Is quality content worth the extra effort or expense? I’m a firm believer that it is, but in a digital world where it’s often said that “good enough” is all you need, mine is hardly an uncontested view.
So I was pleased to hear YouTube cook Adam Ragusea agree with my perspective on a podcast this week.
“If you do click-baity stuff … you tend to see your numbers will be really big at first, in like the first couple hours … and then they fall off,” Ragusea said on Slate’s Working podcast. “Whereas if I give people an honest-to-god, good piece of content that teaches them something that they actually want to know, they tend to reward me with their viewership.”
To be honest, in my years helping clients produce marketing content, no one has asked for “click-baity” pieces. But clients, marketers and anyone else in the digital game can’t help but be tempted to push more content out at the expense of good content. It’s the internet, and it’s hard to make an impression here with just one new piece every six months (no matter how good it is).
Ragusea’s key insight is that content “that teaches [the audience] something that they actually want to know” is what works. If you’re using content marketing just to grab someone’s attention, you may in fact grab it. But you need more than attention to build the relationships that end with downloads, subscriptions and sales.
What you need is quality content. That’s why I say it’s worth extra effort.
You can download the June 7 episode of Working on your podcast app of choice, or listen to it here. Ragusea’s comments about quality content begin around 30:10, or 28:30 if you’re a Slate Plus member (I am, I recommend it, and as of this post’s publication date, Slate is running a two-week free trial offer).
PS — If you want to delve deeper into what it takes to create quality content, check out our free guide: How to Create High-Quality Content
PPS — And here’s a sample of Ragusea’s work: