Built Not Born Podcast · 29 August 2025
Stop Chasing Viral Content: The Real Strategy for Business Growth in 2025
Why targeted content, a clear ideal customer profile and consistent trust-building can be more valuable than chasing millions of views.
Episode guide
About this episode
Going viral can look impressive on a dashboard, but Chris and Helen argue that reach on its own says very little about whether content is helping a business grow. A post can attract huge numbers of views while reaching almost nobody who is in a position to buy. For most businesses, particularly local firms and specialist B2B companies, the more useful question is whether the right people are seeing the content.
They illustrate the point by comparing businesses with very different potential customer pools. A local shop has a tight geographical market, while a specialist seller may be able to reach more widely but still has a narrow group of suitable buyers. In both cases, a smaller audience made up of genuine prospects can be commercially more valuable than a much larger audience with little relevance to the offer.
That leads into the importance of the ideal customer profile, or ICP. Chris and Helen discuss getting specific about geography, company size, the problems being solved, decision-making structure, values, turnover and the type of organisation being targeted. The aim is to understand who the business is best placed to help, then make the website, videos, podcasts, social posts and wider marketing speak directly to that audience.
The episode also looks at the role of trust. Expensive or considered purchases are rarely made after a single piece of content. Buyers may see a business several times, research it, look through social channels and build confidence before making contact. That is why Chris and Helen see content as a longer-term part of sales and relationship building rather than a quick fix when enquiries are already needed.
Trends can still have a place. The distinction is relevance. A timely topic can help a business join a wider conversation when there is a genuine connection to its customers, expertise or offer. Chasing unrelated awareness days or popular subjects simply because they are attracting attention can pull the content away from the people the business actually wants to reach. They also discuss brand association and how the people, topics and platforms a business appears alongside can affect what audiences believe it stands for.
Chris and Helen draw on their own testing across Two Krakens and Thread A Pixel, where different audiences respond to different messages. Their conclusion is to stop measuring success against competitors or chasing somebody else's numbers. Define the ICP, stay focused on the problems that audience cares about, tell the business's own story and judge content by the quality of the attention it creates, including leads, sales, repeat business and referrals.
Key takeaways
What you'll learn
- Viral reach is a vanity metric if the people watching are unlikely to become customers.
- A detailed ideal customer profile helps a business create content for the people it can genuinely serve.
- Audience fit can matter more than raw numbers, especially for local businesses and specialist B2B companies.
- Trending topics are useful only when they are relevant to the audience and consistent with the business's message.
- Content should build familiarity and trust over time rather than being treated as an instant source of sales.
- Copying competitors can dilute what makes a business distinctive, including its story, service and way of working.
Questions from this episode
Frequently asked questions
Why can viral views be misleading for a business?
A large number of views does not mean the audience contains people who can or will buy. The episode argues that a smaller, relevant audience can create more commercial value than mass reach that falls outside the business's target market.
What is an ideal customer profile in content marketing?
An ideal customer profile, or ICP, describes the type of customer or organisation a business is best placed to serve. Chris and Helen suggest looking at factors such as geography, organisation size, problems to solve, decision-making structure, values, turnover and the way the business operates.
Should businesses use trending topics in their content?
Yes, when the trend has a genuine connection to the audience, the business or the subject it normally talks about. The episode warns against using unrelated trends simply to chase reach.
Should a business copy competitors that get more views?
Chris and Helen argue against it. Comparing numbers can lead a business to imitate competitors instead of communicating its own story, service and point of difference.
What should businesses measure instead of views alone?
The episode places more emphasis on whether content reaches ideal customers and contributes to useful outcomes such as leads, sales, repeat business, referrals and meaningful engagement from the right audience.