#8: Not every bus is your bus. Choosing the right investment content idea
Great investment content is not about chasing every idea, but choosing the right one
Anyone familiar with London buses will know the saying: you wait ages for a bus, and then two come at once. At peak times, it can sometimes be a lot more than two, as heavy passenger traffic can lead to a ‘bunching up’ of buses that end up all arriving together.
That bus analogy works quite well for investment content. Product launches, calendar updates, seminars and conferences all create the familiar, steady hum of content demand. But when that demand peaks, often during periods of heightened market uncertainty or inflexion, there can be a similar bunching up of content, with lots of ideas all competing for attention.
At times like these it can feel like there is no shortage of possible ideas. That might sound like a nice problem to have, and in one sense it is. A constant flow of ideas means there is always something to say. But great investment content is not about saying everything. It is about saying the right thing, at the right time, for the right audience.
One of the biggest challenges in content creation is mistaking availability for relevance. Just because an idea is there does not mean it deserves to become client content. Choosing the right idea starts with a simple question: what is this piece of content trying to achieve?
Investment content creation is not there to fill a vacuum. It needs a clear purpose, a clear audience, and a clear destination. Is it helping clients understand an important development? Is it reassuring them during a difficult period? Is it showing how an investment team is thinking and responding? It might sound obvious, but before getting on any bus, it helps to know where it is going.
This is all easy to say in theory, but in practice it can be really hard to choose not to write something. Leaving an idea alone can feel like a missed opportunity, or even a failure of creativity. But done well, being selective is more often than not a sign of focus, discipline, and good judgement.
A crowded market backdrop will often throw up endless possible content ideas. But trying to cover everything can dilute the value of what you do say. Better to produce one piece that hits its mark than churn out many that simply add to the noise.
Investment content ideas, then, can sometimes feel like London buses: there will almost always be another one along in a minute. But that is not the problem. The problem is assuming that every idea deserves your clients’ attention when it does not. In short, not every bus is your bus.
