Sales and Marketing Friction is Hurting Your Bottom Line – Here’s What to Do About It

Oil and water. Cats and dogs. The New York Jets and winning. Some things in this world just never seem to go together. 

Is sales and marketing in the same category at your business — destined to bicker, squabble, and storm off — when what you need is harmony?

If so, you’re not alone.

According to research from LinkedIn, 96% of sales and marketing professionals agree that strategic alignment between their teams is a persistent challenge. It makes sense when you think about it. By and large, sales and marketing teams:

• Report to different executives
• Measure success differently
• Use different KPIs
• Disagree about lead quality
• Don’t have regular meetings

At the same time, 87% of sales and marketing leaders believe that alignment between their teams is essential to business growth.

So, in summary — no one has it and everyone wants it. Why can’t we make this work?

Let's start by getting it all out in the open. Come on, this will be therapeutic. 

What do marketers (really) think about the sales team?

The work marketers do can yield fickle results, and every click, open, impression, and conversion is hard-won. To outsiders, the results don’t always seem worth the effort. 

According to Allison Riggs, a business coach here at IMPACT, marketing teams often feel underappreciated by sales. Sales gets the glory (and the commission), while marketing is seen as an expensive undertaking with questionable return. 

Working under a lot of pressure from company leaders, marketers produce and deliver leads to the sales team, only to have the sales team take credit for the good leads and complain about the bad ones.

“I feel like there is an unspoken competition that happens between the two departments,” Allison says. “Both want to provide value, but both feel siloed and feel that there is more friction than collaboration.”

What do salespeople (really) think about the marketing team?

Sales, too, is under pressure. The entire organization lives or dies by its sales team. Without revenue coming in, there are no paychecks. 

I spoke to one sales pro who's been in the game for years. She says she’s never worked on a sales team that has collaborated with its marketing counterpart. Ever. Not once. 

Marketing, to her, didn’t impact sales at all. “Sometimes we’d hear about marketing campaigns or get random leads from a form fill or a download,” she says, “but, in my experience, they’ve always been terrible leads, so we didn’t really see the value on what marketing did.”

via GIPHY

It’s no wonder sales teams see marketers as ineffective. They often create messaging and content in isolation from sales and then deliver subpar leads.

When two teams undervalue and misunderstand each other, resentment and disconnection are soon to follow. 

But sales and marketing alignment is not just about good vibes at the office. Misaligned teams are an expensive and inefficient liability. And that should concern everybody.

Why does this misalignment cost money?

Speaker and author Marcus Sheridan works with business leaders to ease their sales and marketing friction. 

He insists on actually bringing the teams together and forming a single team; a blended “revenue team” — the very structure and name of which acknowledges that both teams have a huge influence on the buyer experience. 

According to Marcus, a lack of sales and marketing alignment doesn’t just hurt morale, it hurts your bottom line. 

Here’s why: Both your sales team and your marketing team are composed of competent, intelligent professionals with an ever-increasing knowledge and skill base. If that knowledge never gets shared outside of each department, it doesn’t benefit the company the way it could.

Marketers can do their job better if they learn from sales. And sales can do their job better if they learn from marketing. Collaboration is mutually beneficial. 

Sales can help marketing do its job better

Sales has in-depth, first-hand knowledge of your marketplace. Marketers can’t do their job well without this kind of knowledge. 

• Knowing who your buyers are: Do your marketers know who you’re actually selling to? It’s your sales team that has its ear to the ground in your marketplace. “Unless marketing spends significant time with your sales team,” Marcus says, “they’re likely to become out of touch with your buyers.” Marketing materials that don’t speak to your buyers are less likely to bring in revenue.
• Objections that come up during the sales process: Sales hears these objections every day. If they’re not addressed in content or on the website, prospects are less likely to consider your solution. That means fewer conversions and leads.

Marketing can help sales do its job better

Marketing has technical know-how that sales can use to better connect with customers and close deals. 

• CRM use: Marketers are often CRM wizards. There’s so much lead intelligence in your CRM; marketers know how to access it, sales reps sometimes don’t. This means less effective sales calls. 
• Email best practices: Sales teams email all day long, but marketers are usually more adept at maximizing open rates and click-through rates. “It’s your marketers,” says Marcus, “who understand the technical details of getting people to open emails.” Unopened prospecting emails waste time and don't bring in money.
• Content production schedule: If new content is coming out or the website is going to be updated, sales needs to know. (Actually, they should have a hand in the process and be made aware of what’s coming.) When sales enablement content gets leveraged in the sales process, close rates go up.
• What campaigns are live and when: Is marketing planning a new offer or promotion? Is a rebranding effort in the works or a new service rolling out? Sales needs to know — with as much runway as possible. Otherwise, their pitch to clients might not match what’s being said elsewhere. 

