A Newsletter on Marketing (and Life) #010

Are you creating this type of content?

Jordan Ogren
August 25, 2023

Greetings friend 👋

How have you been? If you’re like me, it’s helpful to remember to fill your well and slow down. While life can be hectic, focus on the good and continue moving forward.

What else can we do?

With school starting and the seasons changing, it’s pertinent to remain here, in the present. That’s at least what I’m working on. This leads me to ask: What are you working on?

How can I help you make progress on that? Let me know!

Final note: We hit ten installments of a Newsletter on Marketing 🥳 I’m grateful for the 33 of you here and hope I can continue serving you through the content.

Marketing insight: Low-fi Content

(Time to read: 1:41 minutes)

We have a misconception about content.

We also have one about life that I'll connect to content after sharing.

We believe we need to craft perfect experiences for meaningful connections. We think we can create positive outcomes by being well-intentioned and planned. And you are right. But think about the time and energy it takes to do that regularly. It's exhausting.

And while you can't avoid them, you can have fewer of them and increase more unscripted and "perfect" moments. Essentially have fewer expectations, damn it. Because the truth is, I don't care how clean your home is to have a meaningful time with you. I just don't want to see your underwear on the floor; everything else is fair game.

We have the same belief about content. To "add value," we need to spend significant time and energy on it and have it be "exceptional." If we don't, our audience won't find value in it, and it'll waste their time.

There is truth in this: spending time on highly produced content rewards your audience well. And there is truth in it: Your audience is human and can get value from more human content.

In this context, "more human" means low-fi, which means having a rough quality, not musically smooth and refined. And low-fi music is one of the more popular genres right now (at least on YouTube). People connect with rawness and realness, and it's okay for some of our content to be less produced.

What I don't mean by low-fi content is:

Lazy and sporadic content that wastes your audience's time
Spammy, unrelated, or unhelpful content (I.e., content for content's sake)
Technical issues like poor audio or video that is shaky and hard to watch

What I mean by low-fi is content that is well thought out (to serve your audience) yet under-produced. An example is a selfie recording instead of a highly produced video. Or a weekly podcast where you riff on a few topics and take questions from the audience.

It's valuable content because it's relatable and authentic vs. polished and refined.

It's also content that only some companies and individuals are willing to try. And that means it's a blue ocean for you and me. Not only that, it's helpful to supplement high-quality content with consistent low-fi (quickly produced) content.

You must balance low-fi and highly-produced content to remain effective with your content marketing efforts.

Click here to read more about how to approach and think about low-fi content, along with updates as I build out this Marketing Concept (a new writing project, yay😑)

Three Books. Three Quotes

"You can’t wait around for someone to call you an artist before you make art. You’ll never make it.”

– Austin Kleon

"Don’t take your intuitions and ideas to be ‘natural’: they are often the products of the ideas of audacious thinkers who came before us.”

– Carlo Rovelli

"Many lose their way and bear no fruit because they seek knowledge rather than virtuous living.”

– Thomas Ā Kempis

Links to the three books quoted above:

Heard. Saw. Experienced.

Heard:

Being able to create and maintain safe spaces is a critical skill. I was at a conference this week, and the host of the panel discussion said we could ask any question because this was a safe space.

Newsflash: Naming a space safe DOESN’T make it safe.

Creating safe spaces takes time and does not come quickly. Naming a room of 150+ people who don’t know or likely care about each other doesn’t instantly make it safe. As physiological safety is used more, we must remember this simple truth. This is why I am writing an easy ON Creating Safe Spaces (stay tuned!).

Saw:

Kate (my wife) and I visited Marquette, Michigan, on Monday. The things we saw were incredible. We visited some trails behind her grandparents’ old home and relived some of the memories most fond to Kate. One cool thing we saw was this chapel on a hill. We even gazed long enough to snap a photo:

Experienced

I had my first board meeting for the Howe Community Resource Center this week. Their mission is to ensure that Brown County children and families are safe, healthy and ready for academic and life success. Driving there, I thought about how this would be my last “first” board meeting.

I’m weird. I think about those things. And that helps me cherish the moment. I realize how lucky I am to experience “firsts” at 27 and how I could approach every moment as if it was the first time (see: Beginner’s mind). I’m blessed to be alive and serve. I hope you are, too (at least the first part).

What I’m writing

The past seven days since mailing you have been BUSY. Which means I’ve written less. But I did start one new cool project: My almanac, which is a pretty word for a guide to the principles that guide my life.

This idea was inspired by a few courageous friends who have started the task of writing their “How to Live” guide. I also have a few ideas lined up for the ON series. I hope you find something valuable in my writing!

Thanks for being here again. I appreciate your time and thoughts. So if you have any thoughts/ideas/feedback, let me know!

Have a beautiful Friday and weekend, friend ☀️😊