Welcome to contentfolksāa fortnightly newsletterĀ with short lessons & ideas about content that makes a difference, sparks action, and truly serves its audience. Thank you for being here!
Hey š
Watching the Olympic Games over the last 12 days, Iāve heard more than once that an athlete who is after a medal āmust go big or go homeāāwhich makes sense, when their chance at an Olympic gold comes once every four (ā¦five!) years.
But most of the time, āgoing bigā isnāt something an athlete aims for: aside from being unsustainable, itās also an unnecessary (and unsafe) waste of energy and strength.
And this relates to content marketingā¦ how?
Going big vs. staying small
For most content marketers, āgoing bigā is the default setting: give us a content task, and nine times out of ten weāll aim to ship something perfectly produced and impeccably polished. Unlike product marketers, who are trained to create Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to test and iterate on, we content folks donāt usually go around thinking about the smallest unit of meaningful content work we can deliverāand if somebody asks us to scope things down, we might even feel personally offended š
Thereās nothing wrong with doing big content things every once in a while, when the time is right. But more often than not, like an athlete in training, weāre better off focusing on smaller, more sustainable, equally valuable tasks: improving something we already have, running a new experiment, trying new tricks to see how they land.
The small things help us build the foundations on which we pull off the big ones.
š” A practical example š”
Say you work for a company that makes employee recognition software. Youāve heard me talk about product-led content, think this approach is worth pursuing, and are ready to give it a serious try.
In this scenario, you could be tempted to go big: do a round of customer and keyword research, use the insight to plan a new long-form resource, write thousands of fresh words, maybe even hire an illustrator to work on the visual layoutā¦
ā¦or, you could stay small: take a piece of content you already have, look forĀ oneĀ section where you can talk about the product, and work on updating it.
Take a look at what āsmallā could look like. Here is an existing guide about peer recognition:
And here is a small, product-focused tweak you could apply to it (PS: I donāt work for this company, I just mocked it up in Photoshop to give you an idea of what can be done!):
Unlike the original, the edited version includes:
- A quick, descriptive example of what the product can do
- An annotated screenshot that anchors a feature description to a visual reminder, so a reader can familiarise themselves with the look & feel of the platform
- A caption with a link to additional information
Thatās already a solid step in a product-led direction; it adds clarity for your audience, is easy to iterate on, and you can do it in less than 30 minutes. And sure, it doesnāt come with a side of fireworks and you wonāt get a content marketing medal for itā¦ but on balance, Iād still call it a content win š
Content marketing moves at a faster pace than the Olympic Games (and you donāt injure yourself nearly as much), but the principle of āgoing bigā when the opportunity is right*** and staying smaller the rest of the time is very helpful for our daily work.
Go do something small today!
***I genuinely almost leapt off the sofa when Charlotte Worthington landed the first-ever 360 BMX backflip in womenās competition after falling horribly in her first attempt. Apparently, sheād only tried this move in training a few times beforeāand thatās what inspired this entire newsletter!