Keyword research and prompt research differ on a number of fronts, including the factors outlined below.
How Keyword Research and Prompt Research Differ
Nature of What Is Entered In Search Tool By Searcher/Prompter: Traditional keyword research is/was all about discovering what topics (in the form of one word or several words (a phrase or statement)) individuals, in geographies your organization serves) are/were entering into traditional search engines on an average monthly basis. Eventually, keyword research expanded to “light” question research, using tools like Answer The Public. Prompt research is about discovering the various questions vs. statements or phrases that individuals are putting into an AI search/answer engine, like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or ChatGPT, to get an answer to a specific question.
Geographic Focus: as discussed above, keyword research is/was focused on understanding what terms/phrases/words target audiences in an organization’s geography were entering into traditional search vs. AI search tools to determine which phrases the target audiences were using most. With prompt research, there is far less geographic/physical-location focus, and it is far more difficult to obtain what questions individuals specifically in your geography are putting into an AI search tool, like ChatGPT, to get their question answered.
Ultimate Search Engine Optimization (SEO/GEO/AEO) Goal/Objective: Keyword research is all about helping an organization “rank well” in relevant search results fo relevant searches. Prompt research is about identifying the types of questions anyone anywhere is entering in an AI/answer engine that are either directly, tangentially, or very indirectly related to the products or services your organization offers.
How Research Is Used: Keyword research is used to inform the content that one includes on their website — whether it be post or page content — but particularly, the words used in/the phrasing of headers and subheaders, and behind-the-scenes meta/SEO tags. Prompt research is about identifying which content on your own website or a competitor’s website is being cited (linked to) by AI search engines, and therefore, being served up to “prompters” in the answer they spit back. This research can help inform the format and content nature of future blog posts or Q &A (housed in an FAQ website page). In addition, a different set of prompt research should be conducted to learn the exact phrasing/the nature of prompts that your target audiences are regularly putting into AI search/answer engines.
Tools Used To Conduct Research: Free and paid tools exist to conduct keyword research, and our team uses the free keyword planner tool in Google Ads to conduct such research. Prompt research involves the two types/branches described above and can be conducted by 1) adding the “first user source” dimension to your Google Analytics “pages and screens” report (see image below) and entering the names of various AI search engines, such as Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini, into the search query bar so you can see to which pages/posts on your site AI search engines are referring visitors. If you have a visitor coming to a specific post/page on your website, then the AI engine in-question must have cited (provided a link to) the website page or post in-question; and 2) using a paid tool like SEMRush which has a distinct “prompt research” tool within it to gather broader/more general target-audience prompt behavior, and therefore, behavior that goes on beyond your particular website.
Need Help Conducting Prompt Research Or Keyword Research?
Boston-area small business owners and marketing managers often face the same small business marketing challenges: low search visibility, inconsistent leads, and a nagging sense that efforts aren’t translating into clear ROI. When sales pitch development is driven by what the business wants to say instead of what buyers struggle with, messaging turns scattered and forgettable. The fastest way to tighten everything is target audience analysis that surfaces real customer pain points and connects them to a simple promise. That clarity becomes the foundation for effective brand communication.
Understanding a Credible Brand Narrative
At the center of a winning pitch is a brand narrative that starts with the buyer, not your business. You map the problem they are trying to solve, then choose storytelling techniques that make them feel understood. Strong research and clear strategy skills help you prove you can deliver, not just promise.
This matters because optimizing for search and ads only work when the message is consistent and believable. If your story is vague, prospects bounce and your marketing feels like a cost. When the story is grounded, it becomes easier to rank, convert, and measure what is working.
Turn One Core Offer Into 5 Assets and a Repeatable Pitch
If your brand narrative is clear, your customer’s problem, your promise, and the proof, your marketing gets a lot easier. Use the steps below to turn one core offer into a set of usable assets you can ship this week, then improve based on real engagement.
Write a 30-second pitch template (and don’t improvise it): Draft one short script you can reuse across networking, sales calls, and your website hero section. Keep it to: Who you help ? the problem you solve ? your approach ? a believable outcome ? one proof point ? a simple CTA (call-to-action). Example: “We help busy local service businesses get found on Google by fixing on-page SEO and running targeted ads, so you generate consistent leads without guessing, here’s a recent result, and the next step is a 15-minute audit.”
Translate your pitch into customer-centric messaging (“You” > “We”): Take each line of your pitch and rewrite it from the buyer’s perspective using the language they already use in emails and reviews. Aim for one sentence per stage of awareness: pain (“I’m spending on ads but leads are inconsistent”), desired outcome (“I need calls every week”), barrier (“I don’t have time to learn SEO”), confidence (“I want to know what I’m paying for”). This is how you keep the narrative credible without overpromising.
Create 5 core assets from the same message spine: Build a mini “asset stack” so your offer shows up consistently in search, ads, and sales conversations. A simple set is: one landing page, one one-page PDF, a 6–8 slide deck, a short email sequence (3 emails), and 3 social posts that reuse the same hook and proof. Because collateral exists in physical or digital form, you can use the PDF both as a download for leads and as a leave-behind after meetings.
Standardize your visuals with a print-ready template system: Pick two fonts, 2–3 brand colors, and one photo style, then lock them into a reusable layout for your one-pager and slides. A clean template reduces “design thrash” and makes your message easier to scan in a hurry; a great template can make a big difference in clarity, especially for pitch decks. If you also create quick printables for events, like a simple workshop sign, lobby flyer, or QR-code poster, using the same fonts and colors keeps everything consistent, and a printable free poster maker can help you produce those pieces without reinventing your layout.
Add one proof element to every asset (and make it specific): Proof can be a short testimonial, a mini case study (“from X to Y in 60 days”), a screenshot of a metric, or a “what’s included” checklist. Tie the proof back to the customer’s problem from your brand narrative, avoid generic claims like “best in class.” If you’re new and lack results, use process proof: your audit checklist, reporting cadence, and what a client can expect in week 1.
Track 3 engagement metrics and run a monthly “message tune-up”: Keep it simple: landing page conversion rate, email click rate, and deck/one-pager follow-up rate (how many people reply or book after receiving it). Once a month, update one thing based on the data: change the headline, swap the proof point, or tighten the CTA. When objections come up repeatedly, price, timelines, “we tried this before”, add a single slide, FAQ block, or one paragraph to address it with clear ROI logic and evidence.
Prospect Pitch and Marketing Questions Small Teams Ask
Q: What do I say when a prospect pushes back on price? A: Reframe price as risk reduction and outcomes: what problem is costing them time, leads, or margin right now. Offer a smaller first step like a paid audit or a 30-day pilot with one measurable target. Then anchor with proof, even if it is process proof like reporting cadence and deliverables.
Q: How do I pick lead generation tactics without wasting money? A: Match the channel to intent: search and local SEO for “ready to buy,” and email or retargeting for “not yet.” Start with one primary channel and one support channel, run it for 2 to 4 weeks, and keep the offer consistent so results are comparable.
Q: How should I measure marketing ROI if I do not have perfect tracking? A: Use a simple baseline: leads, booked calls, close rate, and average deal value. Marketing leaders feeling that pressure from the board rose 21% is a reminder to report what you can, consistently, rather than waiting for perfect attribution.
Q: Can testimonials really improve conversions, or is that just nice-to-have? A: They help because customer trust in SMB (small- and medium-sized business) sales is built on confidence, reliability, and credibility. Use specific testimonials tied to one objection, like timelines or results, and place them near your CTA.
Q: When should I change my pitch versus keep iterating on the same message? A: Change it when qualified prospects repeatedly misunderstand what you do, who it is for, or what success looks like. Otherwise, keep the core claim stable and test one variable at a time like headline, offer, or proof.
Launch-Ready Pitch and Marketing Checklist
This checklist turns your pitch and campaign into a repeatable weekly system. It helps you stay focused on what moves revenue, especially when 60% fail to meet objectives and the difference is usually clarity and follow-through.
? Confirm a single goal and one primary success metric
? Define the buyer segment, problem, and decision trigger
? Draft a compelling elevator pitch that grabs attention fast
? Map three proof points to your top objections
? Choose one primary channel and one support channel
? Build one landing page with one CTA and one offer
? Track leads, booked calls, close rate, and deal value weekly
Ship the next iteration today, then let results steer your edits.
Turn Your Pitch Into a Long-Term Marketing Rhythm
Most small businesses don’t struggle with effort, they struggle with keeping the story consistent while results come in unevenly. The way through is a simple loop: treat your pitch and marketing as a living message, anchored by continuous marketing improvement through customer feedback utilization, sales performance analysis, and steady brand message refinement. When that becomes the norm, campaigns get clearer, conversations get easier, and your best customers start recognizing you faster. A strong pitch isn’t one perfect script; it’s a story you keep sharpening based on real results. Set a 30-minute weekly review to check what sold, what got ignored, and what customers repeated back. That rhythm turns day-to-day outreach into a long-term marketing strategy you can sustain through busy seasons and uncertainty.
About Our Guest Blogger, Charlie Michaels
Charlie Michaels created EntrepreneurWorld.net to connect and guide entrepreneurs all over the world! He came up with the idea in the midst of the pandemic. Feeling isolated and anxious, he thought other entrepreneurs, near and far, might be feeling the same way. He wanted to create a central digital gathering space where entrepreneurs could come to get support and learn from one another. Entrepreneur World is in its early stages, but Michaels is working hard to grow it to meet his big vision.
Read on to learn about both free and paid opportunities to create awareness of your organization and its products and services on the Nextdoor social media platfform!
And, keep in mind, that while your organic/free presence may only reach local consumers and businesses, your organization can purchase online advertising that can be served up to businesses and consumers throughout the U.S. And, you can choose the city or state location of individuals to whom you want your ad served up!
Free Promotional Opportunities On Nextdoor.com
If you or your organization is not familiar with, and maintaining an organic/free business page on the social media platform geared toward sharing community news and event — nextdoor.com — you are likely missing out on a free and easy way to create awareness of your organization’s products and services locally. Once you set up a business page — something our digital marketing team can help you with — and provide documentation to nextdoor.com to verify your business is legitimate, fans of your organization can start posting recommendations/reviews to your page. Plus, you can start posting updates to your nextdoor.com business page the way you do to other forms of social media and to your Google My Business Profile.
Paid Advertising/Promotional Opportunities On Nextdoor.com
In addition, nextdoor.com offers the opportunity to run display ads (image ads) that are similar to ads that you can run on other social media platforms, like Instagram or Facebook, or on discussion-forums like Reddit. We are currently testing this advertising vehicle for our own business, as well as for a client’s business, and will be sure to provide updates on our experience with the tool and the results it does or doesn’t deliver!
With answer-engine use (think ChatGPT, Google AI modes, etc.) on the uptick, it can be much harder to be found online by relevant searchers. So, maybe it’s time to get creative, think outside the box, and consider this “push” marketing activity, in addition to “pull” ones that you’ve relied on in the past. Learn more about the difference between pull and push marketing and why, particularly, with the introduction of AI, you’ll want to create and implement both a push and a pull marketing strategy.
Need Help With Setting Up A Nextdoor Business Page Or Nextdoor Paid Advertising Campaign?
And, I’m going to continue to use Facebook to promote my various fundraising walks and community causes I’m involved with. Why? Because that was the original intent of “social” media – to share beneficial/helpful information that would make the world a better place.
What I Don’t Like About Using Facebook From A Personal Vs. Business Standpoint
What bugs me most about Facebook is this: there’s no way for personal vs. business posters to apply a filter. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t do any of the following related to a text or e-mail you send a friend or family member, or when talking with them via Facetime, Zoom, or in-person:
Mention you just had lunch with your mom or played golf with your dad if they recently lost their mother or father
Talk about an extravagant vacation to someone who either can’t afford one or whose circumstances don’t allow them to travel, such as someone who is a caregiver to an ill spouse, child, or other family member and has no flexibility to travel; they could also be unable to travel because of illness or disability
Share photos of a new baby or grandbaby with someone who is struggling to conceive or adopt, or who just had a miscarriage, or maybe even with a childless friend who always wanted to be a parent
Share photos of a romantic date with or a gift from a significant other with a friend you know is lonely on the day in-question or on holidays like Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve, e.g., someone who doesn’t enjoy being single or who just lost a spouse or a significant other
You get the picture!
