Beware the impulse to throw it all away. Looking to upgrade your content? Strategic improvements are a far better deal than a complete renovation.
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We’re doing Work in the Backyard. Construction crews, jackhammers, buckets of new cement – the whole thing.
It’s a teeny space, just a little fenced-in square like all the other D.C. rowhouse yards; simple porch, couple of trees, flagstone pavers. But the space does a lot of jobs for our family, and the renovation wish list was…long.
At a certain point, we thought: should we just tear the whole thing up and start over?
There’s a relationship between the length of the wish list and the urge to start back at zero.
We all keep wish lists in our heads of what we want from an upgrade or renovation, whether it’s a backyard or a work project. As the tally of must-haves and goals gets too long, it starts to feel like the best thing to do is scrap what you’ve got and start fresh.
But in this era of KonMari-style decluttering, where we toss whatever doesn’t spark joy, are we too quick to scrap valuable material?*
Step Away From The Trash Can
It was Luis, the Head Guy, who brought me back down to earth on the backyard issue. “It’s nearly always better to work with what you have,” he told me in our first consultation. “It’s cheaper, but it also makes the best use of the space.”
Indeed, the “strategic improvement” quote he offered was about 1/5 the cost of the “total renovation” quote. But the value of working with what you’ve got is even higher than that, I think. When we scrap everything and start fresh, we’re also discarding what’s going well. Our flagstone pavers don’t cover enough of the ground, but they’re high quality and they were nicely laid. Some previous owners in the 104-year history of the house put a big investment into that.
A complete rehaul also opens the door to new problems we haven’t even thought of. What if tearing out the flagstone causes a problem with underground wiring or plumbing? What if the replacement material turns out to be shoddy or the workmanship isn’t as nice?
In the end, we followed Luis’ good advice. And just a week into the work, those small, strategic improvements have transformed the yard, and only enhanced the existing charm. Who knew what a difference a few extra flagstone pavers could make?
Seven Strategic Improvements for Your Content Marketing
How can you unleash the power of strategic improvements in your content marketing? Here are seven ways to give a quick renovation to your marketing materials:
Put your efforts into the highest-use pieces to reap the highest reward for the least effort. For instance, a weekly market commentary template upgrade would pay off more than a quarterly white paper change.
Reward your audience early and often for their attention. Start with what they will get from a piece with a tidy little “takeaways” sidebar or box up front.
Mark the way through text with plenty of helpful sub-headers. That’s one of the greatest tools we have to keep pulling readers through material.
The empire of Apple is built on the idea that we like pictures more than words. That’s working pretty well for them.
Don’t choke your readers with text. Break up medium and long paragraphs and leave plenty of white space floating around copy.
Important points are even better in smaller bites. Variety in sentence length is also refreshing and easier to read.
Let there be humans! Your clients will rejoice to find real voices peppered throughout financial copy.
Looking for a writer to spark joy in your financial content? Reach out to learn more about how I can help you build your financial brand with engaging and human content.
*Anyone who knows me well is shocked that they just got a newsletter about not throwing things away. I love to throw things away. What can I say? Sometimes it’s not the answer.
Posted By
Carolyn
Categories
Compound Return Newsletter, Content Marketing