How perfectionism kills your marketing

Confession: I totally over-planned my newsletter

It took me four months to launch Sloppy Copy.

(Embarrassing, I know. 🫣)

I wanted to offer content that’s actually useful and entertaining. Make sure it was unique. Make it stand out and pop. Make it unmistakably me.

Basically: I wanted this newsletter to be perfect.

So I spent HOURS debating with ChatGPT, changing my template layout, planning years’ worth of content, and researching high-performing newsletters… just to change my mind and start all over again.

I’m proud of my final product. But man, what a waste of time.

Imagine where I’d be if I’d launched four months ago?

• I’d have more subscribers.

• I’d have a finely-tuned writing and publishing process.

• That process would already be cemented into my weekly routine.

• I’d probably have it on a gated platform like Substack by now.

• And most importantly: I would’ve been able to use that time for so many other things.

But alas: Here we are. Newsletter number two. Four months later.

(yes, there is a Real Housewives gif for everything)

So what can we learn here?

Based on the research, I’m not the only one battling between perfectionism, productivity, and agility. Vitale and Co. surveyed 1,200+ professionals and found that 92% of them identified as perfectionists.

NINETY-TWO PERCENT.

Aside from the personal issues this creates — like burnout, stress, imposter syndrome, etc. — this has a legitimate impact on business and marketing:

🌱 It limits agility and growth, because each individual project is painstakingly detailed.

😬 It prevents experimentation, because you’re afraid to try something unless you know you’ll succeed.

😵‍💫 It gets you stuck in the “over-researching, under-publishing” trap, stalling your content production.

🪜 In bigger teams, it leads to a lengthy review process where stakeholders, product experts, and the CEO’s mom have to give their stamp of approval — leading to curbed creativity and vanilla content.

🫢 It stifles your brand’s relatability, because the more “perfect” you sound, the more corporate and generic your content feels.

It’s great to strive for high standards. But in content marketing, it’s also important to move fast, produce efficiently, and know how to be agile. Otherwise, your competitors will outrun you.

TL;DR: Perfectionism is the devil.

How to control that inner perfectionist

It’s easier said than done — but these steps will make it easier to keep your perfectionist tendencies from slowing you down:

#1: Go for the minimum viable product, funnel, content, etc. instead of what might seem ideal. You can always add and adjust later on.

#2: Think of your failures as new content topics. Not only is it interesting and useful to readers, but it shows that you’re human and trustworthy, too. (Hello, that’s what this entire newsletter is about. And you’re reading it, right?)

#3: Don't be afraid to test, pivot, and repeat. Launch your MVP. See how it does. Test new ideas as you have time to build them. The goal is to make it perfect over time, not to launch something perfect on day one.

Bonus tip: Get a fresh pair of eyes to help your sanity.

Once you’ve been fiddling with a piece of content for a while, your logic starts to blur, and your inner perfectionist becomes impossible to please.

Getting an opinion from someone else — someone who hasn’t been living in your Google Docs — can be exactly what you need to get your goals back into focus and finally hit publish.

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This article was originally shared in my embarrassing, brutally-honest newsletter: Sloppy Copy.

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