If your content isn’t getting results, the problem probably isn’t your captions, posting schedule, graphics, hashtags, or the algorithm.

In this episode of Rooted Business, Rachel and Jessica break down the real reason content often falls flat: a missing strategy foundation. They explain why so many business owners are stuck creating more content without seeing more leads, sales, or momentum—and how building the “soil” beneath your content changes everything.

You’ll hear why strategy has to come before tactics, how content should support your full customer journey, and what it looks like to create content that compounds over time instead of forcing you to start from scratch every week.

Rachel and Jessica also share practical examples of how intentional, evergreen content can continue attracting and converting leads long after it’s published. If you’ve been posting consistently but not seeing meaningful business results, this episode will help you step back, refocus, and build a content system that actually works.

In this episode, we cover:

Why more posting does not fix weak content strategy

The hidden cost of skipping the strategy layer

How to think about content beyond just social media

Why content should move people through different stages of awareness

How evergreen content can keep generating leads over time

The difference between attracting attention and attracting aligned leads

The 3 questions to ask before creating any piece of content

Key takeaway:

You are not doing content wrong—you may just be doing it in the wrong order. When your content is rooted in business goals, customer awareness, and a clear strategic perspective, it becomes far more effective at generating qualified leads, building trust, and driving conversions.

Resources mentioned:

The Rooted Content Ecosystem Guide : https://deeply-rooted-business.kit.com/46776be006

Rachel’s Align Lead Formula: https://gal-agency.com/aligned

Connect with us:

If this episode resonated, share it with a business bestie, leave a review, or send us a message. Your support helps the show grow.

If your content isn't working, I want to offer you a reframe.

That may sting a little at first, but I promise you is actually good news.

The reason your content isn't working is almost certainly not the captions you're putting in.

It's not the amount that you're posting.

It's not the graphics, the hashtag, or the algorithm.

It's what's happening or maybe what's not happening before all of that.

And I think, honestly, once you see this, you're not going to be able to unsee this.

Yes.

I am so excited, because today we are going to be talking about probably the one thing that most of what you see on TikTok Instagram, all those social media gurus, completely skip.

And that is something that Rachel and I are so passionate about, which is the foundation.

We did name our podcast Rooted Business after all, and that's because we are really passionate about being intentional.

And that means focusing on the strategy layer, or what we call the soil layer, of our content system.

And we're going to make a case for this process with real examples, real data on why building your soil or strategy first is the single highest leverage thing that you can do for your business as a whole.

Not just your content, but your business, your revenue, your peace of mind, the whole shebang.

This episode is for you.

If you have been showing up consistently posting, whether it's emailing or.

Or maybe even doing podcasts, this and the results just aren't matching your efforts, maybe you're not getting all of the inquiries you're hoping.

Maybe your list is just kind of stagnant and not growing much.

And if you're starting to wonder if your content even works or if you're kind of just going through the motions here, I want to tell you, you are doing it right.

You're just doing it in the wrong order.

And that's exactly what we're going to fix here today.

To be walking you through three things today.

Number one, why skipping your strategy part is costing you even more than you actually realize what it actually looks like to build the soil or build a solid foundation before you jump into creation mode.

And how getting this one layer right changes everything downstream, so how it affects your sales, your content, your leads, your time.

All right, so let's get into number one, which is why skipping strategy is costing you more than you think.

And if you've had the belief that, well, my content's not working because I'm either not posting enough or I'm not doing the right things, or whatever the case may be.

I want you to think back to this.

That is the very tactical layer of things.

The more, more, more idea of it when you don't necessarily have the, you know, solid foundation.

Posting more doesn't solve the actual intentionality, the strategy that's rooted in it.

So if you keep thinking, oh, I just need to do this, or I just need to do a little bit more, I need to be more consistent, you end up kind of staying stuck in that, burning out, disappearing, starting over, which, hello, we are all familiar with.

I literally just went through it because I got busy and said, bye, bye.

I don't actually need to post anything right now, which I think is important to acknowledge.

So without this strategy level, you are essentially gardening in concrete.

Very.

You may have that stubborn weed that comes up out of that concrete crack every once in a while, and that may give you a little bit of hope, but ultimately you're making it a lot harder for yourself.

When the real cost isn't just time here, the real cost is you're losing what we call that compounding content, that effect of it all that isn't building upon it.

So every single time you sit down and say, what am I posting this week?

And you're really just having to start from zero every single time.

So it's really understanding how the intentionality of establishing why you're posting, who you're talking to, and all of those various components together really do build you up towards that bigger kind of more intentional impact that your content could be providing.

Yeah, I mean, I kind of remember going back to baby business owner Jess, and at that time we were going into Instagrams.

It was really big with the.

The dancing and the pointing and the voiceovers and the trends, because TikTok was kind of just taking off.

And in reality, jumping on any of those trends did not help me because I didn't actually know what I wanted my content to do.

So, yeah, you know, I needed to back up and answer, who am I talking to?

What do I need?

What do they need to believe?

What do I want them to do next?

And when you have the answers to those questions, you're not going to be starting staring at a pace.

You're starting with a goal in mind.

This is something that Rachel and I to do before every podcast.

We answer, what is the business goal of this podcast?

What is, you know, what do we want the person consuming this episode to walk away out of it?

And then really intentionally, what do we want to do next?

And when you create your content that way it becomes such a more, much more powerful piece in your overall business strategy.

Yeah.

And I want to give just a little bit of case study or something people can tap into here because I think most people understand the depth of strategy when it comes to a launch.

Right.

You have the FAQs, you have the objections, you have all of these various pieces that are moving into really determining how to talk to your audience in a launch to get them to do whatever you needed to do.

The part where people really lose their minds and don't know what they're doing is when they are not in that launch mentality.

And it's kind of this limbo between sales periods or maybe you just need one extra client or whatever the case may be.

And so if you yourself can understand that when you're launching, you have to have that strategy of answering and moving people through a very specific journey.

I'm gonna simplify it for you.

It's the exact same strategy when you're not launching.

It's just way more drawn out.

It's way more kind of at a softer, slower pace and it's more repetitive in that sense.

So in.

I have a lot of my clients that, you know, come to me before this and I'm posting a million times a week or however many times, and they're like, I'm not seeing anything.

And.

Well, what is it that you're posting?

I got a lovely little cadence here.

I post two testimonials and I do this, and I do this and it's, it's still is not doing anything for you.

So understanding that the content has to be rooted in intention for whatever that motion is, and if it really does help tapping into understanding how launch strategy works, you can really kind of reframe that for how the rest of that non launch window can, can work as well.

Yeah, I mean, I, I love that because I tell them, I tell that to my clients all the time.

They're.

I hate to launch, I hate to launch.

You're basically launching all the time.

But a launch is just a way more intentional way of selling what you're doing.

I mean, you're, I mean, if you're creating content in your business, you should be technically creating this type of launch content all the time.

And that's what this strategy layer is.

I know we talked about your align leads formula last week, but I just kind of.

There's a section in that one where you kind of walk through the customer journey.

Problem awareness, solution, aware.

And then you talk about the specific things that your customer is feeling and seeing the emotional physical.

You could probably tell me the exact things tactical but it clicks for me.

And that even though that was more email based and helping you create what your lead magnet is, that's kind of the lens that you should be looking through your con all your content with because most people know who they serve.

But it's very few have taken the time to do a deep dive into the specific beliefs or feelings or emotions.

Not just they could go to Starbucks, but what specific things are they complaining about to their friends?

What are they laying in bed thinking about?

What are you know, what are they worried about?

And speaking to those specific pain points and desires.

That's like really one of my favorite prompts to give chatgpt when I'm helping it, when I'm asking it to help me with content.

And I was okay, this is great but let's speak to my customer specific pain points and desires and a way to get to that, a cheat code to actually getting to that is you could take your discovery call applications, I've done this for all my clients and put this, put that into your GPT and you're going to be able to pull out that voice of the mess the customer messaging and then that is what goes into your copy bible so that you always know that each piece of content speaks to that.

Yeah.

And I mean and I think we're a little guilty of this too.

