Content is a long game

I got a LinkedIn message from a complete stranger last month.

It came from a manager at an unfamiliar logistics company. She said, I read your blog post and would like to talk with you about these ideas.

She linked to this blog post about case studies. It’s almost five years old; I forgot I wrote it. It basically says that enterprise IT case studies are boring and formulaic and low-value, usually because of the broken processes and short-term thinking that produce them.

We had a Zoom call, and at the end she said there are a lot of areas where I might be able to help this company, and asked me to send a proposal.

This is stuff that campaign messaging and lead-gen programs generally don’t do: Deliver long-term value. Gain entrance to industry conversations.

Every organization has pressing short-term goals, of course, but when you frame ALL your content efforts around the short term, you’re really missing something valuable and important.

Content can do things messaging can’t do. But it requires that you think differently and give it different goals.

Photo: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash