The Easier Way to Create Content for Your Business

Marketing in 2026 might be more complex than ever. Although entry is easier and you can target your exact demographic, everyone is doing it. Back in the day, you had to have a rather large advertising budget to make an impact. There were limitations in how many billboards you could buy, how many ad slots were in television shows, and how big your ad could be in the newspaper. Now, there’s really no cap. If you want to make a commercial, there are countless streaming shows that will make sure it shows up on someone’s TV.

And because we are being sold to at every moment of the day, we are tuning out. If you are scanning a website, it’s very unlikely you will even notice the 300x250 ad in the corner. The moment we get a skip ad button on the video, we press it. And if you are a streaming channel that forces me to watch ads, I will likely take this time to play on my phone.

So how are brands existing? The traditional advertising methods are getting noisier and becoming less effective. Are they just burning money?

No. Advertising and marketing don’t stop. Most have shifted their approach.

Content Marketing

The term content marketing sometimes comes off as “writing blogs.” I think that was the easiest way to explain it in the early days of websites and SEO. The hack was to write a bunch of content about a specific topic and your brand would start to show up for these terms when users were searching online. This was a great way to get users into the buyer’s journey with your brand and hopefully become customers. Brands like HubSpot named this inbound marketing. We create something you discover based on an online query and guide the path toward purchase. Well, things evolved from just a bunch of blogs.

Once everyone was doing this, the internet got really crowded. Every lawyer was giving you the same blog about what to do when you are in a car accident. Bigger websites started doing the same thing so they could get ad revenue from the views. The odds of a local brand ranking became more and more difficult.

Facebook and Twitter became the new form of content marketing. These free channels were kind to business accounts at first. We could push to our blogs and push users into the buyer’s journey. It was a bit less about the algorithm and more about convincing friends and family to like and follow. At first, we were good with the written content, but soon images and graphics took over.

Email marketing started to become easier. MailChimp and Constant Contact were being promoted and made simple for businesses to easily develop a list and send out updates.

As the internet evolved, video and audio started to reign supreme. If you were a pioneer, you had a YouTube channel or a podcast to provide content to your audience. These efforts would let you connect with your audience and really amplify your voice and brand. Once short-form videos came along, good luck with your traditional graphic posts.

All of the goals remained the same. Brands were going to put time and effort into building content with the hopes that people would discover their brand. It’s not very different than traditional brand advertising. Add your name to a billboard and leave it there for a year. People will at least know your name and sooner or later will be given a choice to select your name vs. someone else’s. In this case, they will think about the content they’ve read or watched and, when given a choice, decide on your brand because you’ve helped them out in the past and they trust you.

It’s a bit more subliminal, but super effective.

Does it take more time? Most would argue yes. Constantly having something to say, providing value, and making it inspiring, entertaining, or educational is usually harder than creating one ad and throwing it into a rotation for the next six weeks.

The Frustration with Digital Marketing

Content marketing seemed affordable. Everyone can blog, right? Just open up a doc and type. If this marketing channel was effective, you could save thousands instead of paying for a radio ad each month. Sure, in theory.

Businesses started to ask owners to blog. Their admin staff was in charge of adding posts to social media and sending out an email. Their nephew or niece would stop by and make them some videos for TikTok. Tech wasn’t really the problem. Strategy and execution were.

Over time, the social posts stopped once the staff got too busy. The blogs had no purpose and the owner was frustrated that no one was reading them, even though they spent three hours on them. The TikTok videos were funny, but didn’t seem to make any sense with anything else the company was producing. And when you add up all of the time and energy, you almost thought you should have just bought a billboard. At least you know what you were getting.

But if you were an early pioneer in content marketing and gave up, you are absolutely missing out on a necessary aspect of digital marketing. Every day, people are discovering and trusting brands online. Being completely absent from the channel that is driving most modern-day consumers is just asking for your business to hit a plateau or sink in the future.

So what do you do? You reach out to an advertising agency and ask them to present some options. They come in with their digital specialists and give you a list of twenty different things you can do. They want you to buy ads on Google, retargeting campaigns for Facebook, geotargeting display ads on third-party partners...

God, what are they even saying? That’s the common response. You either just take their word for it and let them do their “digital” thing or stop the entire process because it’s too overwhelming. Who is going to create all of this and how much will it cost? What is it supposed to cost? Would it just be easier to make a TV commercial and call it a day?

