How to talk to advertisers about AI
As publishers face up to Google zero, so, in fact are your advertisers, expecially those who relied heavily on traditional search in the past. They, like you, have optimized the website for a top ten Google ranking, hired bloggers to help, bought SEO tools, and, in competitive categories, mastered Google AdWords. Now what?
In a sentence, what businesses want to hear from publishers is how you can help.
Take advantage of the opportunity to reposition the media as an answer to real industry challenges.
What do publishers have that businesses need more of?
1. Brand Affinity
A strong brand and compelling value proposition can generate direct views of their business or website for more direct traffic.
2. Print
Yes, print is one of the brand builders. All the studies show that as a “slow” and tactile medium, it’s great for shaping purchasing preferences and improving recall. Have these reports on hand as digital natives enthralled by bottom-of-the-funnel clicks begin to look for new options.
3. Newsletters
However, newsletters on their own are a powerful way to reach a highly engaged audience. The more you know about the audience preference the better.
4. Expertise to create a compelling value proposition
Experience from newsletter opens and clicks – and insights from writing about the industry – count more when these messages are needed, instead of SEO – to differentiate companies.
Advertisers can put these messages prominently on their website, along with the advertising. AI is scraping their websites along with other information to create comparisons.
5. Content marketing & lead generation
Where is all that SEO advertising money going to go?
Instead of content marketing designed for SERP, businesses need help creating content that will attract their own newsletter opt-ins. They may be interested in starting newsletters of their own to replace search as a way to reach customers.
Today, writing and audio/video skills are more important than ever.
Even if it does not show up high enough in search results to matter, if it shows up for comparison shoppers and drives opt-ins, it’s a win.
