To stand out from your competitors, you need truly valuable content — but creating that content takes time and effort.

And in our current environment, as we’re potentially facing a U.S. recession, a lot of startups and mid-market enterprise technology companies often feel like they don’t have the bandwidth to create the kind of content that really makes a difference in their marketing efforts.

On many marketing teams, content creators are working hard to try to create the assets that are needed to launch campaigns — but unfortunately, they’re trying to cram those writing tasks into the nooks and crannies of an already-overloaded day. Without focused effort, they can’t create effective content.

Sound familiar? If so, read on to find out what can happen when you don’t carve out the bandwidth and capacity to create content on time and on spec — and what you can do to make sure you still reach your marketing goals.

Don’t have the capacity to execute your campaigns? Here’s why that’s a problem

If you can’t get quality content created on the timeline you have planned for your campaigns, one of two things is likely to happen:

Outcome 1: You create sub-standard content

If your deadline is looming and your content hasn’t been created yet, you have the option to have someone on your team create the assets as quickly as possible so you can rush your campaign out the door.

This keeps you on schedule with your marketing plan, but you’ll send out content that is not as good as it could be if you’d had more time to write it.

This has ripple effects on your relationship with your customers, because if you send them poor-quality content, they will start to ignore you. And once you’ve lost their attention and goodwill, it’s gone for good.

Outcome 2: You postpone your campaign

You also have the option to postpone your campaign if your marketing assets aren’t ready.

You can “put a pin” in that campaign for now, but that can create problems down the road if your postponed campaign conflicts with future promotions.

With our clients, I have also noticed that many postponed campaigns never get launched at all — which means a lot of wasted time, effort and money.

Capacity planning: The key to better content creation

Both of these outcomes have consequences that can negatively affect all your marketing efforts. So what’s the solution?

It’s better capacity planning.

Writing is the most important part of your marketing campaigns, so don’t make it an afterthought. Plan ahead so you have the resources and time to create high-quality content that connects with your customers.

Work with a writer — whether that writer is on your internal team, or an external vendor — who can get things done well and on time. Reserve that person’s time in advance to make sure they can create high-quality content, and make sure to leave enough time to move the asset through the approval process.

Your company’s content is what your audience is going to see, read, consume and interact with before they get on the phone with a sales rep or pull the trigger on a purchase — and that makes it the most important part of your marketing. So plan ahead for your content needs, and don’t get caught in the trap of needing to rush or postpone your campaigns.

To find out how Horizon Peak Consulting can help you create high-quality content at speed, connect with Jessica Mehring on LinkedIn.