So, if we’re connected on Facebook personally vs. following each other’s businesses, expect to see me on Facebook even less than you have in past years, except for the fundraising and community-cause promotion reasons above. And, of yeah, I’ll probably be celebrating Celtics victories or ranting about losses, and promoting my favorite local musical artists.
Given the inability to “filter” who sees your various personal posts — as well as to know what is going on in each and every Facebook connection’s life at any point in time, I encourage those who continue to post regularly on Facebook to ask themselves if they’d be better supporting their friends and family if they held off on posting about certain topics that might cause a sub-set of their friends and family discomfort, sadness, anxiety or envy on any given day vs. posting about things that might lift them up!
Using Facebook For Business Purposes
Of course, the above need to be careful and kind when posting on Facebook applies to businesses and organizations too. Need help developing a Facebook organic posting or paid advertising strategy that won’t offend your customers or prospective customers? Reach out today!
As we explained in this previous blog post about the mistake most people make when they manually conduct an SEO audit, your organization is better off hiring an SEO expert to conduct an audit, so that the results you get are unbiased. For most businesses/organizations, i.e., ones that have both a website and a Google My Business Profile, an SEO audit will provide information related to both your website and your Google My Business Profile, since Google may serve up either in search results (and as of the date of this post, the traditional Google search engine is still the one most used by search tool users, followed by YouTube, and ChatGPT.)
Peeling Back An Onion Skin To See What Lies Beneath
Listed below is the information you can glean from having an SEO company or digital marketing agency, like ours, conduct an SEO audit for you:
what external websites and certain other digital properties (not owned by your organization/business) have links on them to your website, and therefore, are providing “referral” traffic via backlinks to your site — these may include other websites or discussion-forums like Reddit
does your website and/or Google My Business Profile rank differently in Google in a particular geography for a particular keyword (search term), based on the device used by the searcher, i.e., mobile phone vs. desktop/laptop
what keywords your website and Google My Business Profile are ranking best for on Google and in what geographies
whether your Google My Business Profile or your website is being served up higher in search results in certain geographies for certain search terms — this will help you determine whether or not you should be putting more energy into getting your Google My Business Profile ranking better (you always want that to be served up for “near me” searches) and/or your website ranking better (ideally this would rank better for non-near-me terms)
missed SEO opportunities — these include best practices which haven’t been implemented by your organization, such as writing and entering SEO page title and meta description tags on your website platform/CMS for every page and post on your website, and writing an entering image alt-tags
mistakes/issues/challenges with your website that are likely causing it to be served up less than it could/should be in relevant geographies for relevant search terms, such as slow site load speed or broken links on your website
what are the top 10-20 search keywords that Google is serving your website up most for
how many individuals are clicking on a link in your Google My Business Profile to arrive at your website
what are the most-viewed pages of your website
what pages of your website are being served up the highest in search results by Google
what marketing activities/vehicles are driving website traffic and what percentage of your overall website traffic is coming from AI or traditional search tools
what geographies/locations are your website visitors coming from
what devices do people use most to access your website, i.e., laptop/desktop vs. mobile
If my memory serves me correctly, I’ve written about the second “new beginning” that September offers each of us each year on my own blog or that of a client. I love the fact that September provides a second start to any year and a chance to begin any kind of project you’d been hoping to get to earlier in the year, and to revisit goals — whether they be personal- or work-related ones. There’s still four full months to accomplish something you’ve always wanted to, or at least make a lot of headway toward achieving that accomplishment, so let’s agree to not start thinking another year is already behind us!
Since I own and run a digital marketing agency, the fall and early winter work goals I’m going to discuss below are marketing-related, but obviously, your work goals could pertain to any area of your organization, such as employee satisfaction and retention, new technology implementation, or expense reduction.
