuable, just tell us why and get to the point already; don’t make us have to search for it and don’t make us read so much.
Is the incentive for writing long-form content greater? could it be that we’re throwing the entire kitchen sink at our audience in hopes something sticks? or we’re unsure what’s truly important to say, so we say it all in hopes that nothing will be missed?
That is insane!
Wouldn’t it be much easier, more worthwhile, and bring about better outcomes if we just tell our audience how we help them quickly and efficiently without giving them so much work?
Of course, different content has different goals, so figure out what you want to achieve, find what motivates your audience, and explain it forward clearly and concisely…and hopefully make it short cause I don’t have all day.
And once you have it ready, go ahead and edit it once, edit twice, and edit some more to make it short (as needed) and straightforward.
In the end, you can blow more air into that cheese puff, but it will still be that same cheese puff…just with more air.