Why is my marketing not working? Three things you're getting wrong

Over the past three decades, business and communications have changed beyond recognition. That much is obvious. What is less comfortable is how many organisations still behave as though the rules are broadly the same, just with better tools and faster channels.

As 2026 gets into gear, three things are clearly under strain: news, social media and the ability of many businesses to be seen, believed and chosen by customers when marketing channels are noisier, trust is harder to win and the tools meant to help are constantly shifting.

News is not under threat because people no longer care about what is happening in the world. It is under threat because the systems that once supported the discovery and verification of truth have been steadily dismantled.

Proper journalism is expensive. It requires training, legal understanding, time and editorial judgement. Over many years, investment in those fundamentals has been stripped back while pressure to publish more, faster has increased.

At the same time, audiences have retreated into their own versions of the truth. Algorithms reward reinforcement over challenge. Short attention spans favour emotion over explanation. Clickbait consistently outperforms nuance.

The result is an environment where speed matters more than accuracy and volume matters more than validity. Truth has not disappeared, but it has become more fragile, harder to find and easier to distort.

Social media has played a significant role in shaping this environment, but it too is changing in ways many businesses are struggling to keep up with.

For a long time, social platforms offered a simple promise: show up consistently, build an audience and that attention would eventually translate into trust and sales. For many businesses today, that promise no longer holds. Organic reach has collapsed. Paid visibility is increasingly expensive and unpredictable. Returns are falling even as the expectation to keep posting remains.

Many business owners now spend hours each week on social media without being able to point to meaningful commercial results.

Alongside this sits a growing sense of digital fatigue. Feeds are full of content that looks polished but feels interchangeable. Artificial intelligence has increased volume without increasing value. Standing out now requires exceptional creativity, consistency and judgement, which is difficult to sustain alongside the realities of running a business.

There is an uncomfortable truth here. Creating genuinely engaging content is a specialist skill. Very few business owners possess it naturally, and most organisations cannot afford to resource it properly. As a result, social media often becomes performative. Content is posted because it feels expected, not because it is demonstrably effective.

The most damaging cost is not financial, but strategic. Time spent planning, creating, posting and analysing social media is time not spent elsewhere. Improving customer experience. Strengthening partnerships. Developing better products or services. Fixing your website. Making sure your Google presence actually works.

For some businesses, an hour a day on Instagram delivers little more than a handful of likes, while a well-targeted leaflet drop with a QR code produces far better results. Instead of bland LinkedIn updates, meeting people face to face at a local event may generate far more meaningful opportunities. Social media rarely fails dramatically. It fails quietly, through wasted hours and diminishing returns that only become obvious when you stop and reassess.

Meanwhile, the wider attention economy has shifted again. Entertainment platforms now define what engaging content looks like. Businesses are no longer competing just with each other, but with creators who are exceptionally good at storytelling, pacing and presence. That is a very high bar, and one most organisations were never designed to clear.

So if news is under strain, social media is underperforming and attention is harder than ever to earn, what should businesses do?

The answer is not more channels or more content. It is better focus, stronger foundations and smarter systems.

Automation is not about removing humans from business. It is about recognising that humans cannot scale attention, relevance and responsiveness in the way modern markets demand. As complexity increases, systems become essential rather than optional.

When automation works well, it reduces noise, removes friction and frees people to focus on judgement, creativity and human relationships where those things genuinely add value. When it fails, it is usually because it has been poorly designed or misunderstood.

As we move into 2026, there are a few fundamentals business owners need to get right.

1. You need a clear twelve-month business plan. Not something written for a drawer, but a working view of where you are going and why. If you struggle to get started, artificial intelligence can help structure your thinking. Without a plan, every marketing decision becomes reactive.

2. You need to focus on authenticity, storytelling and human stories. Channels will continue to change, but people still engage with things that feel real and relevant. If your messaging could belong to any business, it will resonate with none.

3. And you need to get a proper handle on your data. Data is the oil in the engine. Having it is not enough. You must understand what matters, what does not, and how insight turns into action. This is where automation earns its keep.

None of this is easy. But none of it is optional.

That is why practical digital training now matters more than ever. Not to chase the latest platform, but to help business owners step back, reassess what is really working, and build skills and systems that will still make sense when the next change arrives.

Because nothing stays the same. And the businesses that survive are the ones that adapt before they are forced to.

Want some help with YOUR marketing this year? We can teach your how to do it via one of our workshops, we can give you a strategy or we could even do it for you. Just get in touch with us via info@pbc.co.uk to find out what works best for you and your business.

Finally, we'd like to introduce the latest edition to the PBC Team. Ludo the Spaniel!

Latest edition to the PBC team