Considering all of this, it’s fair to say that marketing and sales each hold keys to the other’s success. So, how do we make this work?

How do we actually fix this? 6 steps to take today

Let’s be honest: Completely un-siloing your business is not going to happen overnight.

If there is entrenched opposition, it could take some time. But, the fact remains: Both teams will benefit from what they learn from the other.

As such, Marcus says your organization can take these steps to start breaking down the walls. 

1. One marketer should attend every sales meeting — and vice versa

Start this way: Have one marketer attend a regular sales meeting. “Even if it’s a sales training meeting, a marketer should be there,” says Marcus. You’ll be amazed how much they take away. 

And this goes the other way, too. A sales rep should be at each marketing meeting — especially if they’re talking about content production. A sales representative can help marketing prioritize content strategy. 

2. Marketing needs to start an internal newsletter

At least once every quarter (and probably every month), marketing should let the whole company know what content has been published, who helped produce it, and how it has aided traffic and sales.

This helps with transparency and also gives credit to sales and service folks who were involved in the content creation process.

3. Expand your professional development

Want your sales team to be excited about the work your marketers are doing? Send them to a marketing conference. Have them read an important marketing book. Have your marketers do the same thing for sales. See what’s trending, what’s exciting, and what’s possible. 

4. Run a content brainstorm together

I know that people are wary of more meetings, but this is a crucial one. Once a month, have a content writer sit down with your sales team to brainstorm a list of content topics that speak directly to your buyers’ needs.

These meetings ensure that sales is invested in the content creation process — and knows what’s coming out. 

5. Plan internal teach-ins

Once a month, have an informal lunch-and-learn or other gatherings where one person can share tips or insights with another team: On Thursday at 12:30, Alice will be showing everyone how to build a reporting dashboard in HubSpot.

If people see the value, they’ll show up and learn. 

6. Have leaders lead

Look, we’re all busy. When we try to do something that's hard, it’s easy to fall back into old patterns. That’s why sales and marketing alignment can’t really happen unless leadership makes it a priority.

If the top brass is not checking in and keeping pace, meetings become less frequent, that newsletter peters out, and the whole thing falls apart. 

Take the first steps

It’s not easy. Sales and marketing teams are both filled with busy pros doing their best to build brand awareness and close deals. And it’s likely that they don’t totally understand and appreciate the work that the other is doing. 

All the more reason to work together.

Today, customers do a great deal of self-educating before they’re ready to buy. As Marcus frequently says, your customers are making up to 80% of their buying decision before they call you or walk into your store. That means that more and more customer acquisition depends on the marketing materials those customers can find.

Yet far too many companies see marketing as a lesser part of their operation. Says Marcus, “Sometimes you look at leadership team meetings and marketing doesn't even have a seat at the table, which is kind of unbelievable.” 

Bring your marketing and sales teams together to make sure your customer has a seamless experience, all the way from awareness to purchase.

The benefits are enormous. 

And if you need help, talk to us at IMPACT. We can't make the Jets win, but we can bring your teams together to drive meaningful growth.

Author: jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker)

* This article was originally published here

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Sell Better: How to Close Deals Efficiently and Effectively [Endless Customers Podcast S.1 Ep.28]

About this Episode

Ask your average salesperson the following question: Are there certain questions you find yourself answering on every single sales call?

Chances are, this will be met by a laugh or an eye-roll or a sigh of despair.

Yes, salespeople field the same questions from customer after customer after customer. 

Assignment selling can help change all that. 

Assignment selling is the act of using content during the sales process to address major objections and questions your buyers have — often before they come up during a meeting.

The idea was developed by Marcus Sheridan more than a decade ago when he was running his swimming pool company River Pools and Spas.

Marcus was writing a lot of marketing content for his website that was bringing in tons of traffic — and a good number of leads. He decided to dig through the data to see what conclusions he could draw about his customers.

Marcus realized he had two very different groups of people requesting sales calls — and he was seeing dramatically different close rates depending on which camp someone came from.