When we're talking about content.

Maybe we need to be a little bit more specific and say this is not just social media, this is top of funnel all the way down to your emails and every point of conversion or of the funnel of awareness is content related.

Right.

You have to be able to say I know what content to create to get new eyeballs.

Maybe it is those dancing pointing reels, but I also need to know what type of content is going to take somebody that's problem aware to solution aware and get them to either book an application with me or book a discovery call, whatever the case may be.

So content exists at all levels of your ecosystem and it really is important to understand the depth of it because you can really just be stuck in the social media content bucket and that only takes you so far.

Really knowing how to get people off of that platform is the key to get them to then do whatever you need them to do, whether it's download a freebie, read a blog, whatever it takes them through that next stage of awareness.

So understanding what, what we call as the soil, the strategy, understanding what that strategy actually is and Know exactly what.

It's also not.

The goal is not to keep them on, on Instagram, binging, all of your reels.

The goal is to get them off platform, which is why.

Yeah.

And if you only create content for the per.

I think that's really with the trap that most people fall into when their content's not connecting, is that they're only creating content for the.

Their avatar in a specific phase.

So they maybe they're creating a lot of educational content, which is great when you're trying to build trust and trust and authority with your person.

But maybe it's not attracting people because you're not attracting any of that.

Or maybe you're never shifting beliefs or mindsets, or maybe you're never sharing what your actual framework is.

You need all the pieces of those, those puzzles to make it work in every single piece of the content that you create.

Yeah.

So then that brings us to our final point, which is how actually having rooted soil, having an actual strategy really does change everything downstream.

So what we're saying is essentially getting really, really clear on the impact that a single action that you're going to do has for whatever your business goal is.

And I think this is where Jess and I always start backwards here.

We say, okay, what is the business goal?

How do we work ourselves back from it?

And then we have a more clear starting point.

Because when you're not working, I guess in reverse engineering it from a business goal, you really could end up anywhere.

You really could just be, you know, attracting the wrong person or.

I've seen this a million times and I'm sure, Jess, you have too, where it's.

You're doing something, you really do think it's working, but you're actually attracting unqualified leads that you'll book the discovery calls because maybe they have the right pain points.

And then they actually get on the call and they have no budget, which means they are not an ideal client.

So you're sitting there and you're man, but something's working.

Right.

They're getting my people to do something for me, but it's what isn't, because I don't think it really is.

So I really think that this is where understanding how the intentionality and the impact of one doing it, I wouldn't say wrong, but doing it kind of all over the place versus doing it with this intention in mind.

Can one save you those 30 minutes, 40 minutes that somebody's booked on your calendar and end up being completely unqualified?

So save you that time.

But also Save you time and being like it's working.

But I think, I don't know is it not working?

I. I think that's the part that is really how this can compound improperly for you.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean and I'll talk about how it came compound.

Great.

I'm gonna give an example because I just had, I was telling Rachel that we just got another quiz client discovery call booked.

And it's funny because I worked on last year specifically creating evergreen YouTube videos that hit each one of those problem stage awareness.

And because of how they're crafted and because they're evergreen and because I made sure that their SEO searchable.

Even a year later they're still bringing in clients and converting them.

So I kind of just to bring you through it and I hope I get it in the right order.

Rachel, you can tell me if I'm wrong.

But the first video I did was ditch the dusty freebie.

Tried this instead of instead.

So that was a more problem aware.

They know their lead magnet is not converting so they're going to watch this.

And then my next video was the future of lead magnets.

So that was me presenting them with the possibilities.

And one, you know, I covered a bunch but one of them was the quiz which was I was, I was trying to do and that was kind of showing them getting them kind of more solution aware.

And then the next one I did was how to build how I build a high converting quiz funnel where I walk through a client's build and how we actually executed it, all the steps.

And then the last one was fix these quiz funnel leaks.

And that was really, really authority building because I was doing an audit on someone's quiz funnel and I showed them all the ways that they could tweak the things to convert it.

And those four pieces of content do so much work for me and I don't have to touch it again.

But those are.

That's the power of creating content with a purpose.

Yes, exactly.

