Did you ask Santa (or your senior execs) for a shiny new content strategy for 2025? If so, you may discover the immortal words on the box: assembly required.
One Christmas (I must have been seven or thereabouts) my parents gave me a Meccano set. It was so exciting to rip off the wrapping paper, open the lid and see all those variously-shaped metal pieces, nuts and bolts, with a tiny little spanner to connect everything together.
And the box proudly displayed some of the wonderful things I could build: such as a working crane, digger or helicopter. Oh, the possibilities!
But after a few frustrating afternoons trying and failing to replicate the models pictured on the lid, the Meccano set ended up at the back of a cupboard to gather dust until the inevitable jumble sale clear-out.
Being a boy of the Seventies, the Meccano set would soon be joined by a number of Airfix model kits and a paint-by-numbers Mona Lisa from Aunt Sally; each gratefully received, each abandoned unfinished after too short a time. It would be another 30 years before my ADHD diagnosis and there were definitely too many other distractions offering more immediate gratification.
I didn’t have to write a book or draw a comic before I could read it. My Action Man came fully assembled in the box. So why should I have to build these other new toys before I could play with them?
Whatever the reason, the genuine excitement of unwrapping these toys didn’t last beyond New Year.
So what does all this have to do with marketing?
Santa Claus is coming to town
At this time of year, most marketing departments will have already put the finishing touches to their strategies and content calendars for at least the first quarter of 2025.
And as Christmas is a time for wishing for big, shiny new things, some of these strategies might contain ambitious new content initiatives – a YouTube channel, content hub or even a custom magazine (I love a good custom magazine).
They’ve made their lists and checked them twice, creating slick PowerPoint decks for approval by senior management.
There’s excitement. There’s commitment. There are creative ideas. It’s going to be the biggest, bestest, most case-studied and talked about content strategy in town.
But as the new year progresses, excitement gives way to frustration when the optimistic predictions don’t happen overnight. Suddenly, that commitment to long-term success reverts back to simply meeting this month’s KPIs, while the new creative approach is gradually abandoned in favour of the same old routine tactics to get the necessary quick wins.
You better watch out, you better not cry
Too often, marketers become trapped on the hamster wheel of monthly reporting and impatient managerial expectations. Projects designed to generate results next year and beyond — no matter how potentially effective — are too easily forgotten when the pressure is on to reach today’s targets.
But you have to build this toy before you can play with it. You have to post regular high-quality content to that blog or YouTube channel before it gains traction and starts delivering a return; you have to send out that newsletter on time every time, even when the number of subscribers is still small, because it is that steady flow of content that will gradually attract a bigger and bigger audience.
And that means you need to find the time to keep building, keep posting, keep believing in the long-term value to be achieved – even if the short-term value seems less than helpful.
If your content strategy falls down the list of priorities, eventually it will end up so low that it never receives the necessary attention. The moment someone says “I don’t have time to write a blog post this week”, or “Has anyone checked our LinkedIn feed this month” the strategy is doomed to gather dust at the back of the cupboard.
Allocate time. Delegate tasks. Outsource what you can. Implement processes. Be realistic in your expectations. Work weeks in advance if you have to so that your publishing schedule never suffers when other more urgent priorities pop up.
And keep going until you reach that tipping point.
If you genuinely believe your content strategy has the potential to achieve better results, why throw it away to focus on the same old tactics?
As I soon learned from my Dad, if you stop playing with the expensive new toy before the Christmas tree is down, you’re less likely to receive the next big thing you ask for, no matter how much you pester.
So be good for goodness sake
Content marketing works. Many, many businesses have created amazing things using exactly the same resources and challenged by exactly the same pressures as the rest of us.
Similarly, many of my friends had no problem creating amazing feats of engineering with Meccano or hanging whole fleets of Airfix fighter planes from their bedroom ceilings. So I knew the problem was my impatience, not the toys.
I still feel occasional pangs of disappointment for not trying harder with those well-intentioned Christmas presents. I knew I’d missed the point, that the fun wasn’t just about playing with a finished toy but the satisfaction of building the thing.
A few years ago, this sense of missing out sent me to Hobbyco in Sydney to buy a model kit and a bunch of paints, followed by a fun Sunday afternoon completing my first Airfix spitfire.
It was still a fiddly and nonsensical way to pass an afternoon. But that was nothing compared to the satisfaction of finally holding my completed spitfire in the air, zooming around the living room and pretending to machine-gun the cat.
It now sits on a shelf in my study, neatly painted and bestickered in RAF livery, reminding me every time I look at it that persistence is a virtue and failure merely a delay.
In the hustle of the new year, don’t let your content ambitions slip away. Stay committed, believe in your strategy and keep building for as long as it takes.
