Less Is More: Why Selectiveness Matters In Content Creation

Whether you're a marketer who dabbles in copywriting or a business owner with a knack for clever turns of phrase, you can succumb to creative burnout. Also known as writer's block, people who string words and concepts together for a living might occasionally find themselves in a slump. This situation usually comes around after a period of high energy or prolific work.

After being intensely productive, many people slow down. Perhaps the words aren't shining like they usually do, or you're struggling to come up with fresh, unique ideas for posts. You might even feel like you've either written or read everything there is to say about your industry. Marketing overwhelm can happen, even to the best of strategists and writers, and "more is better" does not always work. Here are five reasons why publishing less might be better for your brand.

Creative Burnout Can Happen To Anyone

For the past decade, the working world has glorified hustle culture. Endless productivity, sacrifice, and overwork were front and center, with health and relationships bringing up the rear. Hard work is vital to success, but so is rest. Even if you don't run out of ideas for posts, you still need downtime. If not, you might find yourself too exhausted to accomplish any writing!

The necessity of rest is not an excuse to stop blogging, however. Having a consistent online presence is still one of the best ways to climb the SERPs, and you cannot do that if you aren't publishing posts. What you need to do is be mindful of the number of articles you aim to publish per month, focus on quality, and maximize your rest periods, so you are refreshed when you need to tap into your creativity again. 

Content Follows The Law Of Diminishing Returns

You should also consider focusing on quality instead of quantity because of the law of diminishing returns. This economic principle states that there comes a time when additional production factors cause smaller, instead of larger, outputs. There is a limit to the positive impact you can have with individual strategies. It means increasing the frequency of post or making longer articles works to a certain point; beyond that point, additional posts or longer texts negatively affect the strategy.

This not only applies to content quality; diminishing returns can also manifest in the customer journey, conversion, and the lead nurturing process. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to avoid the law of diminishing returns. What a marketer can do, however, is to predict and maximize outputs at a certain point.

Higher-Quality Articles Bring Higher-Quality Leads

When you take the time to understand your field, write thoughtful articles about them, and share insights using your brand's unique voice, you will capture the interest of people knowledgeable in your field. Conversely, if you write without vetting ideas or editing your drafts, you have a higher chance of attracting casual browsers or people who do not know a lot about your field. Writing fewer articles is a natural consequence of taking the time to flesh out your ideas and review your tone, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. However, the authority you build long-term will be worth it.

You Need To Spend Time On Content Maintenance

Content creators need to update evergreen content. Though evergreen articles are about constantly popular topics, they will only do so if you perform regular maintenance. Extending the metaphor a bit, if you think of content as plants, think of the maintenance you need to do as tending to a garden. Ideas flourish and improve over time, and if you "set and forget" your articles, you do not give your content the chance to evolve.

Activities like updating your articles with new information, checking links on the posts, re-promoting content, changing the CTA or tie-ins, changing keywords, and changing the articles' images are critical in content maintenance. Producing content without looking back is a recipe for burnout. The more content you have, the better your maintenance measures should be.

Publishing Less Allows You To Focus On Promoting

When you focus less on content, you have time for other areas of marketing. You can try balancing content creation and promotion; some people manage to, after all. However, you can lighten the load with SEO writing services. Marketers always have something to do, and if you create less content, you will have more time to focus on strategy. Hiring an SEO writer also allows you to leverage the skills and talents of an entire agency. Delegating means entrusting your website to professionals, people who know how to handle the minutiae of keyword research and handling content management systems without too many orientations.

Conclusion

Writing is a process; you have to devote as much time to idea generation, planning, outlining, and editing as you would give the actual writing. As such, if you want top-quality output, you need to put in the hours. If you are busy with other things in your business, you can either write less or delegate it to professional writers. Either way, you'll have articles that you can be proud of, ones you can spend time promoting.

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