046 Marketing Burnout Signs + Fixes
Marketing burnout can sneak up on you, turning what was once an exciting part of growing your business into an exhausting chore—let’s talk about how to spot the signs early and keep your brand-building efforts sustainable.
*Please note that this podcast was previously called THE "Video Confidence Coachcast" and the "Do Video Podcast" previous to 2025. THANK-YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AS I TRANSITION THE BRAND TO BE MORE CONSISTANT FOR YOUR LISTENING AND WATCHING PLEASURE.Quick Quiz Time 🥳
What is one common cause of marketing burnout?
A: Posting content inconsistently
B: Ignoring trends completely
C: Trying to do everything yourself without a plan
-
C – Trying to do everything yourself without a plan is a fast track to burnout!
Marketing Burnout Signs + Fixes
Marketing your business should fuel your growth, not drain your energy, but when burnout hits, it can feel impossible to stay consistent. In this episode, we break down the signs of marketing burnout, why it happens, and most importantly—how to prevent it before it takes over your business and mental wellbeing.
Marketing burnout is real, and it often hits small business owners hardest because they’re juggling everything—from content creation to client work—with no room to breathe. The pressure to post constantly, keep up with trends, and make viral content can turn marketing into a never-ending cycle of stress rather than a tool for business growth. Recognizing burnout means noticing when marketing tasks start feeling like a burden, creativity dries up, and you’re left resenting the very thing that’s supposed to build your brand.
To combat this, we need to shift our approach—starting with realistic goals and clear priorities. Instead of chasing trends or feeling obligated to be everywhere at once, focus on platforms that actually bring in leads and engagement. Set a “bare minimum” strategy you can stick to during busy times, and don’t be afraid to take breaks when needed. Automating parts of your marketing, repurposing old content, and writing down ideas when inspiration strikes can make the process feel less overwhelming.
At the end of the day, marketing should work for you, not the other way around. If burnout has already hit, or you feel like you’re on the verge, it’s time to reassess and simplify. Need help making marketing feel less like a chore and more like a sustainable strategy? Let’s chat—Zoë Wood of the Video Confidence Coach can help you build a plan that keeps your brand strong without running yourself into the ground.
What Was Discussed This Episode + Timecodes:
00:00 – The reality of marketing burnout and why it’s more common than you think
06:15 – How marketing burnout creeps in: pressure, comparison, and unrealistic expectations
12:30 – Spotting the early warning signs of burnout before it derails your business
18:45 – Practical strategies to prevent burnout: setting realistic goals and boundaries
24:00 – Sustainable marketing habits to keep you in the game long-term
-
Zoë Wood 0:00
Feeling burnt out, and it's already the start of the year, I completely empathize with you, and we are going to talk about how to understand those signs, see those signs, and be able to avoid them entirely, or at least get them to a manageable level for yourself and your business. If you're tired of the old cookie cutter marketing advice and want to take your personal brand to the next level with bold, actionable strategies that truly reflect you, you're in the right place. Let's untangle your marketing mayhem with zo the video confidence coach on the unborn your brand podcast, unboring your brand was recorded on water, run land.