And it's with that customer awareness in mind too.

And I will tell, I mean any one of my lead or my email clients, specifically the ones that I do audits for in the align lead formula, I'd say you have to know how your customer or how your prospect thinks when they are completely unaware of what the actual problem is and what they're also thinking once you've given them what are those little flips of a switch that they go oh, okay, I did a quiz but this is why I have these three leaks.

You're guiding them very intentionally.

Through that awareness journey, which ultimately can be done through email, can be done through four different, you know, YouTube videos, can be done through all of these different things.

And so I think it's just really the strategy that's layered into just knowing how your prospects think is one of the, I think the most important things that I tell all my clients and why we spend so much time talking about the various stages, talking about, okay, when they've achieved this level, what are they thinking here and, you know, making sure one their offers line up with that.

Because that's another problem.

If your offers don't line up with their awareness cycle, you could have a whole, you know, bunch of wasted time developing all of this stuff.

And yeah, so I think it's one of the most important parts.

So I think when you're digging into, you know, your content, don't start with the, well, my frequency is going to be this.

My content is going to be this.

Really, really, you know, get yourself into, what exactly is this going to serve in my business and what do I hope it's going to do?

So do you want to cover the three soil rooting questions?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the three questions you should ask yourself before you sit down and create any type of content or content strategy or content plan is, what is my business focused on right now?

So if you're selling a specific item, then that is your content pillar.

If you're trying to point to a specific lead magnet, then all your content should be built around that.

The next question should be, what does your ideal client currently believe that's keeping them stuck and what do you need to shift them to believe in instead?

So what we, Rachel and I are doing here is we're trying to shift your belief that you can just show up and create a post on social media and it's going to do amazing things for your business.

We're trying to shift your belief that it's a lot more layered, nuanced.

There needs to be a lot more strategy and foundation behind that for your content to really stop being unemployed and start actually working for you and doing its job.

And then question number three is, what is the one perspective or one truth or your different kind of view on this that you can bring to the conversation?

And that's how you're going to attract not just leads, but the align leads that Rachel always talks about that, you know, align with your view on strategy.

You know, if someone came to me and Rachel and they just wanted to create 90 posts a week and all of that, that doesn't Align with anything about us or what we think.

So that's not who we're trying to talk to.

And so we're bringing our unique perspective here where we really think it should be rooted in strategy, it should be intentional and that if you're creating the right type of content, it's not about quantity, it's really about solid content.

Yeah.

So what we want you to do with those three questions, I want you to kind of sit down, really get into that clear mind space, write down what your actual responses are.

Take some time with the last two.

Right now you really should know what your business is focused on.

So that should be a quick that one.

But really the last two, you know, what is my ideal client currently believe and then what is your unique value?

Really?

Take some time there.

I think one of the most important things though is root it into your business focus.

So if your business is focused on, I'll use me, for example, my align lead formula.

I'm not gonna be saying what is my current ideal client?

Where are they getting stuck?

I'm not gonna be talking to them about, I don't know, something non email marketing related or something not in the growth section of the email strategy.

You wanna make sure that you're stacking these two.

So if you're, you're focused on a product, you're not gonna be talking to the person who's most likely gonna be buying retainers from you.

If you're focused on a product, you really want to be able to have that one unique shift that's going to give somebody that confidence to then buy the product and not need you to walk them through it kind of thing.

So make sure that that context is in your journaling efforts.

We have put together a guide that is walking you through this entire process.

Not only how to build your soil, but also how to create your first, what we call seed content.

So those big pieces of evergreen content that can continue working for you year after year and really understand how we view this whole content ecosystem.

And we really love it.

It's super practical.

It's got Rachel's beautiful strategic brain into the questions.

So if you those three questions that we prompt you, there's a couple of more in that guide to help you with that and we hope you check it out.

Rich, you want to wrap us up for today?

Yeah.

So go grab our guide, the Rooted Content ecosystem guide.

And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with the business bestie.

As always, let us know, say hi to us, pop into our dms, send us an email you know, always a fan of emails over here.

Leave us a review.

They do help the show grow.

And until next time, we're rooting.