Long-form content or short-form content? 🤷🏻♀️ Which one actually brings you clients faster?
Well you can already tell, from the post title, where I land on this. 🙂
Here’s what I see in our industry:
Influencers and social media companies have made short-form content look pretty sexy over the last decade or so.
(Short-form, meaning… reels, stories, captions with strict character limits…)
They’ve fed us the line that short-form are easy to create, and that people like consuming them, so they will attract clients.
As coaches and experts in the online space, many of us have totally bought into their ploy… And we’ve given them HOURS and YEARS of our lives creating LOADS of free content that just keeps our audiences on the social media platforms.
But here’s what’s really going on:
Short-form content may bring us *occasional* inquiries and clients, but it’s actually the SLLOOOOOOWWW 🐌🐌🐌 path to a client roster you’re proud of.
And here’s what business owners like you are (finally!) realizing in 2024:
Long-form content converts faster than short-form content. 🎯🎯🎯
I know, I know… It seems counter-intuitive. Because we’re so conditioned by the social media companies to think that short = short conversion time, and long = long conversion time…
But no. Long-form content converts faster.
🤯
Here’s why…
(Pssssst…. You can 📌 pin this article for reference to your “Marketing” board:)
Why long-form content converts faster than short-form:
The truth is that our future clients are waaayyyy more discerning these days about what they invest in.
To bring your future clients from “Hey I just met you” to “Where can I sign up with you?” it’s crucial to understand this idea:
There are certain things that your audience needs to hear, learn, and understand more deeply — to create trust and demand and be primed to hire you.
It’s your responsibility to make sure those things are in your content.
And short-form content simply doesn’t give you the space to include and fully convey those things. It’s really that simple.
If you’re only creating “snackable” posts with a quick tip for this… Or one spicy micro-opinion about that… Or 8-second Reels with 3 super-high-level steps for that… and suggesting people screenshot them or ‘save for later’…
It’s like you’re giving them crumbs, and expecting them to sniff around for days, weeks, or months, for the rest of the cake.
And so, with short-form content, trust and demand grows S-L-O-W-L-Y…
Because they’ll have to be shown DOZENS of your short posts *over time* – before those crumbs add up — and they finally see you as the go-to expert they need.
(And how many of those posts will the unpredictable social algorithms even show them? It’s well-known that the percentage of followers who actually see your posts on IG, for example is only about 10%. 😤)
And sometimes, that trust and demand just doesn’t grow at all with short content…
And that’s when you’re left with an audience full of people who always have some reason why now isn’t the time to reach out… to book a call… to start your program…
😑😑😑
Now, compare all those crumbs to a strategic, thorough, piece of long-form content…
Short-form = crumbs. Long-form = the cake.
If short-form content is like giving people crumbs… Then long-form “HLC-style” content is like serving them the full cake, baby. 🍰
All the layers, and the icing, too.
Trust and demand can be built VERY QUICKLY (even with “cold leads”) — when you have detailed, long-form content they can sink their teeth into…
Content you’ve created strategically to include all the key messages your audience needs to feel ready to hire you.
Long-form content gives your ideas the breathing room they deserve, so they resonate more deeply (and more quickly) with your future clients.
It gives you the space to share your story.
To give meaningful examples that your audience relates to.
To go in-depth and actually share details that support your points.
To share nuances that differentiate you from the pack.
To fully answer (in a satisfying way!) the questions they have about what it’s like to work with you…
Bottom line:
Long-form content gives you the space to share what’s needed to build that trust and demand — so you can convert your audience to clients in half the time.
And I can teach you how to *easily* publish the key long-form pieces that your audience needs, to feel ready to hire you…
Ready to start prioritizing your long-form content over short-form?
That’s exactly what I teach you how to do, inside my signature course, High-leverage Content (HLC).
When you add the HLC system to your business’s toolkit, you’ll have everything you need to go from short content that’s fleeting and NOT igniting your audience into action >>>>> to long-form content that converts better and faster.
HLC’s proven, road-tested frameworks are literally built around those specific things that people need — to feel ready and excited to hit your “book now” and “buy” buttons.
Inside, you’ll learn *precisely* what those things are (there are 9 of them!), and how to plan the specifics that you’ll include in your content for each one.
Then, I’ll break down — paragraph-by-paragraph — each of the nine types of content.
You’ll learn *exactly* what elements need to be there, to trigger connection, build trust, and create the right “ah-ha moments” that drive sales.
You’ll use my Logical and Light 4-step Process, and my plug-and-play Strategic Content Outlines, to *easily* create high-converting long-form content. (This process will reduce your content creation time by 75% – while making your content *infinitely* more effective.)
Having HLC in your business’s toolkit means you can say 👋🏻 goodbye 👋🏻 to creating loads of unsatisfying, snack-sized posts and reels that don’t ever seem to move the needle…
And 👋🏻 HELLO 👋🏻 to the deeper, deliciously-detailed, thought leadership content that your audience *actually needs* to feel ready to buy. 🍰
HLC sounds like what you need? Perfect…