Zoë Wood 0:48
Burnout is a serious thing, and I myself experience a cycle of it for a very long time growing up, it was my coping mechanism, to be perfectly honest, I would push myself to absolute burnout, push myself to ridiculous burnout and then sleep for one or two days and then get back up and do it all over again. As you can imagine, that's not great for your mental your physical and your emotional health, but it's also not great for just maintaining relationships and having that energy and priority all completely out of whack at any given point, and with the current world changes news and events, changes in politics and honestly, the rise of hostility that I'm sure some of us have witnessed in the past, and it's coming. It feels like history is repeating itself, and with the addition of platforms, social media platforms leaving and coming back. And I'm not totally talking purely about like the Tiktok American thing. Even though that was all that was discussed about online, there is a lot of those factors that now it is coming into play, where it's becoming more on the broader stage, where a lot of these governments do have the power to, you know, ban and get rid of these tools that we use to communicate and market our business and market our personal brands. So with everyone wanting peace, and with everything feeling very much in turmoil, you can understand why you're feeling burnt out, and if you have not understood that feeling. Let me break it down for you. So specifically, let's talk about marketing. Because, of course, the video competence coach, we talk about marketing here it is my stick. I mainly talk about video marketing and personal branding, because that is my area of expertise. But marketing as a whole. Let's just think about it that way. For us, marketing burnout is that dreaded point so that you can see yourself getting to that point, or maybe you're already there where the marketing, your personal brand or your business feels like a chore instead of something that fuels your business. Now some of you may be listening or watching and saying, Zo, I already feel like that. I hate marketing. I get it, but there's usually a point where it kind of becomes that little bit extra for you. A lot of people who I work with find that they've gotten to that point of burnout before they come and seek guidance or my services. They usually feel overwhelmed that their alliances, their processes and everything that they've done to kind of get through this point has all failed them. They dread doing their to do list, especially when it comes to marketing, and they just don't, honestly don't give an F anymore. I've been told not to swear. They honestly just don't care anymore about what their marketing says, what it does. Let's just slap a quote post up on Instagram and call it a day. Now I'm not, if you do that, I'm not, don't, don't. I'm not accusing you of anything. I do that to it. Sometimes, marketing your business is a creative outlet for a lot of small business owners and a lot of personal brand builders. It is a hobby that is like an addition to your business. It allows you to be creative with your brand that allows you to take out of the mundane tea of working in your business, to working on your business and helping you generate leads, generate interest, and also build your authority in this space. No matter what space you're in, you need to build authority in it for people to come to you, recognize you and trust you, and lastly, promote you to everyone else they know. And if you want those people that they're like giving you good word of mouth from, especially if you've worked with them or given them products or given them services, they're going to research you. We're no longer in the day of just, oh, my uncle told me this. I'm going to take it wholeheartedly and go down to the shops and do this. No, we're no longer in that point. We need proof that what they saying and what they're doing is true. We need to make sure that the story lines up with what we can actually find and research about said company, said business, said personal brand, but coming back to us why we feel burnt out now, there's a plenty of. And I'm sure you've rattled off a few in your head, but let's start off with a couple of the obvious ones. There is too much pressure, either with yourself putting it on yourself to do marketing that may or may not be your strong suit, or pressure outside, either like either staff or people that you work with, or maybe even your clients, there's just a lot of pressure to be posting daily, to respond to every comment and to make viral worthy content on a regular basis. If that is not your shtick, if that is something that you feel like you need to succeed in your personal brand or your business, I'm going to tell you now that it's not also trying to seek virality is not sustainable. And to be honest, with a lot of the people that I work with, I completely push that that idea out, not just because it is something that you can't obtain easily or consistently. And there are plenty of people who have gone viral and then immediately crashed because virality is not something that people should aim for, like getting a lot of numbers or getting a lot of follows or likes, unless those people are turning into leads for you and your brand, forget about it. Coming back to the list, comparing yourself against others. Now, of course, I have a lot of people that I work with, and I'm sure you come across yourself is they're very good at scrolling their feeds, looking at what other people are doing, specifically on social media, but also in their email inboxes, in billboards and flyers, in on other people's websites, they're very good at scrolling and looking and thinking of these things, but then they don't have any sort of time or creativity to think about how they can apply that to their own brand. They just think, why can't it look like that? I'm really shit at this. They ultimately feel worse constantly comparing themselves the last and then that one, the second last thing I want to mention is having no boundaries. So what I mean by this is you can feel