Want Better Content? Start with a Cornish Pasty. Seriously.

There are some things in life that just make sense. Tea and biscuits. The unmistakable smell of rain on hot tarmac. The unspoken (but universal) rule that people who clap as a plane lands should never be trusted.

Then there are things that make absolutely no sense at all. Like the fact that the word “queueing” has five vowels in a row but still only makes one sound. Or why, for reasons no one can fully explain, content marketing and Cornish pasties are essentially the same thing.

I appreciate that this may seem like the deranged ramblings of a man who has spent too long staring at his laptop, but I assure you, this is a realisation of staggering importance. So before you close this tab and retreat into the warm embrace of Facebook Reels, allow me to explain.

The Pasties of the Marketing World

The Cornish pasty, for those who were cruelly deprived of joy in their formative years, is not just food. It is an institution. A hearty, unapologetic, hand-held meal designed to withstand a full day in a tin mine and still emerge victorious. Steeped in heritage.

This is, you will agree, an astonishingly high bar for a lunch item.

But a proper pasty isn’t just any old combination of pastry and filling. No, no, no. It has structure. It has purpose. It has a job to do. If you are still following this increasingly tenuous analogy, so does your content marketing.

Let me take you on a journey.

Create content you can be proud of

1. The Crust: Your Brand Identity

The crust of a Cornish pasty is more than just crust. It is a feat of engineering, carefully designed to keep the whole thing from disintegrating into a tragic, beefy mess. In the past, miners would hold the pasty by the thick edge of the crust—because their hands were covered in unspeakable substances—then discard the crust after eating. (This, if nothing else, explains why there are no documented cases of miners licking their fingers after lunch.)

In the world of content marketing, your brand identity is your crust.

It is what holds everything together. It gives your content structure, consistency, and a recognisable shape. It makes people say, “Ah yes, this is from that business I like” instead of, “Did an unsupervised toddler with a crayon write this with his face?”

Without a solid crust—a strong, distinct brand voice—your content is just a formless pile of mush, which, incidentally, is what happens when you order a pasty from anywhere outside Cornwall.

Elevate your content

2. The Filling: The Actual Content

Now we get to the good bit—the filling.

A proper Cornish pasty contains beef, potato, onion, and swede. Not carrots. Not chicken tikka. And certainly not—heaven preserve us—cheese and beans. Just beef, potato, onion, and swede.

This is because the filling of a pasty has a job to do: to nourish, to satisfy, and to keep you going. It is not an experimental art project.

Similarly, your content needs to do its job properly. It should be useful, engaging, and actually relevant to the person consuming it. A lot of marketing copy is either so bland it could be mistaken for a government leaflet, so full of itself, it probably refers to itself in the third person.

Good content should feed the audience, not just exist for the sake of it. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, it’s just filler. And no one wants a pasty full of nonsense and disappointment.

Don’t out your audience to sleep with boring content and superfluous filler

3. The Balance: Keeping Your Content Digestible

The beauty of a Cornish pasty is its balance. There is a precise amount of pastry-to-filling ratio that makes it a joy to eat rather than an ordeal.

If there’s too much pastry, it becomes dry and difficult to get through. Too much filling, and you have a situation on your hands—possibly literally—as the whole thing collapses under its own weight.

This, remarkably, is exactly what happens when businesses produce content that is either too light on substance or too heavy on unnecessary detail.

For example, imagine a company website where the homepage simply says “We exist.”

This is the content equivalent of handing someone a dry lump of pastry and calling it lunch. It is technically food, but it will bring joy to no one. Just sadness.

Now imagine the opposite—a company brochure so bloated with technical jargon that by the second paragraph, you feel like you need a translator and a stiff drink.

That’s a pasty with too much filling. Overwhelming, difficult to digest and likely to make people give up before they’ve finished.

The secret to good content (and good pasties) is balance. Enough detail to be useful and satisfying, but not so much that it requires a nap immediately after consumption.

Boring content can turn your audience away

4. The Crimp: The Finishing Touches

Finally, we come to the crimp—the iconic, final touch that makes a Cornish pasty recognisably Cornish.

The crimp seals the deal, gives the pasty its distinct look, and (if you’re from Cornwall) serves as a very serious point of regional pride and/or hostility.

In content marketing, the crimp is your polish. Your formatting. Your proofreading. The difference between a blog that people actually enjoy and one that makes them question whether the author has ever seen a comma before.

Typos, bad design, confusing layouts—all of these are the equivalent of a badly crimped pasty. You might think you’ve got away with it, but people will notice. And they will judge you. Like a stern village fete judge eyeing a soggy Victoria sponge.

The cherry on top

Final Thoughts (or, The Bit Where I Tie This Mess Together with Duct Tape and Hope for the Best)

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You now understand that content marketing and Cornish pasties are, in fact, the same thing.

Both require structure, balance, quality, and a clear purpose. Both need to be well-packaged, enjoyable to consume, and not overcomplicated to the point of disaster. Both, when done properly, will leave people satisfied, engaged, and possibly wanting more.

So, the next time you sit down to write a blog, plan your marketing, or generally consider the state of your content, ask yourself this simple question:

"Is this a proper pasty?"

And if the answer is no, fix it.