The holiday season is creeping up on us, and every November, it seems like most of us content creators and small business owners end up in a big rush to get out special holiday content and promotions. We see everyone else around us doing it, and so we feel the pressure to “take advantage” of this time, too, even if it doesn’t really make sense for us and our business right now.
So, is it worth it for you to rush out holiday offerings and content this year? I talk about my experience with holiday content pressure and how to know if creating a holiday offering and content is right for you.
Are you feeling the holiday pressure? Let me know in the comments below. Enjoy the episode!
Below is a transcript of the episode, plus the self-inquiry prompts, for your reference—please excuse grammatical errors!
Welcome back, creators. This is episode 19 of the Mindful Content Creator Podcast. And today, I want to talk all about holiday content.
Now is the time that people are starting to churn out their holiday content, and so you might be feeling the pressure to churn some out, too.
For the purposes of this podcast, I want to talk about two types of holiday content: First is fun holiday content to strengthen the connection with you and your community, and second is holiday content tied to a holiday themed offering or specially timed offering for the holidays.
I want to talk first about the holiday content that's pushing toward the sale of a holiday offering, whether that's a workbook, a workshop, an event, a product, etc.
It seems like November hits and everyone kind of goes, “Oh no, the holidays are almost here, I better take advantage of this time!”
We're told that this is when people want to buy. This is when people want to reflect, when people want to better themselves—specifically, around the new year. So we all kind of jump on this bandwagon as we see our peers create special holiday deals and offerings.
This can be fun if you have an idea that's already ready to go, and you gave yourself adequate time to build and market it. But usually, if you aren't thinking of it until November, now you're putting yourself in a real time crunch.
I've been here before on a small scale, and I saw the error of my ways pretty quickly. It was back when I was focused on growing my old business as a yoga and journaling instructor.
November came around and I thought I should do a holiday workshop or some type of class series. So I spent time putting a whole idea together, building a webpage, and then I started posting to my still incredibly small audience in early November. And not surprisingly, I was disappointed when only one person signed up, and I ended up having to cancel it.
At the time, my yoga mentor had sort of warned me of this, saying that she usually needed to give three months of lead up time to promote a workshop and get people to sign up. And she had a pretty good sized following already.
So I learned from that experience not to rush something out just because it was a certain time of year and because other people were creating similar programs. It kind of just ended up being a recipe for disappointment, and it made me feel like I was much more behind than I really was.
And this year, I still find myself up against the pressure, but in a different way. I make audio courses for the app Insight Timer, and some of you may have found your way to me from those. Of course, with the holidays approaching, I have so many ideas for audio courses that I've gotten myself a little bit overwhelmed. So even now, I'm reminding myself to scale it back to what's reasonable for me to do as a creator, and what won't burn me out.
Because the funny thing about holiday content is that we're often creating it in the hopes of helping other people get through the holidays. And meanwhile, we're super stressed behind the scenes making them that content. And I do believe that sometimes that overwhelmed energy can be translated into our creations and end up not being helpful for anyone.
It can come through in lower quality work. So in my case, for example, maybe the structure of the course will be less clear or simply my voice will sound strained and tired in the recording and again, that doesn't really help anyone.
If you're stressing about a holiday offering that will take a lot of time and energy for you to create on a time crunch, I'm here to give you permission to relax and let that go. You don't need to follow these timelines that are ultimately dictated by consumerism.
I have some questions you can ask yourself if you're thinking of launching something soon for the holidays:
First, why do I feel the need to create this now?
Second, How much time and energy will it take for me to create this, and do I have adequate space for that right now? Can I create a result that I'm proud of?
Third, do I already have a community that I know will be excited and ready to sign up for this or buy this or engage with it?
And fourth, can I create something similar for a different time of year and perhaps get an even better result?
I will have all of these questions on the post for this episode on Substack, so you can review them there if you'd like. The link, as always, will be in the show notes.
I hope this little bit of insight helps you make the best decision for you in regards to holiday offerings.
And now, let's turn our attention to creating holiday content that doesn't directly lead to the sale of an offering, and is more just for the sake of building community.
I feel like this type of holiday content is always welcome and much less stressful. But, that said, if the idea of even talking about the holidays feels overwhelming to you, it's also okay to let go of this type of content. You don't need to force it simply because that's what's trending right now. Honestly, sometimes if we aren't following the trends, we might stand out even more.
If you do choose to talk about the holiday season, you can keep it really simple and just share maybe one behind the scenes peek at your life. Maybe it's your holiday decorations this year or the favorite food dish that you prepare. Even if it has nothing to do with your brand or everything else that you've been talking about, it can be a fun way for people to learn more about you out of the context of the type of content that you typically share every day.
Really, if you're going to create holiday content, create it because it's fun for you and your community. And if it doesn't feel right, let it go.
I want to know how you're feeling about holiday content and offerings. Is this a trend every year that you feel the pressure to follow? Head over to Substack and let's talk about it in the comments section for this episode.
Thanks again for joining me for this episode and for this journey. Until next time, happy creating!
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