burnt out when you've run out of energy. That's just in a day to day burnout. But specifically with marketing, burnout is because you're putting it on such a low priority on your list, and you've not invested any sort of thinking time, doing time or actioning time to be able to get that thing to be done, just the last thing that you do at the end of the day, time that you should be spending with your family or by yourself or with your pets, any opportunity to just or even friends, those exist, your chance to relax is being pushed out by having to do this marketing or Maybe setting yourself goals that you at the first when you set them made sense, you can definitely reach those goals. And then things have started to fall apart as the year has progressed. And the last thing that can contribute to marketing burnout specifically is doing it all yourself when solo marketing is your stuff. It is a grind, and it can be brutal, and especially if you are throwing everything out to the ether with not really a plan, but kind of a general guide, and nothing's coming back to you, nothing positive, nothing negative, nothing in between. It can feel so disheartening. You get told to be consistent, but it feels like no one's listening, because honestly, they're probably not. And unless you do something incredibly controversial or sickening, I don't recommend that you do that. It can feel like you're becoming a content creator or a YouTuber over, or being a video editor over, actually putting your message out there in a sustainable way for you, something that, honestly, for a lot of brands, should be a fun activity. When it comes to marketing yourself, can just be completely burnt out. And for those of us who have never found it fun, I'm going to question what you do to make things creative within your how. What creative aspects do you do in your business, on a day to day business? I would love to know. Feel free to comment or send me an email. I'd love to have a chat now that we've talked about what those what burnout can eventually look like. What does it look like before it actually happens? How do you spot the burnout? Spot the burnout again, specifically the marketing burnout, before it actually takes over your business and takes over your life. Because for a lot of us who are working on building a personal brand, on building our businesses, this is our life. It may be like maybe a part time or a casual in regards to hours, but it's the thing we're focusing on. It's thing that we're putting effort into. So you can definitely understand why. If this part is being you're feeling burnt out by you find yourself procrastinating over every single marketing task because it just falls into that bucket for you. You're just like, you're completely over it, and everything falls into the drum draw, and you never see it again. You say things that you're going to do, and then you never do them. You mentioned people. Oh, I'll post about that, or I'll share that, or I'll mention that, and then nothing happens. And then, of course, you don't look good because you don't fulfill your promises. But then you also don't look good because you're not. Yeah, you're just looking tired and feeling tired too. Your creativity for not just marketing activities, but Mark creativity within your business tanks your fresh ideas poof out of your head and become tumbleweeds in the night sky.
Zoë Wood 10:45
You also end up feeling resentful towards your own marketing and maybe efforts that you've done or maybe efforts that you've hired other people to do in the past. You keep thinking and hating what you did in the past because it means that you've set the buy a bit too high for yourself, or maybe it's just that consistency is no longer working for you, and you become resentful for past you for putting you into this position in the first place. So I'm going to say now, past you had plans, past you had motivations, and do not worry, it is okay to feel this way. This happens. This happens to businesses like myself, marketing coaches like myself. There's plenty of times where we've fallen off the bandwagon for our own marketing. Why? Because we're focusing on our clients, which is what we like to do. I'm a good example of that. I do have a tendency with social media in particular, I kind of just put it on the lowest priority, and then everything kind of falls. Don't worry, I'll do it again when I care. But this episode is not just for you, but it's also for me as well. I want to go into now ways to beat that marketing burnout. So we've already established what it is and how it feels, and we already know what it looks like before we get there. Now let's figure out ways and tactics and actions we can take proactively to make sure that we don't reach that point of burnout. Now I do say this with all my heart and all my love, you are going to experience marketing burnout with any and all of these tips, because it's just going to happen within your brand. You're going to come across periods of time within your life where you're just gonna hit that point of breaking these actions, these following tools, can help you not reach that as often, but it's still going to happen regardless, because your life is your life, your life is busy, and your life has things that need to ebb and flow and be flexible. That is why we build our personal brands to keep our lives flexible. First thing that you start off with is setting realistic goals. Now again, back into the realm of marketing, we are talking about realistic goals, not like, Hey, I'm going to post three times a day. What does that even mean? You start thinking not just too hard, but you just overdoing it yourself for honestly, not a whole lot of or a little bit of return. So focusing on the platforms that are going to guarantee you the leads that are going to generate the snowball effect for your business to help you expand your systems and your reliability later on, set yourself realistic goals on platforms that you've either gotten leads from in the past or you've got a lot of engagement from. It's not I'm not saying that you need to crash and burn all the other platforms. I'm just saying in those realistic goals. And for anyone who has followed my work in the past, what is your BFM? What is your bare effing minimum when it comes to your marketing goals? And set them nice and low so you can jump over them. You can make them really easy for yourself. And focusing on the quantity over the quality of your content is detrimental. So when it comes to setting realistic goals, goals, not really thinking about the numbers per se, but thinking about, okay, realistically, what is my bare F a minimum? That would be more in the realm of okay, I could do two posts a week, one of them being a repost of previous content that I've done because I invested all that money into, you know, that social media producer from a year ago, for example. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just giving you an example. So in that case, okay, well, realistically, instead of doing, you know, five posts a week, I can do two. I can do one of repurposing all the content with a new description and maybe a little bit of editing if I feel like it, and then have another post, be it an image, be it a carousel, be it a video or nice short video that, again, reminds people that you exist, give them the answers to the questions that they're seeking. And if something is related to the news that's about and about because, you know, trending people like stuff you. That will give you a lot more boost to engagement, rather than just constantly recycling all the stuff that may not be as relevant to your industry and your niche. Because again, setting those realistic goals you are trying to think about what is going to make me the authority in the space, and making the authority in the space includes That's right, actually being like, like, responding back to important news and events around your industry, and maybe something that doesn't even directly affect your industry, maybe in your opinion and your expertise, you say, Oh, this is definitely going to affect us. I should let people know, there you go. You've done two posts a week, and that is more sustainable to be able to work within your business, because when it comes to marketing, it is a engine in your car that you can push or let go when it comes to the accelerator. So do you need to get more money in fast? Okay, leading into not when you're desperate for money, when you're leading into needing more money. You can run maybe some more posts, run some ads, run some lead magnets, run some events, run some tools. When you're leading into that time when you're not going to have as much income or money to cash flow, run the business and in those moments where you are so flat, off your feet, that you were busy, that you don't have time, take your foot off the accelerator, go back to that bare effing minimum. Okay, let that go, let that do its thing, and then we can start re we can start pushing down that accelerator when the time comes and again, leading into it is more important than trying to be like, Oh crap, we're, we're almost out of clients. Ah, slamming the accelerator. It's gonna jerk everyone forward and give everyone forward and give everyone neck pain for the next 10 years. Back to the thing I'm digressing. Zo make sure, as a way to beat your burnout is to check your priorities, focusing on what is important for you. Now, I'm not talking just about platforms. I'm talking about your priorities for your business. What is your values? What is your mission, what is your vision for your business and your marketing is supposed to be a tool that is going to help you achieve that values and mission and vision, I should actually remember the order of that. Zo, so in those moments, what are your priorities? And say, for example, if posting on Instagram is not a priority for you, but you enjoy it. Make it a priority for yourself, so to keep you engaged and out there, but again, coming back to those priorities that are going to work for your business, and if you're feeling overwhelmed, breaking it down into those smaller chunks that you can do effectively and consistently over time, is going to make it easier, and to make it easier, I do recommend for my clients to start writing down your creative ideas when you have them. Your brain is not a computer. There's been a couple of people that you know relate your brain to your computer. What I mean by that is a computer is a set of hard drives that can recall information when you go out and reach for it and bring it back, your brain is very good at coming up with our days on the fly. It is very dynamic. It is something that moves very fast. But when it comes to storing information, it's okay sometimes, but it's not as great as simply writing the idea down, as recording either a voice note or putting that information into a Google Doc or, you know, a Word document that you back up somewhere, please back this up again, putting it down so it's no longer sitting In your brain like burning a hole. It's sitting in whatever document you need. And when it comes time to thinking about this content or thinking about the things that you want to say to your customers, you don't have to think of the fly. You've got a list of relevant things, of stories that you've come across from your clients, or maybe someone's you know, purchased a product off you, and they gave a really sweet review, and you want to talk about it and highlight that review, and highlight that story of someone buying from you, about your client, success stories, just to name a few, do not rely on your brain to be the computer, so you don't have to be. No, I thought this was very smart when I wrote this. When I wrote this. I'm going to read it out. You don't have your brain to recall your computer brain like it's a Windows XP computer trying to book when it's a Windows XP computer trying to book flats at Christmas. I'm very proud of that. One. For those who are in the know, a lot of airlines still run on Windows XP, which is, I think, about four to five versions of Windows back. So we're talking like 2002 was when this was in its heyday. And it is quite scary that a lot of these very major companies who.
