Episode 12
· 01:13:59
Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. My name is Nick Stamoulis. We have the Brick Marketing team with us today. Brick Marketing Live podcast talking about all things digital marketing, AI, search, pay per click advertising and so much more.
Nick Stamoulis:So I'd like to welcome Catherine and John today, and we're going to dive right in. So first topic article that we're going to talk about today is actually an article that we wrote on the Brick Marketing website entitled How AI Search is Changing Customer Research. And so I think that the thing is really important thing to understand here is AI is changing. And as many of you know, that AI is certainly changing all aspects of business, marketing, how people are researching information, looking for products and services. And really kind of the point of us putting this article together was for businesses to really understand that creating content that supports the research process that is, we like to say, early, mid and late sales cycle type content is really what works now and what will work in the foreseeable future.
Nick Stamoulis:And then another key thing is, we're seeing this with AI search and AI visibility overall across all of our clients is building a strong digital presence is a must. So the days of just relying on siloed, one or three one or two digital marketing channels to drive business and outcomes for a particular company, those days are over. It needs to be an integrated multifaceted approach. So yeah, so Catherine and John, if you guys want to chime in and respond on that one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah, the main idea is actually in the first sentence here, AI has changed the way people gather information online. One thing that we're seeing in this article touches on is that they do a lot of their information gathering about your product, service, your brand. Perhaps they don't do that initially on the website. It used to be that all roads led to the website, but because of AI and factors like that, profiles, that kind of thing, wherever your business might be listed off your site, people tend to start there now. So by the time they get to your website, they are further along in the sales cycle.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So representing the sales cycle in your own content is important because either AI is going to need it to find out its information about you, or people are going to need to see it there. So, you just need to take a comprehensive approach and understand that maybe your website analytics aren't gonna tell the whole story these days because the information gathering process is vastly different.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I see online a lot people saying that their clicks are down, but their business is either equal or more than what it was before. And a lot of that can probably be traced back to AI search and people getting all their information from, you know, either AI Answers on Google or ChatGPT or Claude or whatever they're using. And they're able to ask more in-depth questions to the AI chatbots that might help answer things that, you know, you might not have listed on your website. Like, they can get more information on how your business can help them through that chatbot instead of having to sift through all of your different pages and and figure that out themselves.
John:So by the time they get to you, they already have a lot of that information, and then that's why you're also seeing a lot more warmer leads coming your way.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Great. Great. Great point. Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:So one thing before we move on, just want to remind everyone that the Brick Marketing Live podcast is being streamed live on the Brick Marketing website at brickmarketing.com/live and also will be made available on all streaming podcast platforms later this afternoon. So you can catch this anytime. Make sure to subscribe and also tell everyone you know that's interested in marketing to follow and subscribe to the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. So moving on. Next article we're gonna talk about is from search engine land entitled how to move beyond lead volume in B2B PPC or pay per click advertising.
Nick Stamoulis:Now this is a really interesting article because what it's what it's trying to trying to convey here is that in B2B, the sales cycles tend to be long. So if you're a company that's selling a product or service that's complex with many different decision makers and influencers, the sales cycle is long. So, looking at click volumes, as this article said, is an actual trap. So it's like, oh, we got x thousand visitors in a month. Well, okay, that's great.
Nick Stamoulis:How many leads did it generate? And so, you know, on the surface for B2B, you say, oh, well, it generated 10 leads. But really, as the article says, and we agree with this a million percent, it's about outcomes. So it even says it, a form submission isn't a business outcome. It's very true.
Nick Stamoulis:So when we manage pay per click advertising for our B2B clients and in any channel of digital marketing other than pay per click advertising, we look at outcomes. How is business? How many closed business in, you know, is being generated during a particular time? Now, what the challenging part with B2B is sales cycles are long in most B2B companies. When I say long, it's not B2C.
Nick Stamoulis:It's not an impulse decision. It's a researched, complex, informed decision that that may take months or longer. So, you know, if if you're a company investing your advertising dollars in pay per click advertising with Google Ads or Bing or LinkedIn or other channels, you have to understand, you have to give it your sales cycle time. If your average sales cycle is six months, you have to be willing to invest in that PPC, in that pay per click advertising program for at least six months in order to see what the true outcome and ROI is of that channel. So I think it's a great article at search engine land.
Nick Stamoulis:I highly recommend everyone go and read it. But yeah, Catherine and John, share your thoughts on this one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:For PPC advertising for anyone, not just B2B, one has to get out of the volume mindset for most situations. That's not going to serve you. What is gonna serve you is creating a high intent campaign that connects to the buyers when they're Mhmm. Further along in the sales cycle so that when they get in touch with you, it's meaningful. Volume is fine, especially if you have a huge budget, it's okay.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But it's not the best approach necessarily for anybody because PPC has the opportunity to draw in targeted visitors quickly. And volume isn't what's gonna get you there. It's a thoughtful campaign that's organized around your intent and the outcomes that you want, like an
John:Mhmm. John, your thoughts? Yeah. The best thing you can do is get yourself in front of the eyes that actually care for what you're doing and might need your services. Yep.
John:You know, volume volume, like you said, might be good for b to c because people might see I don't know. Maybe you're selling clothes. Right? They might not realize they want a piece of clothing, and then they'll see it, and then they might just end up buying it on impulse. But a lot of the time for b to b, like you said, you're, you're thinking long about, you know, what company you want to use for, say, marketing.
John:Right? We're in b two b. So when people are thinking of what marketing agencies they want to work with, they're going to think about that for a long time.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah.
John:And then putting yourself in front of the right people instead of, you know, just broadly throwing yourself out there is going to be far more valuable.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah. It's so true, John. I mean, you're right. Like using our company as an example, we market heavily in a lot of different channels over a long time. And you're right.
Nick Stamoulis:And it's not just applicable to like a digital marketing agency like us. Other B2B, I mean, it's a big decision, right? Like what we do and the things that we do to help clients, our clients, it's mission critical things that could be make or break for these businesses that we work with. So and it's the same concept is definitely applies to most channels in B2B. Mean, they're high end purchases that are researched to take a lot of time.
Nick Stamoulis:And when you're investing in PBC, you have to give it time. And like you said, Catherine, it doesn't just apply to B2B, B2C too. You have to give it time and understand your sales cycle. And also, might add, market many ways. Not just I always like to mention that when we talk about pay per click advertising type topics and articles and great things that are happening in the industry, it's one channel.
Nick Stamoulis:Should not be the only channel of your marketing. So moving on. Next article. Great article from Fast Company entitled Your Brand Might Be Invisible to AI. It says the signals behind AI recommendation are not mysterious and every brand can build them.
Nick Stamoulis:And really, it's a fascinating article at Fast Company. It definitely is in line with our philosophy and advice that we give our clients that we read and that we discuss a lot on this podcast is that it says here that 50% of web users are now searching using the LLMs, the AI platforms. It says organic search is projected to decline by 50% by 2028. AI qualified visitors are already 4.4 times more valuable than traditional search traffic, according to SEMrush, the article talks about. An article goes into detail, but it's true.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, we keep saying the same things over and over again, that this is the time to invest in AI search. Don't wait. And it's funny, I'm going take a little side note because I know eventually, you know, we're going to share we share all of these discussions on the Brick Marketing social media. I'm not going to name the names, but I shared this, a similar topic recently on our I think it might've either been my LinkedIn or the Brick Marketing LinkedIn in know, another professional, and I'll say that loosely in the term professional, commented and essentially said, oh, it's the same tired advice. Why are you saying the same advice?
Nick Stamoulis:Right? And I said, we're saying I said, it may be a tired advice for you because you work in our industry, But for businesses not investing in this and not actually understanding the severity of how marketing is changing and how it's going to change their outcomes, need to hear these things. And by us talking about these same things over and over and showing proof from all of these excellent sources of articles over and over and over saying the same thing, it's not just us saying it, it's the industry saying it. It helps validate it. So I wanted to just pause and mention that, that yes, we say these same things over and over and over.
Nick Stamoulis:We're not saying it to be redundant or try to sell anyone anything. We're saying it because this is literally what we're seeing in our industry and trends that we're seeing across many different companies in many different verticals and industries, it's very important for folks. So I wanted to just mention that. So so yeah. So Catherine and John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:So it's a good question, right? Is your brand invisible to AI? Because it might be. And if it is, you really need to take action. We're beyond the point of saying, oh, let's wait and see how things play out.
Katherine Tsoukalas:No. You have to be visible in AI. And unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the same tried and true tactics that have always worked to help you build a strong marketing campaign are exactly what's gonna work now.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So is that boring? I guess I don't care because it's gonna get results.
Nick Stamoulis:Right. Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. I don't care. A tactic is never gonna last. We have seen it over and over again that any tactic people tried to use for whichever thing we're talking about, be it SEO, social media, in this case, AI, Where where are they now? The people that use tactics in the past, where are their businesses?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I I bet you they're not around any longer because that didn't work. It maybe worked for, like, thirty seconds, and then it stopped. So that's usually how it goes.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Absolutely. John, what are your thoughts on this one?
John:Yeah. I I just wanna mention, Nick, you you the person replied saying that it's tired advice. Right? You know, what we say about what we say about AI and, know, getting yourself into, you know, AI answers is it is kind of tired in a way that we say the same thing every single week. But at the same time, I'm on Reddit a lot replying to people.