Marketing Goals For Q3 & Q4
Here’s some marketing goals you might want to complete in September, October, November, or December:
Dip your toes in the Reddit (or other discussion-forum waters) since search engines are serving up discussion threads more & more because of their Q & A format. If you’re not ready to start a discussion, weigh in on appropriate discussions without being too self-promoting!
Start collecting content for an Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), or an enhanced FAQ on your website if you already have an FAQ, by creating a shared document that your team can add to as they continue to be asked the same questions from customers or prospective customers.
Once you have sufficient content, create an FAQ page on your site and load the FAQ content.
Run, or hire a marketing consultant to run, website diagnostics reports, so you can identify and address both website features and factors that might be causing search engines to not want to serve up your website in target-audience’s search results, as well as missed SEO opportunities.
Set up the Google accounts discussed in our previous blog post, If you don’t already have them, to position yourself both to be able to better understand what marketing activities are and aren’t working for you, but also to support your target audiences finding you when they complete a “near me”/local Google search.
Since everything one does in life ends up positively or negatively impacting their mental and/or physical health, every personal goal ultimately is a wellbeing/wellness/health goal. For example, if you enroll in a class this fall or winter, it may cause you to gain knowledge to support a professional goal, but it also will likely make you feel more optimistic and improve your emotional wellbeing.
As I shared in this blog post about why I’ll always feel like a cancer (sarcoma) patient, I deal with chronic digestive issues on a daily basis because of past cancer treatment. I also have had chronic neck muscle mobility and pain issues since my late 20’s. Unfortunately, the neck trouble all started when I was working as a research associate at Fidelity Investments and going to graduate school at Boston University at night. I used to regularly carry a heavy bookbag of notebooks and books on the T (subway) to and from the University for many years. Post graduation, and ever since then, I’ve suffered from neck troubles.
I’ve already taken steps this summer, and plan to continue them thru the rest of Q3 & Q4, to improve the above two situations by:
Working with a nutritionist who has personal experience with the digestive issues from which I suffer. By working with me to introduce new foods and to keep a food diary, we’ve been able to identify which foods do and don’t improve my unpleasant digestive symptoms, and I’m feeling so much better. Hooray! Shout out to Dear Nutrition!
Starting PT for my neck and being very focused on my posture as I work at my computer — keeping an eye out for “forward head” and taking computer breaks once in a while to loosen myself up. I’ve got my trusted companion, Truly (see image below), who sits on my desk, to remind me to sit properly while typing or reading on my computer! Thank you, Truly! And, thanks to the physical therapists at South Shore Health Physical Therapy for your great advice & support!
Degas Ballerina Statue That Provides Reminder About The Need to Maintain Good Posture While On Computer!
In addition to the above, I’m using the hashtag #SeptemberStrong with friends and family to encourage them to stay well and for us to cheer each other on, and I’m identifying situations and people that are unnecessarily and excessively anxiety-producing (in some cases, toxic) and steering clear of them!
Why Are SEO Experts, AEO Experts, and Digital Marketers Talking About Wikipedia So Much In 2025?
Two key factors for all the marketing and AEO hype related to Wikipedia include:
Tests and research completed by SEO and AEO (answer engine optimization) experts indicate that often content from a relevant Wikipedia page is more likely to be served up to individuals using AI, answer, and chat search engines than content from the brand-in-question’s, or company-in-question’s, own website.
When AI search engines like chat engines were initially taught to crawl and index information, they were trained to do so using Wikipedia content.
Wikipedia Company Page
How To Set Up A Wikipedia Page and Hurdles To Getting Approved For a Company Page
How To Set Up A Website Page That Might Perform As Well As A Wikipedia Page When It Comes To Answer Engines
How Can I Set Up Website Pages On My Own Website To Mirror Wikipedia Pages?
If it ends up holding true, and honestly it’s far too early to tell, that structuring/setting up your website page to mirror attributes of a Wikipedia page will cause its content to appear more frequently in answers to relevant questions spit back by AI search/chat/answer engines, then the aforementioned set-up work will have been worth it. But, what does the work entail? To structure a website page so that it mirrors Wikipedia page content that AI search/chat/answer engines seem to adore, we advise the following:
Throughout website page content, include inner-page and inner-post links to relevant content, particularly content that provides additional information on a term or topic.
