Redefining consistency with my marketing

Because I don’t want to be a content creation machine 💻

Photo credit: Annie Spratt via Unsplash

For the past ten years, apart from some scheduled breaks, I have consistently sent a newsletter to my email list every single week.

Until now.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still writing to my email list on a frequent basis.

But I’m no longer making sending a weekly newsletter an immovable non-negotiable in my business.

Sometimes it’s weekly, sometimes it’s fortnightly,  and I refuse to spiral and freak out even if it’s every 3 weeks or so from time to time.

A quick note: when I talk about my email list I don’t mean this Substack but instead the subscribers to my newsletter. For this Substack I have no set in stone publishing schedule and instead just hit publish when I have something I want to share with you.

Why the change? The honest answer is because I was starting to feel a little burned out from writing a newsletter every single week.

And I refused to believe the lie that my business would crumble and fail if I listened to my needs and decided to be a little more flexible with my schedule in this season.

For so many years I’ve believed in the power of consistency. It’s why I committed to sending a weekly newsletter and why I published a weekly podcast for many seasons of my business, because I believe in the magic that comes with showing up, sharing our stories and ideas, and gently sowing seeds for hell yes clients and customers to resonate and connect with our work.

But what I’m not interested in is feeling like a content creation machine and just publishing content for the sake of publishing content.

I don’t believe my hell yes people connect with my work because of my publishing schedule, but instead because of the way my simple and spacious approach to business resonates and connects with them.

And I’d much rather create my very best and most meaningful content at a more spacious and flexible pace rather than force myself just to churn out newsletters and podcast episodes for the sake of it.

Take the podcast I co-host with my good friend Sara Tasker, Letters From A Hopeful Creative.

We took a 3 year hiatus from this show as we just didn’t have the capacity to pour into it and since we’ve come back to the show last year we’ve published over 20 episodes I’m super proud of all thanks to giving ourselves permission to record at a flexible and sustainable pace when we have the capacity to do so.

And I’d rather publish episodes we love less frequently rather than forcing ourselves to stick to an unsustainable schedule that just burns us out along the way.

Same with my solo podcast that I’m taking a break from right now while my creative tank refuels and I reconnect to what I want to show up and share through that show again later this year.

Now don’t get me wrong, consistency with our content creation can be a great thing. I love that I can expect a weekly episode in my feed from so many of my favourite podcasts.

I still aim to be more consistent than not with my content schedule, but in this season I’m giving myself permission to redefine what consistency gets to look like for me so that I can actually continue to create content and share ideas I’m really proud of instead of forcing myself to feel like a content creation machine just for the sake of consistency.

And I share of all this today to say: it’s okay if set-in-stone consistency doesn’t always work for you too, if you need a little more flexibility and breathing room at times in your creation process.

Think of 3-5 people whose work truly resonates with you, who you have bought from or see yourself buying from in the future.

Is it their consistency that truly makes their work resonate with you?

Or is it how deeply their perspective, stories, approach and ideas connects with you and your own journey?

This is my tenth year of running my business and if I want to still be here ten years from now I know that resonance and depth over just filling up a content schedule for the sake of consistency will be what continues to support me to stay in the arena of my business for many more years to come.

So just in case you need it, this is my encouragement to give yourself permission to redefine what consistency with your marketing gets to mean for you too.

We’re allowed to have our ideal schedule and then flexibility within it so that we can honour our own humanness, capacity, and creative flow along the way.

How do you feel about consistency with your marketing and content creation schedule in this season? 🗓

Until next time,

Jen