When Less is More in Your Content Strategy

Recently, a friend and fellow marketer asked what aspect of their favorite podcasts did people enjoy the most. I admit, I didn’t give my most honest answer.

My favorite thing about my favorite podcast is that it’s only 15 minutes long. I’ve been listening to the very excellent Writing Excuses podcast for over a year now. While the writing and publishing advice is solid, I love their tagline.

“Fifteen minutes long, because you’re busy, and we’re not that smart.”

Most marketing and business podcasts run at about 45 minutes to an hour. If you asked most business professionals if they could spare an hour a week to listen to a presentation, they’d wince.

So why are most podcasts longer than a weekly drama?

Why do so many blog posts approach the word count of a burgeoning novella?

Why are so many infographics 15 screens long?

Because most marketers are long-winded and terrible at self-editing, that’s why. And we think we’ll sound smarter if we just use more words.

There’s a lot of emphasis on “more content, more frequency, more platforms” in all the talk about content strategy. But editing is an important strategy, too. Cutting out the fat, and going for quality is a strategy. Condensing, distilling, and simplifying are all strategies.

Otherwise, your audience response might just be “tl;dr.”