Should all content be short-form?
Our attention spans are shrinking, so I'd like you to consider (the now famous) Andrew Schulz's story...
TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) Summary:
(Data source: marketingexamples.com)
Andrew Schulz was a rising star in the local US comedy scene.
But was rejected by multiple networks for a shot at a comedy special.
So he spent $25k to make his own special.
After sending it to the networks. They still said no.
Seeking feedback - many said "it was good, but didn't finish it".
Realising an hour was too long - he re-cut it to 16mins.
After putting it on YouTube, it began to get traction.
Seeing short-form success, he began putting out even shorter clips.
They gained even more traction.
He couldn't keep up content production, so he leant into improv.
Between 2018/19 Schulz uploaded 125 bits of live comedy...
He said:
"100 clips is 100 ways of discovering me.
An hour on Netflix is one."
"And who wants to listen to a stranger for an hour?
But you'll listen to a 1-minute clip if a friend sent it to you?"
In two years his channel grew from 140k to 840k. Averaging 2M views a week.
Today he performs sell-out international tours.
Each show a couple hours long.
There's a couple of takeaways to this story:
💡 It's not that long form doesn't work. It's that short form is easier to consume when your market is unfamiliar in the beginning.
💡Once you build rapport and trust with your audience, they'll be more open to consuming larger pieces of your content.
💡 Good content (short or long) will always reign supreme. But good, easily "digestible" content will make it far quicker to engage with your market.
The same goes for a startup's product:
💡It may not be that your buyers aren't interested, it might be that your value is too hard to consume.
(this is why short and clear value messaging is so important!)
💡If people don't want to book a 1hr meeting, or spend 1 hour on your free trial - is there a way to realise your value in minutes?
(Here is my last blog on LEEP that dives more into this).
💡 Even when people are interested, are you making it easy for them to try, buy and adopt?
💡And MOST IMPORTANTLY:
In the beginning your buyers won't come to you.
No matter how amazing your product is.
You need to build initial momentum
by going TO your market first.
Here are some examples of how to make your go-to-market more digestible:
📝For content (long-term lead gen):
Instead of a 2,000 word blog that covers 5 key points.
Can you break those key points into 5 short social media posts
(Making sure to link those posts back to the blog…)
Can you turn 1 or 2 of those key points into an image or info graphic that illustrates your point?
(Humans tend to consume visual content much faster than written).
Can you simplify this even more and add humour by making it a meme?
📦For Products (short-term lead gen):
Instead of pushing people to a 1 hour demo meeting.
Can you make a 5-10 demo video on your website?
Can you break the demo down into use cases that can be turn into a 1 min LOOM video for each?
Can you use these LOOM videos in our outreach emails/messages to delivery the message to them in an interactive way?
The market is getting louder, so we need to increase either the quality or speed of our communications (ideally both) if we stand a chance at reaching our ideal buyers.
Buyer friction will kill more startups than any competitor ever will.
Consider the Andrew Schulz's story when going to market:
Find a way to make your product's value highly consumable and highly accessible for the best chances of success.