This is the circle we find ourselves in.

What Do You Really Need to Do to Be Visible Online?

Okay, digital marketing can be super complex and there are tons of options to reach your main audience. But most businesses are not in a situation where they have to be so specific or advanced. They get so sold on eliminating advertising waste with these niche packages that they cripple themselves and take no action. Instead, we know all brands benefit from people knowing who they are and what they do. Branding.

Website (Search and AI)

If this was just a few years ago, we would be talking about your website in relationship to Google. The information on your website really defines how Google views and ranks your business on the internet. It’s important, and will likely always be important, that your website shows up when users type in related queries about your services and industry.

The more information you give, the more sources referencing your content online, and the more users finding it beneficial, all of this is super important to how you rank. The higher you rank, the more likely a user will click on your website and know about your brand. The algorithms have changed over the years, but the premise has been pretty much the same.

And things won’t necessarily need to change too much with AI and the new discovery methods used by people and chat, but they could.

If you were a client that built a website and left it alone for years, you might find yourself in trouble. As people start utilizing AI for direct answers, they won’t be hitting your website. Someone will ask for the best dentist in Wheeling, WV, and AI will scrape the internet based on what it knows about that user and what it finds online and make a recommendation. Maybe the customer goes to your website, but if you don’t convince AI that you are the best with information on your website, you will never get mentioned.

Maybe an eight-year-old website might have relevant information, but it’s likely that websites adding information on a frequent basis will get the nod.

This does not mean blogging, but instead making sure relevant questions and information are being answered on the site. Things change year over year, industry-wide or internally, and having updated information is going to be vital for recommendations.

Every business needs to have a good digital footprint via their website. It needs to be organized and informational.

Social Media

As much as a web designer hates to hear it, people really do search and determine a brand’s authority by looking at their social media. It might not be the first place they go, but if you are really considering working with a company, you usually check out a social platform. And if the social media looks unprofessional or non-existent, the business loses credibility.

For this reason, most businesses invest some time and energy into creating social content. Not all businesses need to be on every channel, but you should be where your main customers hang out.

Do you need to have viral content? No. Do you need to post daily? No.

Do you need to be consistent? Yes. Do you need to look professional? Yes.

Not all social media brands are going to be a fun follow. We can’t all show pictures of puppies and delicious food. But you can provide value, answer questions, and show that you have someone there paying attention.

Every business should have some type of social media presence. Even if you are posting into the void, when you get that one customer that is shopping around, it’s important they can find you and your content looks helpful and impressive.

Email Marketing

You should have a list of customers or clients that you can bypass the algorithm and reach directly. Email marketing might seem like a bunch of spam at times, but there is no better way to get a message out than emailing your brand advocates.

Whether it be promoting a sale, an event, or breaking down something that has happened with the business this month, each business can really find a reason to connect. Of course, we don’t want to send out messages that don’t provide value. But value doesn’t always mean a sale or coupon. Letting your customers know what’s been going on with the business over the last month might be valuable.

If you are a business, you should have an email list and make sure you reach out a few times a year so you stay relevant and top of mind.

Audio & Video (Short-Form, Podcasts, YouTube)

This can be the trickiest one for most businesses. Talking on camera can be hard. Not everyone is a performer or, let’s be honest, interesting. But we often think of podcasts and YouTube videos as entertaining or funny. That’s not the case. Many times, I’ve watched some random dude help me fix a broken dishwasher or explain how to install a windshield wiper blade. And I’ve listened to a ton of podcasts that had less-than-entertaining guests but provided insights that I couldn’t get from anywhere else.

And this is a huge ask for business owners. How the heck can I get the production equipment to make this happen? How can I edit the video or audio? Well, odds are you might need some help. But the tools are more than available these days.

But why do I need to create video or audio content?

There are lots of reasons why these mediums are important, but the major reason is discovery. YouTube is the second biggest search engine. If you solve someone’s problem, you want to be on the medium people are using.

TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts are gaining more engagement than any other type of post on social platforms. And all of the videos are unique and different based on the industry. Sometimes it’s a simple direct-to-camera selfie, sometimes it’s highly produced, and often it’s a combination of short clips and commentary.

