Balancing Style and Substance in Marketing - Mini Meander
Sam Birkett 0:15
Hello, it's Sam here from Marketing Meanders with Sally and Sam and I just had a very quick mini meander for you, which was around style and substance, or style over substance, or substance over style, whichever way you want to put it. I was reminded of the recent party political conferences, which have been taking place here in the UK and there's been a bit of a stark difference between two of the parties were, one seems to be more about style over substance, and one seems to be more about substance over style and it made me think about this in relation to marketing and not just marketing, actually, I think any engaging material or content or form of communication, really.
So it's the sort of age-old question I suppose for, you know, for copywriters, for, for marketers, for people who are trying to communicate a message they want to get across something that's engaging for their audience that they've sent that particular message to and quite often, I suppose you can think well, what's going to really, you know, you should be thinking, what's going to engage the audience, what's going to make them want to read this or share it or comment on it, start a conversation, there are different objectives that you have for that, that content. But in general, if you look at things over the longer term, so for example, if I suppose you're an academic author, who is an expert on the English, civil war, for example, there are a lot of facts and figures, there's also a lot of stories contained within that period of history and perhaps you want to try and build a bit of a following get a podcast, get people to, you know, have a greater awareness of you and your work, buy your books, things like that. But you could imagine, you know, you could either start doing that, going out to the world, getting a marketer to help you, and perhaps you're focused too much on the substance, you know, you know, an awful lot about the subject and you want to convey that to your audience. Yet, the information that you share is quite impenetrable, perhaps, and, you know, perhaps the stories are not terribly well told, perhaps there's a slightly miscued angle, if you're going for a wider audience of lay people to consume the information that you have about the English Civil War or perhaps you're somebody who's coming at it from you know, you're enthusiastic amateur who's interested in English Civil War, and would like to get a bit of a following and they would like to, you know, engage in historical discussion, but you're going out there, and you're making posts about the topic, and you think it's interesting, but, but it's all you know, it's told in a good way, perhaps, and you tell some, some human interest stories about that period of time, but perhaps you don't have as much of the substance and it made me think, really, I suppose I'm using history as an example because I follow a particular historian, and their podcast and published works and all the things they do, they're very successful, this person, and they have this fantastic combination of style and substance, you know, they they can tell interesting human stories, in a way for laypeople to really understand and engage with, but at the end of the day, you think, well, what is it that I'm actually you know, when I'm listening to their podcast and regular basis, what am I really listening to this for, and actually, it is the substance of what they're talking about, you know, I'm learning something new, a new fact, in this instance, about Second World War, I'm learning an interesting insight about that period of time, because that person has a great knowledge of it. But they can also translate that and tell it in an engaging and interesting way. So perhaps me as somebody who's perhaps particularly interested in the subject, I'm sort of core audience member is going to be totally devoted and really interested, somebody who is not a full-on audience member who's going to be you know, completely engaged for months and months on end, all the time and has other interests will not respond in that way, but will be interested enough to get the point that's coming across in that particular podcast episode, or even a book, there might be just a book as a one-off, so this person has the correct balance of the style and substance, I think, and it makes me think about that in terms of, you know, marketing, I mean, so often, if you're working, potentially, you know, with b2b clients who have quite complex offerings to get across to the world. I mean, obviously, if they're looking to get that offering across and make it a wider group of people understand and appreciate and interact and advocate, the work they're doing, then you do need to get that across with a decent level of style. That means, you know, a piece of content is well-formatted, it does all of the right things in terms of it's in the right place, it's consumable, it's interesting, it's engaging, but it's not dumbed down. So if you're thinking about the ultimate reason, the central core reason why anybody would be reading a paper on, I don't know, mitochondria, in leopards from the lower reaches of the Amazon, whatever it might be, you know, something that's very precise. Whether it's scientific, whether it's historical, whether it's to do with any other sort of academic discipline, it depends, obviously, what you're trying to do and who your audience is, at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. But I think the thing always to keep in mind is this style and substance.
So you're coming from a place of if you're starting a new piece of work, say, for example, with somebody who's an academic or somebody or a business that has a sort of more complex product, where's that balance sit? You know, do they have the substance of cracks, and they've got that, so therefore, there's need to format it and present that content in a more effective way with a greater style? Or are they you know, perhaps, they're not doing enough to underline the substance that they have and perhaps those things are just too top level, and they're not engaging with their audience because people can't see the substance and can't understand what's at the core of the work they're doing and then I think that second level then is looking at, well, what are those sort of points? There's evidence points almost in people's minds when they're consuming your content, what's the thing they're really after? And how is that proven to them? So if they read a blog, is they want to walk away feeling happier? Do they want to walk away feeling I've learned something? Do they want to walk away feeling intrigued? Do they want to walk away saying, I want to share this with people so that I feel I'm a part of understanding this subject, you know, what, what are those actual key drivers that you're looking to achieve in your audience from you know, sharing that the real substance of your message and sharing it in a way which is consumable with a decent style. So it's a constant balance, and I don't think anyone ever gets it completely right. But it's worthwhile looking at some people out there who do do it well and I would say even looking at you know, in other fields, other areas don't just look at within your own sector, look at other disciplines and where you think someone's cracked, you know, the style and substance balance and then utilise that as a piece of learning to apply in your own area, as a marketer. So, those are my thoughts on that. I hope that's sort of resonated with some people and I think it's worthwhile discussing more, I'm sure lots of people have got far more in-depth thoughts on this and you know, perhaps how they do it, how they decide to split the style and substance, particularly when communicating about a more complex product or service that they're working on. But I'd love to hear your thoughts and yeah, that's it for today. Bye for now.