• The first group had only viewed a handful of pages on his website. They had a closing rate of around 25%. 
• The second group had viewed an average of 30 pages of his website and had a closing rate of around 80%.

In short, the more well-informed the buyer is, the more likely that buyer will close.

Marcus took this lesson and applied it more broadly. In the time since, he’s taught salespeople all around the world to use content to get questions out of the way ahead of time. 

So, rather than answering the question when it comes up in a meeting, a salesperson can say, “I know you’re likely going to have questions about X. I’m going to send you some resources that explain it thoroughly so you’ll feel more well-informed going into our next meeting.”

This is the beauty of assignment selling: better sales conversations, more attention paid to buyer needs, and deeper trust built between the prospect and the company.

Connect with Marcus

Marcus Sheridan is a writer, speaker, and business expert who’s worked with companies all over the world. Marcus is the author of They Ask, You Answer and co-author of The Visual Sale.

Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn

Learn more about They Ask, You Answer

See how companies have used They Ask, You Answer to fuel their success

Keep Learning

• Watch: What is 'Assignment Selling'? Using Content to Close Deals Faster
• Read: 5 Real-Life Sales Scenarios Where You Need Assignment Selling (w/ Templates)
• Learn: The 7 Most Common Sales Problems — And How To Solve Them

Author: awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter)

* This article was originally published here

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X Previews Upcoming UI Change Which Will Hide All Action Buttons

The new X UI is coming.

* This article was originally published here

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Sales and Marketing Alignment: Creating a Culture Focused on Growth [Endless Customers Podcast S.1 Ep.27]

About this Episode

Before the internet, buying was different. When I was younger, I remember whenever my family would get a new car: we’d head down to the dealership, walk through the showroom, and talk to the salesperson. We’d leave with brochures and spec sheets. Then, we’d come back and my dad would test drive one or two. Then, we’d return again and make a final decision. 

This was normal for the time. In the 1990s, on average, car buyers visited the dealership more than four times for a new car purchase. Today it’s usually done in a single visit.

And this is by no means isolated to car buying

The internet has allowed buyers to be better informed than ever before. So, by the time we reach out to a company, we’re pretty close to making our decision.

Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask, You Answer, often cites a statistic that your customers are 80% of the way through their buying journey before they reach out to you. This means that marketing — with its website content, videos, and buyer’s guides — has a bigger hand in sales than ever before. 

This dramatic shift in buyer behavior requires us to shift the way we think about marketing and sales.

If sales and marketing teams aren’t working in lock-step, the customer experience will be jarring and unpleasant. 

Instead, Marcus says, companies should bring these two teams together. Sales should help marketing understand their customers better. This way, marketing materials will better speak to buyer needs. 

In fact, Marcus advises combining sales and marketing into a single ‘revenue team’ that has shared meeting times and full visibility into the metrics that matter.

This kind of structure sets your team up to meet the needs of the modern buyer: The marketing team produces educational content that helps guide the prospect forward. Then, when they’re ready to talk to a salesperson, they’re 80% of the way there — courtesy of your marketing materials. 

At the same time, sales shares its in-depth customer knowledge to make sure that marketing’s work is on target.

This means better messaging, an end to sales and marketing friction, and a more tailored experience for your buyers. Everybody wins. 

Connect with Marcus

Marcus Sheridan is a writer, speaker, and business expert who’s worked with companies all over the world. Marcus is the author of They Ask, You Answer and co-author of The Visual Sale.

Connect with Marcus on LinkedIn

Learn more about They Ask, You Answer

See how companies have used They Ask, You Answer to fuel their success

Keep Learning

• Read: Sales and Marketing Friction is Hurting Your Bottom Line – Here’s What to Do About It
• Learn: How to Run a Revenue Team Meeting (+ Example Agendas)
• Solve: The 7 Most Common Sales Problems — And How To Solve Them

Author: awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter)

* This article was originally published here

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TikTok Reports EU User and Moderation Staff Numbers

The latest insights into TikTok's European business.

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Snapchat Sees Increases in Users and Revenue in Q1

A better outlook for Snap after its latest earnings report.

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LinkedIn Sees Record Levels of Engagement Once Again

No details, just topline reporting.

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'30-Day Website Redesign'? What to Ask an Agency That’s Making Big Promises

You’ve got really big goals for 2024 — and your business website is critical to driving the traffic, leads, and sales you need to grow and thrive in the coming year.  

