A Newsletter on Marketing (and Life) #014

A simple hack for content creation

Author

Jordan Ogren
September 22, 2023

You and I are infinitely exceptional humans.

Yet, how often do we fail to see that perfect image reflected when we look at ourselves? For me, it's frequently.

And that's why I'm blessed to have friends and peers who can act as a mirror to reflect the incredible person I am.

And I pray I can be that mirror for those around me.

How can you mirror the amazingness of those around you?

Enjoy this week's musings:

Marketing 💡: Macro and Micro Content

(Time to read: 2:27 minutes)

Why does most content fail?

That question could be answered in a hundred different ways. Most will relate to the quality of the content's substance or misalignment of interests between an audience and a business. Aside from quality, I see three failure points for marketing teams regarding content:

  1. Content overload

  2. Resource constraints

  3. Sustained engagement

One significant challenge for marketing teams is to get traction with content. Almost every business is creating content, so the competition keeps growing. This results in either average content, spending too much time on content, or simply ceasing content production. Creating content in a world where content is effortless to develop (hey, AI 👋) is hard.

Another challenge with content is allocating the resources to it. Maybe you've had your resources cut, or you don't have enough to dedicate sufficient time to content. The result is that all resources go to the creation and none to the content distribution. This goes hand-in-hand with the first failure point, resulting in average or no content.

The final failure point for content is the struggle to retain our audience's attention (engagement). When our content blends in (average), it's hard to cultivate an audience who keeps coming back for more. With so much content, your audience has more options than ever, increasing the bar for retention.

A simple solution to these failure points and ensuring your content effectively drives business outcomes is using Macro and Micro content.

Macro and Micro Content Defined

Imagine you own two dessert shops.

Shop A focuses solely on creating mini cakes that look exquisite and fit into your palm. They produce thousands of these to meet the daily demand. When it works, it's phenomenal. Sadly, they often get behind in orders, losing customers and failing to create repeat customers. It's a hamster wheel for the employees.

Shop B focuses only on normal-sized cakes. When the demand for mini cakes rises, they have a simple solution: Use a patented cuter that creates mini cakes from the large cake. Rather than manually create thousands of mini cakes, they create a few normal cakes and then redistribute them as mini cakes—they make the rich material (big cake) and then cut it into small outputs (mini cakes).

While there is nuance to this example, Shop A may sell their mini cakes for more because they are hand-crafted; it illustrates how most approach content:

Rather than focus on creating a large cake (macro content) that we can cut into small cakes (micro content), we create mini cakes repeatedly. Later in this essay, I will share how you can reverse this process and create mini cakes that eventually become magnificent large cakes (think content guides).

Leaving the cake analogy behind, here are true definitions for my word nerds:

🎂 Macro content is comprehensive and detailed content assets that serve as cornerstones of your content strategy. Think of these as the pillars of your content strategy (tying to your larger marketing strategy). Some examples include podcasts, video series, or a newsletter.

This content delves deep, offering rich insights and a full topic exploration. It not only stands alone, showcasing your expertise but also serves as a reservoir from which smaller, focused content pieces can be derived, ensuring a cohesive narrative.

🍰 Micro content is quick-hit, high-impact content that delivers key messages in a concise format. It's designed to engage your audience swiftly, offering snapshots of value derived from your macro content.

Some examples are quotes from a podcast, an infographic from your blog, or monthly or quarterly reports. This strategy allows for timely and relevant engagement, encouraging the audience to delve deeper into your detailed macro content for a fuller understanding.

Three Books. Three Quotes

"A key question bearing on upstream efforts is: How can you get early warning signs of the problem you’re trying to solve?”

"For most of us, our sacrifices do not come in one shining moment of extraordinary valor. Our sacrifices are little acts of giving that build upon themselves and over time become something worthwhile [remarkable].”

– Admiral William H. McRaven (The Hero Code)

"If I do not perform virtue even when I am capable of it, what then shall I do when fully dazed by the sufferings of miserable states of existence?”

Heard. Saw. Experienced.

Heard:

"Do not fuck with us." That was from Erin Brockovich's keynote at the Power of the Purse event in Green Bay, describing the power of women.

When women (and men) get together and work toward a common goal, nothing can stop them. The collective power is infinite.

Another key takeaway was the importance of "logic, leverage, loyalty and love" in your work.

  • Logic is your ability to think and reason

  • Leverage is about using things like community as advantages

  • Loyalty refers to the stick-to-itiveness and dogged persistence of staying committed to the cause despite challenges.

  • Love for the practice and end goal to help you persist even when you feel like giving up.

Saw:

My friend shared a meme photo with me: It's a leopard carrying a dead monkey in its mouth, and the sad part is that the baby monkey is holding onto its dead mother. While a horrific photo, it is nature. Yet, my friend had a different takeaway for me:

We act like this baby monkey when we stick with our addictions and bad habits. We choose comfort in the moment over long-term flourishing. That hit differently for me as I have and currently struggle with addictions. Now, I need to figure out why we do this and reverse engineer to be okay with dissonance for a positive outcome in the long term.

Experienced:

Before I left, I promised my mom one thing: I would never play golf (or become a regular user of it). While that's a story for a different day, I failed my mom.

On Tuesday, I played (≈)18 holes with my team to support Discover Green Bay. And it was the most fun I've had in a long time (If you know me, that hits differently).

I'm grateful to work for an organization (O'Connor Connective) that prioritizes helping the community move forward. It was an unforgettable day filled with wonderful people, laughter, and divots 🏌️❣️

What I’m writing (links)

Works in progress:

Thanks for reading this far. Hit that reply and let me know what’s new in your world.

Enjoy your Friday, and I hope to see you here next week 😃

– Jo (every second counts)