Reach is dead. Retention is everything.
There’s a shift happening right now that most businesses haven’t clocked yet.
For years, the marketing playbook was simple: get in front of as many people as possible. More followers, more impressions, more reach. The bigger the number, the better the strategy.
That playbook is dead.
In 2026, every major platform (LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) has fundamentally changed what it rewards. It’s no longer about how many people see your content. It’s about what they do when they see it. Watch time. Saves. Comments. Whether someone follows you after viewing, not just scrolls past.
The algorithms have caught up with something that good marketers have always known: attention without connection is just noise.
The brands getting punished right now
If your marketing strategy is “be everywhere, post often, hope something sticks,” you’re about to have a rough year.
The brands I’m seeing struggle are the ones doing exactly what felt like best practice three years ago. They’re posting daily across five platforms. They’re chasing trends. They’re measuring success by likes and impressions. And they’re wondering why none of it is translating into actual business.
Here’s why: the platforms don’t care about volume anymore. They care about whether your audience cares about you. A post that 200 people genuinely engage with (save, share, comment on, come back to) will outperform a post that 2,000 people passively scroll past. The game has changed, and it rewards depth over breadth.
This isn’t just a social media thing, either. The era of reaching people through borrowed data is fading fast. Businesses that have invested in understanding their own audience, through email lists, direct relationships, loyalty programmes, genuine community, are seeing stronger returns on their marketing spend. The businesses that relied on rented audiences are scrambling.
Why this matters if you’re a founder or scaling brand
I know what you might be thinking: “This sounds like a problem for big brands with big budgets.”
It’s actually the opposite.
If you’re running a growing business with a small marketing team and a careful budget, this shift is in your favour. Because you were never going to win the reach game anyway. You don’t have the spend to outshout the competition across every channel. But you absolutely can out-think them.
When platforms reward relevance over volume, the advantage goes to the businesses who know exactly who they’re talking to and why. The ones with clear positioning. The ones whose content speaks directly to a specific audience rather than vaguely to everyone.
That’s always been true strategically. What’s changed is that the platforms are now enforcing it algorithmically.
I’ve seen this before
I spent 15 years at Xbox, working on launches for titles like Forza and Minecraft Legends across 40+ markets. We had significant reach. Global campaigns, millions of impressions, all the metrics you could want.
But the campaigns that actually moved the needle? They were never the ones with the biggest reach numbers. They were the ones where we understood the community deeply enough to create something that genuinely resonated. Where players didn’t just see the campaign. They talked about it, shared it, made it part of their identity.
The games with the most loyal, engaged communities weren’t the ones that shouted loudest. They were the ones that listened best.
That lesson has stuck with me, and it’s more relevant now than ever. Whether you’re marketing a global gaming franchise or a growing consumer brand, the principle is the same: depth of connection beats width of distribution. Every time.
What to do about it
If you’re reading this thinking “I need to rethink my approach,” here’s where to start:
Get clear on who your audience actually is. Not “everyone who might buy from us”. Your real audience. The people who need what you offer, value what makes you different, and are ready to act. If you can’t describe them in specific, human terms, that’s the first thing to fix.
Stop measuring the wrong things. Impressions and follower counts feel good but they don’t pay the bills. Start tracking what matters: engagement quality, saves, direct messages, repeat visits, conversions. The metrics that tell you whether people actually care, not just whether they saw you.
Do fewer things, better. Pick the two or three channels where your audience genuinely spends time and show up there with content that’s worth their attention. Consistency and relevance on two platforms will always beat scattered, mediocre presence on six.
Build direct relationships. Your email list, your community, your existing customers. These are your most valuable marketing assets now. They’re people who’ve already chosen to hear from you. Nurture those relationships before chasing new ones.
Lead with value, not volume. Every piece of content you create should answer a simple question: is this useful, interesting, or meaningful to the specific person I’m trying to reach? If the answer isn’t a confident yes, don’t publish it.
The businesses that will win in 2026
The marketing landscape is shifting towards something I’ve believed in for a long time: knowing your audience isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.
The businesses that will thrive this year aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets or the most followers. They’re the ones with the clearest understanding of who they’re for, what those people need, and how to show up for them in a way that earns genuine attention.
Reach got us here. Retention is what takes us forward.
If your marketing feels busy but directionless, it might be time to go back to the foundations. My Marketing Strategy Sprint engagement helps you answer the three questions that change everything: Who are your customers? What makes you different? How do you reach them effectively?
Book a discovery call and let’s talk about building a strategy that actually connects.
