Your company has a lot to say, but you only have 8 seconds to capture a reader’s attention. In today’s fast-paced world, it is important to create minimalist content for maximum engagement and interest.
This is why simplifying content creation is vital. Every company faces the marketing challenge of sharing a clear message with the public, so breaking that barrier of communication can do wonders for customers and businesses alike.
Minimalist Content is About Results
First and foremost, content creation ISN’T about creating content. It’s about getting results from that content (Brittany Berger). To get good results, we need to have a strategy for what kind of message we are sending to our customers, and saying more with less should be part of it.
Message Simplicity & Clarity
Minimalism means to strip something down to the bare minimum. According to The Plain Simple Life, “…[a] minimalist person is someone who seeks simplicity, usefulness and clarity.” When it comes to websites, this means taking away anything that distracts from the main message.
Examples of Minimalist Content
Strive to take away “fluff” in your sentences. Vicky, from 411writers.com cited an example by Justin Briggs. We can follow his lead to switch from using more words to focusing on user experience.
Long story short:
Saying ‘The safe internal temperature for cooked chicken is 165° Fahrenheit.’
is better in terms of both SEO and content creation than
‘The most precise way of telling if the chicken is done is to reach a perfect internal temperature of 165 degrees for dark meat.’
Another example of this is in how you introduce your business. Imagine someone asks a financial advisor, “What do you do?” The advisor might reply with a run-on sentence about helping individuals with their financial decisions because everyone knows it’s a confusing market out there and wants to know what to do for your family and future and for real estate and all of those things.
But, wouldn’t it be so much easier to understand what they’re all about if they simply said, “I help people define the lifestyle they want for themselves and their kids and make step-by-step changes in their budget and investments to get there.”
If you are working on social media marketing, a way to incorporate minimalism would be to remove as much text from an image as possible and instead have smiling faces or gorgeous product spreads. Then, caption it with something straight to the point to hook the reader.
From there, you can provide more in-depth insight as long as it provides value and flows easily for the average reader.
How Do You Create Minimalist Content?
A good starting point is to write down all that you possibly want to say about the particular subject. This means even writing down what you think you need. From there, edit and revise it as many times as you need to make sure your point comes across clearly and succinctly. Sometimes I write out long, drawn-out sentences only to start a new one and ignore the earlier versions.
Prioritize Your Message’s Main Points
You can break down points, separate them, and post them as part of a series or standalone page. Here is a list of things to remember from Brittany Berger:
- Not all content is necessary. Not all content is created equal.
- Write all that you want to say about the content;
- Write down what you think you need.
- Simplify that
- Then simplify that again (if needed).
- Prioritize and recycle your content
Don’t Add Digital Noise
Avoid creating digital noise by posting too much. Once you have honed in on a specific strategy, make sure everything you share aligns so you don’t cheapens the experience and hurt your brand. If you’ve got a great product, chances are customers want to know the basic aspects up front without having to sift through paragraphs of information.
Craft Smarter Headlines
Write headlines that will increase curiosity and spark engagement. Minimalism at its finest in this form is something catchy that summarizes the article or content. Think of it as breaking the content into a single bite.
Simplifying your content can be a great asset to your company. Some may even say it is essential to grow in today’s age of digital noise.
We have a great team of specialists who would love to help you maximize minimalism through your digital content. Schedule a meeting today!