And even though podcasts are crowded, there is no better way to have long-form conversations about a topic and build your online authority than creating a podcast series.

If you are a business that wants to win online, you should have some type of video component posted on YouTube and repurposed on social media.

Paid Digital

Although paid digital is not considered content marketing, the truth is you have to give your content a bit of a boost. We are no longer in a world where if you post it, they will find it. Viral videos are unpredictable and impossible to manifest. You can follow trends and understand an average, but if you want a guarantee that your message or content gets seen, you will need to add some money to it.

More importantly, you can also amplify the content that is already breaking through. If your audience likes a post, adding some additional money to boost it is a way that you can really gain more traffic and new eyeballs by directly targeting.

We all love organic reach, but it’s foolish to simply eliminate paid advertising. The game has changed and, in order to get maximum value, you need to pay a little to make sure your content doesn’t just hang out in a void.

All successful businesses looking to maximize their online visibility should have a paid component to social media, search, or targeting.

Putting It All Together

Let’s say you buy in. You want to be visible online, but this sounds like a bunch of work. More importantly, it looks like a bunch of isolated marketing activities. How can you make everything work together? Well, it turns out it’s a bit easier than you think.

Creating pillar content and repurposing isn’t anything new. For a while now, someone will write a blog and then turn that blog into several social posts and an email. The same is being done now with long-form content on YouTube. Create the video and then break it up into bite-sized chunks on social.

We just so happened to find out a way to make these pieces all work together while still giving the flexibility for a client to push out new messages and information as needed.

We’ve learned from building countless websites, launching social campaigns, and helping with general marketing that all of the good stuff comes from the actual words of the people in the company. Sure, we can research the snot out of their industry and create ranking pages, but what really separates businesses is the people and their process and systems. This is what is unique and can’t be easily replicated from researching a competitor’s website.

And this is what is really going to move the needle for business owners in the future. Their words, not some AI slop that has been regurgitated and watered down over time.

The only way to get this information is to talk to the actual people in the business. And it turns out, if we dedicate our time to talking to one person in the business, we can get everything we need for a podcast, YouTube video, email blast, several blogs, updated website information, and more than enough for social posts. And we have a process that makes it affordable, cohesive, and effective.

Each element can be catered to a specific audience and gives visibility in all areas while really building authority in one subject at a time. Imagine the content you will have at the end of six months or a year.

• 12 podcasts
• 12 long-form YouTube videos
• 48 blogs
• 12-20 updated website pages
• 120 social posts (per channel)
• 48 short-form videos
• 12 email blasts

If people aren’t finding you online after this distribution, you have a product that no one is interested in.

What Do We Need to Do?

All we need is access to someone in the business that wants to chat and knows the product. If they are video or audio friendly, we make that conversation into a podcast or video. If they prefer to be behind closed doors, we transcribe the conversation and build the content around it.

One hour of time to talk about the business. That’s it. We provide some frameworks and some general questions that we will ask. Prep if you want, but for the most part we will come ready to ask some questions. Sometimes it’s no different than talking to a customer and answering their questions. This is what people want to hear.

Each month you can have us talk to someone else. Or it can be the same person. We just want the information. We can take that one conversation and turn it into everything we’ve discussed.

This has absolutely been a game changer for some of our clients.

So much easier than asking them to write us a blog. Far easier than coming out and filming them every single month for short-form skits. Even easier, and better quality, for social posts that we scatter on their channels throughout the month.

Visibility is up. Traffic is up. Quality is better. Work is consistent.

Branding is visible.

When Will We Be Launching?

Strong Minded Agency has been doing pilot programs for over a year. We understand the process, the cadence, the work, and also what works vs. what doesn’t. We are looking to roll this out to a select few clients in 2026, but will make it available for everyone in 2027.

We are creating plans that will hopefully work for various budgets. We are efficient with our process, but also want to help out both big and small businesses. Finding the right level of “you can get away with doing just this and see results” is where we really need to understand. Something is better than nothing, but the last thing we want to do is offer something that doesn’t get you the bang for the buck. This is where it always gets tricky.

But we are excited to bring a new way of content marketing that is easy for the business owner. What do I need to do? Talk to us once a month. That’s it. The experts handle the rest.

If you are interested in our pilot program, reach out today and let’s chat.