Zoë Wood 25:00
Your staff and whoever else you already have on board, then what can you automate? What tools are going to help you achieve those goals, those realistic goals that we've already set and going to help you focus on those priorities? What tools can you use to automate things? Now, of course, I can go through a list, but I do realize that I have talked and yet a long time on this episode, so you can go back to previous episodes and check the show notes for those you know previous podcasts where I talk about automated tools that can help you with your marketing. And don't worry, we're on the home stretch here. So if you're sick of my yapping, don't worry, we're almost there the things to prevent burnout and the future. So of course, we've already talked about things leading up to it, and now to wholeheartedly protect yourself in your branding and business endeavors, you can do these following things, planning ahead, giving yourself, giving your future self a little bit of a Don't worry. I gotcha, because past self has been doing a lot of nasty things to you, so making sure that you have a calendar in front of you and give yourself enough time to plan and prepare things. Give yourself some grace. Give yourself some space. If you are finding marketing a very much a chore and you're getting to that burnout stage, taking that break, even, if it is a small break, doing that and giving yourself that time celebrating small wins, you will have no idea how much I celebrated when I got my first lead through my social marketing and editors like I got a lead, she this woman said, I love your vibe. I love everything that you do. I want to know more about this. I sent it to the website. She filled in the form straight away, but I bing bada boom, and everything that I was doing worked out really well, and that only happened after consistency, after showing my face, after doing what I needed to do. Now, again, I'm not saying that you need to show your face, but I was there consistently for a good two three months, while I was still setting up my business and still setting up things, before I was able to get that lead. And it worked. So celebrate those small wins for yourself, even if it is just one service, one product, ad hoc thing, celebrate and always remember why you're marketing. It's not about those vanity metrics. Vanity metrics are just the numbers. Like, how many people saw this post? How many people are following me? How many people are like clicking the Share Like buttons? Are they generating you money? Are they generating you leads? Are they not? Are they growing that like and no factor connecting you to your audience and helping you grow your brand is why you're marketing and if you're finding that that's hard to swallow at the moment, take a break. Come back to it and feel at peace when you do marketing. Burnout is real for those who haven't experienced marketing burnout. Rosie, at your hand, I doubt you would have gotten through this entire podcast episode if you had not. But it doesn't have to be your burden to bear forever. By setting boundaries, simplifying your processes and being kind to yourself in those moments where it's not going the way that you planned, you can keep your own marketing strong without losing your mind. So taking a breath and maybe grabbing a snack, remind yourself that you've got this you are running or you are building a brand, and that's going to take time energy, and if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. But you are special because you are taking that initiative to do it. So thank you so much for joining us in the podcast today. I look forward to hearing and seeing all of your emails regarding this, regarding this episode, and if you have anything that you want to reach out to, all my details are at Vcc dot training, or you can email me at Zoe at Vcc dot training. Hear from you soon. Thank you for listening or watching unloring your brand. You can find detailed show notes with tools, offers and episode transcriptions, just click the first link in the description or go to Vcc dot training slash podcast. Get involved and ask me anything about personal branding, video strategy or just a friendly Small Business chat via my email, g'day at Vcc dot training, that is G, D, A, y at Vcc dot training, the video confidence coach, would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the wadawurrung people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which I record my podcast. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present, I stand with the traditional custodians of these lands and working towards a more equal future. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Look forward to me chatting at you next week. Superstars.
The above livestream episode description and transcript were generated together human knowledge + ai.
Who is your host?
Feeling stuck trying to build a personal brand that actually turns heads? Women and non-binary super-stars deserve more than just a cookie-cutter approach to their worries. Zoë Wood the Video Confidence Coach untangles your marketing mayhem, helping you own the camera, craft killer video strategies, and connect with your audience like never before. You’ll leave with the tools to show up, stand out, and smash your goals.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
Smashing Your Marketing Mayhem With Killer Video Strategies 🧡
Other related podcast episodes
Related weekly livestreams
