Many B2B marketers view generative engine optimization (GEO), or whatever you choose to call optimization for
AI search (AEO/AIO/LLMO), as search engine optimization (SEO) 2.0.
But GEO will never be that. Because it'll never generate enough clicks.
Clickthrough rates (CTRs) have declined
more than half since Google started using AI citations.
And despite ChatGPT dominance of
AI chatbots, Google still sends
190X more traffic to
websites.
But even if AI search CTRs were more comparable, confining GEO to the same box as SEO leaves money
on the table.
There's an opportunity here to get B2B marketing unstuck from the
demand-gen/lead-gen doldrums by
finally
embracing brand.
Brand Has Been on B2B's Horizon Too Long
B2B marketers know their organizations
need brand.
They've had clear reason to since
the 95/5 rule was popularized a few years back.
But AI came along soon after and distracted us, adding a fresh coat of paint to the same old dysfunctions.
It wasn't really our fault. B2B marketers were caught up in a hype wave bigger than us, but we must get
our ship back on course.
B2B must create
brand awareness, embrace
brand building, and execute what some call
brand marketing. The discourse has screamed this for years, but little has changed on the factory floor.
We keep trying to fill the pipeline through manipulation (
gated content,
bait-and-swtich blogs,
email harassment) instead of attraction.
There are some signs of B2B marketers making the first small steps towards brand, but results have
been lacking.
I see two reasons why.
One, B2B's understanding of brand, how it works, how to build it, and how to build it well are still shaky.
But experience will remedy this.
And two, brand efforts so far have been tepid and tactical, eliminating
conversion as an
advertising goal
without changing the underlying foundations or assumptions.
A Full-Bodied Brand Commitment Is Needed
Brand cannot be solely a
marketing function. Or a PR function. Or even that of a
dedicated brand team.
Brand touches the entire organization and belongs to everyone, which is why a more holistic and
comprehensive brand strategy and program are needed.
Such commitment is not easy.
Many B2B marketers still view brand as something a little too warm and fuzzy, ill-defined and intangible.
It's not that brand lacks metrics. Or lacks metrics that matter.
The problem is, B2B marketers don't know how to connect brand to metrics that already matter. Metrics they're
already held accountable for, or that management cares about.
Share of search is often pitched as a proxy for B2B brand strength, but that's a metric for the already
famous.
You need another way to gauge progress when you're starting from zero.
But the good news is, one has just shown up, a Trojan horse of sorts that can finally get brand inside
B2B's
city walls.
GEO. Yes, that GEO.
We currently view GEO through a technical lens.
Because its predecessor, SEO, was also technical.
But GEO involves a lot more.
A Full-Bodied GEO Commitment Is Also Needed
AI search makes
earned media (including
social media) more important.
Large language models (LLMs) make high-level brand and marketing messaging more important (relative to
product messaging).
LLMs elevate
brand strength in search results and citations.
And LLMs make real-time monitoring of what the world says about you more important.
Traditionally, these have been the concerns of strong and mature brands (mostly B2C).
Large B2B brands might worry about them, but not the majority.
For the average B2B company, brand has been an internal one-pager. A set of instructions and guidelines,
assigned to everyone and belonging to no one. A logo with some fonts and colors.
But those days are over.
The rise of
AI has made this obsolete.
And GEO is too hard to execute piecemeal.
You'll need the website team handling some elements, the digital marketing team handling others, the PR
team handling others, and you'll need a holistic and integrated brand strategy governing it all.
Otherwise, your brand won't be acting, just reacting.
Your teams may even undermine each other's efforts.
B2B GEO results have been lackluster
so far, with even market leaders failing to appear consistently in
response to AI queries that matter to them.
And the SEO drawbridge is rising.
With those aforementioned CTR declines, SEO can no longer deliver sufficient traffic to bypass the hard
work of building a brand.
There are no more shortcuts. No more detours.
No more alternatives to building your brand the right way.
Prospects will no longer reliably show up, open your emails, or engage your social media content without
a strong and trustworthy brand.
Marketers have abused and manipulated prospects endlessly. Fed them a decade of dogshit.
Doing things the right way is the only way.
Brand Must Come First
B2B brands need positioning, identity, distinction, and differentiation, supported by content that
builds the brand and reinforces it, followed up by an offer worthy of it.
And making sure the world knows about it.
A strong brand is strong GEO. Strong GEO is a strong brand.
GEO without a strong brand is Reddit bot spam, bogus awards from phony magazines, and boring
club sandwich blogs.
The same stale shortcuts that have ultimately failed us, 2.0.
And failure is not an option this time.
Not with chief revenue officers supported by
AI standing by to make B2B marketers obsolete.
If we get serious about GEO without brand, we put the cart before the horse again.
Ahrefs and Surfer get rich, while the rest of us lose relevance.
If we get serious about brand, with GEO under it, we kill two birds with one stone, and maybe we're the
ones who get rich.
Choose wisely.
