What you're doing wrong in your marketing emails [according to an email expert]

One of the hardest parts of our three-lesson format is deciding what NOT to include, and a lot of really useful advice is gathering dust in my Google Drive.

This week, I’ve got three lessons I just couldn’t waste from the most-shared interview in the history of Masters in Marketing. Email marketing expert Jay Schwedelson is back, and this time he’s coming in hot with what you’re (probably) doing wrong with your email marketing.

And, in all honesty, I’ve committed some of these sins with this very newsletter. (Oopsie!)

Jay Schwedelson

Founder, SubjectLine.com; Host, Try This, Not That! For Marketers Only!

• Fun fact: Jay takes inspiration from his grandpa, who told him, "Stupider people than you have been able to do it."
• Claim to fame: Created one of the top 1% ranked websites in the world. 

Lesson 1: Get the dang thing opened.

To kick things off, I asked Schwedelson what common email advice gives him the twitchy eye.

"There's always so much focus on what's inside the email. What does the copy say? Is it compliant? Is it on brand?” He playfully grumbles. “But on average, less than 50% of people are going to open your email.”

In fact, 50% is dreamy. The average marketing email open rate across industries is closer to 42%. (Ours is a lil higher, but that’s because our readers are so smart and cool and good-looking.)

“So the first focus should really be: How do we get the email opened?"

Which isn’t to say you slack off on the content of your emails. If we suddenly pivoted to stories about dryer lint, our open rate would probably crash, right?

Just make sure the elements with the biggest impact on open rate — details like your subject line, preheader, and send time — aren’t just afterthoughts.

“If you focus on getting the email opened with as much energy and intensity as you do on what's in the email, it will radically change the outcome of your marketing performance.”

Lesson 2: Throw out your banned words list.

“One of the biggest myths is that what you write in your subject line is the reason you’re landing in the junk folder. This is information from the year of the flood.”

He’s caught me on this one. When we ran a recent giveaway, I told the team we absolutely could not use the words “prize,” “winner,” or “you’ve won” in our subject lines.

Like me, you probably also fear the word “free” and using exclamation marks. All caps? Neverrrrrr.

“That is not going to get you filtered. It used to, 10 years ago, but technology changed. So I want to liberate everybody. Write whatever you want to write to get the email opened.”

So, what does put you on the naughty or nice list?

“It’s all about engagement. The more you get people to click and interact with your emails, the greater the likelihood is that you will stay in the inbox. That's what the receiving email infrastructures want to see: Hey, this recipient likes interacting with these emails.

"And the irony is that the very tactics that people avoid — the word ‘free,’ an exclamation mark, an emoji — those exact tactics are gonna cause you to get more engagement and stay in the inbox."

Lesson 3: Don’t worry about what “everyone else” is doing.

I asked Schwedelson about a LinkedIn post of his that made me chuckle. It’s a screenshot of every brand using the same shamrock emoji on St. Patrick’s Day.

Image Source

"The funny thing about marketers is that, sometimes, we're too close to it,” he smiles. “So, it’s Mother's Day, you know there's going to be a lot of heart emojis in the subject line, right?”

Until we notice the trend. “And then marketers will be like, well, I'm not gonna do that 'cause everybody's doing it."

So I asked him how to be on the right side of history. Do we follow the trend or do we reject it?

He reminds me of something we shared in his first set of lessons: Test everything. Especially the things you don’t like.

If that shamrock emoji gives you a 20% lift in your open rate… do you care if 30 other brands used one, too?

"So just because you, as a marketer, think everybody's doing it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."

What I hear is: Game on with the 🍀🍀🍀.

 

Lingering Questions

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION

What’s one “boring” marketing channel or tactic that’s working way better than expected for you right now, and why do you think that is? — Katie Parkes, Director of social, community & customer marketing, Apollo.io

THIS WEEK'S ANSWER

Schwedelson says: Weekend email sends!

Email campaigns targeting director-level and above contacts are generating a 40% year-over-year increase in click-through rates.

Not testing Sunday sends is leaving out a super valuable opportunity to engage with key people when they have the time to really dig into what you are sharing.

NEXT WEEK'S QUESTION

Schwedelson asks: You [Ross Simmonds] always say 'create once, distribute forever' - what's one piece of content you've milked longer than anyone should reasonably admit? And why that one?

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-youre-doing-wrong-in-your-marketing-emails-according-to-an-email-expert

One of the hardest parts of our three-lesson format is deciding what NOT to include, and a lot of really useful advice is gathering dust in my Google Drive.

This week, I’ve got three lessons I just couldn’t waste from the most-shared interview in the history of Masters in Marketing. Email marketing expert Jay Schwedelson is back, and this time he’s coming in hot with what you’re (probably) doing wrong with your email marketing.

And, in all honesty, I’ve committed some of these sins with this very newsletter. (Oopsie!)

Jay Schwedelson

Founder, SubjectLine.com; Host, Try This, Not That! For Marketers Only!

• Fun fact: Jay takes inspiration from his grandpa, who told him, "Stupider people than you have been able to do it."
• Claim to fame: Created one of the top 1% ranked websites in the world. 

Lesson 1: Get the dang thing opened.

To kick things off, I asked Schwedelson what common email advice gives him the twitchy eye.

"There's always so much focus on what's inside the email. What does the copy say? Is it compliant? Is it on brand?” He playfully grumbles. “But on average, less than 50% of people are going to open your email.”

In fact, 50% is dreamy. The average marketing email open rate across industries is closer to 42%. (Ours is a lil higher, but that’s because our readers are so smart and cool and good-looking.)

“So the first focus should really be: How do we get the email opened?"

Which isn’t to say you slack off on the content of your emails. If we suddenly pivoted to stories about dryer lint, our open rate would probably crash, right?

Just make sure the elements with the biggest impact on open rate — details like your subject line, preheader, and send time — aren’t just afterthoughts.

“If you focus on getting the email opened with as much energy and intensity as you do on what's in the email, it will radically change the outcome of your marketing performance.”

Lesson 2: Throw out your banned words list.

“One of the biggest myths is that what you write in your subject line is the reason you’re landing in the junk folder. This is information from the year of the flood.”

He’s caught me on this one. When we ran a recent giveaway, I told the team we absolutely could not use the words “prize,” “winner,” or “you’ve won” in our subject lines.

Like me, you probably also fear the word “free” and using exclamation marks. All caps? Neverrrrrr.

“That is not going to get you filtered. It used to, 10 years ago, but technology changed. So I want to liberate everybody. Write whatever you want to write to get the email opened.”

So, what does put you on the naughty or nice list?

“It’s all about engagement. The more you get people to click and interact with your emails, the greater the likelihood is that you will stay in the inbox. That's what the receiving email infrastructures want to see: Hey, this recipient likes interacting with these emails.

"And the irony is that the very tactics that people avoid — the word ‘free,’ an exclamation mark, an emoji — those exact tactics are gonna cause you to get more engagement and stay in the inbox."

Lesson 3: Don’t worry about what “everyone else” is doing.

I asked Schwedelson about a LinkedIn post of his that made me chuckle. It’s a screenshot of every brand using the same shamrock emoji on St. Patrick’s Day.

Image Source

"The funny thing about marketers is that, sometimes, we're too close to it,” he smiles. “So, it’s Mother's Day, you know there's going to be a lot of heart emojis in the subject line, right?”

Until we notice the trend. “And then marketers will be like, well, I'm not gonna do that 'cause everybody's doing it."

So I asked him how to be on the right side of history. Do we follow the trend or do we reject it?

He reminds me of something we shared in his first set of lessons: Test everything. Especially the things you don’t like.

If that shamrock emoji gives you a 20% lift in your open rate… do you care if 30 other brands used one, too?

"So just because you, as a marketer, think everybody's doing it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."

What I hear is: Game on with the 🍀🍀🍀.

 

Lingering Questions

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION

What’s one “boring” marketing channel or tactic that’s working way better than expected for you right now, and why do you think that is? — Katie Parkes, Director of social, community & customer marketing, Apollo.io

THIS WEEK'S ANSWER

Schwedelson says: Weekend email sends!

Email campaigns targeting director-level and above contacts are generating a 40% year-over-year increase in click-through rates.

Not testing Sunday sends is leaving out a super valuable opportunity to engage with key people when they have the time to really dig into what you are sharing.

NEXT WEEK'S QUESTION

Schwedelson asks: You [Ross Simmonds] always say 'create once, distribute forever' - what's one piece of content you've milked longer than anyone should reasonably admit? And why that one?

via Perfecte news Non connection

Turn customers into community members — how community transformed the Gymshark experience

My transformation from serving customers to nurturing a community didn't happen overnight. It started with a crisis. Gymshark’s infamous Black Friday 2015 catastrophe happened during my first week: Our website crashed on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Orders failed. Customer support lit up. Social media exploded. We were trending — but not for the reasons anyone hoped. I braced for digital war. To top it off, the BBC showed up bright and early the next morning to document the chaos. Cameras, questions, and crew — all while the team was still recovering from a sleepless night.

And yet, something wild happened: Our customers didn’t leave. They leaned in. Gymshark audience remained strong, showing their loyalty to the brand and even feeling compassion toward us during the situation. Why? They felt like they were part of a community.

Gymshark offered customers a sense of belonging. The guest and the business were going on a fitness journey together. Below, I’ll discuss how community can transform your business trajectory. Then, I’ll share tips on building community from my time at Gymshark.

What is community, and why does it matter?

A community isn't just a group that happens to use the same product or service — it’s a living ecosystem where people feel a genuine sense of belonging. It's where transactions transform into relationships, and casual buyers become passionate advocates.

In today's hyper-competitive business landscape, community matters more than any marketing tactic or sales strategy because it creates the one thing money can’t buy: genuine emotional connection. Community is a competitive advantage that can't be copied.

How I Discovered the Power of Community

The importance of community stretched beyond my first week at Gymshark. The second challenge arose later when I attempted to polish up the brand. I wanted to emulate bigger companies like Nike, Adidas, and Puma. The attempt backfired.

The audience gradually became less engaged. Aspirational was cool, but they wanted to stay connected to the brand. This didn't just impact engagement. Sales were gradually tailing off too.

I started listening more to our audience, analyzing feedback from our comment section, studying competitor influencers, and monitoring what resonated in their posts. The pattern confirmed what our brand was built on from the beginning: Our audience wasn't looking for flashy ads or poetic language — they wanted to feel like true participants in our brand.

Frustrated by our messaging approach, I reached out to early customers and simply asked, “What's missing?"

Their feedback reinforced our founding vision. The product itself was good, but our communication didn’t highlight the community aspect enough. They were looking for more than just a transaction. They craved that sense of belonging we'd always intended to create. They wanted to share experiences with others using our products — exactly what the brand was meant to foster from day one.

This revelation didn't change our brand’s purpose but rather reminded us to return to our roots. We needed to better communicate what we'd always been about: building a community, not just selling a product.

The insights I gained from listening to our community helped me grow Gymshark’s social presence from 1.5 million followers to 20 million between 2015 and 2022. That journey contributed to the brand achieving a staggering £1.4 billion valuation ($1.8 billion U.S.).

Tips for Running Community — Insights From My Time at Gymshark

Standing for Something: Giving People a Flag to Rally Around

The Gymshark mission focused on taking a stand against toxic fitness culture while showing the power of consistency. Whether you're a footballer, basketball player, or boxer, the core principles of dedication, proper nutrition, and recovery remain the same, while the sport-specific skills and movements make up that differential 20%.

This perspective helped unite our community across different fitness disciplines. Rather than separating athletes by their sport, we highlighted the universal elements that connect all training journeys.

This approach made our messaging more inclusive and relatable, allowing people from various athletic backgrounds to feel part of the same community. People who believed in fitness became our community.

Tactical Approach

At Gymshark, we weren't just selling fitness apparel. We were championing a certain belief system about fitness, community, and self-improvement. We focused relentlessly on what the brand stood for beyond products.

Great communities aren't just about what you sell. They’re about what you and your customers believe in together. Lululemon isn't just selling yoga leggings — they’re championing mindful living. Liquid Death isn't just selling water; they’re celebrating a certain rebellious attitude.

These companies aren't just selling things. They’re offering people a way to show the world who they are.

Action you can take today: Define your "3%,” or the core belief that might alienate 97% of people but will deeply resonate with your true community. What's the thing you stand for that others might not? Write it down in one sentence.

Talking With, Not At: Turning Buyers into Collaborators

Instead of just delivering finished products, we started involving our community in the creation process. We launched Gymshark Insiders, where customers could share ideas, challenges, and feedback. We also engaged directly through comment sections, Instagram story polls, and in-person events.

At first, I worried nobody would participate. But soon, it became the most valuable resource for our product development. People weren't just buying from us; they were co-creating with us.

This is based on the simple insight that listening to your customers and delivering communications in ways they prefer is incredibly powerful. It ensures you never stray from what truly matters to your audience.

Tactical Approach

Traditional companies talk AT you. Community-first companies talk WITH you. Today‘s most successful businesses don’t just have customers. They have collaborators. They respond to comments, showcase customer creations, and seek opinions before making decisions.

Consider Glossier's approach to product development: They asked their community, “What do you wish existed?” Then, they created it. Glossier transformed makeup selling into a conversation about what beauty products should be.

When developing our next feature at Gymshark, we didn't guess what people needed — we asked. Through polls, roundtable discussions, and prototype sharing, we created not just a better product but a community with genuine ownership in our shared creation.

Nothing beats a “YOU ASKED, WE LISTENED” announcement. Trust me.

Action you can take today: Ask your audience what they want. Create a simple poll, host an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session, or invite user-generated content. Find at least one way this week to make your people feel heard and involved in your process.

Partnering Up: Finding the Right Creators

Once we knew we wanted to build community, my team stopped chasing celebrity fitness models and started working with everyday athletes. That means we found people who hadn’t “made it” yet but who already had deep engagement, and more importantly, deep connection. We looked for creators with long-form attention — YouTubers who held their community’s time and trust.

More than metrics, we looked at meaning. Could this person shift perspective? Could they move hearts — not just products?

Tactical Approach

Once we found them, we invested. We asked for their opinions on products and let them meet each other. We created a connection behind the brand because we weren’t interested in transactional relationships. We wanted partnerships.

I’ll never forget the first time a creator told me, “It feels like I’m part of the company.” That was the goal. When you make your collaborators feel like insiders, they become your loudest advocates.

Action you can take today: Make a list of influencers with genuinely engaged audiences that align with your niche. From there, you can design custom ways to work with them.

Making People Feel Special: Creating the Velvet Rope Effect

One of the most powerful shifts came when Gymshark created tiered access to different parts of our community. Everyone received value, but our most engaged members got special perks – early access to new products, direct access to our team, and invitations to events and our HQ.

This wasn't about artificial scarcity. Our goal was to reward commitment and create spaces where deeper connections could form. The FOMO was real, and many onlookers yearned to get the same treatment, which created a commitment flywheel that drove engagement and mentions of the brand.

Tactical Approach

We all want to feel like we're part of something exclusive. It’s why VIP areas exist and why “limited edition” items fly off the shelves.

Nike's SNKRS app turns new shoe releases into events people get excited about. Sephora’s Beauty Insider program makes you feel like you've got backstage access. Even small brands are creating private groups, early access, and member-only experiences that make people feel they’re in on a secret.

Action you can take today: Build one element of exclusivity into your brand. Whether it's early access to content, special perks for your most engaged followers, or a private community space, create something that makes people feel like they’re part of an inner circle.

Disrupting IRL with URL and Vice Versa

The pandemic had forced everything online, but as restrictions lifted, Gymshark took a risk and organized a small in-person retreat for our most active community members. Despite having built relationships entirely through screens, the chemistry when people met face-to-face was electric.

That single weekend generated more ideas, collaborations, and word-of-mouth growth than months of online interaction. It reinforced what I'd suspected: Digital communities are powerful, but they’re even stronger when complemented with real-world experiences.

When referencing Gymshark, it's important to talk about how we used IRL to disrupt URL (what I’ll call the digital space) and vice versa. The strongest, most influential communities are not just online. They exist in a mixed reality world where you leverage the strengths of one sector to amplify the other.

If you create an in-person experience that can only be felt by the people physically present, you've missed an opportunity. Equally, if you only rely on digital interaction, you might achieve reach, but it remains passive. You don’t actually know how committed your audience is or how deep the connection truly runs.

Tactical Approach

Real connections don't just happen through screens. The strongest communities find ways to mix online interaction with real-world experiences.

Think about Peloton. You might be biking alone in your bedroom, but the leaderboards, live instructors, and friendly competitions make you feel like you're part of something bigger.

Gymshark went even further by hosting workout events where their online followers could meet face-to-face and turn digital friendships into real ones. These events were instrumental in their growth from 1.5 million to 20 million followers.

What I discovered is that even small in-person gatherings create what I call “temperature check moments” — defining experiences that strengthen bonds in ways purely digital connections cannot.

Putting Customers in the Spotlight

Perhaps the most transformative change was shifting the spotlight away from our company and toward the amazing things our community members were accomplishing.

Instead of case studies that highlighted our product, we created stories that celebrated the journeys of our members. Our content strategy flipped from “look at us” to “look at them.” The more we made our community the heroes of our story, the more they championed our brand to others.

Tactical Approach

Companies like Airbnb, Notion, and Figma don't just show off their features — they showcase what amazing things their users have created. The more a company celebrates its users, the more those users become passionate supporters.

When I implemented this strategy with clients, I found that user-generated content consistently outperformed company-created content by three to five times in terms of engagement. People trust peer stories far more than brand claims.

The results spoke for themselves: Our customer acquisition costs plummeted because word-of-mouth became our primary growth channel. Our retention rates soared. People weren't just buying products. They were part of something they didn’t want to leave.

Action you can take today: Shift the spotlight. Feature at least one customer story this week, celebrate a user achievement, or highlight something amazing your community has created. Make your people — not your products — the heroes of your narrative.

Be a Community Builder

By the time I left Gymshark, 95% of our content was community-led. But the biggest growth you couldn’t measure in metrics. It was in the message that said, “This brand made me believe in myself again.” It was in the tattoos. The gym murals. The proposals in branded hoodies.

We didn’t just build an audience. We built identity. And when you build that right, you don’t just scale a brand. You shift culture.

