Thursday, September 25, 2025

From SEO to AEO: Todd Sawicki Reveals How AI Is Transforming Search

From SEO to AEO: Todd Sawicki Reveals How AI Is Transforming Search written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Todd Sawicki (1)Overview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Todd Sawicki, founder and CEO of Gumshoe AI, a cutting-edge platform helping marketers navigate the rapidly evolving world of AI-driven search and discovery. Todd breaks down what AIO, AEO, and AI search really mean for marketers, why buyer behavior is shifting, and how brands can optimize for the new era where large language models (LLMs) drive discovery, answers, and conversions. If you’re looking for practical ways to future-proof your SEO and content marketing, this episode is packed with actionable insights and big-picture context.

About the Guest

Todd Sawicki is the founder and CEO of Gumshoe AI, a platform at the forefront of AI-driven search and discovery solutions. With a deep background in digital media, marketing technology, and scaling startups, Todd is a sought-after voice on the future of search, LLM optimization, and how marketers can adapt as buyer behavior and search platforms are transformed by AI.

Actionable Insights

  • AI-driven search (AIO, AEO) is fundamentally changing how buyers search, what they expect, and how marketers must optimize—think “training the AI salesperson” rather than just ranking on Google.
  • LLMs (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews) are increasingly personalizing answers, using your site’s content, FAQs, product detail pages, and structured data to deliver tailored recommendations.
  • AI search users are high-intent and convert at dramatically higher rates—often 2–20x higher than traditional organic or paid search—because they are pre-qualified and further down the funnel.
  • Content quality, structure, and freshness matter more than ever; LLMs reward authoritative, updated, and well-organized information, not just what’s most popular or backlinked.
  • Updating and repurposing existing content (especially with FAQs, schema, and summaries) is critical—LLMs cite content that has been updated within the last 90 days.
  • Competitive insights and personas are key: Tools like Gumshoe can reveal what LLMs say about you, your competitors, and which personas they surface—providing messaging ideas and identifying areas to improve.
  • Focus on high-intent, conversion-focused queries (not just top-of-funnel trends) and use AI insights to build better ad campaigns, content, and product positioning.
  • Track, measure, and iterate: AI traffic is growing fast—use analytics to see where it’s coming from, how it performs, and how your optimizations are working.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

  • 01:31 – The Rise of AI Search and Zero-Click Experiences
    How AI-driven search is changing user expectations, buyer behavior, and marketing priorities.
  • 03:21 – Why Buyer Behavior Matters More Than Technology
    Users are asking longer, more complex, and more high-intent questions, and expect personalized answers.
  • 05:18 – The Value of AI Traffic
    Why visitors from AI answers convert at much higher rates—and what marketers should do about it.
  • 06:49 – Training the AI Salesperson
    How to “teach” LLMs about your product, and why product marketing and messaging matter more than old-school SEO tactics.
  • 08:30 – What Content Do LLMs Prefer?
    Brand websites, FAQs, knowledge bases, and structured content are the top sources cited by AI.
  • 09:52 – Why Doing Content Right Pays Off
    How years of quality content and structure are finally being rewarded by AI-driven platforms.
  • 12:26 – Content Freshness, Updates, and Repurposing
    The average AI-cited content is only 86 days old—updating and repurposing is critical for ongoing visibility.
  • 14:42 – How Gumshoe AI Works
    Using personas, synthetic users, and competitive insights to see what LLMs are saying about your business—and what to do next.
  • 20:38 – The Future of High-Intent Search
    Marketers must focus on conversion-ready, long-tail queries and position for the new funnel managed by AI.

Insights

“AI-driven search means you have to train the AI like you’d train a salesperson—answer objections, provide detailed info, and position your product for each persona.”

“Content quality, structure, and freshness are the new currency—LLMs reward the right answers, not just the most popular ones.”

“Focus on high-intent, conversion-ready queries—AI search gets users further down the funnel, and marketers need to adapt their messaging and content to win.”

“Analytics prove it: AI-driven visitors stay longer and convert more. Optimize now and track what’s working as AI’s role in discovery grows.”

“Competitive intelligence and persona insights are critical—know what LLMs say about you and your competitors to improve your messaging and positioning.”

John Jantsch (00:02.52)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Todd Sawicki. He's the founder and CEO of Gum Shoe AI, an innovative platform at the forefront of AI-driven search and discovery solutions. With a background in digital media marketing technology and leading high-growth startups, Todd is known for his deep insight into changing landscape of search. We're going to talk about SEO, we're going to talk about AIO, AEO, all the

Other rows that are out there.

Todd Sawicki (00:33.81)

As long as we don't call it GEO, what, you can tell the person who came up with that had no background in marketing because I'm sorry, the minute I've been in the paid landscape, the minute you see the letters GEO, you instantly think of geo targeting, hello people, the last thing we wanna do is make anything more confusing than it might otherwise be. So, my little soapbox for today.

John Jantsch (00:48.622)

Sure,

John Jantsch (00:54.86)

And so with that, with that Todd's on the show. So welcome Todd. So let's, mean, I kind of laid that out a little bit. You know, you've created a tool that is really taking advantage of some of the changes that are going on in marketing today, especially around search. So maybe give a high level kind of in your view, let's start with the basics. All this stuff we're hearing about.

Todd Sawicki (01:10.609)

Yes.

John Jantsch (01:21.41)

GEO for one, AIO, AIO, know, all those kinds of things. I mean, what does it all really boil down to for the typical marketer or typical business?

Todd Sawicki (01:31.374)

It is a it is a good question. So I think we all woke up a year ago. And with the rise of zero click searches with AI mode in Google search taking off, and we began to see Google traffic starting to decline. And at the same time, if anyone was sort of looking at their, like GA four analytics or whatever they're using, they started to see, look, I'm getting this new basket of traffic from chat, tbt and others. And so AI

John Jantsch (01:50.478)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (01:58.706)

and sort of looking at that. so the AI search is taking off. And so as a marketer, suddenly you had to start paying to this attention, this new thing called AI search. And so fundamentally, we look at it as, you know, marketers want to understand what the hell are LMS saying about me. And then from a product standpoint, we like to say yes, we help marketers understand what LMS think about them and their brands, and ultimately what to do about it. And I think that's one of the interesting things is there's a lot more you can do about it, because AI search is a

fundamentally different platform and approach than traditional search and really in many ways I think a search is solving a lot of the problems we've been complaints as end users we've had about traditional search and then there's downstream applications for marketers and how to think about how you work with those platforms as a result.

John Jantsch (02:45.262)

Well, and I think you're hitting on one of the things that I try to get people to understand. Everybody always goes, oh, we've got these new platforms. Um, but what they fail sometimes to recognize is that the buyer behavior is changing because of these new platforms and how people, what their expectations are, how they now go to, even to Google. mean, I'm seeing people do this. We used to put it in these nice little compact searches. Well, I'm seeing people put in these very long searches now, very high intent, you know, very filtered almost because they know they can get AI overviews and things. And I think that.

Todd Sawicki (02:57.202)

Correct.

Todd Sawicki (03:09.039)

Exactly.

John Jantsch (03:15.222)

change is really what we really need to adjust to, right? It's not necessarily the technology, is it?

Todd Sawicki (03:21.778)

I agree users have fundamentally changed and you probably hear this even anecdotally amongst your friend sets. Like you start kind of experimenting with chat tpt or perplexity or whatever it is and you're like you ask it a real deep question that you know is very frustrating to get answered in traditional search and you would have to click through 10 things and it was just a pain in the ass and took a lot of time and where now you get a pretty good answer most of the time right away and it fundamentally changes the experience. I mean we're seeing dramatic thing changes especially in complex areas like b2b type searches.

It's a great use case when you're researching very technical things. You're researching like more long tail areas for traditional search work wonderfully in the world of AI. And I think the other thing that traditional search really did a poor job of, and it really shows up in AI search is AI search does a phenomenal job of personalizing its answers for you. And that is one of the things that

in even in terms of our own product and platform, but the implications of that are very interesting. And so as an end user rate, would you imagine think of the LM as you walk into a shoe store, and there's a wall of 500 pairs of shoes behind that salesperson as you walk in, and the LM is the salesperson. And so you're trying to know what's the right pair of shoes? Well, Google you do it doesn't really ever answer I need a new pair of shoes, you would never like Google just would struggle with that. But with

John Jantsch (04:43.488)

Or give you the most popular shoes or whatever.

Todd Sawicki (04:45.488)

Or give you the most popular one. Exactly. Just give you the most popular one. But the LLMs are really trying to understand, are you a runner? Are you a hiker? you have an account, you register, they're building profiles of you, interestingly enough. Right? The minute you put your email in, it knows where you work. It knows what you're affiliated with. And so as a result, your users are seeing that there really, there's a value for that relationship between you and the LLMs. It learns more about who you are. It discovers things. It's trying to personalize the answers. And so it therefore can give you a better answer and really help you in a way that

Traditional search never quite got to.

