Last week, I received an email that was 3345 words long.
And I read every single word.
The email was from an entrepreneur I respect (Olly Richards) and was a breakdown of his 2024 and how he's using the results to improve and iterate (you can read the email here).
There are a tonne of nuggets in there you can learn from. But the one I want to talk about today is also the reason why I sat and read a 3000+ word email.
You'll likely have heard advice and opinions out there that run contrary to me reading this email. Things like...
- We're in an attention economy
- People don't read long-form content
- TikTok has made it so people have shorter attention spans
Look, I think there's truth in all of these statements, but they're also often misguided and/or exaggerated.
In my experience, the 90% of times when the above issues with engagement, interest, and attention come from one primary issue.
Positioning.
A lot of entrepreneurs I speak to are chasing vanity metrics. They want more impressions and views thinking that the larger reach will automatically convert into more business.
Sadly, it doesn't work that way.
Here's the thing.
Chasing reach is a different game to chasing conversions.
When you're chasing reach, you appeal to the mass market. So your message has to...
- Have mainstream appeal
- Be easy to engage with
- Answer a common, but often not painful, question
For example. When I first started working in growth, the done thing was to produce SEO optimised content for ToFu search terms like...
These things used to drive decent traffic if you could write well and get the backlinks.
But think about it for a second. Who's searching for, let's say, "What is SEO?"
Is it the manager of a $10M+ brand who wants to heavily invest in SEO?
No.
People who search for that content will be...
- Fresh grads considering a career in SEO
- The grandmother of a kid who just got an SEO job who wants ot understand what little Timmy is doing
- People writing other posts and papers that have to reference a source
I wrote and published hundreds of these kinds of pieces for clients.
I generated hundreds of thousands or millions of views.
These pieces generated very little of the actual business those clients did.
So what did drive the business?
Specific pieces that are tailored to the audiences's problems.
Let's say you're going down the SEO route still and you're targeting brands doing $10M / year, a lot of that coming from Google.
You need to know the audience and what questions, problems, and pain they have.
I've been out of pure SEO for a while, but a lot of the problems I see are things like...
- Drop in traffic due to the HCU
- Needing to replac e lead gen with other complementary channels
- Having large portions of their content de-indexed by Google because it no longer applies to current EEAT guidelines
So, you create content around that kind of stuff. It could be something as simple as...
"3 technical SEO amendments that we used to recapture 62% of traffic lost after the HCU."
Look, it's not perfect as I'm writing this in the bar at my gym before a workout.
But, the marketing Director of a $10M that's losing SEO revenue is gonna be interested in this.
This is the kind of person who...
- Has the need for the service
- Has the ability to buy the service
- Will be motivated to actually reach out
There are FAR fewer of these people in the world.
So, you'll get far fewer impressions and views.
But there'll be far more of your target audience who read that stuff. It's the kind of stuff that builds trust that leads to engagements.
And that loops me back to Olly.
Most would advise against sending a 3345-word email because people don't read long copy and all that noise.
Those people are right if you're creating something like "what is online coaching". Basically, something that doesn't appeal to a specific audience and their problems.
However, because Olly's email was about issues and approacches I'm concerned about, involved in, and want to be better at, I read the whole thing.
I imagine few of the people who come across that piece will read every word.
However, those who do are likely the ideal clients and customer base for Olly.
The short version of this all is that his content is positioned for a specific audience.
And when you're talking about a problem they face, length of content and "gaming the attention economy" is less important.
Your focus should be on identifying your ICP and crafting content that helps them.
Get that right and, regardless of length, you'll see lower reach BUT...
- better engagement
- more leads
- increased revenue
If you're worried about your own positioning and wondering if it can be improved to attract more of your ICP, lhit reply and let me know.
I've got a spot or two left for February's intake of new clients.
Speak soon,
Pete "positioning is key" Boyle