You don’t have to chase relevance. You become it.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/turn-customers-into-community

My transformation from serving customers to nurturing a community didn't happen overnight. It started with a crisis. Gymshark’s infamous Black Friday 2015 catastrophe happened during my first week: Our website crashed on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Orders failed. Customer support lit up. Social media exploded. We were trending — but not for the reasons anyone hoped. I braced for digital war. To top it off, the BBC showed up bright and early the next morning to document the chaos. Cameras, questions, and crew — all while the team was still recovering from a sleepless night.

And yet, something wild happened: Our customers didn’t leave. They leaned in. Gymshark audience remained strong, showing their loyalty to the brand and even feeling compassion toward us during the situation. Why? They felt like they were part of a community.

Gymshark offered customers a sense of belonging. The guest and the business were going on a fitness journey together. Below, I’ll discuss how community can transform your business trajectory. Then, I’ll share tips on building community from my time at Gymshark.

What is community, and why does it matter?

A community isn't just a group that happens to use the same product or service — it’s a living ecosystem where people feel a genuine sense of belonging. It's where transactions transform into relationships, and casual buyers become passionate advocates.

In today's hyper-competitive business landscape, community matters more than any marketing tactic or sales strategy because it creates the one thing money can’t buy: genuine emotional connection. Community is a competitive advantage that can't be copied.

How I Discovered the Power of Community

The importance of community stretched beyond my first week at Gymshark. The second challenge arose later when I attempted to polish up the brand. I wanted to emulate bigger companies like Nike, Adidas, and Puma. The attempt backfired.

The audience gradually became less engaged. Aspirational was cool, but they wanted to stay connected to the brand. This didn't just impact engagement. Sales were gradually tailing off too.

I started listening more to our audience, analyzing feedback from our comment section, studying competitor influencers, and monitoring what resonated in their posts. The pattern confirmed what our brand was built on from the beginning: Our audience wasn't looking for flashy ads or poetic language — they wanted to feel like true participants in our brand.

Frustrated by our messaging approach, I reached out to early customers and simply asked, “What's missing?"

Their feedback reinforced our founding vision. The product itself was good, but our communication didn’t highlight the community aspect enough. They were looking for more than just a transaction. They craved that sense of belonging we'd always intended to create. They wanted to share experiences with others using our products — exactly what the brand was meant to foster from day one.

This revelation didn't change our brand’s purpose but rather reminded us to return to our roots. We needed to better communicate what we'd always been about: building a community, not just selling a product.

The insights I gained from listening to our community helped me grow Gymshark’s social presence from 1.5 million followers to 20 million between 2015 and 2022. That journey contributed to the brand achieving a staggering £1.4 billion valuation ($1.8 billion U.S.).

Tips for Running Community — Insights From My Time at Gymshark

Standing for Something: Giving People a Flag to Rally Around

The Gymshark mission focused on taking a stand against toxic fitness culture while showing the power of consistency. Whether you're a footballer, basketball player, or boxer, the core principles of dedication, proper nutrition, and recovery remain the same, while the sport-specific skills and movements make up that differential 20%.

This perspective helped unite our community across different fitness disciplines. Rather than separating athletes by their sport, we highlighted the universal elements that connect all training journeys.

This approach made our messaging more inclusive and relatable, allowing people from various athletic backgrounds to feel part of the same community. People who believed in fitness became our community.

Tactical Approach

At Gymshark, we weren't just selling fitness apparel. We were championing a certain belief system about fitness, community, and self-improvement. We focused relentlessly on what the brand stood for beyond products.

Great communities aren't just about what you sell. They’re about what you and your customers believe in together. Lululemon isn't just selling yoga leggings — they’re championing mindful living. Liquid Death isn't just selling water; they’re celebrating a certain rebellious attitude.

These companies aren't just selling things. They’re offering people a way to show the world who they are.

Action you can take today: Define your "3%,” or the core belief that might alienate 97% of people but will deeply resonate with your true community. What's the thing you stand for that others might not? Write it down in one sentence.

Talking With, Not At: Turning Buyers into Collaborators

Instead of just delivering finished products, we started involving our community in the creation process. We launched Gymshark Insiders, where customers could share ideas, challenges, and feedback. We also engaged directly through comment sections, Instagram story polls, and in-person events.

At first, I worried nobody would participate. But soon, it became the most valuable resource for our product development. People weren't just buying from us; they were co-creating with us.

This is based on the simple insight that listening to your customers and delivering communications in ways they prefer is incredibly powerful. It ensures you never stray from what truly matters to your audience.

Tactical Approach

Traditional companies talk AT you. Community-first companies talk WITH you. Today‘s most successful businesses don’t just have customers. They have collaborators. They respond to comments, showcase customer creations, and seek opinions before making decisions.

Consider Glossier's approach to product development: They asked their community, “What do you wish existed?” Then, they created it. Glossier transformed makeup selling into a conversation about what beauty products should be.

When developing our next feature at Gymshark, we didn't guess what people needed — we asked. Through polls, roundtable discussions, and prototype sharing, we created not just a better product but a community with genuine ownership in our shared creation.

Nothing beats a “YOU ASKED, WE LISTENED” announcement. Trust me.

Action you can take today: Ask your audience what they want. Create a simple poll, host an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session, or invite user-generated content. Find at least one way this week to make your people feel heard and involved in your process.

Partnering Up: Finding the Right Creators

Once we knew we wanted to build community, my team stopped chasing celebrity fitness models and started working with everyday athletes. That means we found people who hadn’t “made it” yet but who already had deep engagement, and more importantly, deep connection. We looked for creators with long-form attention — YouTubers who held their community’s time and trust.

More than metrics, we looked at meaning. Could this person shift perspective? Could they move hearts — not just products?

Tactical Approach

Once we found them, we invested. We asked for their opinions on products and let them meet each other. We created a connection behind the brand because we weren’t interested in transactional relationships. We wanted partnerships.

I’ll never forget the first time a creator told me, “It feels like I’m part of the company.” That was the goal. When you make your collaborators feel like insiders, they become your loudest advocates.

Action you can take today: Make a list of influencers with genuinely engaged audiences that align with your niche. From there, you can design custom ways to work with them.

Making People Feel Special: Creating the Velvet Rope Effect

One of the most powerful shifts came when Gymshark created tiered access to different parts of our community. Everyone received value, but our most engaged members got special perks – early access to new products, direct access to our team, and invitations to events and our HQ.

This wasn't about artificial scarcity. Our goal was to reward commitment and create spaces where deeper connections could form. The FOMO was real, and many onlookers yearned to get the same treatment, which created a commitment flywheel that drove engagement and mentions of the brand.

Tactical Approach

We all want to feel like we're part of something exclusive. It’s why VIP areas exist and why “limited edition” items fly off the shelves.

Nike's SNKRS app turns new shoe releases into events people get excited about. Sephora’s Beauty Insider program makes you feel like you've got backstage access. Even small brands are creating private groups, early access, and member-only experiences that make people feel they’re in on a secret.

Action you can take today: Build one element of exclusivity into your brand. Whether it's early access to content, special perks for your most engaged followers, or a private community space, create something that makes people feel like they’re part of an inner circle.

Disrupting IRL with URL and Vice Versa

The pandemic had forced everything online, but as restrictions lifted, Gymshark took a risk and organized a small in-person retreat for our most active community members. Despite having built relationships entirely through screens, the chemistry when people met face-to-face was electric.

That single weekend generated more ideas, collaborations, and word-of-mouth growth than months of online interaction. It reinforced what I'd suspected: Digital communities are powerful, but they’re even stronger when complemented with real-world experiences.

When referencing Gymshark, it's important to talk about how we used IRL to disrupt URL (what I’ll call the digital space) and vice versa. The strongest, most influential communities are not just online. They exist in a mixed reality world where you leverage the strengths of one sector to amplify the other.

If you create an in-person experience that can only be felt by the people physically present, you've missed an opportunity. Equally, if you only rely on digital interaction, you might achieve reach, but it remains passive. You don’t actually know how committed your audience is or how deep the connection truly runs.

Tactical Approach

Real connections don't just happen through screens. The strongest communities find ways to mix online interaction with real-world experiences.

Think about Peloton. You might be biking alone in your bedroom, but the leaderboards, live instructors, and friendly competitions make you feel like you're part of something bigger.

Gymshark went even further by hosting workout events where their online followers could meet face-to-face and turn digital friendships into real ones. These events were instrumental in their growth from 1.5 million to 20 million followers.

What I discovered is that even small in-person gatherings create what I call “temperature check moments” — defining experiences that strengthen bonds in ways purely digital connections cannot.

Putting Customers in the Spotlight

Perhaps the most transformative change was shifting the spotlight away from our company and toward the amazing things our community members were accomplishing.

Instead of case studies that highlighted our product, we created stories that celebrated the journeys of our members. Our content strategy flipped from “look at us” to “look at them.” The more we made our community the heroes of our story, the more they championed our brand to others.

Tactical Approach

Companies like Airbnb, Notion, and Figma don't just show off their features — they showcase what amazing things their users have created. The more a company celebrates its users, the more those users become passionate supporters.

When I implemented this strategy with clients, I found that user-generated content consistently outperformed company-created content by three to five times in terms of engagement. People trust peer stories far more than brand claims.

The results spoke for themselves: Our customer acquisition costs plummeted because word-of-mouth became our primary growth channel. Our retention rates soared. People weren't just buying products. They were part of something they didn’t want to leave.