Reference/give credit to external resources used to inform website page content and link to reputable external sites that might answer additional questions that website page readers might have.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we tried to make this website page/blog post mirror a Wikipedia page to some degree, and since we recently had the good fortune of seeing the musical highlighted in this Wikipedia page at the Huntington Theater In Boston with a friend, we’ll use this page as an example. As you’ll see if you visit this hyperlinked page, the page is really easy to read. No paragraphs are crazy long. The page uses a lot of headers/sub-headers to break up and segment/categorize content. Through reference and external links at the bottom, the page also includes links to creditable resources that provide information on where facts and data contained on the page came from. And, throughout the page, hyperlinks are included to relevant Wikipedia or non-Wikipedia pages that contain further information/explanation on a particular topic/particular data included in the Wikipedia page.
How To Write Content That AI Search Engines Like To Crawl And Index
When Google first announced and began rolling out Google SGE, we published a blog post about how to write content for that particular AI search engine. You’ll see that the still appropriate advice provided there is very similar to what was provided above, keep your content clean and make it easily digested and understood by both humans and answer engines!
Because we believe “traditional,” i.e., non-digital media and marketing is not dead, and often has a strong place in an integrated marketing plan, we’ve been recommending print advertising to clients, as appropriate, and helping to launch and monitor print campaigns.
What Is a Print Campaign?
Normally, when someone refers to a “print campaign,” they are referring to one or both of the following:
An advertisement that appears in a printed newspaper in one or more spots within an edition, and in one or more editions of the newspaper
An advertisement that appears in a printed magazine in one or more spots within an edition, and in one or more editions of the magazine
Keep in mind that often media/publications that offer print advertising will also share your ads in a digital version of the publication on their website, but that is not always the case. So, this blog post is focused on making sure hard copy/printed publication advertising is both effective and measurable.
How Do You Ensure A Print Campaign Is Effective?
Choose newspapers and magazines that your target audiences are likely to read
Include calls-to-action like “schedule a free consultation today.”
Don’t have too many competing messages or make the ad too cluttered
Use fonts appropriately — make sure there’s a hierarchy, so that the most important ad messages/ad content are in larger fonts
Provide several means for the ad viewer to get in touch with you, such as: a QR code that goes to the ad landing page (this is discussed below), the spelled-out URL of ad landing page like https://allintheresults/seospecial, a phone #, and if appropriate, an e-mail address. Never assume everyone wants to do business with you electronically or digitally. Always provide options for those who are less technologically savvy or who don’t like to use technology.
How Can You Track Print Campaign Results?
As mentioned above, ideally, if you are running a print campaign you would have a devoted landing page specific to the print ad in-question, and if the print ad is running in more than one vehicle, distinct landing pages for each of the vehicles the ad will run in. You can use the identical landing page for both a newspaper and a magazine you plan to run an ad in. Just create the website page under one of the URLs you plan to use in a specific publication, and then, copy the page and assign it to a distinct URL for each vehicle. Distinct page URLs will help you, the advertiser/marketer, to determine which ads are driving traffic to the website (just use Google Analytics to check on page URL views).
Whether they be phone, e-mail, or inquiry form submissions, in advance of the print campaign dropping, let appropriate internal staff know about the nature and timing of the campaign and ask them to record how inquirers learned about you. You can also add that question to your online inquiry form. Many marketers/advertisers include a drop-down menu (containing various marketing vehicles) on their inquiry form from which inquirers can choose “how they learned about you.”
Conclusions About Print Advertising
If you’re going to spend the time and $$ executing print ad campaigns, be sure that:
The ads themselves are effective and are geared toward generating leads, sales, and engagements for your organization as discussed above.
Ensure you put the right tracking mechanisms in place before you launch the print ad campaign, so you can evaluate the ROI of the campaign.
Need Help Creating, Executing, and Evaluating A Print Campaign?
We agree with the wisdom of many marketing experts when it comes to whether or not businesses and organizations should spend less money and time on marketing during uncertain economic times — times when their customers want or need to spend less. And, that wisdom is that, in most cases, spending less money and time on marketing is only going to worsen your organization’s product sales/engagements for services when times get hard financially.
