How Hard Should You Try When Creating Content?

Every piece of content has a ceiling.

Even this one, the one you are reading right now. But understanding the potential impact that a piece of content can have is crucial. If it can move needles for your brand, resource should be thrown at it. If it's targeted at a more niche audience, don't waste precious energy and time.

I read an article about The Quality Cliff. It talked about how a piece of content, after a certain point, can't improve on performance any further.

But how do we know how much effort to put into a piece of content and when not too?

The easiest way to know is...

Who's your audience?

Your audience should dictate how much energy and resource you put into a piece of content.

If you're writing for high-level executives who need in-depth research, statistics, data and opinions, then it is important that more resource, energy and time goes into the content.

If the barrier to enter is a little lower, and the audience won't need as much information, then the resource put into content can be a little lower.

How to know how much resource to put into it?

Controversially, you can't be too reliant on data to know.

Sometimes, it's a gut feeling.

If you're waiting for data, it means that someone else is too.

If you want to get ahead of the competition, you've got to be the innovator.

If you're thinking you have a great opportunity to create something, then I highly recommend you go for it.

Without putting out content, you won't have anything to generate analysable data.

Moral of the story? Create it. Look back in hindsight. Learn from it.