The ONLY AI-Resistant Marketing Playbook

I can’t tell you how many companies haven’t realized they’re using marketing playbooks that are dated and don’t work anymore. All marketers know is sales are down, they aren’t increasing deal flow like they used to, CEOs are frustrated, and nothing seems to work anymore.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) search, and greedy social media companies have already broken marketing. Content is still important, but what has worked for the past 20 years does not work anymore.

People are searching more than ever, but they are asking AI, which then answers them. Most people aren’t visiting websites anymore hunting for answers or solutions. AI is simply giving them an answer on a silver platter. I personally don’t even use Google anymore, it is the equivalent of reading the Yellow Pages compared to AI search. Meanwhile, the traffic you do get from AI search results, although it is high intent, the volume does not compare to the organic search traffic we used to get. For every 100 people you used to get from organic search traffic, you now maybe get 1 person from AI search results. The volume just isn’t there because people aren’t digging into websites for answers anymore. Inbound just doesn’t work anymore in an AI world and most people haven’t figured this out yet.

Meanwhile, X, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook have all significantly reduced reach, even to your own followers, and optimized their platforms for engagement so users do not leave. In other words, you can’t link to your own website or products or services anymore without these social media algorithms sending your links and content into a blackhole.

I had a project I was working on recently, and I had a post go viral on Instagram with over 28,000+ organic views. Do you know how many people visited the website? 4. How many sales? Zero. Meanwhile, I get thousands of views on my LinkedIn account per month, and almost no one ever goes to my website.

YouTube and Reddit are the only actual content platforms left that matter anymore. Even then, they both suffer from serious limitations and are difficult or impossible to scale. Reddit is a random cluster of chaos where every community has different rules, and YouTube is a treadmill that forces you to run faster and faster until you cannot keep up anymore.

Either way, spending time on organic social media is an absolute waste of time for 98% of startups and companies. Don’t get me wrong, the 1-2% who nail it can make a dent and get some seriously free traffic, but it requires serious effort, time, and luck.

Would you rather have 100,000 people show up to your website and get zero sales? Or have 10 people show up and get 7 sales?

I’ve asked this question to everyone from YC founders who raised millions of dollars, to bootstrapped founders, and they always say they’d rather have 7 sales from 10 people, but most of them coveted fame more than sales.

There is something uniquely human about wanting to get as many people as possible to know what you’re working on, but that’s not how you run a business. The only thing that matters is sales. You need 7 sales, not 7,000 website visits.

The best way to make money is to only sell your product to people who can actually get value from what you are selling. If you sell watches, and show your watch to 100,000 people who don’t wear a watch, it is a lot harder to convince them to buy and wear their first watch then it is to sell to 100 people who already own a watch.

This is why you need to spend money to make money and pay for account-based marketing campaigns. Figure out what companies or people you want to sell your product or service to, and who can actually benefit from using your solution, and run ads only to them with messaging and positioning personalized to their pain points, and sell them a solution.

You either figure out your customer acquisition costs via account-based marketing campaigns and hypertargeting now, or your business will fail. It is really that simple at this point.

Meanwhile, if your user acquisition costs are higher than your margins, then you don’t have a viable business and need to pivot. You either need to raise your prices, or move on. That’s just reality now. Anyone telling you otherwise is not being honest with you, and is wasting your time and your money.

If you aren’t running retargeting ads, you aren’t serious about running a real business. Nearly every company I’ve consulted with in the past 10-years wasn’t running retargeting ads.

They spend countless hours building a company, product(s), and in some cases, spend millions of dollars to get people to show up to their website… then they just give up and do absolutely nothing to get people to come back.

It is mind-blogging as a marketer that you wouldn’t take advantage of retargeting. Once someone hits your website, they shouldn’t be able to use social media for months without seeing your ads. That’s how you get sales, and make sure your messaging even works. If you cannot get people back, you’re not going to convince anyone to buy anything on a first visit. Almost no one buys on a first visit anymore, especially B2B SaaS or other complex systems or tools.

Retargeting is how you get people to come back and actually book that sales call or buy something. If you aren’t dedicating some budget every month to retargeting, then you do not want to win, and you’re leaving money on the table.

This is the slowest, and hardest way to build deal flow, but it still works. Host community events, a podcast, go where your customers hang out online, and either interact with them there or create a place for them to come hang out with you.

Going to events, or hosting events, and meeting and talking to people in real life still works and bypasses all the AI and social reach issues present online. It’s really hard to get people to show up in person, but when it succeeds, it still works.

Meanwhile, if you’re going to spend money on attending or hosting in-person events, make sure you’re retargeting your website for when they do check you out online. Again, they should not be able to go anywhere on social media without seeing your ads for months afterward.

Marketing is paradoxically both harder than it has ever been because of AI and big tech nonsense, but at the same time, we have all these new AI tools that make it easier than ever to automate and reach people. The problem is the pendulum is swinging rapidly and wildly and could go any direction tomorrow. The only thing I can tell you for certain is the old playbooks are dead, and the new playbooks are still being written.

Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise isn’t being honest or perhaps hasn’t realized the reality of the world we now live in. Many marketers are still in denial, and many companies are still living in the past. I cannot tell you how many companies I’ve talked to still hiring traditional inbound marketing people, and trying to run campaigns like its 2019. Heck, I’ve talked to companies that still think you need Python and SQL skills to do GTM engineering who don’t understand you can use AI workflow tools instead now and they’re far more powerful.

It isn’t easy writing this blog post, I’ve had to throw out at least 70% of my own playbook. Do you know how hard it is to throwout 70% of what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years? Not easy, but it is what is happening, and you either have to adapt or fail.

A final word for founders, if you’ve raised money or you’re bootstrapping you’re supposed to dedicate anywhere between 20-60% of your budget to marketing depending on the type of business model and product/service.

https://productmarketerpro.com for a free consult.