John Jantsch (05:18.252)

You know, and one of things that I get business owners pretty excited about, because a lot of them are going, is all hype or like, don't, you know, do I got to really do this or am I really going to get AI traffic or not get AI traffic? So all these questions and all I do is show them analytics. and I am able to demonstrate that to them, the people who come from AI stay on your site 10 times longer and convert seven times more than your paid ads, more than your organic traffic. And a lot of that, think is just what you talked about because.

Todd Sawicki (05:43.602)

Yup.

John Jantsch (05:47.5)

they are doing the filtering themselves. And if they get to your website, it's because you had what they wanted. Right.

Todd Sawicki (05:51.258)

Exactly. They're pre-qualified. Right. No, and we're seeing stats on the B to C. We typically see a little bit less than seven X, probably more in the range of kind of two to five X increased conversions on the B to B side. We're seeing increased conversion rates up to like 20 X better. Cause again, they're down the funnel. Cause right. When I think about, you think of from a marketer standpoint, let's think about the classic marketing funnel. There's discovery, then consideration, then conversion.

Google managed discovery and then handed you off to websites to manage consideration like your own website some third-party writer whatever it might be but AI is trying to do not just discovery but manage through the Q &A process consideration as well and then hand that user off for conversion and So that's why you see these higher conversion rates. They're further down the funnel AI has managed that now from a marketing standpoint You're now your challenges. I need to manage AI differently because now suddenly it's it's the one selling my product

John Jantsch (06:49.09)

Yeah, yeah.

Todd Sawicki (06:49.35)

And I think that's the fundamental shift here as a marketer is you have to going back to that, that shoe store analogy, that element as a salesperson means you're going to have to manage that person, right? That's not your job. Whereas SEO, and I think this is one of the other big changes. SEO is a very technical thing, like link building. And remember that the just the ridiculous debate we had for years about is it a sub domain or a folder? Right? Is that marketing? No, that's a very technical thing. And you know, any non technical marketer, whenever that discussion and by the way,

for those who don't pay attention that went on for years like it was like a red versus blue sort of battle in the online marketing sphere. And but a very technical thing not marketing based at all. And I think the differences for LLMs, it's much more of a, oh, how do I teach the LLMs what to say about my product, just like I teach, you know, a salesperson at the front of Dick's Sporting Goods store kind of the same way. And so it's now it's much more of a product marketing exercise than it ever was with traditional search. And I think that's the other thing is

You're going to have to think about how you talk to the LLMs and how you market to them.

John Jantsch (07:50.35)

Well, and this gets at the crux of, you know, a good salesperson is trained on, know, all the objections of, you know, all the questions they're going to get. Right. And so now all of a sudden our content has to be answers.

Todd Sawicki (07:57.222)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (08:04.722)

Correct? absolutely. So one of the things, so Gumshoo as a platform has been, we publicly launched it about six months ago and we've already worked more than 3,500 marketers have signed up. We've already generated millions of prompts on behalf of marketers so they understand what elements say in response to these prompts. And as a result, we're able to analyze those response. think it's like 10 million answers that we've analyzed.

John Jantsch (08:29.112)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (08:30.416)

And then you really, you start to see patterns in what they're doing, but they absolutely want you as marketers to provide them kind of sample question answers back. if you, of the fascinating things about LLMs is they actually link, they prefer the number one source that they link to for product information are brand websites. And then within that, they link to product description pages or PDPs or product detail pages, whatever description you want to use, like the PDPs, FAQs,

John Jantsch (08:50.616)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Sawicki (08:59.896)

knowledge base articles, how to sections, they love that sort of informative how to answer questions for them. And they use that as a guide. Now they process their own way, they kind of regurgitate it in their own way, but they want to use that as a basis. So you're right, you're gonna you have to just like you train that salesperson on Rude Q &A, you're doing the same thing now with the models, which I think is interesting to marketers, when they start kind of like seeing and understanding like it's not a marketing exercise, and not a weird technical link building sub domain folder esoteric discussion anymore.

John Jantsch (09:04.738)

Yep. Yeah.

John Jantsch (09:25.292)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and one of the things that we have seen, because, know, I've always believed that, that you do content, right. You're going to get rewarded by the search engines. Well, we've been doing content, right. In my view, you know, hub pages, structured content, FAQs, table of contents, summaries, schema, you know, we've been doing all that stuff because it was good content marketing. well,

Todd Sawicki (09:37.244)

Yes.

John Jantsch (09:52.258)

the LLMs and AI are actually rewarding us for that work right now because we ranked high in Google. We are now ranking higher in AI overviews and in chat GPT. Are you seeing that as well?

Todd Sawicki (10:06.354)

So if you don't have content online, it is hard for AI to even know you exist. And so that's sort of step one. You'd be surprised at the lack of content out there. It's, know, all right, well, you sell it. You sell these programs. But I think it's because everyone probably thinks they've all, everyone's done content marketing. It's not always the case.

John Jantsch (10:12.526)

Well, yeah.

Well, no, no, I would not be surprised.

Yeah. Yeah. I always love it. I always love it when we go to work with a new client and they say, yeah, well, our SEO firm is doing this for us. And it's like, what are they SEOing? Like, there's no content there.

Todd Sawicki (10:35.83)

There you go. Exactly. There's no content. There's nothing else. And so the differences here you mentioned, like you generated content that the difference here though is there's a subtle, you know, benefit and you kind of address this, I'm gonna call it what you said, which is you're getting rewarded. But what's interesting is Google, it was rewarding popularity, not necessarily the best content and the most authoritative content. What LMS are doing is doing a much better job of rewarding the correct content. So

It's sort of like, and we have a good stator on this, is, we look up the traditional Google rank of all the URLs that are cited by AI and its answer, and its justification for its answers. The traditional Google rank is below 21, 50 to 90 % of the time, meaning page three and beyond. So it's pulling out these, so it is looking at some of those that traditionally link to content SEO, but it was always these deep links. And the problem with traditional searchers,

John Jantsch (11:18.658)

Well, yes.

Todd Sawicki (11:28.602)

is, you know, we kind of generically use the stat one out of 100 people go to page two on Google, one out of 1000 go to page three, one out of 10,000 go to page four, and no one goes to page five. And that's very exactly how the dead bodies but AI to my stat 59 % of the links they surface are in that that sort of buried into because they have AI or machines, they have infinite patients. So what they're good at doing is finding authoritatively correct like we like to see canonical information. And then and so as a brand,

John Jantsch (11:38.734)

Yeah, that's where you hide the dead bodies, right?

John Jantsch (11:51.15)

Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (11:58.416)

all that work that maybe struggled to get surfaced in Google, because it just wasn't as popular or using out to people buying links. Now, now they're really to your point, really rewarding good content, good highly valued structured content. And so it's sort of like, it's sort of the it's paying off 10 years of work, finally. And so the people who may be struggled to get some of that popularity in Google, it is absolutely paying off in AI overview, AI search and AI overviews and things like that in a way that you always prayed and hoped for as a content market, like your day has come.

John Jantsch (12:07.842)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:13.964)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (12:26.35)

Yeah

Todd Sawicki (12:26.716)

Producing great content is a payoff and it's happening. And I think that's really fascinating here, which is people are like, with the rise of AI Slop, no, the models want good content and they're good at deducing what is good content. AI Slop will not get ranked and you have to, they want authoritative information. And so that's content that will get ranked in AI search and then drive traffic today and tomorrow, agentic purchases, right? You're ultimately trying to drive some of that conversion more and more that AI will be driving that itself. Like Perplexity's browser will load a cart for you today.

Right, it's loading products it's picking on your behalf into that. So that future is coming fast and furiously. And so I think that change is sort of fascinating to see when you look at what's happening. Now, the other stat about what's really fascinating here is, okay, what if I don't have been produced 10 years of content, am I screwed? Well, one of the other facts that we've seen is that the average age of a cited piece of content

is only 86 days old in AI search. And that's falling 10 to 15 % quarter per quarter. Now there's a caveat there, which is it doesn't have to be originally published, it just has to be updated. Like the AI will look at content that's older, but as long as it's been updated, and you note that that updated date, it will value that as well. And so and that 86 days is falling 10 to 15 % every quarter. So today it's 86 days, next quarter is gonna be 78, 70 to the quarter after that, and see you get faster and faster.

So you're gonna have to be doing a lot more work around content, maintaining it, updating it. It's not a publish once and walk away model anymore. It's gonna be a constant refresh. And so, the good side of that is you're just starting out. We've definitely seen this with people where you can impact the results well within a 90 day window where traditional search that was almost impossible. And so there's a definitely, don't wait, get started. Hire John and his team.

John Jantsch (14:12.504)

But again, yeah, well, but I was also going to say that another best practice for years has been repurpose your content. And so, I mean, I now it's like repurpose your content in a specific way, you know, add FAQs, you know, to that content, right? But, but I think that's what you're saying is should be very helpful for those people that just kind of wrote the hundred one off blog posts. It's like, no, now go back and make that pay. Let's talk specifically.

Todd Sawicki (14:28.146)

Correct. Right.

Todd Sawicki (14:39.94)

Exactly, exactly. It's fascinating to kind of, you know, watch that all happen and come to fruition.

John Jantsch (14:42.742)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk specifically about gumshoe. I know that's what you want to talk about. But first off, I have an account. I've played with it and it is in seemingly incredibly complex what you've built. And so my first question is, my first question is, where did that come from? Are you a mad scientist or did you hire people or how did you develop that? Because

Todd Sawicki (15:02.844)

Well, thank you.

Todd Sawicki (15:10.77)

So we have a team, right? We have a team. I've been in digital marketing tech for 20 years in my career and got involved in, and really the common theme has been around customer acquisition as it turns out. And I even view the purpose, we only care about AI search as marketers, ultimately because it can drive business, right? It'll drive traffic and revenue, right? So fundamentally it's a, and so I 20 years ago got involved in toolbars and search. Then I got into the social marketing landscape, just as that was taking off like 2007 to,

John Jantsch (15:28.334)

That's right. That's right.

Todd Sawicki (15:39.986)

to 2012 and then got into paid and built a DSP. So in the programmatic space and then was playing in ecommerce and Shopify's ecosystem, you building customer acquisition apps in there and then ultimately transition here. And it was sort of the space of a year ago was talking to marketers. And again, the beginning of this conversation around AI search and the rise of that. And if you're a marketer, and suddenly the channel you're relying on Google search falls off a cliff. for some key keywords, I heard

30 60, even 90 % declines in traffic, even on the paid side. Like it just Google is sacrificing even paid traffic and on some keywords. So that's an existential change in the landscape. And then as we started thinking about this in terms of working with marketers, you're like, well, you know, to what I said earlier, gumshoe helps brands understand what elements think about them. And then what to do about it. Well, that where does that come from? Well, if you're a marketer, you can't just log into chat tpt and find out what it's saying to you because

John Jantsch (16:12.813)

Mm.

Todd Sawicki (16:37.508)

as you I don't know if any everyone should go watch the season premiere this fall's episode from Boulder natives, you know, the creators of South Park, the first episode this year, the main one of the main characters dads is like falling in love with chat tbt because all it does is flatter him. And it says like every idea he has is wonderful. And it's a great and he's got some he's trying to start a new business. And his wife gets all pissed off because he's constantly going to ask chat tbt and says see I'm right, you know,

John Jantsch (16:54.285)

Right.

Todd Sawicki (17:05.426)

his wife's name is Sharon, see I'm white Sharon, chat TBT says I'm right. And he's like, No, it just says that to everybody. And so as a marketer, you you can't just log in and ask chat TBT what it thinks about your business, because it's going to kind of lie, it's going to flatter you, it's going to say the most optimal thing it can because it by the way, the minute you put your email in, it looks you up on LinkedIn, it knows it knows where you work, it knows your products, it's no it knows how to answer things. And so then you realize as a marketer, I don't care what LM say to me, I say, I care what it says to my target customers.

John Jantsch (17:17.666)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (17:31.832)

Yeah. Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (17:34.01)

And so the way that we built our product was around how do you help marketers understand what it's really saying to its customers? And so our point of view as well, how do we get in the shoes of that customer? And so what we do is we build these personas which become synthetic users. right, so those are what are asking prompts in the models. We have a better understanding of how they, how will they talk to, how the models speak to these different, different customers and those insights of like, okay, here's how it, and by the way, the variety of answers between one type of

persona and another is fascinating. And they're absolutely customizing their answers. Like, John, you've seen this, right? Just one customer will say, like, just imagine you're a hiker, you're going to get a different answer for the pair of shoes than if you're a marathon runner. And so that makes rational sense as a marketer kind of understanding this nuance and how it's treating different types of end users using AI search is sort of a fascinating insight. And it's cool just to look at the answers and see what they say to different things. So that's my point about marketers and the messaging and seeing how it talks to different people.

John Jantsch (18:06.594)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Jantsch (18:31.374)

One of my first observations that kind of blew me away frankly was I just put in a company's URL, I think is all I did. yeah, and it came up with, I want to say eight, maybe it was a little more than that personas. And they were, we had already done that work, but they were very spot on, maybe even a little better descriptions. And what I found was interesting was it actually,

Todd Sawicki (18:39.324)

Correct, that's what you start with. You start with the URL, correct.

John Jantsch (19:00.342)

All the analytics and search was great, but we actually got some messaging ideas just from that part of it, and that wasn't even the intent.

Todd Sawicki (19:10.652)

Well, and that's what I mean about it. you know, it's, was talking with a head of product marketing earlier today, and I'm like, this is product marketing's moment, because AI search is fundamentally a product marketing exercise. And it's a positioning exercise. And when you read those prompts and answers, we hear that all the time, because what we help you on what we ask questions and basically ask questions around product areas for your business. And those will give you a set of responses like, we recommend these three companies or these eight companies or these five. And then you see the rationale for those

recommendations. And that's great marketing, right at feedback. It's it's what's our positioning, what's our competitive positioning, you show this to any product market, like, oh, my god, this is like my competitive messaging framework, which you'd by the way, what you describe john a itself serve, can do this yourself, anyone can enter a URL of a company to get this. And in like 10 to 15 minutes, you're walking away with a really cool understanding of your products position in the marketplace, at least the marketplace of AI search, which is meant to be a broader perspective of the world, obviously.

But it's no, hear this all the time. It's fascinating. Like it is a total rabbit hole for anyone who cares about commutative or comparative messaging.

John Jantsch (20:13.742)

Yeah. So the other observation is that, you know, lot of people that are talking about losing search traffic, it's for, let's say I'm a remodeling contractor. It's they're losing traffic for trends in kitchens, right? Which was not somebody that was going to buy anything, right? They're losing a lot of that traffic because they'd written a great trend article for 2025, right?

Todd Sawicki (20:37.138)

Correct.

John Jantsch (20:38.37)

But that was not going to ever convert. But what's interesting from what you're unearthing is you're unearthing all these really high intent searches. I mean, the search string is such that it's like, yeah, that person's looking to remodel their kitchen. And I think that that's what marketers need to really focus on is that, forget about the, I mean, we do still have to do a lot of things to create awareness. But what we really need to focus on is high intent right now and capturing that search.

Todd Sawicki (21:07.138)

That is absolutely, I think a change, which is you're going to go a little bit more down funnel. And you because you I think you can with AI search problem with Google is all those searches were so high level and so generic. It was hard to, to you're right, the lack of long detailed searches in Google meant it was hard as a market, you couldn't really target that sort of bottom of funnel activity. But AI is kind of all about that. And even if you ask a generic question, AI will follow it up with a more specific like they want to, they want to know which direction they need to go. There's a back and forth that never existed in Google search.

John Jantsch (21:16.962)

Yeah, right.

Todd Sawicki (21:35.878)

that absolutely exists in AI. And you anyone who's experienced this, when you go to the models, it'll it'll ask for follow ups, it'll clarify things, it'll make sure it understands what you're talking about. So that it's its goal is to give you the very best answer possible.

John Jantsch (21:41.932)

Yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (21:48.686)

Yeah, it wouldn't have been great. You go to Google and say, no, that answer was wrong. Fix it, right?

Todd Sawicki (21:52.324)

Exactly, we all wish we could like that search, you'll get some results. You're like, that is a terrible right link. And now with all the like the amount of Google searches that are so link baited to death. I love to get the analogy of in a lot, you know, I said earlier, the AI search is fixing a lot of things wrong with traditional search, like how many times in our lives like you bought like a new TV, and I just need to know the damn matter the width of it. So will it fit on my mantle or not? And you do a search and like you get every link is 10 best this or 10 best that or trends of

hot TVs this Christmas like I just need the dang measurement. Come on, Google.

John Jantsch (22:23.854)

or a link to Amazon that's not even a TV. Those are my favorite. So I'm sorry, we got geeking out here on like all the under the hood stuff. And I'd love it you could just like give us the two minutes feel what is gumshoe? How you know, how does it work? How does somebody try it out?

Todd Sawicki (22:28.187)

Right!

Todd Sawicki (22:42.556)

So at any market, it's a publicly available and you can try it out for free. It is, you can generate a report about your company. You go to it, as John said, you're going to enter your company's URL. And then from there, what we're gonna do is again, show you what LMS think about your business and product. You're gonna select a product that'll generate personas and then we'll generate the prompts that represent the activity that users are having with AI. And then...

run a series of real-time conversations, we turn those personas effectively into synthetic users. That's kind of a buzzy word. Synthetic is the ultimate now AI buzzword. It's a simulated user, it's a synthetic user. And then that user will, yeah, exactly. It's better than that. We'll have a series of conversations with the LLMs. We kind of create those and then we analyze the chat activity and kind of package that up in a way so that you can help identify areas, topics of these types of prompts where you're doing well or you're doing poorly.

John Jantsch (23:14.648)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Jantsch (23:18.83)

It's better than bot though, isn't it?

Todd Sawicki (23:38.736)

And then the next step is we also allow you to sort of then generate the content based upon, you know, where your strengths and weaknesses are that through our platform that you can then host on your site. And the way to think of it is, is your personas are your predicted customers, who the elements think are your top customers, and then they want instructions, the content you generate is intended to be or write on your own, is intended to be the instruction set back to the models. Okay, for these customers, here's the features and benefits that we believe appeal to them and why they want to pick our products.

And ultimately, that's going to send traffic back to your site. And then can help analyze that to understand was it good traffic, bad traffic, what have you. And so the goal of our point of view is to say, again, how do we help you understand what I'm thinking about you and then what to do about it, right? You're ultimately how do you capture as much revenue or as much referral traffic as possible from the LLMs. And so that's the way Gumshoe works. You can go to gumshoe.ai. They said you just start with the URL. And in 10 to 15 minutes, you're going to walk away with sort of insights about what you can do. there's, again, you don't need an inter credit card that's just freely available. Everyone can create an account. And then

The way we work is it's not a subscription based a time based. If you want to rerun a report, you want to run it again, like in a weekly or monthly basis, kind of track how you're doing, you would then sign up to pay an ongoing basis. And so it's just based upon how often you want to sort of leverage the platform and use it. That's the model. So feel free once you generate a report, whether it's a free one or a paid one down the road, it's available to you for as long as we're around as a company.

John Jantsch (25:03.266)

Yeah. And one of the things that I failed to mention, you didn't mention either is I thought does a really good job at, at, identifying competitors, as well. Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (25:12.466)

Correct, because what we'll do is in those answers, we're going to get multiple companies products recommendations and we surface that to know your competitive great great point, John, you know, your competitive standing, our competitors doing better or worse than you in AI. And that's obviously often a key indicator. And then we'll help you analyze where they did better versus you. So you know, what's your point about messaging, right? And the product messaging, like what features of a competitor are winning versus ours?

where is their positioning better? Is it something else? Or and that's sort of a great insight is where all the other companies getting mentioned alongside you, and then we'll help you identify also, what were the reasons like what led to the models answering the way they did? Like what citations and sources so if you want to do outreach from a PR standpoint, you can we help you identify the places you should be going and talking to, or even read our core threads you should be posting on. We now have a feature where we'll we'll give you a draft post for Reddit and Cora.

John Jantsch (25:49.816)

Yeah.

Todd Sawicki (26:05.498)

Again, but it's based upon, you know, strengths and weaknesses that we identified and said, here's the things you should be talking about more to help you get more visibility to AI. And so that's sort of the goal here is how do we help you talk back to AI. So you're feeding it the features and benefits of your products. So they'll talk about your products next time instead of someone else's.

John Jantsch (26:26.878)

I'm sorry to sound like an ad for, for gum shoe, but you know, we actually took a lot of this long tail searches and built some ad campaigns around, around them as well.

Todd Sawicki (26:35.792)

We have heard that because the persona piece is great for that, like audience targeting and things like that. No, no, we've absolutely heard that, that there's some interesting crossovers about this. Once you realize it's messaging based, there's a ton of things you can do with this data. It's really, I'm not kidding about being a rabbit hole. Like you start reading the chats that we generate and surface. just, it becomes, it's really fascinating to kind of see what's being said in a way that you only ever got through focus groups or weird surveys before. And now and again, it like.

15 minutes, getting some really interesting insights. can then spend a lot of time diving into and learning from in a way that we just never had access to before.

John Jantsch (27:10.99)

Well, we've gone over time. appreciate you. Take it a few moments to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast is gum shoe dot AI and Todd again, appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Todd Sawicki (27:24.914)

Thank you very much. Appreciate the time and attention.



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Wednesday, September 24, 2025

How to Create Exceptional Experiences

How to Create Exceptional Experiences written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:
 

Photo of Neen JamesOverview

On this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch interviews Neen James, globally recognized leadership and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author of “Exceptional Experiences: Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business.” Neen shares how any business—regardless of size, industry, or budget—can create extraordinary, memorable customer experiences by leveraging attention, intentionality, and five key “luxury levers.” From the power of origin stories to practical experience audits, Neen unpacks how luxury is a feeling, not a price tag—and why making people feel seen, heard, and valued is the greatest differentiator in a world full of automation and noise.

About the Guest

Neen James is a leadership and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author known for helping Fortune 500s and fast-growth businesses turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary results. Her frameworks focus on attention, intentionality, and leveraging luxury “levers” to make brands more memorable, profitable, and impactful.

Actionable Insights

  • Luxury isn’t about price or exclusivity—it’s about how you make people feel; exceptional experiences are defined as high quality, long lasting, unique, authentic, and (sometimes) indulgent.
  • Any business can use the five luxury levers—Attention, Anticipation, Personalization, Generosity, and Gratitude—to elevate customer experiences.
  • Attention is about presence, storytelling, and meaningful origin stories, not just being loud; collaborations and origin stories are powerful ways to capture mindshare.
  • Anticipation is the hallmark of luxury: Think like a concierge, not a bellhop—anticipate client needs before they ask.
  • Personalization and customization are rooted in genuine curiosity and fascination with your customers—capture details and use them to create more tailored experiences.
  • Engage all five senses—luxury is often subtle, seamless, and easy; even digital businesses can use the language of the senses to stand out.
  • Experience audits (and mystery shopping) are practical ways to spot where your business falls short of luxury and to inspire your team to elevate every touchpoint.
  • In an automated world, human touches—like handwritten notes, personalized videos, or exclusive small events—are more valuable and memorable than ever.
  • Differentiation often comes from surprising luxury in unexpected places—when you deliver above-and-beyond experiences where clients least expect it.
  • Start small: Engage the senses, be truly present, and look for one way to add delight, anticipation, or a personal touch in the next 30 days.

Great Moments (with Timestamps)

  • 01:17 – Redefining “Luxury” for Every Business
    Why luxury is both inclusive and exclusive—and always about feelings, not price.
  • 03:47 – What Does Luxury Really Mean?
    The five universal qualities: high quality, long lasting, unique, authentic, indulgent.
  • 04:36 – The Five Luxury Levers Explained
    From attention to advocacy, Neen’s elevation model for mindshare and market share.
  • 06:32 – Capturing Attention Through Origin Stories and Collaboration
    Why being present, telling powerful stories, and creative partnerships win in a noisy world.
  • 08:54 – Anticipation as the Hallmark of Luxury
    Learning from the concierge: how to anticipate needs and create wow moments.
  • 12:13 – Experience Audits and Mystery Shopping
    Practical ways to spot and fix gaps in your customer journey.
  • 15:48 – The Power of the Five Senses
    How fragrance, tactile experiences, and even digital “sense” can elevate your brand.
  • 17:37 – Human Touch in an Automated World
    Handwritten notes, personalized videos, and thoughtful gifts drive real connection.
  • 21:21 – Differentiation Through Unexpected Luxury
    Why luxury in “ordinary” businesses creates the most powerful word-of-mouth.

Insights

“Luxury is about making people feel seen, heard, and valued—no matter the price tag.”

“Anticipation is what sets luxury apart; be curious, ask questions, and solve needs before they’re spoken.”

“Engage the senses—luxury is as much about ease, atmosphere, and emotion as it is about products.”

“In a digital and automated world, human touches and surprise-and-delight moments are your top differentiators.”

“Start small: pick one luxury lever and look for ways to add a personal or sensory touch to your next customer interaction.”

John Jantsch (00:01.464)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Neen James. She is a globally recognized leadership and customer experience expert, sought after keynote speaker and author. She has worked with Fortune 500 companies and fast growth businesses alike, helping them turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary results with a focus on...

Neen (00:06.681)

is today is Neen James. She's a globally.

Neen (00:14.203)

keynote speaker and author. She has worked with Fortune 500 companies and fast growth businesses alike, helping them turn ordinary interactions into extraordinary results with a focus on attention, intentionality, and luxury levers that we're going talk about today. She's passionate about making businesses more memorable, profitable, and impactful. And we are going to unpack her latest book, Exceptional Experiences by Luxury Levers to Elevate

John Jantsch (00:26.592)

attention, intentionality, and luxury levers that we're going to talk about today. he's passionate about making businesses more memorable, profitable, and impactful. And we are going to unpack her latest book, Exceptional Experiences, Five Luxury Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business. So Neen, welcome back.

Neen (00:44.571)

of your business, Dean, welcome back. G'day, what a treat it is to be back with you. It's been a minute since we got to play like this.

John Jantsch (00:52.682)

That's right. So you we need to start here, I think, because you kind of opened the book by saying, OK, let's talk about this word luxury, what it actually is. Right. Because I think we think Ritz Carlton, we think Rolex, we think Mercedes, whatever. I'm not sure those are the most luxurious brands, but you get the point that that's how people think. So if I'm an accounting firm or I'm a remodeling contractor, like what does luxury have to do with me?

Neen (01:00.303)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (01:04.705)

Sure.

Neen (01:17.485)

Yeah, think luxury is a divisive word, John. I think to your point, some people think it's expensive or it's elitist or it's unapproachable. And yet I'm on this mission to really reframe and change the narrative around that. It's my belief that luxury is both inclusive and exclusive. So inclusive, John, meaning I think luxury is for everyone every day. It's just that our definitions of luxury are different. We can get into that.

John Jantsch (01:20.492)

Yeah, it is. Yeah.

John Jantsch (01:24.439)

Right.

Neen (01:45.339)

But I think it's exclusive because we all have the privilege of being able to roll out a red carpet experience for our clients, for our team members. And so if you look at my body of work, you mentioned intentionality and attention. So if you think back through the books that I've already written, folding time, I said to the world, you can't manage time, but you can manage your attention. And then I published Attention Pays, where I said it's really intention that makes our attention valuable.

And I had shared that attention's about connection, right? And I see my new book, Exceptional Experiences, as the evolution of all of those things, because what I believe is that it's really luxury is about the human connection, and now more than ever before in our digital AI world, John, I think we're all craving that human connection. So really to me, luxury, what it means to me and what it means to you could be different. And so what I did was a research study on that.

very topic. So even luxury as a word, John, it is one that we all need to kind of think about what it means to us personally and what it means to brands.

John Jantsch (02:43.382)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (02:52.174)

Yeah, and I think a lot of people jump immediately to, you know, gold plating or something. mean, you know, like the tangible things, right, of luxury. And I think I may have read this actually in your work. It's really more, luxury is more of a feeling or how you make somebody feel, right? Or how whatever the product or purchasing the product makes you feel. And I think that that's probably the, I mean, should we even say luxurious? Does that sound more like a feeling?

Neen (02:56.951)

Sure. Mm-hmm.

in your work. It's really more...

Neen (03:07.803)

Right. Yes.

Neen (03:16.635)

Should we even say luxurious? that sound more like a feeling? Yeah, and I think it is. But John, think too what makes you feel special and feels like luxurious to you could be different to someone else. But we all have this power. have this power to create these experiences for others, which is why the book has been called exceptional experiences, because I think one of the things that I did when I did this proprietary research study, the only one of its kind in the world.

John Jantsch (03:29.678)

I assure you it is. I assure you it is.

Neen (03:47.131)

While people have different versions of what luxury is, they have different mindsets, What they all agreed was that luxury could be defined as high quality, long lasting, unique, authentic and indulgent. Now, indulgent is the word that most people will be like, you know, some people are like, I don't know if that's me, but think about all the other four words, John. They could apply to leadership.

John Jantsch (03:53.55)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (04:14.863)

High quality, long lasting, authentic and unique. And so that's truly how luxury is defined. So then what we do is we take it a step further and say, well, what does luxury mean for you? And that could be different.

John Jantsch (04:26.73)

Yeah. So, so also in the subtitle, five luxury levers, attention, anticipation, personalization, generosity, gratitude. Did I get that right?

Neen (04:28.077)

So also at the summer.

Neen (04:36.771)

Yeah, so we have taken these five luxury levers and what we've said is because of all the consulting that I do with global brands, whether it's as a keynote or whether I'm confident to the CEOs working with their teams, what I realized was this experience elevation model, which is the framework is inside the book. You can all see that in the book is what I realized is.

My CEOs are measured on two things. And so are so many of the small businesses listening to this or the marketing professionals. And that is they're measured on mind share and market share. The model has been designed so that you do everything from capturing the attention of the clients you want to work with, right? Which as marketers, we always were in the attention business, right? How do we capture the attention? And so that is really top of mind. How do you really grab that mind share all the way through to the pinnacle of the model is how do you create

advocates of those same people, which is really about driving revenue, which is about market share. So if you think top of mind, top of market, what my experience elevation model does inside the book, it's just a framework that anyone can apply as you entice people to do business with you and invite them into your community. You get them excited about what you're offering and then delight them with all the different ways you can do that. So you ignite them to be advocates. That's the five luxury levers.

John Jantsch (05:56.654)

All right, so let's unpack them, each of the words, can we? And you say lever, I say lever, I don't know.

Neen (06:01.168)

Yeah!

Let's yeah, we can go with whatever makes you feel comfortable, but I know our listeners are probably saying, what did she say? Lever, lever. We can go with lever for today.

John Jantsch (06:10.318)

Okay, so attention is kind of a loaded word for marketers, know, right? Because it's getting really noisy. There's so many distractions because everybody's trying to get our attention. So what are some practical ways that attention is more about being present rather than being loud?

Neen (06:16.248)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (06:22.046)

So noisy.

Neen (06:32.634)

Mm hmm. It is. I mean, John, think about it as marketers, we're brilliant storytellers. But what I think we need to do is, and while the book does mention storytelling as a system of elevation, of course, because we need to be able to tell stories. One of the stories that can really capture people's attention is origin stories.

If you look to luxury brands like Chanel, if you've even walked into a Chanel makeup counter in your department store, every product, every piece of merchandise, every name is associated with Coco herself. And as the sales associate explains the name of that lipstick and why it is the way it is and that the merchandise has been designed like the staircase in her apartment in Paris.

All of a sudden as a consumer, you're like, I need that lipstick because I want to be closer to Chanel. So when it comes to attention, it's not just about storytelling. It's also about the origin story so that people get to understand why you as the small business owner, why you as the marketer are so passionate. But another system and a practical thing we talk about here as far as capturing attention, John, is being more collaborative and being very creative. Billy Carl-Samuel, one of my favorite champagne houses.

They partnered with Hansman Seville Rowe, a bespoke suit tailor. Now, what do those two businesses have in common? Well, they share the same kind of clients, but what they were able to do was to create a tweed that was based on champagne. The white flowers, the white foam of champagne, the steel vats with the silver, the green leaves of the vines. And so they created a tweed based on their partnership that they then sold to their clients.

So understanding that if we want to capture attention now, John, we have to do it in more creative ways through the origin stories, through the collaborations we have. But being present for some of us in the most practical sense is sometimes just putting our phone down. Sometimes it's just actually looking at the person and saying hello and making them feel seen and heard. That's a very easy way for all of us, no matter what business we're in, to be more present.

John Jantsch (08:39.624)

I want to go to another one and we don't have to unpack all five of these, but one that I thought was kind of curious or I'm curious about was anticipation as the hallmark of luxury. Can you maybe use an example of that one? Because the book is loaded with case studies.

Neen (08:54.679)

Yeah, I love this. Yes. When you think about it, the luxury lever, to use your word, of delight is, know, how do we anticipate needs that people don't even know they have? And let's think about this. If you, think too often as marketers, as small businesses, as managers of businesses, we act like the bellhop. And a bellhop in a hotel is vital. They move the bags quickly through the hotel lobby and up to your room and efficiency is key and it's very transactional for them, right?

But if you think about it, we don't want to think like a bellhop. We want to think like a concierge. Because a concierge, John, they're the most well-known revered position in a hotel. They're the go-to person, which is what we want to be as a small business or a marketer, right? And what they do is they get us that ticket to that particular concert or that table. We couldn't get that reservation, but here's how a concierge is different. A concierge anticipates needs we didn't even know we had.

They make suggestions in our community or in the hotel or things we didn't even know we wanted. But what that requires is a fascination. Luxury brands are genius at personalization and customization. Personalization is really about information and as marketers we have a lot of information data points. Customization is about connection. How do you connect in a deeper way to the clients who already love you or want to do business with you?

But I think it is fascination that requires that anticipation. We have to be so curious about the people we want to serve, John, that we ask the extra questions, that we get to give them our undivided attention. So personalization, customization, fascination, this anticipation, we need to have systems in place to do that. We need to teach our team to be more curious.

to spend more time, to capture those data points so we can use it in our conversations later. It might be the simplicity of a newsletter that you have and actually using the person's name and capturing their first name in your sign up form so that that's the simplest, easiest way and get it right so the spelling is correct. But let's like.

Neen (11:06.337)

simplest form, we love the sound of our own name, John. You know, if you go into your coffee shop and they know your name or your favorite restaurant, you just smile a little bigger because someone saw you. That's what anticipation is.

John Jantsch (11:25.826)

You know, it's funny. mean, some of this is right out of, some ways is right out of how to win friends and influence people, right? It's some of the...

Neen (11:32.883)

Dale Carnegie said it himself in the early 1900s when he wrote that book he says a person's name is the sweetest sound and he was right back then and it's as right today as it was back then because but the stealth message don't tell anyone but the real message of this book John is how do you make people feel seen heard and valued luxury brands do that so so well my whole body of work is about how do you create these moments that matter for people

And he had it right when he wrote that book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And we all crave that.

John Jantsch (12:13.41)

You talk about something, because I'm sure there's some people that are starting to say, okay, this is great. Like, how do we start kind of thinking this way or bringing this around? You talk about something you call experience audits. You want to kind of walk us through that?

Neen (12:16.795)

There's some people that starting to say, okay, this is great. Like how do we start?

something you call experience on it. Can you walk us through that? Yeah.

It doesn't matter, you don't have to have a luxury product to provide a luxury level of service, right? So you could be running a mechanic shop. I use the same consulting model when I'm working with the emergency rooms for some of my hospital clients. So you can apply these five luxury levers at any business. It's really about finding the system of elevation that makes the most sense for you and what you're trying to achieve. But an easy experience audit is maybe you could even find out what the luxury points are not.

doesn't feel like luxury in your business if there's too many forms to fill out, if the lines are too long, if there's weeds in your garden, if there's dusty old magazines in your reception area. It's very easy to see and look around what's not luxury, John. That's a really easy starting point. I do encourage businesses, regardless of what type of business you have, to if you want to upskill your team to provide a more luxury level of service,

Send them to a hotel lobby, give them a budget, get them to order a coffee and sit and observe what's going on. Do they notice the way the staff move, they dress, they speak, the sounds, the smells, the touch points, the service they receive? Allow your team members to enjoy some luxury so they understand it and then get them to come back and debrief it with the team. What did they see, hear, smell, touch?

Neen (13:48.74)

What was all of the senses that were engaged in that experience so they can do an audit out into the world as well? I also really encourage my teams, the clients I work with to mystery shop, to mystery shop, have someone mystery shop their business. Now this is an old technique yet it's still valid for today, right? Mystery shop your competitors, mystery shop, have someone mystery shop your business and then do a bit of a readout so the team get to hear.

This was their experience. There's so many ways you can do an experience audit.

John Jantsch (14:21.218)

You know, it's funny, when I think back in hindsight, some of the best experiences, luxury experiences I've had, wasn't, the place wasn't trying to be that. They weren't trying to put that on as like, we're very, like you said, exclusive. They just did everything. In some ways you don't notice luxury, right?

Neen (14:26.485)

experiences I've had. wasn't, the place wasn't.

Neen (14:39.684)

Yes, and it's easy because one of the things that often is associated with luxury is ease. The Ritz has a, they have a preference that you only ever enter your information once. Now let's think about this. Like I was at a hotel this week. I mean, I travel for a living. That's my job. Some people drive, I fly. It's the same thing.

It's just different form of commute. So I stay in a lot of hotels and every time I open my computer I had to add my hotel room and my name for the Wi-Fi I mean multiple times think of how often we open and close that computer and so the Ritz has got it right because they're like Let's just enter your information once so now the system says I see you. Mr. Jance I'm so glad that you're back with us and then that's all you have to do. So sometimes luxury is ease How do we make it really easy for people to do business with us?

John Jantsch (15:08.419)

Yes.

John Jantsch (15:28.012)

Yeah. So, all right. If you were going to, I loved, I love doing this to people that write books and they have like five key things or seven key things. And I asked them to pick the fit, not only their favorite, but like if somebody came to you and they probably do this at the end of a talk, right? Okay. That's all great, Neen. But like, what's the one thing I need to focus on like for the next 30 days, what would you tell them?

Neen (15:41.532)

If somebody came to you...

Neen (15:48.419)

Yeah!

can tell you what my favorite thing is that often gets overlooked. And that is how do you really engage the five senses? Because John, we all know this, especially as marketers, that our sense of smell gives us a deeper emotional connection to a brand. We can smell a meal or a fragrance from someone who's important to us and all of a sudden we're transported back.

Look at something like the Addition Hotels. They have a signature fragrance. If I walk into the Tampa Addition, the Madrid Addition, or the New York Addition Hotel, every time I know exactly where I am because they have a signature scent. I would invite people that regardless of what business you're in, how do you engage the five senses? And if you're a digital business, if everything's 100 % online, think about how you're using the language of sight and smell and touch.

And think about how do you elevate that? Look at Ikea. 60 % of the purchases at Ikea are unplanned. Why? Because they deliberately appeal to all five senses. You smell the meatballs, you walk through the store, you touch the fabrics, you build it yourself. And then $500 later that you didn't even know you needed to spend, you've got a whole lot of to-do list items because you've been shopping at Ikea. They're geniuses at this. So I would say to people, start.

with thinking how do we engage the senses in the lobby, the reception, the collaterals, all of those things.

John Jantsch (17:14.83)

I was going to ask you, not just digital businesses, mean, every type of business is using more automation. We're using AI. We're becoming more efficient. We're in some ways distancing the customer. How do you take advantage of the fact that I think people are craving that more because they're losing it?

Neen (17:17.884)

I mean, every type of business is using more automation. We're using AI. We're becoming more efficient.

Neen (17:31.621)

take it.

Neen (17:37.966)

Because I do things like I still write handwritten notes. I'm a big fan of a handwritten note. And so that's an easy way to say to a client, we really appreciate doing business with you. And it costs me a stamp and two minutes of my time. I'm also a fan of sending like what I call lumpy mail. So like actual packages in the post so that someone opens it. Because if you get your mail at the end of the day, I don't know about you, but all the white envelopes generally equal some sort of bill or invoice. So if I get something that feels like a present.

John Jantsch (17:41.837)

Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:55.074)

Mm-hmm.

John Jantsch (18:05.878)

or no, it's a credit card application. It's what it is. Yeah.

Neen (18:07.708)

It's awesome. Okay, a credit card. There you go. There you go. So I think what we need to think about is how do we bring the human connection back into those opportunities? How about instead of just sending an email, what if you got out your cell phone and you shot a short video and sent a text message and said, I love doing business with you. By the way, we just got this new set of tires in. I think they'd be great for your car.

John Jantsch (18:23.726)

Mm-hmm.

Neen (18:32.636)

I just wanted to let you know about them. Here's a picture of them. Send. imagine if we brought our voice, our human voice back into business through video messaging, through the text messaging, through voice notes. There's so easy ways. It still feels like a system of elevation, but instead of just sending yet another email that's going to land in someone's inbox and get cluttered up by the 200 other emails they have, what if you leverage that personal touch?

That's the type of thing. If you see something and say, Hey, I saw this and I thought of you. That's a very easy line to say to a customer. Like I see you, I hear you. know you're important to me. That's why I think luxury is about human connection.

John Jantsch (19:16.204)

Yeah. And I, and I do think, I mean, I personally recognize when somebody, I mean, it's easy to hit, like you hit, you said send, you know, to 20,000 people at once, right? That's why it's appealing because you can do it. But, but yeah, I was going to say, but I, I, I personally noticed when somebody does something that I know they can't automate.

Neen (19:25.308)

Right? That's why it's appealing. Sure, it's efficient, but that's thinking like a bellhop.

I notice when somebody does that.

Yes. And it's more obvious now, John. And so when you think about it, if you really want people to pay attention to what you're doing, you don't want to be like everybody else. You want to think about, for example, I use pink, my brand is pink, if people didn't know that, and you're listening to this, I use pink mailers for books that I send out. Does it cost a little more? Sure. But when people get it, they say, I know it was from you immediately.

John Jantsch (19:39.799)

Yeah.

Neen (20:02.33)

because there's a consistency of the brand, right? But I still have to ship things. So I most will just choose something that feels a little bit more unique. I hand write labels so that they know that it's my handwriting that I took the time to send it to them. That's why I like to write a handwritten note that you can't order. I mean, you can, that's not true. You can automate that kind of thing now, but I feel like we have to think about, especially those top tier clients that we're have, that we're serving.

What is it that we're doing for them? It could be the simplicity, John, of having a private event. Maybe, let's say you're working, going back to the tire shop example, you might be running a tire shop, which does not feel like luxury, but you know what you could do?

You could open a little bit earlier for your top tier clients. They could meet the mechanics. They could explain more about the tires and the wheel balancing and how you take care of them and what to do in bad weather. And all of a sudden you're getting more of an exclusive luxury experience from your local tire dealer. It doesn't take a lot of thought, but it does take effort.

John Jantsch (21:06.818)

Yeah, it's also interesting. mean, you expect a luxury experience from the bespoke tailor. mean, that's sort of like that's the bar of entry for them, right? So imagine this business that you're not really expecting that from. What a differentiator, right?

Neen (21:12.644)

Of course.

Neen (21:21.402)

Yes and then because it's so differentiated, the client can't help but tell other people. We used a Tyler for a home project many years ago. I cannot tell you how many times I have referred that Tyler. They had perfectionism like I've never seen before. They cleaned up. They were so lovely, so polite, well groomed and

People want that level of service from anyone who's in their home, but this Tyler, he went above and beyond all of that. And so what I want people to think about is luxury, that connection point. What is it you could do to anticipate things? People didn't even know they needed, therefore thinking more like a concierge. We can all do that. We just have to invest the time and energy to think about it in advance. Then you can systemize it.

John Jantsch (22:06.336)

And now we're back to attention, aren't we? So, Neen, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Where would you invite people to connect with you? Obviously, find out about your work and your latest book.

Neen (22:08.152)

Always about attention,

Neen (22:19.328)

Neenjames.com you can find out everything there. You can also download a free self assessment to find out what your own luxury mindset is. It'll take you less than five minutes to do it. It's free. So go to the website Neenjames.com grab your copy of the book and download the assessment.

John Jantsch (22:33.824)

Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a moment and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

Neen (22:38.864)

I would love that. Thank you for everything you do in the world, John.



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Friday, September 19, 2025

From The Vault: How to Stay Visible in the AI Search Era

From The Vault: How to Stay Visible in the AI Search Era written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Listen to the full episode:

Episode Summary

Back from the vault! In this rerun of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I revisit a solo episode where I—John Jantsch—explore a topic that continues to reshape the foundation of online marketing: search visibility in an era dominated by AI search, zero-click results, and evolving Google behaviors.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has always been about rankings, but today that’s no longer enough. In this episode, I explain why the focus has shifted to search visibility—your brand’s presence across the entire digital ecosystem. From featured snippets and branded SERPs to Google Business profiles and authoritative content that aligns with E-E-A-T principles, visibility is about showing up where people actually find answers.

As AI overviews increasingly deliver information without clicks, your strategy must evolve beyond chasing keywords.

Key Takeaways

  • SEO is now about search visibility, not just rankings. Brands need to show up in multiple answer-delivery formats.

  • AI search and zero-click results mean most users get what they need without leaving Google, so multi-platform visibility is essential.

  • Google is now an answer engine. Structure your content to provide direct, trusted answers.

  • E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals matter more than ever.

  • Use structured content like FAQs, TL;DR summaries, and hub pages to boost your chances of surfacing in AI answers and snippets.

  • Local SEO still drives results. Treat your Google Business Profile as a publishing platform.

  • Refreshing older content improves freshness signals and knowledge graph visibility.

  • Prioritize quality, experience-driven stories, and unique insights over generic AI-generated content.

  • Don’t chase head terms. Focus instead on long-tail queries and intent-driven content formats.

Chapters:

  • 00:09 Opening
  • 00:58 Evolution of Search Engine Optimization
  • 03:01 The Current State of Search
  • 03:41 Focus on Search Visibility Instead of Rank
  • 06:13 How to Demonstrate EEAT
  • 09:04 Audit Your Content Gaps
  • 10:07 Help Pages
  • 11:46 FAQ Pages and Trust Elements
  • 13:03 Refreshing Your Content
  • 13:41 Utilize Your Google Business Page
  • 14:35 Find Out How AI Is Sourcing Information
  • 15:42 Common Mistakes

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John Jantsch (00:01.506)

Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and I'm doing a solo show. I'm going to talk about search engine optimization or as I've started to call it search visibility because the game has changed. Now, the first question you might be asking yourself is why is John wearing a cowboy hat? Those of you that are on the video version, I'm wearing a Stetson open road. this is the straw version in the cognac.

color is my favorite summer hat. just decided it's Friday when I'm recording this. just decided to put it on and wear it for the show. My grandfather and father had this style hat and a number of US presidents over the years chose this as their primary hat as well. So Stetson Open Road, there you have the story. All right. As I said, I'm going to talk about search engine optimization, what we've always long called, not always.

Believe it or not, a 20 year history with something called search engine optimization, which is really moving completely. There's been lots of changes over the years, different algorithms, different things, different search engines come along. But this is a fundamental shift in how that tactic or approach really is going to be applied going forward. And what what it actually is even going to mean to business and website owners going forward as well.

So I thought I would start with, before I jump into like eat and generative AI and AI overviews and things, just do like a 30 second kind of timeline on search. Well, I started actually playing around with search in 1998. And really, again, was my first website and it was, do we rank?

and get on page one, you know, what are the things we need to do? I won't go into all what all those things were, but most of them are not relevant today. At least, you know, that was in the early days of search engines. They were little infants and they were, you know, the game was to trick them into putting your stuff on page one. That lasted till about 2010. And then, you know, the search engines just got more and more complex and more and more, you know,

John Jantsch (02:21.142)

ability to understand what a page really was about rather than what we wanted them to think it was about. And so now you start having mobile be part of the deal. You've got the local search packs. You've got answer boxes starting to show up about, you know, from 2010 to 2016, roll up to about 2017. And now all of sudden voice search is a factor featured snippets become a factor.

near me becomes a factor also searched for. So a lot of things just keep getting injected. And of course, all the while the ad units and how they display all over the page, you know, are changing as well. Kind of really shifting what even ranking, you know, on page one even meant anymore. So I guess fast forward to today, 2024 or so it happened, you know, AI overviews.

Um, SGE from Google, 60 % of, of, of us Google searches ending with no click at all, according to search engine land, uh, the, uh, the infamous zero click searches, uh, instead of, you know, a list of 10 links on a page. Um, you know, we're now to the point where maybe you get featured as a source in an AI answer and hope that that generates a click, but,

six to seven times out of 10 today. That search is just gonna end in somebody getting the answer or getting the information that they wanted.

What I'm talking about now is this idea of a complete mindset shift away from search and optimization, away from trying to rank for keywords and more about this idea of search visibility. It's kind of your brand's share of the answers, the mentions, the knowledge panel, real estate, local pack slots.

John Jantsch (04:19.086)

really clicks for everywhere that, um, that, that a prospect looks, I think that's what we have to do today. So, you know, chasing one phrase or two phrases or something. mean, it's really going to have very, very little value. Um, unless it's just a very high intent phrase that, uh, if somebody searches that they're not looking for an answer, they're looking to purchase. Um, those are really going to be the, um, you know, the, the, the highly sought after, guess, um, types of searches.

So I think instead of, of thinking now in terms of like position ranking or impressions, it's really going to be this, this whole collection. And this is going to be hard for people to measure, but this whole collection of like branded SERP coverage, is really going to be the, you know, the, example. I use a case, a local dentist publishes like does whitening hurt. they have an FAQ short vid, TikTok video, Google business posts, a patient story.

you know, now that now they have the chance to actually own the FAQ snippet for that, maybe the local, local rank, map pack for that, maybe a YouTube carousel. mean, so that's how I think we have to start thinking about these is, know, there's no more. There's no more, you know, I want to show up on for this, you know, key search is it's how do I put myself into this idea of answers? And in fact, you know, a lot of people are actually calling,

you know, not even calling them search engines anymore. They're really answer engines. And the consumer behavior, you know, has changed so dramatically. Search behavior has changed so dramatically. You know, we were all very conditioned to type in six, eight words for what we were looking for and then hoping or maybe refining that search if we didn't find what we were hoping for. But now we can actually, instead of typing in, you know, plumbing contractor in my town, you know, now it's

plumbing contractor with 24 hour service, more than 4.7 star reviews within two miles from me, whatever. mean, you can type that long search in now and you're going to get that very specific, in most cases, you're gonna get that very specific result returned to you that you were able to kind of custom tailor to what you wanted rather than saying, okay, Google, give me what you think I want.

John Jantsch (06:49.39)

One of the things that, and I have to set this up a little bit, that we have to start thinking about when it comes to our content, you know, writing the 101, the how to blog content. And many people are finding that they're losing all the search traffic that used to come for that because why would they send them to your page? They can answer that very easily because it was just basic information to begin with.

you're wasting your time. If you continue down that path of just creating the 700 words on blah, blah, blah. very generic. And the bad thing is of course AI makes that really easy to do. You can, you can spin out 10 of those a day now, without really much sweat, it's, it's practically useless unless you are in just such a niche category that nobody else is trying to create content around it. It's practically worthless. So Google has this new

No, fairly new couple of years, acronym called EAT. And there's two E's in there. So E-E-A-T. And forgive me if you know all about this, but I'll explain it in very basic terms for those who may not understand it. But the idea behind it is that they want to see not just expertise. That's one of the E's, but they want to see experience. Have you actually done what you're talking about?

They want to see authoritativeness. That's the, the other a, or I mean, that's the a. So they measure that by, know, are you getting links mentioned, you know, are you in local press? I mean, are you appearing in industry lists? So they're measuring like, are you an authority on this thing that you're talking about? So experience, expertise, authority, and then the last one is trustworthiness. are there signals, of trust, warranties, refund policies, secure checkout badges.

real contact info. mean, all those kinds of things go into the mix as well. So what we have to do, I think, is it's no longer enough to write this article about how to do something. You have to actually have a case study in there. You have to have examples of maybe you doing it in actual real time or behind the scenes.

John Jantsch (09:02.603)

So that it's very clear that that you're not just talking about this. This is something that you do. This is something you're an expert on. This is something somebody can trust for you to do for their business.

John Jantsch (09:16.844)

So in March, 2024, I'm reading a stat here. Knowledge graph update extended each signals by 38 % to really surface credible people and brands again, according to search engine land. that certainly signals that this is not going away. I mean, that this is going to be a significant piece as well. So how do you compete in an eat world, in an AI world?

In a world where really the need for producing content is still there. mean consumers still need the information So now it's a matter of you know, how do we how do we stay visible so that we can get them the opportunity even to get them that information? first thing is There's five step plan here, right? Okay. Number one audit your content gaps. So

Export all of your site URLs. List the top 25 customer questions and use Google Search Console. Again, what we're trying to do is find how can we become an answer engine? So take a lot of your content. And again, this is a place where some of the AI tools are really good at this. You've written good, useful content. How could it be better? How could it answer more questions? How could you add FAQs?

to the end of all of your service pages. How could you add a table of contents to your long form content? How could you add a description box? Some people call it too long, didn't read TLDR, you've probably seen that. How can you add that at the top of your content so that these...

They're not really search engine spiders, but so that the AI tools that are going out there and trying to surface good sources for content can have a very quick view of what it's about. It gets very user friendly. It's very structured in a way that shows kind of the hierarchical structure.

John Jantsch (11:24.718)

I have for years been talking about this thing called hub pages. Um, and the idea behind that is that if you write about, I use an example, if you're a kitchen remodeler and you've got a whole bunch of blog posts about various aspects of remodeling a kitchen. Um, what if you turn that instead of just having them randomly placed on a blog, uh, out there in the ether, what if you turn that into a kitchen, uh, the ultimate guide to remodeling a kitchen and you took all of your content that you've written over the years.

And you placed it on that page. don't mean physically all of it on that page, but at least structure it in such a way that somebody can jump around to how to pick countertops, how to pick cabinets, how to pick finishes, um, how to pick lighting. And then those all, uh, you know, kind of becomes a playlist for anybody who's thinking about, uh, designing, um, or remodeling a kitchen. So we've been talking about that for, I would say at least eight or 10 years.

and the good news is it was a very effective SEO tactic. mean, it, as soon as we would build those for people, it would immediately change, how, how Google viewed their website, but it's also very user friendly. Somebody comes to that hub page and they want, they are interested in information. It's like, here's the whole guide, you know, on what I'm trying to do rather than I just found one, you know, I went out and randomly searched and found one, one blog post on something. So the, the, you know, the,

Again, doubly good news is that those pages really are highly rewarded in an AI world as well. So think about your top three or four services, your top three or four products, your top three or four things that your company does. And think about ways that you could create a very useful guide or a hub page around those and collect it. It's really, in some ways, it's the same content. You've just structured it dramatically different. Boy.

FAQs, and again, in an answer engine world, having answers to the questions that people ask is a clearly makes a lot of sense. It's also been a very useful piece of content anyway, but now really being rewarded in this answer engine world. So every single one of your service pages, every single one of your product pages, even your About Us page now, I think should actually, whether it's structured as a Q &A, or just has an FAQ section,

John Jantsch (13:42.826)

at the bottom of it and you know, pay some attention to the questions you're being asked. Again, the AI tools are pretty good at that surfacing, you know, common questions around things, but you might think in terms of even some of the questions that you're not being asked necessarily, but you should be people should be paying attention to so you can use that as an opportunity to educate around like why you and what you know, what you do that's different than competitors, for example, that they might not actually be asking about.

You know, monthly case studies, you know, measurable results, quotes from customers, those kind of trust elements, even, you know, badges that, that symbolize that you're in professional organizations and things that you've achieved certain certifications. mean, those, you know, the more we can double down on, on just proving that we do what we say, really quite frankly, the better. and then the last piece of the puzzle is.

John Jantsch (14:43.128)

How can you keep this fresh? So, what I'm telling people, and I need to do this myself as well, is we've got reams and reams of content that we wrote years ago. it needs to be freshened up. In fact, about every quarter, you ought to make a goal of saying, Hey, I've got these five blog posts that, know, are decent blog posts. How could I freshen them up, add more links, add more experience, add more proof.

in these, maybe I can structure them, you know, with a table of contents in that TLDR, maybe I could add FAQs to them. You will be highly rewarded for for refreshing that content. And I would last thing I would say is. Start thinking, and this is particularly true for local businesses, not as much for somebody who's really more of a national scale, but that Google business page, think of it as another

publishing platform. Now you don't own that platform, of course, but you have a lot of leeway and how optimized it is all the photos, the videos that you can add there, all the service descriptions you can add there. And you can post there. I would be taking again, in some cases daily if you've got a lot of content, but certainly weekly, create a Google or post in your Google Business page that can come from

can be just a shortened version of something that you've written, and published, you know, years ago, but you're giving it a new place, a new home. And again, it's just going to add all up to the soup of, know, how you get noted or, or quoted as a valuable source. The other thing I would tell you to do is to do a bunch of searches, in some of the AI tools that there were searches you'd love to show up in, you'd love to win. Now, hopefully you show up in front of those. So.

I use my kitchen contractor, remodeling contractor. So best kitchen remodeling contractor in X city would be a link that or something that they'd want to really show up for. Right. And take note of who shows up. That's important. But also one of the things the AI tools do is they tell you the sources that they went to, to, to make that determination. And in some cases, these are directories in some cases, you know,

John Jantsch (17:03.63)

common in the remodeling industry is one called house, that, they actually got a lot of that information from. So if you're not participating in any of those sources or you don't even have a listing in a directory as obscure as it may sound, there's your checklist of some things that you probably need to add to, what you do to get in those directories or to start participating in, you know, a Quora or a Reddit or a house, dependent upon,

you know, the industry that you're in. So, all right, a couple of common mistakes. Stop obsessing over a handful of head keywords. It just doesn't matter anymore. Don't write for algorithms. I think this has always been true. Think in terms of the human question behind any query that somebody is asking. We use a tool called Answer the Public. I highly recommend that you go there and...

If you're, if you're at a loss for what questions people are asking in your industry, that can be a great resource for that. Frankly, the AI tools are pretty good at it. They can surface what questions people are asking in, certain industries. You can't set and forget your website. You know, if I go and I look and there's your last blog post was 2022. We probably got some work to do. This is something that.

You just need to make it a weekly, monthly, quarterly plan that you're going to do X, Y, and Z and just commit to doing it. don't obsess over all the tools. mean, don't go down the rabbit hole. mean, Structured schema is important. there are plugins that, that can actually do that. So that when you write FAQs, the, underlying code, tells Google or tells the.

Whoever's visiting your website, this is an FAQ section. So, you know, spend some time on that part. Don't over obsess about, you know, over engineering tools on this. So here's what I would say. If you've got some ideas today, pick one. If you don't have any FAQs, that's where I would start. If you don't have any case studies, I would certainly think in terms of that.

John Jantsch (19:23.666)

if you haven't visited your Google business profile, I would highly recommend that you think in terms of your strategy there. pick, pick one of the things that, that, I mentioned here today and just start working away at it. mean, don't, don't listen to all the gloom and doom and look at your Google analytics and say, my traffic search your traffic's down because

there's a good chance that a lot of that search traffic wasn't that meaningful. Anyway, it was somebody looking for that how to article. They were not actually looking for your product or service. So search visibility being seen where people go to get their information, being seen as an answer engine, as opposed to an information engine is how we have to change the mindset. So if you got value, hopefully you will subscribe either to the YouTube channel or to the podcast itself.

Love those reviews on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen, share the interview, share this episode with, one business owner who needs a little marketing clarity, who would like a little, simple, effective and affordable, good old duct tape marketing practical advice. All right. That's it for today. Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully I'll run into you one of these days soon out there on the road.



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