Action you can take today: Shift the spotlight. Feature at least one customer story this week, celebrate a user achievement, or highlight something amazing your community has created. Make your people — not your products — the heroes of your narrative.

Be a Community Builder

By the time I left Gymshark, 95% of our content was community-led. But the biggest growth you couldn’t measure in metrics. It was in the message that said, “This brand made me believe in myself again.” It was in the tattoos. The gym murals. The proposals in branded hoodies.

We didn’t just build an audience. We built identity. And when you build that right, you don’t just scale a brand. You shift culture.

You don’t have to chase relevance. You become it.

via Perfecte news Non connection

OpenAI secretly launched a sales agent — here are the details

In February, OpenAI gave a two-minute demonstration at a private event in Tokyo. The demo didn’t stay quiet for long. It set off a firestorm in the sales industry.

The short demo, which isn’t available yet, was for an AI sales agent. This AI agent can perform autonomous tasks to help sales teams qualify, enrich, and follow up with leads. You can watch the full leaked demo here, but I’ll break down all the information you need — and what it means for everyone doing knowledge work — below.

OpenAI’s Entry Into Vertical Agents

First of all, OpenAI has mostly focused on consumer products to this point. They created their foundational model, which companies can build on with an API. This is really the first example of OpenAI building a vertical agent. They've built an agent that helps knowledge workers do their work, with use cases specific to certain verticals.

How It Will Work

According to the demo, here’s how OpenAI’s virtual sales agent will work:

1. A customer fills out a Contact Sales form.
2. That request comes into the OpenAI task pane as a lead.
3. The sales agent calls up multiple tools to analyze the lead and take action. For example:

• OpenAI’s Deep Research tool analyzes the lead to fill in enriching information like role, sector, company size, etc.
• It calls up calendar availability to check time slots available to set a meeting.
• It drafts an email to schedule the meeting and sends calendar requests to both the sales rep and the potential customer.

These steps are fully automated, with no human intervention required.

What Makes It Different From Other AI Sales Tools

​​There are a lot of AI sales tools already on the market, including HubSpot’s own Breeze. So, what makes OpenAI’s sales agent different?

Deep Research Capabilities

At HubSpot, we know the power of enriched data to inform and enable sales conversations. When a lead comes in through OpenAI, the AI agent will call up deep research with live web results and reasoning capabilities to enrich that data. This is research a sales associate might do on their own, like industry, revenue, title, and so on. Deep research can be phenomenally powerful when it’s done in seconds.

Since it connects to various tools, the OpenAI sales agent can also pattern match against customers in your CRM to assess whether it’s a good fit compared to current customers. So, it may offer lead scoring and automated actions tailored to how good a fit the lead is.

Fits Within Your Existing Tech Stack and Workflows

The best value proposition of autonomous agents in the workforce is when they work within your workflow and tasks. Your tasks will be the starting point for the agent. If you have a good tech stack and workflows you like, you don’t have to change them.

Instead, these workflows will be streamlined and automated based on what the customer and buyers are doing across your customer journey. What do I mean by that? Well, someone filling out the form is the trigger, and that trigger starts an AI agent doing its work. That agent is part of the workflow, it’s not separate or tangential to it.

Essentially, OpenAI will be the orchestration layer, and that orchestration layer will be able to call up and work within different tools. That includes research, software, and communication.

Multi-Language Capabilities

Another differentiator is that OpenAI’s tool can work intelligently within different languages and global contexts. In the example the company shared, the lead was entered in Japanese. So, without being told, the tool wrote the contact back in Japanese.

That‘s huge, isn’t it? The way companies have to expand internationally now is that they have to wait until they have local capabilities or language capabilities for each country. With agents, you don’t need full departments. The agent knows a prospect can enter a form within a certain IP location and can adjust its language to match that language or location.

What are the limitations?

With this quick demo, we don’t yet know which features will be included when the full version launches. But here are a few features that HubSpot’s customers have found useful that OpenAI might be missing:

• Sales prospecting features like customizing approaches for different personas and re-engaging lapsed leads.
• Buyer intent analysis, assessing which companies are ready to buy based on website clicks and other actions.
• Conversation intelligence to coach your sales team with call feedback and insights.

How the OpenAI Sales Agent Will Impact the B2B Sales Industry

If you were following the initial leaked demo, you probably saw some initial hysteria that OpenAI was trying to kill the human part of sales. So let’s be clear, that isn’t what this tool does. There won’t be an OpenAI sales bot sending you cold emails.

This system is designed around inbound leads, or people who have filled out a form and want to be contacted. Now we know how this usually works. Someone submits this form, it goes into a system, and then a team of people reviews the leads to reach out and figure out how best to respond. This can take hours or days.

So, what could it look like if you had agents working for you inside your workforce right now? What if instead of spending hours researching leads and scheduling meetings, you simply had good-fit leads appearing on your calendar?

The real value of this first wave of autonomous agents is in the time they give back to sales teams. You might have 50 micro-agents doing 50 different tasks within your workflows, and it’s going to make your life better. All of the mundane, boring things you probably don't want to do, these agents will be able to do for you.

So these AI tools are good for sales teams, and they’re also good for customers. Coming back to the human-to-human connection, intent matters. Automating lead qualification and scheduling can improve the overall experience and clear the junk out of the way for the human connection. For the most part, humans won’t care if something is AI if they have a goal and AI helps them reach it.

To sum it all up, the OpenAI Sales Agent has incredible potential to help companies work within their existing workflows and tech stacks to reach prospects faster and better. This is just one glimpse behind the curtain showing how OpenAI may be dipping its toes into vertical agents. And, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

To learn more about boosting productivity by building AI assistants, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain: 

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/openai-sales-agent

In February, OpenAI gave a two-minute demonstration at a private event in Tokyo. The demo didn’t stay quiet for long. It set off a firestorm in the sales industry.

The short demo, which isn’t available yet, was for an AI sales agent. This AI agent can perform autonomous tasks to help sales teams qualify, enrich, and follow up with leads. You can watch the full leaked demo here, but I’ll break down all the information you need — and what it means for everyone doing knowledge work — below.

OpenAI’s Entry Into Vertical Agents

First of all, OpenAI has mostly focused on consumer products to this point. They created their foundational model, which companies can build on with an API. This is really the first example of OpenAI building a vertical agent. They've built an agent that helps knowledge workers do their work, with use cases specific to certain verticals.

How It Will Work

According to the demo, here’s how OpenAI’s virtual sales agent will work:

1. A customer fills out a Contact Sales form.
2. That request comes into the OpenAI task pane as a lead.
3. The sales agent calls up multiple tools to analyze the lead and take action. For example:

• OpenAI’s Deep Research tool analyzes the lead to fill in enriching information like role, sector, company size, etc.
• It calls up calendar availability to check time slots available to set a meeting.
• It drafts an email to schedule the meeting and sends calendar requests to both the sales rep and the potential customer.

These steps are fully automated, with no human intervention required.

What Makes It Different From Other AI Sales Tools

​​There are a lot of AI sales tools already on the market, including HubSpot’s own Breeze. So, what makes OpenAI’s sales agent different?

Deep Research Capabilities

At HubSpot, we know the power of enriched data to inform and enable sales conversations. When a lead comes in through OpenAI, the AI agent will call up deep research with live web results and reasoning capabilities to enrich that data. This is research a sales associate might do on their own, like industry, revenue, title, and so on. Deep research can be phenomenally powerful when it’s done in seconds.

Since it connects to various tools, the OpenAI sales agent can also pattern match against customers in your CRM to assess whether it’s a good fit compared to current customers. So, it may offer lead scoring and automated actions tailored to how good a fit the lead is.

Fits Within Your Existing Tech Stack and Workflows

The best value proposition of autonomous agents in the workforce is when they work within your workflow and tasks. Your tasks will be the starting point for the agent. If you have a good tech stack and workflows you like, you don’t have to change them.

Instead, these workflows will be streamlined and automated based on what the customer and buyers are doing across your customer journey. What do I mean by that? Well, someone filling out the form is the trigger, and that trigger starts an AI agent doing its work. That agent is part of the workflow, it’s not separate or tangential to it.

Essentially, OpenAI will be the orchestration layer, and that orchestration layer will be able to call up and work within different tools. That includes research, software, and communication.

Multi-Language Capabilities

Another differentiator is that OpenAI’s tool can work intelligently within different languages and global contexts. In the example the company shared, the lead was entered in Japanese. So, without being told, the tool wrote the contact back in Japanese.

That‘s huge, isn’t it? The way companies have to expand internationally now is that they have to wait until they have local capabilities or language capabilities for each country. With agents, you don’t need full departments. The agent knows a prospect can enter a form within a certain IP location and can adjust its language to match that language or location.

What are the limitations?

With this quick demo, we don’t yet know which features will be included when the full version launches. But here are a few features that HubSpot’s customers have found useful that OpenAI might be missing:

• Sales prospecting features like customizing approaches for different personas and re-engaging lapsed leads.
• Buyer intent analysis, assessing which companies are ready to buy based on website clicks and other actions.
• Conversation intelligence to coach your sales team with call feedback and insights.

