Yo! Welcome to the next episode of The Reeder where you get actionable tips and strategies so you can build a bigger and more inspired marketing career.
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“I think I kinda f—ed up,”
I admitted on the phone.
“The newsletter is by far my most valuable asset, but I haven’t been giving it my most valuable time.”
I was talking to my Chief of Staff, Kristin, in our weekly catch up.
For weeks I’d had this “something ain’t right” feeling in my gut.
Nothing "happened."
But I could feel it. The newsletter just isn’t poppin’ like it used to. I lost my zhush.
Old me wrote about whatever fired me up that week. I wrote it by hand, edited every line, and finished knowing I’d just written a banger.
But little by little, life happened and the things that made the newsletter undeniably great started slipping away.
Client work, brand deals, progressing my pipeline, and marketing projects get most of my time and energy.
Not to mention traveling has been a lot lately. Speaking, events, family getaways. It adds up quick.
Then the time I need to think, notice, and write became scarce.
Turns out, this is a known thing. It’s called the mere urgency effect.
It basically means people will pick a relatively unimportant, low-reward task over an important, high-reward task— when the low-payoff task is framed as urgent (even if the urgency is fake.)
The newsletter is constant. Always on, always there to get done. It could always wait.
Quality dipped as a result.
And that’s completely unacceptable because…
I want to write the best damn b2b marketing newsletter on the f—ing planet.
I owe it to you. And frankly, to me.
Because if I’m not doing my best work every time, why bother?
So I decided to reinstate hard-coded rules for the newsletter. Just like I used to have — and like I’ve had when running content for previous companies and current clients.
I treat content like a product. And the best products have quality assurances. AKA rules for getting sh*t done at a high level, over and over.
Willpower isn’t enough. It takes conviction (or as I call it, a healthy amount of give a damn.)
Here are the rules I’m holding myself to:
One idea per send. If I can't pitch it in one sentence, it's not ready.
Ships Saturday at 7am ET, no exceptions. It's in your inbox with your coffee.
500 words max. That was the original rule, it crept to 800, then I stopped tracking.
No AI on the writing or editing (!). If Kristin and I miss something, it ships imperfect. If a reader flags a gap, that's next week's piece.
I was reminded of all this in my recent conversation with Crystal Romero, Compa’s Director of Content, because she also has a set of content rules she follows.
She was my first guest on my new mini-series, Under The Hood.
Crystal’s 5 Golden Rules of Webinar Content
Know why it matters. Her test for every idea: "Why would a VP of compensation at Nvidia care?" If the team can't answer, they don't know the story yet.
If it bores me, it'll bore the expert. "If it's not interesting to me, and I'm not a compensation expert, it's probably not gonna be interesting to our audience either."
Three to five slides, max. Any more and it feels like a meeting. She tells panelists to talk like they're sipping an Aperol spritz with someone from the team.
99.1% thought leadership. The other 0.9% is where they can talk about Compa, plus a demo poll at the very end.
Don't fill time just to fill time. "If your thoughts are complete, then [it’s over]." People love getting time back. Give it to them.
Click here for the full ~4 minute episode with Crystal.
She solves one of the biggest problems as a content marketer: how do we even know if we have content worth putting on a webinar in the first place?
The answer might surprise you.
Holler at you next Saturday,
Devin
If you like today’s post, you can help me grow by forwarding it to one person with a quick “You’ll love this newsletter. Totally worth signing up.”
Pen by Devin Reed
Founder, The Reeder
Should sales get blamed for bad sales calls?
Here’s why unqualified leads get handed off anyway.
How the best marketers crush webinars
I think webinars are one of the most underrated channels in B2B marketing.
So I'm talking to the best to find out how they create webinars people want to watch — and all my conversations will be right in here in Goldcast’s Content Hub.
Here’s how we can team up
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