And now, as you’re sitting in a sales call with a web design agency, you hear something that quickens your pulse:

You’re thrilled. You were expecting the process to take months. Thirty days sounds amazing!

But then, doubt starts to creep in. You hear that little voice in your head asking the question you didn’t want to ask yourself, "Is this too good to be true?" 

Is the offer too good to be true?

After all, if most agencies’ estimates for a website redesign are measured in months, and one is measured in days, that’s a pretty big difference. Any time there’s an outlier that sits that far away from everyone else, it’s going to prompt a lot of questions.

The first and most obvious question is the one you've already asked yourself: Is it simply too good to be true? A website is a huge investment, and you’re likely worried that corners are going to get cut when you’re traveling at break-neck speed.

The second question is this: Are there limits to what can get done in such a short time frame, even with a full team? 

I mean, if a construction company said they could build my entire custom-designed house in 10 days, starting with a blank plot of ground, I’d have doubts — no matter how big their team was. My foremost concerns would be centered around two issues: 

• Are we rushing through the custom design process? Is the house still custom to my needs, or is it picked out of a template gallery? How well does the designer really understand my family and our needs in such a short time?
• Are there parts of construction that simply can’t be sped up? Concrete has to set, paint has to dry. There are some things that just take time — and having a team of more people can’t speed them up.

If you’re in the market for a website redesign and are considering an agency that's promising an ultra-quick turnaround solution, here are some questions you should be asking (according to a development and design expert) to know if the offer is actually too good to be true.

Full disclosure: We design and build websites

IMPACT’s web team designs and builds websites for companies all over the world. We employ brilliant strategists, designers, developers, and project managers who see these projects to completion — all in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

We believe rushing through a redesign process is foolhardy. It takes time to understand a business and its customers — and then design the site they need. Then, after the site goes live, an agency should monitor traffic and perform A/B tests to see which options perform best.  

This process, known as 'growth-driven design', is advocated by HubSpot because it yields an objectively better website. 

Too often in the past we had seen companies pay top dollar for a shiny new site — only to find six or eight months after launch that it didn't deliver any ROI. Then, they’d have to go back to their agency and pay more money (or start over with someone new) in order to get the site that they really needed all along. 

Needless to say, you don’t want this to happen to you. 

So, what should you be asking of a sounds-too-good-to-be-true website redesign deal?

How can you evaluate the lofty promises of an agency? How can you be sure you’re getting your money’s worth? Vin Gaeta is director of web services at IMPACT, and he has more than a dozen years of project management and development experience. 

According to Vin, here’s what to ask as you determine whether an accelerated website redesign is a good fit for you.

1. What to ask: What level of strategy can I actually expect in 30 days?

Why it’s a concern

Your website is the greatest marketing and sales asset your business has. Just as you wouldn’t launch a marketing campaign or redesign your sales process without a strategy, your website builder needs to take into account your business, your industry, your customers, SEO, site structure, and much more. 

At IMPACT, we spend five weeks developing a website strategy for our clients that’s based on user data, market research, tech specifications, keyword analysis, client feedback, and more.  

A 30-day build invariably makes the planning stage alarmingly short. Will a few days of planning be sufficient to lay the groundwork for years to come? How well will the agency get to know your products or services? Your industry? Your customers? Your business goals? 

Bottom line

You don't want to find yourself with a brand new website that doesn’t meet your business’s needs in a few months because it’s built on a hasty or incomplete strategy.

2. What to ask: How customized will the website be?

Why it’s a concern

This is the reason you’re working with an agency in the first place. You need a site that’s built for your business, your services, your users. You want to be able to stand out in your industry — not have a version of what your competitors have. So, with a 30-day timeline, can your website actually be custom-built?

If the website isn’t customized to your needs (or that customization is limited) it might, in turn, limit what you get out of the whole redesign process. 

If you’d be happy with a template-based approach, there are going to be cheaper options for you.

Bottom line

You don’t want to get stuck paying custom-level prices for template-level results.

3. What to ask: Will I need a developer to update it?

Why it’s a concern

We all know your website isn’t something you can set and forget. You’ll need to update it frequently as your offerings change. At the most basic, you’ll want to add to your blog, introduce new team members, and update product pages. 

You’ll likely also want to regularly update your website to make sure it’s providing the best experience for your users. This means building landing pages, refreshing the copy on your pages, and more.

Will you need a developer to do these things, or can marketers without a coding background suffice? 