How the OpenAI Sales Agent Will Impact the B2B Sales Industry

If you were following the initial leaked demo, you probably saw some initial hysteria that OpenAI was trying to kill the human part of sales. So let’s be clear, that isn’t what this tool does. There won’t be an OpenAI sales bot sending you cold emails.

This system is designed around inbound leads, or people who have filled out a form and want to be contacted. Now we know how this usually works. Someone submits this form, it goes into a system, and then a team of people reviews the leads to reach out and figure out how best to respond. This can take hours or days.

So, what could it look like if you had agents working for you inside your workforce right now? What if instead of spending hours researching leads and scheduling meetings, you simply had good-fit leads appearing on your calendar?

The real value of this first wave of autonomous agents is in the time they give back to sales teams. You might have 50 micro-agents doing 50 different tasks within your workflows, and it’s going to make your life better. All of the mundane, boring things you probably don't want to do, these agents will be able to do for you.

So these AI tools are good for sales teams, and they’re also good for customers. Coming back to the human-to-human connection, intent matters. Automating lead qualification and scheduling can improve the overall experience and clear the junk out of the way for the human connection. For the most part, humans won’t care if something is AI if they have a goal and AI helps them reach it.

To sum it all up, the OpenAI Sales Agent has incredible potential to help companies work within their existing workflows and tech stacks to reach prospects faster and better. This is just one glimpse behind the curtain showing how OpenAI may be dipping its toes into vertical agents. And, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

To learn more about boosting productivity by building AI assistants, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain: 

via Perfecte news Non connection

Generative engine optimization: What we know so far

SEO is changing. We’re entering a new era of search — the AI age — and with it comes generative engine optimization (GEO), the practice of optimizing content for AI-driven engines such as ChatGPT or Perplexity.

If we want our content to reach the right people, we need to adapt. There’s no need to throw out the SEO principles you’ve spent decades learning. Much of GEO is an extension of these techniques — and it’s not as scary as it sounds.

Let’s take a look at what we know about GEO so far.

Table of Contents

• What is generative engine optimization?
• GEO vs. SEO
• Why is GEO important?
• How does generative engine optimization work?
• How to Do Generative Engine Optimization
• Tips for Navigating the Generative SEO Landscape
• Generative Engine Optimization FAQ

The good news for SEO is that generative engines pull information directly from web content (as well as other sources) to deliver responses to user queries. They use large language models (LLMs) to make sense of the information scraped and provide coherent, relevant answers.

ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, and Google AI Search are all examples of generative engines.

Generative engines work by:

1. Interpreting a user’s query.
2. Leveraging personal data it may have on the user, such as preferences or conversation history.
3. Searching to find relevant answers to the query
4. Synthesizing information from these documents into a straightforward response

If you’re new to generative search, start by using it yourself. Try HubSpot’s guide to using ChatGPT for work, which has over 100 prompts.

GEO vs. SEO

GEO and SEO are similar in many ways, as both find relevant, credible content to answer user inquiries. But they also have three key differences. Let’s explore the similarities and differences below.

GEO and SEO Similarities

These four similarities should bring optimism to SEOs because they suggest the good work done so far is transferable.

Designed to help users and provide helpful information.

Whether you’re searching on Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or something else entirely, what’s essential is that you can access the information you need in the easiest and shortest time possible.

One reason Google is so successful is that it has mastered a complex (and ever-changing) algorithm that sorts through content and delivers the best possible result to the person searching. Results meet search intent, and users get what they want.

Why this matters for GEO: If you’re dedicated to providing the best possible content, you have a good chance of gaining visibility in generative AI search engines. These tools need to source the best content to keep users returning.

High-quality content is your gateway to visibility.

High-quality content, in terms of landing pages, informational pages, well-thought-out service pages, etc., gets you visibility in generative search engines. As mentioned above, generative engines, like traditional search engines, pull information directly from web content.

Why this matters for GEO: If you’re achieving page one ranks in SEO, you’re likely producing high-quality content. This content will likely perform well in generative search engines, too.

This leads perfectly to my next point: E-E-A-T signals matter for SEO and GEO.

E-E-A-T signals are important in SEO and GEO.

To demonstrate how E-E-A-T is important for GEO and SEO, let me lead with an example.

If you search “CRM” in Google, you’ll see that HubSpot’s is ranked page one, rank three in the U.S.

I searched ChatGPT to see if HubSpot is recommended as a CRM. It is. HubSpot is the top recommendation in ChatGPT.

Why this matters for GEO: Ranking at the top of Google for any keyword doesn’t come easy. You need to meet a multitude of ranking factors and build E-E-A-T across your site.

Keywords and search terms still matter.

Although people search differently in traditional search engines versus generative search engines, there are similarities; users are inputting keywords and search terms.

While the input into generative search engines uses more natural language and conversation, there are still words and phrases that contextualize the search.

Why this matters for GEO: Understanding how and what people search, and then meeting search intent is still crucial.

GEO and SEO Differences

Now we understand some of the similarities, let’s look at how GEO differs from SEO.

Focus

GEO focuses on making content discoverable to AI, while SEO is about improving SERP rank.

While SEO is generally related to Google and Bing, there are lots of generative engines, so it’ll be interesting to see if different engines use different qualities to determine their sources.

Why this matters for GEO: There are nuances in how GEO and SEO work, and while focusing on GEO is becoming increasingly important, it’s not worth dropping your SEO efforts (yet, and maybe not ever). At the moment, people still use Google for the vast majority of searches. According to Edd Dawson, Google has five billion users versus ChatGPTs 200 million users.

Emphasis

The primary techniques for SEO emphasize things like backlinks and keywords, while GEO techniques emphasize structure.

An AI bot’s job is easier when it can pull clear, concise snippets that are easily synthesized, so it makes sense why structure would be an emphasis.

Chris Long, VP of marketing at Go Fish Digital, has done some testing on visibility in GEO, and his testing suggested that generative search engines do pull clear snippets. Long found success using bullet points.

In a LinkedIn post, he said, “In the past 6 months, we‘ve been doing a lot of testing around optimizing our brand for generative engine optimization. We’ve noticed how AI-driven search tends to pull in content that's extremely structured via bulleted lists, structured headings, and general listicle-style articles.”

Why this matters for GEO: If you’re dedicated to more visibility in generative AI search engines, it could be worth exploring page structure and seeing if it makes a difference.

Top tip: If you want to benchmark your current visibility in generative search engines, you could use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader. It shows you:

• Your brand's visibility and presence in AI.
• Strengths and weaknesses.
• Share of voice.
• And more.

The video below demonstrates how it works.

Use the grader to see where you are now and if anything changes once you GEO your pages.

Output

The key difference is the output of the engines.

GEO optimizes content for AI engines, which produce a summary as the output.

SEO, on the other hand, optimizes content for traditional search engines, which produce a ranked list of sources as the output.

How is GEO impacting SEO?

SEO experts worldwide have cited generative AI as the number one disruptor to SEO. So it’s worth understanding what experts suspect the impact will be.

I spoke with SEO expert Nick Baird to hear his thoughts on GEO and how it impacts SEO and marketing.

“Local SEO remains largely unaffected. When searching for a plumber or a dentist, they still need results tied to maps, reviews, and real-world proximity,” he said.

Secondly, Baird says informational searches have taken a noticeable hit and clicks have reduced.

“Click-through rates are down in places where AI can summarize quickly. For websites that rely on traffic from listicles or how-to content, traffic is definitely thinner.

“However, people still click through when they want depth or to verify that a source actually said what the AI is reporting. So while the volume of clicks may be down, it‘s still important to have quality content on one’s website.”

I agree with everything Baird has said here, though I will add that generative search engines also include map views featuring local businesses. The screenshot below shows what it looks like.

In my experience, many websites' top-funnel (ToFu) clicks have significantly dropped, but the focus should always be more on bottom-funnel clicks anyway.

You can still cover those ToFu topics where it makes sense, and you might find it helps your GEO. Just make sure it has a purpose other than clicks.

Why is GEO important?

In another HubSpot article about the future of SEO, experts shared their opinions and predictions about the future of AI and SEO.

One opinion that stands out to me is from Nate Tower, who stated (and supported with data) that conversions, by percentage, from LLMs are higher. Tower believes that people chat with AI and see the software more as a friend, which is one reason why conversions from GEO are higher.

Important note: While conversions are higher by percentage, we’re still dealing with small data sets. In terms of quantity, conversions are lower.

That said, it could be an indicator of what’s to come. If people respond well to GEO, you want your business to be visible.

Ultimately, people are using generative search to find answers to their questions and meet their needs. All indicators show that GEO isn’t going anywhere, so keeping up and earning visibility in GEO makes sense. Just remember to manage GEO with SEO.

How does generative engine optimization work?

Learning to use GEO is simpler than it sounds and, in many ways, is overlapped with best SEO practices. AI tools respond well to clear, well-structured information that it can easily synthesize.

This means you should:

1. Ensure your content is easy to read and understand.
2. Incorporate credible sources, quotes, and statistics to enhance the content’s richness and authority.
3. Structure your writing to align with the patterns used by generative engines.

When I’m writing an article, I focus on clear headings, concise paragraphs, lists, and well-sourced information. The same is true for best practices when it comes to SEO — so don’t worry about reinventing the wheel.

Other ways to improve GEO are using AI-friendly structured data, focusing on user intent, using easy-to-read/conversational language, and using unique words to make the content stand out.

These best practices aren’t all that different from SEO best practices. And, as with SEO, there’s no indication that AI-created content is ranking poorly.

If your content is high quality, you shouldn’t experience any sort of penalty for leveraging AI content tools, like the ones offered by HubSpot.

Source

How to Do Generative Engine Optimization

GEO is still very new, but we have some early learnings about what’s helping brands secure visibility in AI search.

I’m an SEO consultant working with brands. I’ve been tracking my clients’ visibility in AI search using Kyle Rushton McGregor’s AI report and data from G4.

As you can see from one client’s report, pictured below, AI visibility is growing. All of my clients have graphs that look similar to the one below: Visibility rises most sharply in Q4 2024 and continues.

A lot of my GEO success uses transferable SEO elements.

Here are the details.

Manage your brand narrative.

As we’ve established, generative engines pull information directly from web content. Whatever you or others are saying about your brand is what generative search can share. The content has to exist for generative search to display it.

If it’s possible, find an angle for your product or service.

Think:

• What do you do?
• What problems do you solve?
• Who do you solve problems for?

Remember, people searching in generative AI search engines are searching differently; they’re using more conversational language and getting very nuanced and long-tail.

Take a look at the example below. In generative search engines, products are recommended with links to product pages and a short rationale for why they’re suitable for the searcher's query.

In the image above, all the products listed in generative search have specific messaging about the query. In my experience, generative search relays the messages found commonly across the internet on a range of sources.

Top tip: I’ve mentioned this already, but do use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader to understand how your brand is perceived now and then monitor it as you improve your GEO.

Think about keywords and search terms.

For me, keyword research is still part of the GEO process. I like to know which keywords bring up AI overviews. If you know the features Google is displaying, then you can make an extra effort to secure visibility in them.

Take a look at the screenshot below. My client ranks several times in the AI overviews.

Here’s a breakdown of how keywords influenced this achievement:

• We researched keywords related to the topic.
• Like SEO, we led with one focus keyword (the one pictured).
• We developed a keyword cluster including related keywords and questions.
• An article was briefed using SEO best practices.
• We wrote an in-depth piece (more on this next).

Write great content.

Writing great content involves many components, many of which crossover heavily with SEO.

This is great news because if you’re already writing great content and seeing the results in the form of page one rankings in Google, in my experience, you’re likely getting visibility in generative search, too.

Here are some ways to write great content:

• Write content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T). Don’t be afraid to tell stories that showcase your experience in content.
• Cover topics in full. Generally, detailed articles perform better. Worry less about word count and keywords and more about topical coverage and detail. It’s tempting to create new pages for every topic, but some are better covered together. Learn about keyword intent to do this well.
• Think about NLP keywords. Generative search engines use natural language processing to summarize information and provide responses to prompts. Use natural, conversational language and incorporate NLP-related terms naturally to improve discoverability.
• Have experts write, or at least review, your content. You will have industry experts within your business, so make sure to include them in the writing process. Ask them for quotes, have them write content, and fetch new insights to make your article stand out.
• Answer real user questions, and don’t be afraid to think for yourself. You can use tools like AlsoAsked or Google’s People Also Ask to determine the questions your readers are asking. But you can’t beat your own research and sense of knowing your potential buyers.
• Be visual within your content with infographics, graphs, videos, and more. The more mediums a reader can digest your content, the better (within reason!). Skimmable content helps engage readers online.

Top tip: If you want to do the above, hire great writers; they do it naturally.

Structure your content for humans (and bots!)

Digital content changes how people read. Instead of settling down to read 2,000-word articles, many readers skim-read, looking for headings, bullet points, or images to tell a story.

Of course, many will still read an entire article, but when writing online, you’re looking for a way to hook your reader and draw their interest to the sections they most want to read. Equally, snippets of well-structured text follow patterns (like bullet points) that can be used by generative search engines.

Here are some ways to add more structure to your content:

• Bullet points summarize data.
• Logical heading hierarchy from H1 to H2, H3, and H4 are like the chapters of a book. Use them to help readers skim and bots gain context.
• Stick to short paragraphs where possible.
• Add images to break up sections. Bonus points if you add captions. A series of images with descriptive captions help readers digest your content quickly and succinctly.

Use schema markup.

I love schema markup! It’s not something your readers will notice since it lives in your site's code, but it does allow you to “communicate” with the bots, adding data and context to elements on your page.

We already know that Google uses schema markup to populate rich results, and I think it’s fairly safe to assume that AI overviews also use schema.

Here are some schema examples that might influence GEO:

• FAQs
• Product snippets
• Profile pages
• Q&As
• Recipes
• Review snippets
• Special announcements

Don’t be restricted by the above. There’s a trove of data waiting to be added to your site, and you can see what’s available at schema.org.

Tips for Navigating the Generative SEO Landscape

Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you start writing content for generative AI.

Cite sources and use statistics.

I asked Gemini what digital marketers who are hoping to create AI-scannable content should do, and it recommended that you:

• Write AI-scannable content.
• Diversify language and structure.
• Incorporate human elements such as humour.
• Write clearly.
• Showcase E-E-A-T.
• Include media.
• Understand SEO basics.
• Use tools cautiously.

While you can still use AI tools to write your content, it’s vital that it reads as useful, credible content. Incorporating E-E-A-T is a great way to increase credibility, and that serves to improve your entire domain’s authority.

So what exactly does E-E-A-T look like? I’ve been navigating the shift firsthand for my HubSpot posts.

I start by looking at my own personal experience:

• Do I have lived experience in the subject matter?
• Can I include any personal anecdotes about when I’ve encountered the topic?

Beyond that, I try to showcase my authority on a subject, noting how long I’ve worked in the field.

Obviously, I am not an expert in every topic I want to cover. In that case, I do extensive research:

• I find original statistics with verified information.
• I talk to experts whose quotes I can showcase throughout my work.

These elements enhance the credibility and uniqueness of my content.

Optimize for readability.

Think of AI like a busy student frantically looking for information to use in a paper.

They don’t have time to decipher complicated sentences. They want information that’s clear and easy to understand from the get-go. Which brings me to my next tip: Use clear, concise language and scannable paragraphs.

I’ll be honest: Writing short, clear sentences may not always be my first instinct. When I’m discussing a complicated topic, my first draft often includes lengthy explanations. I then use Hemingway, an app designed to help you write clearly.

Hemingway lets me know which sentences are lengthy, confusing, or overly complicated. I can’t always get every sentence to green, but I make an effort to correct phrases marked as “very hard to read.”

Source

Focus on content quality.

In the past, having the right keywords was enough to win in search. Let’s take a classic example: recipe blogs.

I remember searching for a brownie recipe for a party and finding a promising, top-ranking article.

When I clicked on it, I had to scroll past huge chunks of text about what goes into a brownie, when brownies became popular, how the author's kids loved the brownies, so on and so forth.

Why? The author knew having the word “brownie recipe” as many times as possible would help her rank.

Well, that may no longer be the case. In today’s landscape, knowing that the recipe has been passed down from older generations and won an award in a local competition would be enough to show credibility.

TL;DR: Make sure your content is relevant to potential search engines, and avoid keyword stuffing. Your audience cares more about the quality of your post.

Monitor trends and track your results.

Stay on top of AI engine evolution. GEO is a new technique, so expect best practices to emerge over time. Trends in the search landscape are continuously changing.

Right now, Google is prioritizing E-E-A-T, but that may change as AI overviews take over the scene. Keep an eye on the traffic and conversions of posts you’ve written using GEO best practices.

Generative Engine Optimization FAQ

What is GEO?

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is a method of improving your content’s visibility to AI generative engines, increasing its reach.

How do I structure my content for GEO?

Ensure your content is clear, well-organized, and has credible sources. Take advantage of lists and H2s and incorporate quotes and statistics when possible.

How do I check if my content is optimized for GEO?

Because GEO is so new, there aren’t many tools to measure how successful your content will be with AI generative engines. HubSpot’s AI Search Grader App is the only tool on the market that can scan your content for its GEO performance.

All you have to do is drop your URL into the grader. From there, you’ll have custom suggestions on what areas you can change to optimize your AI search performance.

That may include including more authority and personal experience or shifting the focus area of your page.

What is AI looking for in GEO content?

Large language models (LLMs) are looking for clear, well-structured information that they can pull and summarize to respond to user queries.

AI scanning works best for content that:

• Uses headers and lists.
• Incorporates expert quotes.
• Cites sources.
• Uses simple language and scannable paragraphs.

Is GEO going to replace SEO?

No — search engines aren’t going anywhere, so SEO isn’t, either. It’s best to consider GEO as an extension of SEO practices, as opposed to a replacement.

Best practices (like using H2s and credible citations) are shared between GEO and SEO, as are worst practices. Keyword stuffing, for example, has a negative impact on both SEO and GEO.

How can you measure GEO success?

Liam Carnahan, an SEO coach and content strategist, has a recommendation for how you can leverage existing tools to check if your article is getting picked up by AI engines.

“Of all the popular search-oriented options out there right now, Perplexity does the best job of citation,” Carnahan says.

He continues, “So when I‘m trying to understand whether LLMs are ‘enjoying’ my content, I’ll go there first, and type in questions and prompts I imagine people might ask, using keywords I know my content is ranking for, to see how often it shows up in citations there.”

Carnahan also notes that this isn‘t the most elegant solution, but “for now, it can give me a good idea about which of my clients’ content is ranking in AI results, and which content pieces are missing the mark.”

What’s next for GEO?

My biggest takeaway from exploring GEO is that it emphasizes different things, but in many ways, is similar to SEO. While SEO focuses on keyword optimization and backlinks, GEO focuses more on content structure.

Content writers are going to have to balance both, but thankfully, they click together well. I think we’re going to see clearer, more helpful content as a result of these two strategies — which is something I’m really excited about.

AI isn’t going anywhere. While we’re still learning how to use and measure GEO, it’s clear that keeping an eye on emerging techniques is going to be the key to success in the digital content world going forward.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/generative-engine-optimization

SEO is changing. We’re entering a new era of search — the AI age — and with it comes generative engine optimization (GEO), the practice of optimizing content for AI-driven engines such as ChatGPT or Perplexity.

If we want our content to reach the right people, we need to adapt. There’s no need to throw out the SEO principles you’ve spent decades learning. Much of GEO is an extension of these techniques — and it’s not as scary as it sounds.

Let’s take a look at what we know about GEO so far.

Table of Contents

• What is generative engine optimization?
• GEO vs. SEO
• Why is GEO important?
• How does generative engine optimization work?
• How to Do Generative Engine Optimization
• Tips for Navigating the Generative SEO Landscape
• Generative Engine Optimization FAQ

The good news for SEO is that generative engines pull information directly from web content (as well as other sources) to deliver responses to user queries. They use large language models (LLMs) to make sense of the information scraped and provide coherent, relevant answers.

ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, and Google AI Search are all examples of generative engines.

Generative engines work by:

1. Interpreting a user’s query.
2. Leveraging personal data it may have on the user, such as preferences or conversation history.
3. Searching to find relevant answers to the query
4. Synthesizing information from these documents into a straightforward response

If you’re new to generative search, start by using it yourself. Try HubSpot’s guide to using ChatGPT for work, which has over 100 prompts.

GEO vs. SEO

GEO and SEO are similar in many ways, as both find relevant, credible content to answer user inquiries. But they also have three key differences. Let’s explore the similarities and differences below.

GEO and SEO Similarities

These four similarities should bring optimism to SEOs because they suggest the good work done so far is transferable.

Designed to help users and provide helpful information.

Whether you’re searching on Google, Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or something else entirely, what’s essential is that you can access the information you need in the easiest and shortest time possible.

One reason Google is so successful is that it has mastered a complex (and ever-changing) algorithm that sorts through content and delivers the best possible result to the person searching. Results meet search intent, and users get what they want.

Why this matters for GEO: If you’re dedicated to providing the best possible content, you have a good chance of gaining visibility in generative AI search engines. These tools need to source the best content to keep users returning.

High-quality content is your gateway to visibility.

High-quality content, in terms of landing pages, informational pages, well-thought-out service pages, etc., gets you visibility in generative search engines. As mentioned above, generative engines, like traditional search engines, pull information directly from web content.

Why this matters for GEO: If you’re achieving page one ranks in SEO, you’re likely producing high-quality content. This content will likely perform well in generative search engines, too.

This leads perfectly to my next point: E-E-A-T signals matter for SEO and GEO.

E-E-A-T signals are important in SEO and GEO.

To demonstrate how E-E-A-T is important for GEO and SEO, let me lead with an example.

If you search “CRM” in Google, you’ll see that HubSpot’s is ranked page one, rank three in the U.S.

I searched ChatGPT to see if HubSpot is recommended as a CRM. It is. HubSpot is the top recommendation in ChatGPT.

Why this matters for GEO: Ranking at the top of Google for any keyword doesn’t come easy. You need to meet a multitude of ranking factors and build E-E-A-T across your site.

Keywords and search terms still matter.

Although people search differently in traditional search engines versus generative search engines, there are similarities; users are inputting keywords and search terms.

While the input into generative search engines uses more natural language and conversation, there are still words and phrases that contextualize the search.

Why this matters for GEO: Understanding how and what people search, and then meeting search intent is still crucial.

GEO and SEO Differences

Now we understand some of the similarities, let’s look at how GEO differs from SEO.

Focus

GEO focuses on making content discoverable to AI, while SEO is about improving SERP rank.

While SEO is generally related to Google and Bing, there are lots of generative engines, so it’ll be interesting to see if different engines use different qualities to determine their sources.

Why this matters for GEO: There are nuances in how GEO and SEO work, and while focusing on GEO is becoming increasingly important, it’s not worth dropping your SEO efforts (yet, and maybe not ever). At the moment, people still use Google for the vast majority of searches. According to Edd Dawson, Google has five billion users versus ChatGPTs 200 million users.

Emphasis

The primary techniques for SEO emphasize things like backlinks and keywords, while GEO techniques emphasize structure.

An AI bot’s job is easier when it can pull clear, concise snippets that are easily synthesized, so it makes sense why structure would be an emphasis.

Chris Long, VP of marketing at Go Fish Digital, has done some testing on visibility in GEO, and his testing suggested that generative search engines do pull clear snippets. Long found success using bullet points.

In a LinkedIn post, he said, “In the past 6 months, we‘ve been doing a lot of testing around optimizing our brand for generative engine optimization. We’ve noticed how AI-driven search tends to pull in content that's extremely structured via bulleted lists, structured headings, and general listicle-style articles.”

Why this matters for GEO: If you’re dedicated to more visibility in generative AI search engines, it could be worth exploring page structure and seeing if it makes a difference.

Top tip: If you want to benchmark your current visibility in generative search engines, you could use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader. It shows you:

• Your brand's visibility and presence in AI.
• Strengths and weaknesses.
• Share of voice.
• And more.

The video below demonstrates how it works.

Use the grader to see where you are now and if anything changes once you GEO your pages.

Output

The key difference is the output of the engines.

GEO optimizes content for AI engines, which produce a summary as the output.

SEO, on the other hand, optimizes content for traditional search engines, which produce a ranked list of sources as the output.

How is GEO impacting SEO?

SEO experts worldwide have cited generative AI as the number one disruptor to SEO. So it’s worth understanding what experts suspect the impact will be.

I spoke with SEO expert Nick Baird to hear his thoughts on GEO and how it impacts SEO and marketing.

“Local SEO remains largely unaffected. When searching for a plumber or a dentist, they still need results tied to maps, reviews, and real-world proximity,” he said.

Secondly, Baird says informational searches have taken a noticeable hit and clicks have reduced.

“Click-through rates are down in places where AI can summarize quickly. For websites that rely on traffic from listicles or how-to content, traffic is definitely thinner.

“However, people still click through when they want depth or to verify that a source actually said what the AI is reporting. So while the volume of clicks may be down, it‘s still important to have quality content on one’s website.”

I agree with everything Baird has said here, though I will add that generative search engines also include map views featuring local businesses. The screenshot below shows what it looks like.

In my experience, many websites' top-funnel (ToFu) clicks have significantly dropped, but the focus should always be more on bottom-funnel clicks anyway.

You can still cover those ToFu topics where it makes sense, and you might find it helps your GEO. Just make sure it has a purpose other than clicks.

Why is GEO important?

In another HubSpot article about the future of SEO, experts shared their opinions and predictions about the future of AI and SEO.

One opinion that stands out to me is from Nate Tower, who stated (and supported with data) that conversions, by percentage, from LLMs are higher. Tower believes that people chat with AI and see the software more as a friend, which is one reason why conversions from GEO are higher.

Important note: While conversions are higher by percentage, we’re still dealing with small data sets. In terms of quantity, conversions are lower.

That said, it could be an indicator of what’s to come. If people respond well to GEO, you want your business to be visible.

Ultimately, people are using generative search to find answers to their questions and meet their needs. All indicators show that GEO isn’t going anywhere, so keeping up and earning visibility in GEO makes sense. Just remember to manage GEO with SEO.

How does generative engine optimization work?

Learning to use GEO is simpler than it sounds and, in many ways, is overlapped with best SEO practices. AI tools respond well to clear, well-structured information that it can easily synthesize.

This means you should:

1. Ensure your content is easy to read and understand.
2. Incorporate credible sources, quotes, and statistics to enhance the content’s richness and authority.
3. Structure your writing to align with the patterns used by generative engines.

When I’m writing an article, I focus on clear headings, concise paragraphs, lists, and well-sourced information. The same is true for best practices when it comes to SEO — so don’t worry about reinventing the wheel.

Other ways to improve GEO are using AI-friendly structured data, focusing on user intent, using easy-to-read/conversational language, and using unique words to make the content stand out.

These best practices aren’t all that different from SEO best practices. And, as with SEO, there’s no indication that AI-created content is ranking poorly.

If your content is high quality, you shouldn’t experience any sort of penalty for leveraging AI content tools, like the ones offered by HubSpot.

Source

How to Do Generative Engine Optimization

GEO is still very new, but we have some early learnings about what’s helping brands secure visibility in AI search.

I’m an SEO consultant working with brands. I’ve been tracking my clients’ visibility in AI search using Kyle Rushton McGregor’s AI report and data from G4.

As you can see from one client’s report, pictured below, AI visibility is growing. All of my clients have graphs that look similar to the one below: Visibility rises most sharply in Q4 2024 and continues.

A lot of my GEO success uses transferable SEO elements.

Here are the details.

Manage your brand narrative.

As we’ve established, generative engines pull information directly from web content. Whatever you or others are saying about your brand is what generative search can share. The content has to exist for generative search to display it.

If it’s possible, find an angle for your product or service.

Think:

• What do you do?
• What problems do you solve?
• Who do you solve problems for?

Remember, people searching in generative AI search engines are searching differently; they’re using more conversational language and getting very nuanced and long-tail.

Take a look at the example below. In generative search engines, products are recommended with links to product pages and a short rationale for why they’re suitable for the searcher's query.

In the image above, all the products listed in generative search have specific messaging about the query. In my experience, generative search relays the messages found commonly across the internet on a range of sources.

Top tip: I’ve mentioned this already, but do use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader to understand how your brand is perceived now and then monitor it as you improve your GEO.

Think about keywords and search terms.

For me, keyword research is still part of the GEO process. I like to know which keywords bring up AI overviews. If you know the features Google is displaying, then you can make an extra effort to secure visibility in them.

Take a look at the screenshot below. My client ranks several times in the AI overviews.

Here’s a breakdown of how keywords influenced this achievement:

• We researched keywords related to the topic.
• Like SEO, we led with one focus keyword (the one pictured).
• We developed a keyword cluster including related keywords and questions.
• An article was briefed using SEO best practices.
• We wrote an in-depth piece (more on this next).

Write great content.

Writing great content involves many components, many of which crossover heavily with SEO.

This is great news because if you’re already writing great content and seeing the results in the form of page one rankings in Google, in my experience, you’re likely getting visibility in generative search, too.

Here are some ways to write great content:

• Write content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T). Don’t be afraid to tell stories that showcase your experience in content.
• Cover topics in full. Generally, detailed articles perform better. Worry less about word count and keywords and more about topical coverage and detail. It’s tempting to create new pages for every topic, but some are better covered together. Learn about keyword intent to do this well.
• Think about NLP keywords. Generative search engines use natural language processing to summarize information and provide responses to prompts. Use natural, conversational language and incorporate NLP-related terms naturally to improve discoverability.
• Have experts write, or at least review, your content. You will have industry experts within your business, so make sure to include them in the writing process. Ask them for quotes, have them write content, and fetch new insights to make your article stand out.
• Answer real user questions, and don’t be afraid to think for yourself. You can use tools like AlsoAsked or Google’s People Also Ask to determine the questions your readers are asking. But you can’t beat your own research and sense of knowing your potential buyers.
• Be visual within your content with infographics, graphs, videos, and more. The more mediums a reader can digest your content, the better (within reason!). Skimmable content helps engage readers online.

Top tip: If you want to do the above, hire great writers; they do it naturally.

Structure your content for humans (and bots!)

Digital content changes how people read. Instead of settling down to read 2,000-word articles, many readers skim-read, looking for headings, bullet points, or images to tell a story.

Of course, many will still read an entire article, but when writing online, you’re looking for a way to hook your reader and draw their interest to the sections they most want to read. Equally, snippets of well-structured text follow patterns (like bullet points) that can be used by generative search engines.

Here are some ways to add more structure to your content:

• Bullet points summarize data.
• Logical heading hierarchy from H1 to H2, H3, and H4 are like the chapters of a book. Use them to help readers skim and bots gain context.
• Stick to short paragraphs where possible.
• Add images to break up sections. Bonus points if you add captions. A series of images with descriptive captions help readers digest your content quickly and succinctly.

Use schema markup.

I love schema markup! It’s not something your readers will notice since it lives in your site's code, but it does allow you to “communicate” with the bots, adding data and context to elements on your page.

We already know that Google uses schema markup to populate rich results, and I think it’s fairly safe to assume that AI overviews also use schema.

Here are some schema examples that might influence GEO:

• FAQs
• Product snippets
• Profile pages
• Q&As
• Recipes
• Review snippets
• Special announcements

Don’t be restricted by the above. There’s a trove of data waiting to be added to your site, and you can see what’s available at schema.org.

Tips for Navigating the Generative SEO Landscape

Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you start writing content for generative AI.

Cite sources and use statistics.

I asked Gemini what digital marketers who are hoping to create AI-scannable content should do, and it recommended that you:

• Write AI-scannable content.
• Diversify language and structure.
• Incorporate human elements such as humour.
• Write clearly.
• Showcase E-E-A-T.
• Include media.
• Understand SEO basics.
• Use tools cautiously.

While you can still use AI tools to write your content, it’s vital that it reads as useful, credible content. Incorporating E-E-A-T is a great way to increase credibility, and that serves to improve your entire domain’s authority.

So what exactly does E-E-A-T look like? I’ve been navigating the shift firsthand for my HubSpot posts.

I start by looking at my own personal experience:

• Do I have lived experience in the subject matter?
• Can I include any personal anecdotes about when I’ve encountered the topic?

Beyond that, I try to showcase my authority on a subject, noting how long I’ve worked in the field.

Obviously, I am not an expert in every topic I want to cover. In that case, I do extensive research:

• I find original statistics with verified information.
• I talk to experts whose quotes I can showcase throughout my work.

These elements enhance the credibility and uniqueness of my content.

Optimize for readability.

Think of AI like a busy student frantically looking for information to use in a paper.

They don’t have time to decipher complicated sentences. They want information that’s clear and easy to understand from the get-go. Which brings me to my next tip: Use clear, concise language and scannable paragraphs.

I’ll be honest: Writing short, clear sentences may not always be my first instinct. When I’m discussing a complicated topic, my first draft often includes lengthy explanations. I then use Hemingway, an app designed to help you write clearly.

Hemingway lets me know which sentences are lengthy, confusing, or overly complicated. I can’t always get every sentence to green, but I make an effort to correct phrases marked as “very hard to read.”

Source

Focus on content quality.

In the past, having the right keywords was enough to win in search. Let’s take a classic example: recipe blogs.

I remember searching for a brownie recipe for a party and finding a promising, top-ranking article.

When I clicked on it, I had to scroll past huge chunks of text about what goes into a brownie, when brownies became popular, how the author's kids loved the brownies, so on and so forth.

Why? The author knew having the word “brownie recipe” as many times as possible would help her rank.

Well, that may no longer be the case. In today’s landscape, knowing that the recipe has been passed down from older generations and won an award in a local competition would be enough to show credibility.

TL;DR: Make sure your content is relevant to potential search engines, and avoid keyword stuffing. Your audience cares more about the quality of your post.

Monitor trends and track your results.

Stay on top of AI engine evolution. GEO is a new technique, so expect best practices to emerge over time. Trends in the search landscape are continuously changing.

Right now, Google is prioritizing E-E-A-T, but that may change as AI overviews take over the scene. Keep an eye on the traffic and conversions of posts you’ve written using GEO best practices.

Generative Engine Optimization FAQ

What is GEO?

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is a method of improving your content’s visibility to AI generative engines, increasing its reach.

How do I structure my content for GEO?

Ensure your content is clear, well-organized, and has credible sources. Take advantage of lists and H2s and incorporate quotes and statistics when possible.

How do I check if my content is optimized for GEO?

Because GEO is so new, there aren’t many tools to measure how successful your content will be with AI generative engines. HubSpot’s AI Search Grader App is the only tool on the market that can scan your content for its GEO performance.

All you have to do is drop your URL into the grader. From there, you’ll have custom suggestions on what areas you can change to optimize your AI search performance.

That may include including more authority and personal experience or shifting the focus area of your page.

What is AI looking for in GEO content?

Large language models (LLMs) are looking for clear, well-structured information that they can pull and summarize to respond to user queries.

AI scanning works best for content that:

• Uses headers and lists.
• Incorporates expert quotes.
• Cites sources.
• Uses simple language and scannable paragraphs.

Is GEO going to replace SEO?

No — search engines aren’t going anywhere, so SEO isn’t, either. It’s best to consider GEO as an extension of SEO practices, as opposed to a replacement.

Best practices (like using H2s and credible citations) are shared between GEO and SEO, as are worst practices. Keyword stuffing, for example, has a negative impact on both SEO and GEO.

How can you measure GEO success?

Liam Carnahan, an SEO coach and content strategist, has a recommendation for how you can leverage existing tools to check if your article is getting picked up by AI engines.

“Of all the popular search-oriented options out there right now, Perplexity does the best job of citation,” Carnahan says.

He continues, “So when I‘m trying to understand whether LLMs are ‘enjoying’ my content, I’ll go there first, and type in questions and prompts I imagine people might ask, using keywords I know my content is ranking for, to see how often it shows up in citations there.”

Carnahan also notes that this isn‘t the most elegant solution, but “for now, it can give me a good idea about which of my clients’ content is ranking in AI results, and which content pieces are missing the mark.”

What’s next for GEO?

My biggest takeaway from exploring GEO is that it emphasizes different things, but in many ways, is similar to SEO. While SEO focuses on keyword optimization and backlinks, GEO focuses more on content structure.

Content writers are going to have to balance both, but thankfully, they click together well. I think we’re going to see clearer, more helpful content as a result of these two strategies — which is something I’m really excited about.

AI isn’t going anywhere. While we’re still learning how to use and measure GEO, it’s clear that keeping an eye on emerging techniques is going to be the key to success in the digital content world going forward.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

via Perfecte news Non connection