The doctor attitude

The other day I was chatting with a 52-year old consultant anaesthetist. Fortunately, I was awake at the time. He asked me to explain what I did for a living. I did my best. Then I asked him how he liked to absorb content online. “One thing I can tell you,” he grumbled, “I’m getting tired of being expected to plough through videos.”

Then he added: “I don’t have the time.”

Seriously? Executives regularly tell me: “People don’t have the time to read thought leadership anymore. Everyone wants video.”

Everyone? So, what’s going on with this guy? “I’m trained in reading scientific papers,” he explained. “I scan any piece very quickly and decide for myself what I want to focus on. So, don’t ask me to sit through a video. It’s disempowering."

"And another thing, the more visual and audio bells and whistles it throws at me the less likely I am to bother. There’s a difference between what I consume professionally, and what I do for entertainment.”

No question: multimedia is an essential component of the content marketing landscape. But this exchange confirmed what I’ve argued for some time. One size doesn’t fit all. To quote Jeff Goldblum’s character in the first (and greatest) Jurassic Park movie:

“Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”

To get the right approach, we must first step back, and step into the shoes of our audience. And only then, choose the format to fit their habits and preferences (remembering that these may not be what we assume). Ensuring that we reflect the positioning of our organisation in not just content, but form.

A global accountancy or law firm is unlikely to present in the same way as a vegan burger brand. Although it may well have something to learn from the vegan burger brand, it’s not because we can, that we necessarily should.

Understanding our audience – 4 basic questions

1. What profession/s are we talking to? A lawyer, doctor, engineer or scientist is highly trained in speed-reading and absorbing content. She can quickly scan a piece and decide for herself what to focus on, rather than embarking on a journey without a map. Like our anaesthetist, she won’t only jump to the (vital) headlines and sub-heads. She’ll be able to go deeper, fast. She’ll identify relevant words or phrases within a given paragraph, zooming in and out like a drone. By inference, those relevant words or phrases need to be present.

2. How rigorous is their thinking? Top-end professionals want robust arguments that are well-constructed and substantiated. This doesn’t give a license to ramble or spew out an intellectual stream of consciousness – far from it. Resolving the paradox of depth and clarity makes serious demands on the content creator. As Mark Twain once said: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

3. What will they do with the content? For a serious piece such as a study, our audience may want to instantly download a text and even print all or part of it, rather than making notes through their earphones, taking a screenshot of a bell or whistle, or trying to locate a precise moment in an animation in order to send a link pointing a colleague to that specific section. Again – they don’t have the time or inclination.

4. Thought leadership aside, consider the content of a sales pitch; a client will likely be cross-comparing your offer with competitors. It should be easy for them to copy and paste your content into their own medium, whatever that may be).

Creating a great User Experience – 7 tips

1. Mix it up. Use different media for one piece. You’ve produced a blockbusting study and a new leadership model? Create an edited web version with text and visuals, a downloadable pdf, interactive graphics and 2-minute videos to showcase the input of one or more of your experts, or to present your cutting-edge model step-by-step, (using gorgeous graphics)

2. Split it up. Carve big vehicles into pieces, one angle per shot. Not only is each shot shorter and more digestible, it gives you more bang for your buck: a single vehicle can power an entire social media campaign, culminating with the full piece.

3. Make it navigable, whatever the format. Whoever your audience, they need to instantly see what they’re buying with their time. The big message, the major points. And, if they choose to go there, the finer details. Again, people want to be empowered to make their own decision about what part (if any) they want to dive into. The Minto Pyramid Principle sums it up neatly: “your thinking will be easier for a reader to grasp if you present the ideas organized as a pyramid under a single point.”

4. Think keywords - and SEO. Fill your piece with keywords relevant to your audience and business. If your content taxonomy is based on a well-defined brand strategy, your keywords will do both.

5. Add links to your sources*. If your piece is substantiated (as it ideally will be), this is an ethical must. For web, add the links at the end to keep your audience onsite.

6. Don’t make a hash of hashtags. A social media basic, hashtags are increasingly flogged to death. There are limits as to how many # a post can stand (3-5, in the case of LinkedIn). Get hashtag happy, and people won’t be able to #see the #wood for the #trees. Again, a senior professional may wonder whether you’ve mistaken them for their #kids

7. Experiment. Monitor. Adjust. In the pre-digital era, business tycoon John Wanamaker famously said: “I know half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half.” Thanks to social media and google analytics, we now do. So, let’s work with the stats. We can shoot in the dark to a certain extent (learning by doing and failing). But isn’t it easier to switch the lights on? You’ve posted a piece once with an embedded pdf and a second time with a mini-clip? What got the highest engagement rates? See every post as a learning opportunity.

I’ll now send this piece to my anaesthetist friend to see if he reads it. I’ll be right back.

*The Minto Pyramid Principle: A power ful and compelling process for producing everyday

business documents (barbaraminto.com)