Why Leading With Value Is the Best Marketing Strategy in 2026

When was the last time you made a buying decision based on a cold email that landed in your email spam folder? Likely never.

I know I have never done business with a company that sent me a cold DM on LinkedIn or sent some pitch-slap via email. Yet businesses are wasting thousands of dollars and hours on automating these actions every month.

This desperate attempt at marketing is being bolstered by emerging AI technologies that are pumping out slop at an industrial scale. And even if you think your team is “doing it right,” your messaging is almost certainly getting lost in a sea of spam so deep that no potential buyers are willing to go for a swim.

Thankfully, genuine marketing is still possible. And in my view, it’s the only way to build relationships with the clients worth doing business with.

Don’t let AI slop ruin your reputation irreparably

If you’re active on LinkedIn like I am, you likely have received a cold message from a brand trying to position its services that sounds just like this:

“Hey [Your First Name],

I came across your profile and was impressed by your work helping companies with [your LinkedIn profile tagline translated into a summary].

Our team frequently helps companies just like yours. We offer [generic or broad service].

Would you be open to a quick call to discuss how we can support your work?“

No, dear spammer, I certainly am not open to a quick call.

The funniest messages tend to come from the incessant “we can find you clients” crowd. I’m sure they mean well, but if their best approach at finding clients for themselves is to slide into my DMs to ask me to pay them up front before they prove they can even find one client for me, then I’m definitely not interested. It doesn’t inspire confidence in their methods, and I would rather pay them to not represent my brand in public.

When I receive a message like this, I always ask them if the approach ever works. None of them have ever answered resoundingly that it does. Many have answered, “Sorry to bother you, our boss is making us do this.”

So, if you are the boss of a company and your idea of the best use of your marketing resources is to send cold AI-enhanced spam, I can tell you now that you’re doing it wrong and doing serious damage to your reputation.

Keep reading for two much better marketing ideas.

Focus on educating your ideal potential clients

My top two marketing strategies both have a common thread: They lead with value instead of looking to extract it. And they are both rooted in the same principle: You want potential clients to get an idea of what it is like to work with you before they ever do.

Instead of focusing on faking hyper-personalization with AI content, you want to create marketing content that truly speaks to the people you know are your ideal potential clients.

The first way to do this is by solving their problems, answering questions they have and educating them about topics you know they want to understand.

This first requires radical clarity about who you really exist to help. You need to have a clear understanding of what they are struggling with day in and day out. Then, there are two ways to educate them:

1. A way that doesn’t scale is to go to the internet “public squares,” where your ideal clients are already asking for help. Connect with them one-on-one and simply answer their questions. Pitch-slap free.

2. A way that does scale is to create video and text-based content that answers their most commonly asked questions. Then provide this content to them for free.

Both of these efforts are educational and thus transformative. And transformation is valuable.

Shine a light on your existing clients’ success

The second marketing strategy, which I fear is becoming a lost art, is to shine a light on the success you’ve contributed to for your existing clients.

But here’s the twist: The goal should not be to have your clients only talk about why you are great. It should be to have them talk about how their business has become greater as a result of your contribution.

This will not only demonstrate that your organization brings value, but it will also show your ideal clients a vision of the type of transformation you can help them achieve.

Always remember that transformation is what good organizations create. This is especially true in the world in which I exist — the consulting agency ecosystem. What’s more, good marketing should always be aspirational.

With this approach, any potential client can get a clear idea of how you work, which we’ve already identified is a key message your marketing needs to convey.

Both of these marketing strategies meet the potential client at a higher ground of respect than any “personalized” cold outreach. And they are both how real business actually happens. So, stop the spam and start leading with value.