Bottom line

If you’re not ready to expand your team with a dedicated in-house website specialist, make sure you will have the control you need with your new site.

4. What to ask: Our organization needs a very large site. Can the agency still deliver?

Why it’s a concern

Most custom websites IMPACT builds are over 500 pages. Some are over 1000. The more pages, of course, the more work it takes to build the site.

With a 30-day build, you want to make sure the entirety of your site can get built in that time, even if the site is large. And if the project runs long, how does that affect cost?

Bottom line

You need to know that their team can handle your needs.

5. What to ask: So, what if the project runs long?

Why it’s a concern

We’ve built hundreds of sites in the past ten years. We’ve found that it takes a lot of time and research to estimate exactly how big a project is and how long it will take. What makes a project run long? There might be additional site sections that the client overlooks at first, or content creation takes longer than anticipated.

If your project runs over 30 days, are you responsible for paying a retainer or other fees? Does the team move on to the next project, leaving you with a skeleton crew or worse?

Knowing how common delays are, you’ll want to be sure about the contingency plan.

Bottom line

Sometimes projects run long. Make sure you know what happens on day 31.

6. What to ask: Can the agency really guarantee that all the necessary content gets done on time?

Why it’s a concern

We’ve found that content is often an unforeseen hold-up for web projects. Clients can easily underestimate just how time-consuming and difficult it is to write the content that makes their homepage, about us pages, and service pages come alive, even in the age of AI.

On your website, you need the language to be just right, and rushing through content production never ends well. After all, content is the soul of your business.

If the agency is promising to handle content creation, how can you be certain that all content will perfectly align with your company’s voice and tone? 

We believe that outsiders struggle to convey the essence of a business that they’re just getting to know. If outsourced content already tends to miss the mark, adding break-neck speed would only exacerbate the problem.

Bottom line

Your website copy needs to be pitch perfect, and this takes time.

Buyer beware: If it sounds too good to be true, make sure to ask questions

In any facet of business, there are always going to be companies who will offer to do something faster or cheaper, promising to trim the fat and deliver a better experience to customers. When agencies vie with each other to best serve clients, those clients win. Competition pushes development, efficiency, and innovation.

But not every new offer is worth it. When a deal simply sounds too good to be true, it’s a wise move to start kicking the tires and figuring out all you can about the offer before you plunk down your payment. 

If an agency is offering to redesign your website in 30 days — and this timeline is a drastic outlier from what you’ve heard elsewhere — start asking questions and speaking to past clients to make sure the process will work for your business’s goals.

You’ll need that website to serve you well for years to come.

While a quick fix is certainly attractive, make sure you’re not going to get rushed through the steps that truly make your website the critical sales and marketing asset it should be. 

Author: jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker)

* This article was originally published here

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Website ROI: Is a New Website Worth the Cost? [Endless Customers Podcast S.1 Ep.26]

About this Episode

At its best, a website is your best salesperson — one who never sleeps or takes a vacation. Day after day, month after month, your website is out there attracting leads and turning them into customers. 

But at its worst, a website is a money pit. An endless liability that’s a buggy, outdated, poor reflection of your business.

via GIPHY

The reality is that most business sites are somewhere in between. But because they can be an enormous expense, each business should evaluate the ROI of its website investment. 

To do so, says Vin Gaeta, head of web strategy here at IMPACT, they must first shift their perception of what a website can be. Most businesses, according to Vin, think of their website as purely a marketing venture. A necessary expense they need to dump money into every few years.  

But a website can actually be a tool that drives revenue.

"If you're actually putting the right things in place,” Vin says, “your ROI should be more than leads and traffic. You should be seeing a considerable drop in your time to close."

So, how do you improve the ROI of your website redesign? According to Vin, you must keep the following in mind.

• Keep your costs down. You’ll pay for design, development, and strategy — as well as ongoing maintenance and upkeep. Go into the whole process having done as much research as possible. Be skeptical of agencies making too-good-to-be-true claims and be clear about what happens after the launch.

• Turn your website into an educational tool. The primary purpose of your website should be to provide potential buyers with the information they need to become actual customers. Create unbiased, informative content that’s easy to filter and search. This way, your site is more than a digital billboard. It’s an actual sales tool that can help prospects become qualified. 

• Improve your conversion paths. A convoluted website will cause frustration. Make sure your messaging is tight, your CTAs are clear, and your lead capture tools are appropriate. Make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for on your site. 

