Content teams are always busy. When they’re not writing blogs, scheduling social posts, or sending out newsletters, they’re researching topics for their next projects. On paper, everything your content team is doing looks and feels productive.

But when your leadership team asks what that work is achieving, the answer is sometimes unclear. Traffic and engagement are one thing, but real commercial impact is harder to prove. This is often when budgets come under scrutiny.

In situations like these, many organisations arrive at the same solution: they need more content, delivered faster. In reality, the problem is rarely about content volume or even quality. The real issue is how that content is being used or, more precisely, how it isn’t.

The truth is you don’t always need to be working harder to create more content – you also need to make it work harder for you.

Disposable content

In many businesses, content is still treated as ‘here today, gone tomorrow’. Like yesterday’s newspaper, content is often published, promoted, and distributed briefly, and then forgotten about as the team moves on to the next item in the calendar. This mindset ignores a basic commercial truth: content is an investment that needs to be nurtured.

Even a short, high-quality blog post represents hours of thinking, writing, reviewing, and publishing. Larger assets like buying guides, research reports, or white papers are an even greater time commitment. If all that work is spent on a page used properly once and then forgotten about, a lot of value is wasted.

Why more content alone is rarely the answer

When results from content and marketing campaigns disappoint, a common instinctive response is to increase output. After all, more content surely means more traffic, right? Many people believe this to be true and think as long as the line on the graph is going up, everything is fine. In the long run, though, this approach rarely works without the right strategy.

The internet is a big place. More than 2.5 billion new blog posts are published every year, according to Semrush. So, no matter how much content you churn out, it’ll always be a drop in the ocean in terms of volume.

In The Mythical Man-Month (1975), Fred Brooks explains why adding more people to a late software project often delays it further. When performance dips, organisations often respond by throwing more resources at the problem. On paper, it looks logical – more hands should mean faster progress. But as coordination increases in complexity, what was previously a well-oiled machine becomes clunky and overengineered. What should increase efficiency in theory often does the exact opposite in practice.

Content behaves in the same way – you can’t fix a strategic problem by increasing volume alone. So, what’s the answer?

Designing content to work harder

Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer for the Content Marketing Institute, says the goal is to ‘create the least amount of content with the maximum amount of impact’.

The most effective and focused content strategies operate on exactly this principle. Their aim is to produce the minimum amount of content required to achieve a clear business outcome.

A well-researched, well-written, engaging, and authoritative piece of content takes a long time to create. But that one piece can fuel blog articles, sales conversations, thought leadership pieces, social media posts, webinars, and long-term evergreen demand. Not as an afterthought, but by design.

This is where most organisations fall short. They think solely in terms of outputs: “Have we published? Is the box ticked? OK, let’s move on.”

A strategic approach asks different questions, like:

  • How long should this asset work for us?
  • How can it support revenue, trust, and authority in multiple ways?
  • How do we extend its lifespan rather than replace it?

This shift in thinking is the foundation of a content strategy that increases impact without necessarily increasing effort.

AI makes strategy more important, not less

Whenever discussions around content volume and efficiency come up, AI is always the elephant in the room.

Generative AI can save hours of planning, ideation, and iteration on a single piece when used well. On the other hand, over-reliance on AI risks flooding your brand’s channels with competent but forgettable, shallow content that sounds like everything and everyone else out there.

AI-powered search is another factor. As AI becomes increasingly popular with creators, content depth, focus, and expertise matter even more. In 2025, research by Surfer SEO found AI prioritises citing sources that demonstrate credibility, clarity, and authority.

If your organisation only provides shallow coverage across too many topics, you’re likely to be weakening your performance against these factors. In other words, it’s not about more content, it’s about maximising its value – especially when AI is deciding who gets seen and when.

The importance of high-intent content

Even the most well-written content is useless if the right people can’t find it.

Strategic SEO content focuses on targeting users who are already experiencing the problem you’re offering to solve by aligning your output with their search intent. You’re no longer convincing an audience to care – you’re meeting them where that level of care already exists.

Over time, this reduces reliance on outbound activity, paid media, and resource-heavy campaigns. With the right strategic outlook, your content continues to attract demand long after it is published, compounding its return.

This is crucial for executives who need content to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI). Content aligned to intent isn’t just about branding. It’s there to make your content perform as efficiently as possible by capturing demand from people who are already looking to act.

Why ROI breaks down at leadership level

When content struggles to secure or retain a budget, it’s rarely because the content itself is poor, but rather because the strategy behind its creation is unclear or poorly communicated.

Too often, content teams operate in isolation from commercial outcomes. They’re measured on activity, while leadership is measured on results. The disconnect between those two goals is where ROI disappears.

Reporting frequently reinforces the issue. Impressions, likes, and shares are easy to track, but they don’t answer executive-level questions like:

  • What did this influence?
  • Who did it reach?
  • How did it support pipeline or conversion?

Without clear measurement tied to business objectives, content (and its budget) becomes vulnerable. Not because it lacks value, but because it can’t prove its worth.

Strategy first

If content isn’t delivering the results you need, don’t make the mistake of pushing on with the same plan. Instead, stop to reassess your strategy and try a different approach.

A strong content strategy defines who you’re trying to reach, the value you provide, how success is measured, and how assets will be distributed and extended over time. Without that foundation, content becomes busy work.

If your content team is stretched, the answer isn’t to increase output. It’s to assign clearer priorities, ensure tighter alignment to demand and intent, and formulate a strategy that allows every asset to perform at its best. That’s how focused teams outperform larger ones, and why a better strategy beats more content alone every time.

Let SALT.agency help with your content marketing strategy

Our content marketing services help brands earn attention, build authority, and get target audiences talking to you. If you need support with your content strategy, get in touch with our expert team today.