Executives don’t want snackable content, they want long lunches
By: Paul Jacobson
Tags: Digital Media, B2B, Content Marketing, Marketing, Content Strategy

Your reader scans through a short article and leaves it feeling s/he is up-to-date on its subject matter. You, the author of the material taps “Publish” and feel the satisfaction of knowing that you have shared something worthwhile that will generate leads.

What’s really happening here is that you are churning out the equivalent of junk food that your audience is “snacking” on. They feel as if their hunger for knowledge and insight is sated, not realizing that there is little nutritional value in this snack blizzard.

Worthwhile content takes longer to prepare

I had an appointment with my dietician earlier this week. I’m diabetic so my diet has a pretty big impact on my health. Some of her advice is relevant so bear with me.

As I described what I typically eat for lunches (usually something I can toss in the oven and prepare quickly), she pointed out that if food is quick and easy to make, it usually isn’t that healthy for you. Food that nourishes you tends to take longer to prepare but it gives your body what it needs.

When I think about “snackable content” now, it seems a lot like that quick and easy food I tend to eat when I lack the energy to prepare something healthier (probably not a coincidence).

Sure, you can pump out a higher volume of material but at what cost? Perhaps attention spans are shrinking but creating shorter pieces of content in an effort to fill those attention gaps isn’t the solution.

You’re aggravating the attention problem

When your audience finds itself facing with higher volumes of “easy to digest” content that, necessarily, lacks any meaningful depth or insights, they’re often overwhelmed. It’s a bit like walking through a food court and all the food vendors are throwing small, bite-sized chunks of food at you.

It’s probably not going to be a satisfying dining experience (unless you are about 8 years old). If that’s how you eat your meals, your audience is going to find themselves on their hands and knees a lot, picking up bits of food and stuffing their faces.

Using better food cannons may increase the volume you’re hurling at your audiences but is it really giving them what they need? If anything, you’re just fragmenting their attention even further (which means louder and bigger food cannons, right?).

To aggravate the situation, you’re also insulting your audience’s intelligence by force feeding them with this superficial stuff masquerading as “content”.

Maybe it isn’t about attention, not really.

What if the underlying assumption is wrong? Perhaps attention spans are shrinking because there is too much junk food content being thrust at audiences and they have become far more selective.

You can try break through to them with a bigger banners, clickbait titles and other shiny objects but it’s not a sustainable strategy.

In a recent episode of the “PNR: This Old Marketing” podcast, hosts Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose mentioned the “Quartz: Global Executive Study” conducted by Quartz Magazine.

One of the statistics they highlighted was that 84% of the study’s respondents said they are most likely to share long-form articles. Charts and data came in at second place with 47%. A related insight reinforces this:

88% of executives are likely to share good content, and its source almost always (85%) influences their decision to share it.

Long lunches and better conversation

Certainly, long-form articles take time to write and they take time to read. The same applies to longer videos, podcast episodes and so on.

It’s worth it.