• Learn to manage it yourself. Websites are never complete. Just as your business changes (new products, new people), your website needs updating and improvements. If you have to call up your agency (or a freelancer) every time you need something changed, your long-term costs could be staggering. 
• Remember, user data is a goldmine. The best insight into how your site works doesn’t come from theory or guesswork. It comes from actual user data: clicks, heatmaps, form fills and more. "That's where the ROI long-term comes in for your website,” says Vin. “learning from what it's telling you."

If you’re ready to enter into a website project, start by updating your mindset. Instead of seeing your site as a bottomless marketing expense, think of it as a soon-to-be essential sales tool. This will change the way you speak to your designers and developers.  

With the right approach, your website can be an investment that can actually yield a return. 

Connect with Vin

Vin Gaeta is IMPACT’s head of web strategy. He leads a team of designers, developers, and strategists to provide full-scale website redesigns for our clients. 

Get to know Vin

Connect with Vin on LinkedIn

Learn more about how we build websites that actually deliver ROI

Keep Learning

• Read: How Much Does a Website Redesign Cost in 2024?
• See: 8 of the Best Business Website Designs to Inspire You
• Test your site: Free Website Performance Assessment

Author: awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter)

* This article was originally published here

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EU Investigators Launch Probe Into TikTok’s Latest Growth Initiative

TikTok's latest program rewards users for spending more time in the app.

* This article was originally published here

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Do You Really Need a New Website in 2024? [Endless Customers Podcast S.1 Ep.25]

About this Episode

There are plenty of reasons businesses buy new websites. Maybe it’s part of a rebranding effort — or because the new CMO claims it’s a necessity. Sometimes they buy a new site just because the old site feels stale. 

If you’re in one of these boats and are about to call up an agency and write a big check, slow down. According to Mary Brown, lead website strategist here at IMPACT, many businesses invest in a full website redesign when they really don’t need to. 

Mary says that conversion rate optimization and strategic improvements often yield better results than complete overhauls.

And a simple refresh of imagery, fonts, and design elements can go a long way to making your old site feel new. 

"There are really two situations in which our team will say, you absolutely need a website right now,” she says. 

• You can’t update your site: If a company cannot update its website on its own — meaning it must rely on an agency or freelancers to make changes — it’s time for a new site. An outdated website is a liability, and working with outsiders is expensive and inefficient. 
• Your site doesn’t meet technical standards:  If a website does not meet current technological standards set by search engines, it won't perform well in search rankings. This includes things like site speed and mobile responsiveness. If your current site can’t meet these thresholds, a refresh will not solve the problem. 

The most important thing, says Mary, is to not rush into a website redesign. Agencies will line up around the block to sell you a site you don’t need, and it’s easy to end up with the exact same marketing problems after you drop $75K on a shiny new site.

Instead, think carefully about what challenges you’re trying to solve. Business leaders should “try to understand whether they have real pressing reasons why they need a new website,” says Mary,” or whether they’re just seeing symptoms of a different problem.”

Although the promise of a new website is exciting, the last thing you want is to make a hasty decision you regret six months later. 

Connect with Mary

Mary Brown is the lead website strategist at IMPACT, and she has lent her expertise to website projects in dozens of industries. 

Get to know Mary

Connect with Mary on LinkedIn

Learn more about how IMPACT’s team delivers the website your customers want

Keep Learning

• Learn: How Much Does a Website Redesign Cost in 2024?
• Read: Do You Need a New Website? Maybe Not
• Test your site: Free Website Performance Assessment

Author: awinter@impactbnd.com (Alex Winter)

* This article was originally published here

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Meta Shares Lead Gen Ad Tips

Meta's Lead Gen ads can be a great way to get more info on your target customers.

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Snapchat Shares Insight Into the Performance of Direct Response and Brand Campaigns

Some new considerations for your Snapchat campaigns.

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X Continues To Display Ads Alongside Harmful Content

Hyundai is the latest brand to pause its X ad spend.

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How to Build a Brand That AI Loves

According to Wil Reynolds, the first reports of SEO dying were in 1999, which kicked off the longest, slowest, most dramatic, most over-reported death in history.

And here we are, almost 25 years later, and SEO has still got vital signs, despite regular reports that search engine optimization is, in fact, dead and gone.

And now, AI has come along to upend both sides of search. On one side, generative AI is spitting out content and flooding the internet. On the other, AI search tools are generating responses that may replace the traditional SERP. 