We mentioned “in most cases,” because in the situation where your organization offers a very high-ticket item that would be considered a huge luxury to MOST potential buyers, it would seem wise to cut back your spending on marketing because of the unlikelihood of clients making a purchase until the economy feels less uncertain. Still, you definitely will want to maintain some kind of marketing presence, even if it’s just continuing to post to social media, so people don’t forget about your brand and your products and services, and keep them on their “for-when-the-economy-improves” wish list.
But, getting back to the “wisdom” outlined in the first paragraph of this post, let’s first set the stage before we do. A period of economic decline could mean your consumer clients have been laid off, or if they are business owners who purchase business (B2B) services and products from you, their business may be taking a financial hit. Or, it could simply mean your customers are afraid of what the economic future holds, and believe it’s important that they are careful about spending. All of the aforementioned means that target audiences are likely spending money most on services and products they really need vs. something that might feel like a luxury, feel unnecessary, and/or feel like it could wait.
So, How Should I Spend Money On Marketing When The Economy Is Bad?
Whether yours is the type of product or service that people find or on which they get educated thru push and/or pull marketing, it’s really important you continue to maintain a presence so potential clients can find you or learn about you.
In fact, instead of cutting back on marketing efforts, you may actually want and need to spend more than you had been spending to be found by and/or to educate the right people that your product or service exists. In fact, today (5/12/25), Our Principal shared the above information on LinkedIn “Not liking what I’m seeing on the #GoogleAds/ #SEM / #paidsearch front for some of my clients right now (last 6 weeks), but much of it is what it is. It appears these two factors are currently at play for many Google Ads advertisers: 1) fewer people searching on relevant terms (relevant product and service terms in relevant geographies) — likely due to all our #economicuncertainty and #economicvolatility and people’s fears about spending money now (whether they be consumer or businesses) and 2) new advertisers creating and running #searchcampaigns because their own business volume is off and they are testing/trying Google Ads as a way to circumvent the drop in business/leads/inquiries, etc.”
Regardless of whether your organization plans to continue to spend the same amount of money and time on marketing, or decides to spend more money or less money, you still want to spend your time, energy and money wisely. Regardless of the direction in which you plan to take your organizations marketing, we recommend you go thru the following data analysis exercise to ensure you’re making the right move/to inform your next move.
Step 1: Employ Google Analytics To See Which Marketing Activities Have Driven The Most Traffic to Your Website In The Last 6 Months
If you spent a lot of time on sending out e-newsletters/e-mail to grow your business and/or on a social media expert to post to social media on your organization’s behalf, and Google Analytics is not showing a lot of traffic coming to the website via those defined Google Analytics channels, then, when marketing money is tight, that’s a place to cut back and consider investing in other marketing activities that HAVE driven a lot of traffic. You get the picture.
Step 2: Employ Google Analytics Data Or Other Available Analytics Tools To See What Marketing Activities Are Converting
In addition to reviewing website traffic acquisition data, even more importantly, you’ll want to look at which marketing activities are “converting,” the best, i.e., causing site visitors to take a desired action on your website such as completing an inquiry form or using a phone # or e-mail address on your site to inquire or purchase something. Check out our previous blog post about conversion generation, plus, follow the steps below to assess whether or not various marketing activities are converting.
Use Events Information In Google Analytics To See What Marketing Channels Are Generating The Events That Are Most Valuable To You
Access the “Events” report in Google Analytics, then, add a dimension such as “first user Google Ads ad group name (if you want to get really granular and look at a specific marketing vehicle and drill down on it),” or more general ones like “first user campaign,” or “first user source/medium” to allow you to see all the broader categories of marketing vehicles that are generating conversions vs. getting as specific about certain ones, and the type of conversions those vehicles are generating.
See print screens below which show where and how to access such data in Google Analytics. In the case where you want to look at “first user source/medium” or “first user campaign” to get a big-picture vs. granular information about a specific form of marketing or advertising, like Google Ads, after selecting “Traffic Source,” select “Cross Channel” and, then, you can choose “first user source/medium” or “first user campaign” from Google Analytics’ list. (Important Note: keep in mind that you may be able to get such conversion data from another marketing analytics tool or platform, including advertising ones, such as CallRail or social media platforms.)
