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Hello friends - and Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to you! 🧡

This is 195th edition of Fresh Salmon. This week, I want to pause for a second and simply say: thank you. For reading. For experimenting. For caring enough to make better marketing.

Over the past few weeks, I have has been on a mission - what I called my Thanksgiving Quest - to make gratitude actionable: through deeper client collaborations, smarter data, and sharper stories.

I’ve hit new milestones, but more importantly, I’ve learned things that reshaped how I think about content as a growth engine.

So today’s edition is both a celebration and a reflection - five hard-won lessons I believe every B2B founder, marketer, and creator should internalize before heading into 2026.

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1. Most Companies Don’t Have a Content Strategy - They Have Content in Silos

Let’s be honest: most teams still treat content like decoration, not infrastructure.

They know their business goals, but not how their content connects to those goals. Strategy becomes a set of “marketing activities” rather than a system that drives outcomes.

They think content is a campaign.

They think content is a project.

If your content doesn’t clearly map to one (or more) of the following, it’s not strategy - it’s noise:

• Revenue acceleration: turning attention into pipeline.

• Reputation: building authority in your category.

• Retention: deepening post-sale trust and advocacy.

A strong content strategy is a bridge, not a billboard. It starts from the business outcome, not from “what should we post next week?”

And don’t even get me started on trends-chasing….

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2. Repetition Is the Ultimate Growth Hack

Most teams underestimate the math of marketing.

A few months ago, our Instagram at TopHealth averaged 20K views a month across ~30 posts. Then we doubled our volume to 70 posts, and jumped to 90K views.

Then we went wild: 400 posts in a month. The result? 700K+ views.

It wasn’t luck. It was statistical relevance.

Too many brands test in microdoses - five posts, two weeks, a few impressions - and then decide “what works.” You can’t call it a test if your sample size is meaningless.

Repetition doesn’t just build skill; it builds signal.

• Volume = data.

• Data = insight.

• Insight = predictability.

If you want scalable growth, you need scalable reps.

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3. The Podcast Is Not PR. It’s the Engine.

The most misunderstood format in modern marketing is the podcast.
Everyone treats it like a press stop - a way to “get exposure”, when it’s actually the most efficient pillar-content engine you can build.

From one video episode, you can generate an entire media ecosystem:
Audio: Publish to Spotify, Apple, Amazon - your voice in their ears.
Video: Post full-length YouTube episodes for long-form discovery.
Clips: Slice 8-10 micro videos for Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok.
Text: Convert the transcript into SEO blogs or email newsletters.
Community: Use snippets in newsletters, Slack, or Notion.

That’s a single source powering your entire distribution loop - not a “nice-to-have.”

Podcasting isn’t just storytelling. It’s system building.

4. If You’re Not Doing Video, You’re Not in the Game

Let’s be clear: the internet’s native language is video.

If your marketing is still text-first, you’re whispering in a stadium full of screens.

Video is the medium that collapses trust gaps. It shows tone, credibility, and clarity in seconds. It’s also the only content format that can travel across every platform: YouTube, Reels, LinkedIn, TikTok, X, your website, even sales decks.

A single well-structured video podcast gives you 20+ derivative assets, each feeding a different layer of your funnel.

Text isn’t dead. It’s just second.
Every brand that wins in the next two years will be media-first, not message-first.

5. The Missing Ingredient: Strategic Narrative

Most founders and marketers don’t struggle with execution, they struggle with direction.

That’s because they’ve never articulated their strategic narrative:
a blend of core value proposition and point of view (POV).

Think of it like this:

Combine them, and you get a narrative that differentiates why you exist - not just what you sell.

Examples:

• Basecamp: “Work doesn’t have to be crazy.”

• HubSpot: “Stop interrupting. Start helping.”

• Tesla: “Accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

Those statements are not taglines; they’re philosophies. And everything, from content to culture, flows from them.

Your strategic narrative is your North Star. Without it, you’re just creating noise faster.

The Key Takeaways:

As we close this Thanksgiving stretch, here’s the distilled truth:

• Strategy without narrative = hollow.

• Content without repetition = invisible.

• Marketing without video = irrelevant.

We’re entering the media-first era of B2B, and those who master it will own the future of demand.

Thank you again for being part of this journey.
Here’s to sharper stories, bolder voices, and a 2026 built on clarity and compounding.

That’s it for this week! If you found this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend.

See you next time!

Do what is good for your soul ❤️

All the best,

Vivek

P.S. What’s the one lesson you learned this Thanksgiving season - in business or in life? Hit reply and tell me. I’ll feature a few reader responses in next week’s edition.