Conciseness At The Cost of Context

I’ve seen a lot of studies and opinions on the shortened attention span of people today.

This concept has led marketers down a path trying to make everything more concise.

If we can shorten a video from 30 seconds to 15, great. If we can get it down to 6 seconds, then even better.

I’ve also seen this play out through landing page design. For the sake of reducing friction and keeping page visitors focused on one singular goal, landing pages can end up being just a form, with no real content. I’ve tested this myself as well.

While I understand where this approach comes from, in most cases I’ve seen that it doesn’t translate into better performance.

Yes, shorter videos will have better view rates, and more concise landing pages will send visitors right to a CTA, but the downside is that these people don’t actually know what they’re looking at. Especially if this is a cold audience.

When potential customers don’t have the context they need to understand what an offer actually is, AND the value behind that offer, there’s no real incentive for them to take a purchasing action. When looking at the performance of different pieces of content in terms of high quality leads and revenue, I almost always see that longer videos, or lengthier landing pages outperform those that are “optimized for conversions.”

A good example of the conciseness vs context concept can be found in podcasts. There are podcast episodes that are multiple hours long with hundreds of thousands of views. When a business has an opportunity to share its product/service in-depth, prospects are much more likely to take action because they have an adequate understanding of why that offer is so valuable. I’ve seen this in my own client data.

To wrap up, my recommendation is that trimming down on content for the sake of surface level metrics like view rate or bounce rate might not translate well to bottom line performance at the end of the day. This is especially true for businesses that have a more unique product or service.

Don’t shy away from taking the time to fully explain what it is you’re selling!

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.