John:They all always I see somebody asking, how do I get my brain to be visible in AI? Once again, you give them that advice that you're sharing within that video because there are people out there who aren't in the industry who don't know it yet. So it's always good to reiterate that you need to get yourself into AI search. You might be invisible right now. Here are the things that you can do to because get inside of it's always going be helpful to someone.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah, agreed. Definitely agree. Next, fantastic article from Search Engine Journal entitled, Do the Answer Engines Keep Your Fingerprint, or Do They Start Fresh Every Time? So fascinating article. I highly recommend everyone really read this one.
Nick Stamoulis:And really, without getting into the details here, it says that Google Gemini or the, you know, AI, I guess, Answers in in Google basically says that it's you know, that it is rooted in Google's quality and ranking systems, which makes sense because it's Google. And it says that Microsoft Copilot is deeply rooted in, obviously, Bing, their algorithm. Makes sense. But ChatGPT is generally rooted in for a while, was rooted heavily into Google. Now it's rooted experts are saying that it's rooted in Bing's index, but it's not you can't really read into it.
Nick Stamoulis:And then the article kind of goes into it. It's really it's a great article, but it says that it literally the answer is there's no data yet, that it's inconclusive. And so we've actually talked about this, that and and I think that it's important for people to understand this. Yet again, I'm gonna reiterate the same thing, which is, you know, AI is artificial intelligence. It is not an algorithm, a search algorithm, and a search engine.
Nick Stamoulis:So in my mind, it changes every time. I mean, we've tested it. We've tested it for our company. We test it all the time for our clients. Literally, whether you're logged in or you know, whether you're logged in or out out of of chat GPT or Gemini or Copilot or Claude, whether you're logged in or out, you get different results.
Nick Stamoulis:If you check it on a daily basis, different answers, different companies, right? If you're going kind of incognito, if you have a paid account, different. If you have a paid account, now it remembers even more because you've trained the AI platform. So this is literally why we say you have to market heavily, market a lot, create a lot of authoritative, important content that makes sense and ties to your audience so that if you're doing that continually, you're giving all of the LLMs, all of the AI platforms a reason to come back and see your brand over and over and over again. And it's not just a tactic.
Nick Stamoulis:It's an actual long term integrated digital marketing and branding strategy that ties into it. So again, great article at Search Engine Journal. It said it's inconclusive. I'm not surprised because we see it's inconclusive. It changes every day.
Nick Stamoulis:So, yeah. So Catherine, John, what do you what do you both think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Okay. Well, this is an interesting article that tries to dive into some of the technical nuances behind this question. There's no data, though, so it is what it is. We're where we're at. And I don't mean anything by this except to say that I don't actually think it matters
Nick Stamoulis:No. I agree.
Katherine Tsoukalas:At all. Whatever is happening does not matter because what we have to do to get things to happen, to get AI visibility, it's all gonna be the same no matter if the answers are the same or not. It's true. It's true. Do that work on our plates
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And make sure our brands are strong and visible and our websites are solid and that there's actually content that can create an answer, that somebody can create an answer from in our name out there.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree, Catherine. And one little thing you said about, you know, I don't really think it matters. I agree because, and I think this is going to be a key point that a lot of business owners, C suite at midsize and larger companies, marketers need to really understand. And that is this isn't keyword rankings. This isn't going back fifteen, twenty years ago when people used to obsess over, I want to be position two for this keyword that my whole business is going to do great if I do wellness.
Nick Stamoulis:One keyword. Right? That's a flawed old philosophy that is not relevant in today's world. It really isn't. And so I think you're right.
Nick Stamoulis:And I think it's going to take time for people to change that line of thinking when it comes to AI visibility, That it's about outcomes. It's about what type of traffic are you seeing to your site? What type of leads are you seeing? What type of business are you getting from the LLMs, from the AI platforms? What type of business are you getting?
Nick Stamoulis:That's what it's about. Nothing else. Yeah. So
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. And I wanna add based on what you just said, this old mindset craves a level of predictability that AI does not No. So give yourself your own level of predictability by maintaining your brand. Yep. Making sure you're visible in your off page factors, making sure that you have a solid website to take content from.
Katherine Tsoukalas:That's your predictability and what you Exactly. Can And AI will reward you by mentioning you.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Exactly. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. I mean, AI, the LLMs and, you know, the companies that own them are definitely keeping your fingerprint. I I don't see it any differently than a lot of social media platforms that are free, for example, like Facebook and whatnot. All of those, they make eventually, they started making money off of your information. Right?
