What to do with conflicting advice
Photo by marianne bos on Unsplash
Inconsistent advice on content marketing is everywhere. Publish regularly; don’t publish for the sake of publishing. Long-form content is dead; longer pieces get more views. Keywords don’t matter as much now; remember to optimize SEO.
Content must be unique yet simple, brief yet comprehensive, and jargon-less yet speak the language of the industry.
Finding a way through the seemingly contradictory advice starts with recognizing the value in each statement. The journey continues with applying what you’ve learned to your content marketing strategy using the resources at hand.
Here we’ll cover three debatable pieces of content marketing advice, the pros and cons of each position, and how to find what works best for you.
Publish frequently vs. publish selectively
According to Gartner, distributing content regularly, daily if possible, helps build brand recognition and win customers.
However, the logistics of high-frequency publishing are complicated, especially in more regulated industries like medical technology and manufacturing. Writing content is only the tip of the iceberg. Each piece also needs design and often approval from legal, marketing managers, product, sales, engineering, or other stakeholders.
Producing content with newspaper frequency can also cause burnout. And if the content is regular but not educational, it will ultimately hurt the brand. As Google continues to update its algorithm to prioritize “useful” content, publishing just anything is a no-go.
Sticking to a regular publishing cadence is difficult, but worthwhile because it builds rapport with potential customers. A study by Red C Marketing found that 82% of internet searchers click links to familiar brands first. Showing up regularly online or in inboxes improves your chances of being the go-to product or service for your target audience.
The key to publishing regularly without burning out is find the rhythm that works for all stakeholders. Maybe it’s building a stockpile of evergreen content that you can pull from if other departments are too busy for a timely review. Or including subject matter experts (SMEs) earlier to minimize edits.
Tapping outside help can also help you keep up with the workload.
800 words vs. 1500 words
When I started writing blogs, the gold standard was 800 words or less. The rationale was that anything over 800 words would lose the reader. Today, however, many of our clients want blogs that are at least 1,200 words, if not more.
Other sources confirm this trend. According to a survey of over a thousand bloggers by Orbit Media, the average blog post in 2023 was 1,427 words long. Compare this to 2014, when the average blog was only 808 words.
Chart modified from the original by Orbit Media. Data is from Orbit Media’s 2023 survey of 1,054 bloggers.
Respondents also reported consistently better results with longer blogs. The experts at Orbit contribute the popularity of longer pieces to the rise in thought leadership content—in-depth content with a unique viewpoint.
Does this mean all blogs should be almost three single-spaced pages long?
The answer comes back to the idea of useful content. It may be that what you have to say is best said in 500 words. If that is the case, stretching it into 1,000 words will dilute the message and lose readers. And you can always add more to a short blog, like a high-performing case study.
If anything, the shift in content length brings us to a greater truth: content length doesn’t matter as much as we think it does. What matters most is quality.
Conversational vs. formal tone
Even experienced marketers debate the “best” tone for content. Does a conversational style degrade authority? Is a more formal style too dry? Short sentences with lots of white space and a casual, energetic tone prevail in most popular types of content. But more formal styles still dominate certain industries.
Take popular marketer Neil Patel as an example of the popular style. A short look at one of his most recent blogs reveals:
- All paragraphs are two sentences or less.
- Most “paragraphs” fit on just one line.
- Bullets, images, and call-out quotes break up the text.
- College reading level (Flesch Kincaid score of 9.6).
Clinical Leader, a trusted publication in the clinical research space, could not be more different. One of their most recent articles reveals:
- Paragraphs with four or even five sentences.
- No paragraphs under three lines.
- No bullets, call-outs, or pictures to break up the text.
- College graduate reading level (Flesch Kincaid score of 14.9).
The formatting and readability of these pieces differ drastically. Yet they are both popular places for information in their respective industry. Choosing a tone boils down to what works best for your audience, not necessarily what is trending.
Ditching the jargon
My prediction is that in coming years technical industries will embrace a more casual tone. Choosing simple language over jargon often helps refine messaging. The shift may also attract more industry decision-makers who don’t have the same technical knowledge as those who work closely with devices or equipment.
And as we continue to consume content on the miniature screens of our phones, articles with clean layouts and simple language may become even more popular. Shareable, skim-able, digestible content has its place in this time.
“Good” content marketing is not about rules
Content marketing has been around as long as print advertising and likely before. But it wasn’t until 1996 that the term “content marketing” came into existence.
This relatively modern marketing form doesn’t have decades of research on best practices or guilds devoted to its development. The heroes of content marketing, like Ann Handley, are in our midst, not in history books.
Since content marketing is a long-term game, its effects are hard to measure in a single fiscal year. And best practices fluctuate with consumer and communication trends.
Navigating content marketing advice is not about finding the right set of rules. Instead, it’s about using your understanding of how your product or service meets your audience’s needs to create meaningful pieces.
Choosing the right partners simplifies your content marketing journey. Drop us a note—we’d love to help.