It always feels like a bit of a treat to get out of the office or home office and be in London for the day. A day at the B2B Marketing Expo was no exception, with lots of interesting talks to explore and people to meet. There were so many interesting talks, it was hard to fit them all in, but below is my best efforts to summarise the key learnings I came away with on marketing trends and best practices for 2024 and beyond.
Google’s New AI Search – SGE
Google has released a beta version of their AI search here: https://labs.google/sge/. To try it out yourself, you must be in the US (or a VPN pointing to a US-based IP address) and have a non-business gmail address. Of course, as we all know, beta means more changes to come, but with testing underway, what has been learned so far about what’s changed and how to
What will change with Google’s New AI Search?
The main difference between AI and the current search engines is that Google will pre-load information based on your question, suggest follow-up questions and predict other related information you may want based on your search. This has resulted in a different UX, with Top of Page information showing quite differently than it does currently. Questions are answered within the page, rather than linking off quickly as it currently does in the Featured Snippet section. In the beta version, there is currently also a pull-out right-aligned box with suggested websites to visit to get more information in carousel format.
It’s also key to note that the reindexing of results will happen much more quickly – when testing, changes were happening every 12 hours rather than days or even weeks as we’ve seen in the past. This will mean that tests and changes in rankings can happen quite quickly which is exciting news for those on top of their game.
Is SEO dead because of Google’s New AI Search?
This is the age-old question since search engines began. With every change comes questions on the viability of search engine optimisation. But through testing, it’s clear that a tweak in strategy is all that’s needed to meet these changes head-on and ensure that huge losses in rankings and traffic aren’t seen.
Due to more content being on the page in Google, overall, sites can expect to see a drop in information-seeking organic traffic. A lot of that top-of-funnel search volume will disappear as many questions will be answered within Google as opposed to requiring visiting another site to access the information.
This means that to get access to Top of Page real estate, finding ways to appear in the top three websites in the SGE ranking (the suggested websites carousel described earlier) will be crucial. With the carousel format, you literally won’t be seen after third-ranking unless a user clicks through the carousel. Based on testing, the best way to ensure this is to answer searched questions directly and simply on your site and focus on the long-tail specific keywords and phrases that you can show authority on. In testing, simply by writing short highly-targeted content and having super high topical authority, websites could outrank sites like Amazon. In this case, Tim Cameron-Kitchen of Exposure Ninja shared that he was able to get his personal website with very little traffic to outrank Amazon for a page dedicated to one of his books because his authority and targeted content trumped Amazon’s domain authority and loosely relevant content.
Another tactic that worked well in testing was creating a summary paragraph at the top of an article that answered the key question that may be searched in Google. This needs to be in a simple straightforward sentence structure that answers the likely questions your content is trying to answer.
How will Google Ads be affected by Google AI search?
This is a great question and is currently unknown. The beta version currently isn’t running any ads or has any indication of where these will appear and how they will look. Of course, there is no doubt that paid ads are here to stay, so we will all need to watch this space for further details.
Differentiation in B2B Marketing
I also went to a talk focussed on brand positioning for B2B organisations. Konrad Sanders, CEO and founder of The Creative Copywriter noted how difficult it seems to be for brands to differentiate themselves in the B2B space and provided some simple how-to’s, which I instantly recognised as core elements of our founder, Simon Isaac’s brand strategy sessions.
Setting up for success in brand propositions
The first thing is to ensure that there is an internal alignment on the process based on:
- Customer interviews
- Competitor analytics
- Commitment to the process
- Structured workshops
- Setting a deadline
Anyone who has been to one of our brand workshops will know these are key elements of how we start our work. Without getting the right people in the room in the right mindset, the process won’t work, and it’s crucial they understand what the outcomes will be so we have their buy-in. There is a lot of preparation involved from both sides before we even sit down at the workshop, which is key to the success of the project.
Defining unique selling propositions
Ultimately, this should all lead to the team coming to an agreement on their brand identity by defining the intersection of the following:
- Audience
- Pain point
- Solution
- Powered by tools/integrations
- Outcomes
Simon maps this out using a Brand Value/Audience Profile matrix in our brand proposition documents, which helps to visualise this intersection, particularly when there are multiple audiences at play.
Key Reminders for B2B Communications
Some key checkpoints that came out of this session were on what to focus on in communications to ensure you’re getting it right.
- Focussing on the how not just the why is critical in differentiation as so many organisations have similar values.
- Being specific in communications was another good reminder. For example, Konrad said everyone wants to save their clients time and money, but by being specific (i.e. save x hours and y money by doing z), suddenly a brand’s offer is made tangible and unique.
- The final reminder is to avoid all cliches and jargon and Konrad had a great set of questions to ask to avoid this:
- Do competitors say that?
- What does it mean?
- Do I talk like that in the office?
Be different every step of the way
The talk finished with a reminder to focus on being memorable in marketing by adding personality to each touchpoint. One thing we always remind each other of at Capsule is that people buy people, so we always try and personalise our approaches and communications and encourage our clients to do the same.
Why timing and content are everything in new business development
My final takeaway from the day didn’t come from content from one of the sessions, rather it was an observation I made on the day.
I attended a session that was supposed to be focussed on the topic of the role of AI in offline marketing, which I thought would be interesting to understand, particularly as digital channels are increasingly challenging to track and we’ve seen a resurgence in face-to-face events with our clients. However, as the talk started, it became clear fairly quickly that the seminar was a demo of the product that the speakers built and were selling as opposed to tips on how to meet marketing challenges with new trackable offline channels. Within five minutes, people began standing up and leaving – literally voting with their feet. Considering they were experts in tracking traction in offline marketing, it was clear the marketers had not thought their tactics through.
This was an IRL version of what happens every day online and a good reminder that valuable content is crucial and timing is everything. No one is interested in who you are and what you offer until they trust you give good advice and have lots of experience to help them through their pain points. We are lucky at Capsule to have our marketing manager, Laura, and founder, Simon, focused on getting valuable content out regularly to build trust with our audience by giving great resources and advice built on years of experience.
