Marketing got louder.Buyers got better at tuning out.
Your buyers skipped most of the marketing they saw today. The few messages they remember made them curious first. Getting there takes better choices, more than a bigger budget.
Open your inbox. Count the unread.
Every one of those was sent by somebody hoping to be read.
Each one had a budget behind it. A meeting. A deadline. Somebody's afternoon. And each one arrived saying more or less what the last one said, in more or less the same words.
That is what a great deal of marketing has become. Constant, uninspiring, easy to skip. Competent work that was always going to be skipped.
Caution did this. Every step was sensible.
Everybody sets out to make something that works. Forgettable arrives one careful decision at a time.
Somebody checks what the market leader is doing, because that feels responsible. Somebody adds the word premium, because it tested fine. A committee takes out the one line that made a person feel something, because the proof was thin and the downside was easy to picture.
Each step is sensible. The result is a category where five companies say the same thing, and the buyer, left with one visible difference, chooses on price.
Safe is the risk, spread thin enough to feel like prudence.
Curiosity comes before conviction.
Attention is attracted, and the pull is the work.
People decide because something made them curious enough to look closer, and because what they found was worth the look.
That is the entire mechanism. Frequency is for sale. Interest is earned.
So the work is to make them curious, and then be worth it.
Every one of these was the harder call.
| The easy call | The harder one |
|---|---|
| Playing it safe | Work that ignites attention and leaves a mark |
| Reaching a wide range of people | The right people, who need it and can benefit |
| Self-centred messaging | Your customer's pain, and the doors that open |
| Customer satisfaction | Customer delight |
What we are hired to do.
Each one is a route onto the buyer's shortlist. Each comes with a timeline you know before anything begins.
Positioning and messaging
2 to 4 weeksThe sentence your category has left unclaimed, and every word the business runs on afterwards.
02Campaigns and content
4 to 8 weeks per campaignBuilt to be repeated by somebody else, a higher bar than built to be seen.
03AI search visibility
6 to 10 weeks, then ongoingBeing the answer ChatGPT gives, above the ten links. Also called AI search optimization, AEO or GEO.
04Fractional marketing leadership
MonthlyA marketing leader's judgement, at the stage before you can justify the salary. Often called a fractional CMO.
The work, and the numbers behind it.
The full case behind each one, and what it cost, is on the Work page.
In Google for a category's core term, and cited by ChatGPT and Gemini. Two months, from a standing start.
Qualified leads from a list under five thousand. Forty percent open rate, against a norm nearer twenty.
Qualified leads in two months. Four audiences, four different arguments, one budget.
Useful before you ever write to us.
Free checks on your own business, and guides for every stage of the buying journey.
The first screen review
Send one page. We read the first two screens the way a buyer does and score them against eight checks: what you sell, who it is for, the outcome, the proof, the alternative, the next step. You get the scorecard, the weakest check first, and a rewritten first screen.
Free. The review is yours to act on.
Send a pageDoes AI recommend you?
Find out which companies ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity name when your buyers ask who to consider. We run the check and email you what each one said, and where your name appears.
Free. Yours to keep.
Run the checkThe B2B buyer journey: how buyers choose a supplier before they get in touch
What the latest research shows about the B2B buyer journey, the private stretch where shortlists form, and how to be on the list when it does.
Get noticedAI search optimization: how to get recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
A practical guide to AI search optimization: what AI assistants quote, what to publish so they quote you, and how to check it is working.
Get shortlistedHow to stand out from competitors when every company says the same thing
How to stand out from competitors with a practical method for finding the sentence only your company can claim, including when products are similar.
You talk to one person. That is the whole structure.
The person you meet is the person who does the work.
It starts with an email. A few lines about what you sell, who buys it and what is getting in the way. The reply says what we would do first, including when the better move is to wait or to work with someone else.
When a project needs a designer, a director, a media buyer or a developer, people we have worked with for years join by name. What stays constant is who is accountable when it works.
Tell us what your category always says. You will hear what we would say in its place.
Written to be argued with.
Being disliked is survivable. Being ignored is terminal.
The safest idea in the room dies in that room.
If a competitor could sign it, it belongs to the category.
What changed this week, and what it means for you.
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