I can promise you, once again, that SEO is not dead. But still, AI has rocked the foundation of search engines as we know them, and businesses would be foolish to ignore what’s happening.

It was hard enough getting found when Google Search ruled the world. But with the advent of generative search, the rules of the game have changed. 

The question is, how do we make sure our businesses get found by our buyers in this new search landscape?

Generative search: What we know — and what we don’t know

When Chat-GPT launched in late 2022, it sent ripples through nearly every industry.

Within a few months, OpenAI announced a partnership with Microsoft, which operates Bing, the second-biggest search engine in the world. Soon, we had a generative search tool. Instead of displaying links to other websites, Bing would generate an answer to a question based on huge amounts of data ChatGPT had ingested. 

So whether you were asking about refrigerator maintenance or loan refinancing, you’d get an answer, not a link to an answer.  

Since then, Google has introduced Bard and Gemini, LLM-powered chat tools to compete with ChatGPT, and a generative search experience that looks like this:

(Source)

And while generative search is new, it’s not that different. 

We’ve long been moving toward fewer clicks in search results. Featured snippets and “people also ask” sections already give users information without taking them off the SERP. So a generative search experience feels more like the next step than a total departure. 

Still, there’s a lot we don’t know.

• We know very little about how AI selects information, evaluates it, and synthesizes it into an answer. 
• We don’t know how search tools will cite content or recommend links, but we’ve seen some early indications.
• We don’t know how these platforms will sell ad space or otherwise monetize themselves. 

But we do know that search tools are a vital pathway for customers to find our websites, to find our businesses. So, how do we proceed?  

First off, keep the change in perspective

Marketing expert Marcus Sheridan reminds us that about 1.5 million people still pay a monthly subscription for AOL. This is a good stat to keep in mind during times of relentless change. People cling to what they know. Is generative search going to offer so many immediate benefits that the masses will leave traditional search behind? Not likely.   

People still prefer printed airline tickets. People still rent DVDs from Redbox.

They will still search through Google just as they have for years. This means SEO is not dead. Google Search is not dead.

Remember that even though tools change, the principles remain

AI expert Briana Walgenbach says that the goal of our content is not to rank high in Google or to get crawled by LLMs. The goal is always the same: to build trust with your buyers by answering their questions.

When you do that without trying to game an algorithm, you’re building a brand that AI will love.

Early indications from generative search show that it’s boosting trusted institutions (government websites, nonprofits, media outlets) to provide credible answers. 

But it’s not just them. Marcus reports that he’s been receiving a small but steady list of leads who have found him through ChatGPT and Perplexity, not Google or LinkedIn. That’s because he’s steadily created quality content and built a trustworthy brand.

Putting generative search in context

At this point, generative search provides surface-level answers that satisfy very top-of-the-funnel buyers, Marcus says. Think “What is…” type questions. As they become more serious as potential buyers, they’ll want more detail, whether from a video, a guidebook, an article, or a podcast. 

Then they’ll move off the search results page and onto a site where they can find what they’re looking for. 

This doesn’t mean you should ignore TOFU content, but that’s usually the type of content that brings in a lot of junky traffic that doesn’t turn into dollars.

Focus on your website experience

AI should prompt you to think more creatively about the ways visitors get to your site. Will many still come through Google? Of course. Will some come through generative search results? Probably. 

Additional discovery platforms will become even more important as traditional channels get choked with AI-generated drivel. That means social media, YouTube, podcasts, events, and word of mouth.

When they get to your website, how’s the experience? 

Marcus reminds us that we need to answer their questions and make it easy to buy from us. That means producing great content, organizing it on your site, and creating self-selection tools that invite the customer into a pleasant, personalized experience.  

AIO to replace SEO

Over the past few decades, companies have spent billions to have SEO specialists help them get found. Some experts were trustworthy and scrupulous, some were not. 

Next, it will be AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization) experts. 

Be on the lookout for shady AIO specialists who promise to go behind a curtain and perform some magic that gets you included in generative search results. They’ll be eager to take your money, but the results may not materialize. 

When in doubt, hold true to your principles: Put the buyer first. Provide value. Build trust. The best search tools will find and recognize that.

And look for companies that share those values. 

If you want help navigating this shifting landscape, schedule a time to talk with our team. We can help take the guesswork out of AI. 

See the full video of my discussion with Marcus and Briana:

Author: jbecker@impactbnd.com (John Becker)

* This article was originally published here

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