We’ve been moving to a new marketing automation system, and while dealing with that process, I’ve taken the opportunity to re-read some of the messages I wrote last year.
Looking at them with fresh eyes, sometimes the structure doesn’t quite work. There are too many enthusiastic exclamation points (!!). They could also be more personal.
I’d never write them the same way today.
Now, I know that might sound a bit self-indulgent. (“C’mon, they can’t be as bad as that….!”).
But there’s a serious point here.
One of the most common obstacles companies face when marketing online is the quest for perfection.
I see it the whole time with writers, who are afraid to let go of the pieces they’ve written, because they just “don’t feel good enough yet”.
They sit by their keyboards, tweaking, rewriting and redrafting. They can’t get past the feeling that there’s something missing…. They’re just not sure exactly what.
Even the shortest piece takes days or even weeks to finish.
I see it with marketing managers and business owners, too, who put the pressure on their writers to produce work to an impossibly high standard. They force writers to redraft perfectly good material again and again and again – essentially beating it to death.
Now, I can fully understand why that happens. I spend too long on my pieces, too.
When writing is your craft, you want to hit exactly the right note. When you’re proud of your work, it’s hard to ever call a piece “finished”.
As a company owner or CEO, you are aware that everything you publish reflects directly on your business. You want to show the public your best side – and you have the highest standards.
Unfortunately, this can paralyse your marketing. Because each piece takes so long to create, your output falls – and you don’t publish enough to make a real impact.
It’s also a waste of valuable resources: Your audience can’t tell the difference between draft four and draft five, anyway.
But it’s worse than that. Looking back on all the pieces I wrote last year makes me realise just how pernicious this quest to make every piece perfect really is.
I’d never have published them had I not been completely happy with them. At the time I thought they were perfect.
But my writing has developed enormously since then. And hopefully, when I look back at this email in a year or two, I’ll see ways it could have been better, too – because honing my marketing skills and staying up-to-date with the latest techniques never stops.
When it comes to marketing, there’s no such thing as “perfection”, there’s only “the best we can do right now.”
If you look back at your marketing material two years later and think, “Yes, that was perfect,” it’s a sign you’re not investing enough in your or your marketing team’s development.
So forget perfection. Aim for continuous improvement.
Be content to let your pieces go when they’re “pretty good”.
Just make sure the next piece is better.