Once you’ve generated your list of events at the marketing vehicle level you want to look at, if you have a large number of events or conversions a website visitor can complete on your site, you may want to use the search tool, as shown below, to search on the conversions that are most important to you, such as phone calls. This will streamline your analysis and make it easier for you to assess conversion results.
In keeping with step 1 above where we suggested focusing your marketing time and energy, during difficult economic times, on those activities that are driving traffic to your website, related to step 2 and analyzing conversion results, you’ll want to focus your marketing efforts on activities that are generating your most important conversions like inquiries and actual sales.
It’s important that you complete both the above step 1 and step 2 analyses because, while a certain marketing activity may drive a lot of traffic to your website, if it’s not “converting,” you’ll likely want to spend more time and energy on the activities that are “converting.” Each organization and business is different, and particularly if your product or service has a long sales cycle, and therefore, people do a lot of research and thinking before they purchase it, creating awareness thru website traffic can still be beneficial. So, you really need to consider your organization’s particular situation when drawing a conclusion about your marketing dollars and time. But, ultimately, at a minimum, your marketing activities during uncertain economic should drive website traffic, and ideally, conversions as well.
Don’t Rule Out New Marketing Vehicles During Uncertain Economic Times
We’d be remiss if we didn’t share that, if the above analyses don’t indicate you’re seeing desirable website traffic and conversion results from your existing marketing activities to inform a marketing strategy for our current economic times, maybe it’s time you consider a pilot or test of one or several new marketing vehicles. There could be a vehicle out there that would be just what you need to drive website traffic or conversions during a challenging financial time. We’re more than happy to help you figure that piece out!
As we mentioned in our blog post about our digital marketing agency and SEO company celebrating our 11-year anniversary, recently we’ve been testing more print advertising and Google Display advertising for clients. Sometimes, your organization and/or your marketing consultant or agency either doesn’t have enough experience employing certain types of advertising or marketing, or they don’t have enough experience employing certain types of advertising or marketing related to your organization’s particular industry, challenges, and opportunities.
The above-mentioned scenario means the only way to know for sure whether or not a particular marketing vehicle or marketing activity might generate great awareness, leads, sales, or engagement for services for your organization is to test that vehicle — run a pilot campaign using that particular vehicle and see what results reveal.
Recently, we’ve been working with a client in the food space that offers a food-related service vs. offering a food product that you can buy at the grocery store. They were already running Google Search ads that were served up to individuals specifically looking for their particular service. We suggested they also:
employ Google Display advertising and have image/display ads served up to people reading about relevant topics as well as people to people who had researched relevant topics in the past and/or had bought products/services similar to theirs in the past.
Evaluating A New Marketing Activity: What Does A Conversion Cost You?
While both of the new campaigns had strong click-thru rates, and the Google Display ads had an extremely low cost-per-click, when we did a really deep dive to determine which, if either, of the two new campaigns were generating conversions, i.e., calls, submitted inquiry forms, etc., we determined that the Display ads were NOT generating conversions — ultimately, making the cost-per-conversion crazy high for the Display ads, even though they had a very favorable cost-per-click.
Are we glad we tested both of the new types of campaigns? Certainly. The client is still somewhat in start-up mode, and is still testing and trying a number of marketing vehicles and activities to determine what will work best for them as far as lead- and sales-generation goes. And, we wouldn’t have learned the Display ads wouldn’t be effective if we haven’t tried. We spent short money and only ran the campaign for about six weeks. Our money and time investment wasn’t huge, and we learned this type of ad doesn’t make sense from an ROI standpoint — too many people clicking on ads because of the “curiosity factor,” likely, because the ads were food-related and images included in them were enticing and inviting.
We’ll continue to run the other new Google campaign — the Search one — because it is generating conversions, and we’ll keep an eye on the cost-per-conversion to determine if we should continue to run it, but the ads have only been running for 2 months and we need more time to get a sense of the advertising ROI.
Need Help Testing A Particular Marketing Vehicle Or Activity?
