A recent study from Incite Collaborators found that marketers are making more and more, not better, content.
Please. Stop. Right. There.
Any marketer will tell you they are stretched, that they don't have time to waste and want actionable answers. The same goes for most other people as well - i.e., your audience.
Don't believe me? Here's what experts say:
- Our attention spans are shorter than those of goldfish.
- We're working longer days with less vacation time than ever.
- Nearly 70% of marketing content goes completely unused.
If you believe quantity trumps quality, you are entitled to that opinion.
If you want to produce more QUALITY content, here are a couple things to keep in mind:
- Emotion drives behavior. Study after study shows that when people are moved by emotion - good or bad - they take note.
- Higher emotional intensity means higher chance of action. Mediocre levels of emotion don't motivate us to act, but if we're emotionally charged - positively or negatively - watch out!
Now, here are some questions to ask yourself, or your team:
- How does emotion play into the content we develop now?
- What does our audience care about most?
- What emotions does our content evoke? (Is that good or bad?)
- Are we getting the action we want from our content?
Depending on the answers, you may have some opportunities to re-assess why you crank out content and find ways to make it better. Here are some tips to do that:
- Find out what your audience really cares about. This goes beyond volume and sentiment of discussions. (Not sure how to do this? There are very few compnaies that can measure the intensity of emotion from unstructured data, i.e. online conversations. Connect with me and I'd be happy to explain more.)
- Understand the emotional drivers. For every emotion, there are underlying drivers to provoke them. Things like fear, lack of communication, moral conflict, etc. If you know why people react a certain way, you can improve how you deliver a message.
- Do some testing. A/B testing is common in the marketing world and isn't as difficult with all the emerging tools and technology available today. Try different headlines, graphics, etc. and monitor your analytics for changes.
Ultimately, you'll only be as successful as the goals and objectives you first put in place. If your strategy is to drown out the competition with meaningless content quantity, then emotion may not be the route to go, If you prefer people share and comment so bigger media outlets take notice, then baking an Emotion Analysis into your content development process is a good next step.