It may be long, but is it good?
Long copy sells, but long on its own isn’t enough.
In Word, =lorem(35,5) will give you a thousand words in tight, punchy paragraphs … but, obviously, meaningless.
AI can give you a thousand, more meaningful, words, but often succeeds in being both flat and over-wrought. Analyst Ben Evans often refers to generative AI as infinite interns. It’s a useful comparison – an intern can produce a useful report but you’d never put that in front of your board without reading it first. But AI’s like a waggy-dog intern in another way, too – its lack of subtlety, its cliched phrasing and anxious need to over-engineer with big words and extreme, declarative statements.
So, how do you really create effective, persuasive content?
It has to begin with a deep understanding of your audience and your offering.
That’s true whether you’re trying to change government opinion, raise investment or sell widgets.
Content foundation
The deep understanding begins with brand values, buyer personas and especially the value proposition and messaging framework.
Then, armed with a clear business objective – are you building awareness, changing attitudes, driving sales? – and an understanding of the gap you need to close, you can create your strategy … and the effective, persuasive content to fill it.
Content strategy
At its simplest, this is a matrix of buyer journey (AIDA + R for retention and advocacy) against decision role (for B2B: BDM, TDM, economic decision maker, end-user, influencer, champion and gatekeeper). What do you need to move each role through each stage?
There are other factors to consider – such as the role, routing and architecture of each piece of content – but the overarching goal is simply to move the buyer into Awareness, through to Action and then Advocacy, whether you’re selling a product, an investment or a point of view.
Some of that will be best achieved by short, punchy content that dives Awareness.
Some of it will be the dry-but-essential, factual content that enables Action (price lists, product specs, T&Cs etc.)
And some of the content you create will be the rich, persuasive and insightful, long-form content that builds credibility and authority, carries your audience through Interest and Desire and helps underpin ongoing Advocacy.
The longest of long-form content is often best considered as the cornerstone around which a campaign is built and from which other derivative content (blog and social posts, articles etc.) can be created.
The right to be long
Long copy sells, but only when it’s earned the right to be long.
That means putting in the work before the words get written: understanding your audience deeply enough to know what moves them, mapping the journey they need to take and building a strategy that holds everything together.
When the foundation is solid, long-form content can then build trust, authority and conviction that delivers against business objectives.
Photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash
