Done well, original research has always been content gold. You only have to look at the number of benchmark reports, industry indexes, and consumer surveys published every year to know there’s some serious brand awareness and authority to be had, as well as a bumper crop of leads and subscribers with the right gating strategy. […]
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AI-mediated discovery is changing how buyers find and evaluate information. In many cases, potential customers now encounter brands through AI-generated answers rather than traditional search results. That means a prospect can read a summary of your expertise, form an impression of your brand, and move closer to a purchasing decision – without ever visiting your […]
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Here’s a scenario most founders know all too well: You meet someone at a networking event, the conversation clicks, and by the end of the night they want to invest in your company. Great news. Except what follows is anything but: weeks of back-and-forth between lawyers, thousands of pounds in fees, and a pile of […]
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Not long after I started my first writing business, I landed a plum assignment with a big consulting firm to develop white papers for them. They had invested in quality research, conducted multiple interviews with people in the target audience of high net-worth individuals, and had a panel of internal subject matter experts to interview. […]
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You’ve read all the articles on AI adoption. You’ve seen the data on changing research behaviours and zero click search. You’ve probably experimented with a few AI tools yourself. The question isn’t whether AI is transforming content marketing. You already know it is. The question is whether your strategy will survive or thrive in this new environment. Adapting successfully will require more than a few tactical tweaks to familiar practices. Yes, you […]
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Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is set to change how people discover and buy products online, which will fundamentally change how we approach SEO for eCommerce websites. Instead of sending users to a website to complete a purchase, Google now allows shoppers to buy products directly within its AI-powered experiences, including Search and Gemini. The […]
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Most content audits fail. Not because the data is wrong, but because they don’t change decisions. They produce impressive spreadsheets yet often leave CMOs wondering what to actually do next. A content audit should do the opposite. It should clarify priorities, reduce uncertainty, and point to the actions that will improve performance. Yet in many […]
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Most marketing teams obsess over dozens of performance metrics. Customer acquisition cost. Click-through rates. Conversion rates. Lifetime value. But Jonny Inglis, co-founder of the wine platform Winedrops, says focusing on too many metrics can distract from the one thing that really drives growth. In a recent conversation for my Flipping the Playbook podcast, Jonny explains […]
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AI is now embedded in how customers research, evaluate and compare brands, and CMOs are already restructuring teams, workflows and measurement models around that reality. Marketers are feeling the impact most acutely in content marketing and SEO. If there’s one thing just about everyone agrees on, it’s this: Original, high-quality content is essential. Great content has always been important, and some of us have been […]
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AI crawlers and foundation models are quickly becoming the primary way information is discovered, summarised, and acted upon, often before anyone even sees a traditional search result. For brands and publishers, the real question is no longer just, “Can people find my site in Google?” It is now: “Do AI systems have permission to access, […]
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AI use in content marketing is here to stay. So, what’s the plan? The honeymoon phase of AI is over, and what was initially a shiny new tool is now a strategic conundrum. CMOs are grappling with questions from the board, CEOs, and non-execs alike, including: What is our AI strategy? How is it being […]
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In the first wave of AI search, most of the conversation focused on what is changing. Now the more important question is how to respond. AI search does not replace SEO, but it does change what visibility means. You are no longer optimising just for rankings. You are optimising for inclusion. AI systems increasingly deliver […]
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