GrowLoop eNewsletter 6-23-13

Make a long story short

June 23, 2013

Is this email not displaying correctly?View it in your browser. 

Hi , I hope your summer is finally feeling like it’s in full swing.  My family and I have been getting out swimming and enjoying a summer that’s felt like it’s taken a long time to get here.

 In fact, that concept of taking a long time to get to the good stuff is where I want to camp out today...

You see, you and I are bombarded daily with a ton of marketing messages online, on our smartphones and tablets, on TV (or your DVR, even though you’re fast forwarding the commercials)...these messages are everywhere.  If you’re like me you’ve gotten really good at tuning out a lot of things.  In fact, try to catch yourself -- how you pay attention to and review information online.  You’re likely quickly scanning Twitter or LinkedIn or your email Inbox reading headlines or subject lines and if something grabs your attention you might click through it to read more.   The point is, that we’ve become accustomed to quickly skimming to find the value in every message that comes our way.  This practice makes us more efficient with how we get through the glut of messages that come at us everyday, but it also means our accuracy in finding really valuable content sometimes wanes -- if we’re not careful in our skimming we sometimes throw the baby out with the bath water.

 So, I’m proposing a single tip that has a clear result...

As an entrepreneur utilizing digital marketing to build business relationships and help generate more leads try to get to the real value in everything you produce on your website, in your emails and across social media as quickly and concisely as possible.  This is to ensure that those you’re targeting with your messages don’t have to spend too much time skimming/scanning your content for it’s real value -- they can quickly ascertain what attracted them from the headline/subject line, grab what they came for and move on to the next step, and possibly become your client or an email subscriber or a referral source, etc.

 The result is that you’ll keep folks coming back to your content, to your website, to your social feed because your content is as streamlined and valuable as you can make it, which makes it easy for your target audience to find, make sense of and apply the content you produce in a way that respects the value of their time and energy.

 A quick note:  creating more concise marketing messages and content doesn’t mean you have to create more content that’s just shorter in length.  Slowing down to ensure you’re creating the best value within your content as concisely as possible is likely to serve your target audience better than shorter content more frequently.  My point here is that it’s quality over quantity.

 Here are some easy ways to help you do this:

  • Use good, short (less than 100 characters) headlines that inform people of what to expect if they click through to read more

  • Use headings (and/or bold font) within your longer messages to break up the content you’re providing into smaller chunks -- the headings end up being scan-able making it easier for someone to quickly understand what they will get if they take the time to slow down and read your content. 

  • Consider how to reduce every marketing message and piece of content you create.  In other words, as you produce something, ask yourself how you can reduce it down to the main value getting rid of any fluff or unnecessary commentary.  (Here's a link to a quick audio-blog post about the Power of Reduction)

  • Sleep on it...Draft your message and/ or content, if you have the time before publishing it, sleep on it and come back to it with a fresh perspective than when you first drafted it.  This will often allow you to reduce your content to its main value more easily.

 Keep in mind this is a skill that will get better over time with practice.  It may sound easy, but often it is not, so don’t feel discouraged if your second, third or even twentieth attempt doesn’t feel much better than your first.  If you’re conscious about it you’ll get better at it over time.   --  Nick Venturella Owner & Marketing Coach GrowLoop - coaching, design, digital marketing  Buy Building Your Brand, the ebook  Madison, WI  (864) 256-0588  [email protected] GrowLoop.com | Twitter | YouTube | Facebook | LinkedIn   Branding & Digital Marketing Made Simple