John:And these LLMs are scraping the Internet for as much information as they can get. And at this point, they're not profitable at all. So it is within probably their best interest to be keeping your fingerprint and all the information and everything that they can scrape off the Internet. So on on one hand, it's going to be used to get your business into their, you know, answers. But at the same time, I do feel like they are storing and harvesting your information somewhere.
John:And I I think that's just how it's how how it's gonna be in the future if they can't turn a profit. You might see a lot of the same things. I see a lot of the same issues that we have with Facebook, Instagram, x, all the different platforms.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep. Agreed. I agree. That's a great point. Great point.
Nick Stamoulis:Next article from the Harvard Business Review, Stop AI from eroding your brand. This is a great article. It's interesting because it's very kind of similar to everything we're talking about here. But what's great about this is it takes a different perspective. And instead of talking about brand visibility, the Harvard Business Review article, great article, I recommend you all read it, definitely.
Nick Stamoulis:But what it does is it's taking a different perspective, which is the kind of the opposite, which is AI visibility is great, but like no one really talks about, other than this article that I've seen, about like the reputation issues if your brand isn't consistent. Like what does it look like, right? When someone is searching for, let's just say you're marketing a lot of different ways and your strategy is tight, you're getting business and then you have a potential customer that asks you something, I don't know, an old product that maybe does cease to exist or an old quote that someone said in the press fifteen years ago. Right? And you're like, geez, how'd you find that?
Nick Stamoulis:Or no, no, we haven't had that product for a decade. Whatever it is, it's it comes to it's really a brand management issue at that point. And that's what AI visibility starts at, which is we talk about marketing a lot of ways. Before you can start marketing a lot of ways, when you put the lens of your brand, you want to make sure your brand is consistent everywhere. That means your logo, your description, how you talk about the company, the message behind that, right?
Nick Stamoulis:What makes the company, your products, your services different and unique in your marketplace needs to be the same every nook and cranny it could possibly be. That means your website starts there, starts and ends at your website. But it goes beyond that. Your social media, every business profile, industry association, press release, article, trade show you exhibit at, little descriptions there, any type of authoritative type content or videos, whatever it is, there needs to be a total cohesiveness. And we talk about this.
Nick Stamoulis:But here at Harvard Business Review, this article is literally talking about if you don't get a control of that and make sure it's tight everywhere and then build on that, AI will erode your brand and it won't be right. It won't be correct. And that's where you get then now you deal with sales issues, lack of sales, customer service issues. Now your sales teams are basically investing time, effort and resources talking about things that they shouldn't even be talking about because the brand isn't tight and cohesive where it really should be. So this is a great article.
Nick Stamoulis:I recommend everyone read it at Harvard Business Review. But yeah, so Catherine John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:We have said in the past, probably a lot of times that this new AI era is creating marketers that are more honest with themselves. Because keeping control of our brand and making sure it's cohesive is basically a marketing one zero one thing.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:But it's so easy for it to get out of control and to not realize maybe that it's even out of control. Because especially lately, we've been seeing brands that are really messed up. We have been seeing that, and that's all I'm gonna say for now. But what happens is I don't know what else to say. But what ends up
Nick Stamoulis:By by saying it's really messed up, it's really nice. So I'm laughing. Sorry.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Oh my god.
Nick Stamoulis:I had to laugh at that.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I'd I my brain flashed back to something. Anyway
Nick Stamoulis:Yes.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What happens is if your brain if your brand is out of control outside of AI, what do you think it's gonna look like in AI? They're gonna say such and such of a brand sells shirts. What? Where did they get that from? No.
Katherine Tsoukalas:No. They don't. They they sell nothing and provide a service of laundry. They don't sell any of the shirt. Well, for example, like, it's so easy for this to get out of control.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And Oh, really all you
Nick Stamoulis:have to
Katherine Tsoukalas:do is fix it and clean it up. Right? It's so
Nick Stamoulis:I know.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's so easy.
Nick Stamoulis:I know. I know. Yeah. Well, you know, and and and that's just it. It's easy for us because we've been doing this for decades.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Mhmm.
Nick Stamoulis:But it's not easy for someone that sees it as a huge mountain. That this is so where do I even start? You start right at the top and you come up with the message and work your way through it. That's how you resolve But a little note then, John, I want get your thought. But like, before AI was in play, before AI search was a thing, and before half of everyone's using AI to search, before that happened, you could have things that were wrong and inconsistent buried on page two or page three or page four or five of search results in Google, and no one would ever see it.
Nick Stamoulis:No one would ever find it. No one would go that deep and look. AI just now just pulls the deep stuff with the new stuff, with the current stuff and jumbles it together and gives you the consensus answer. That's essentially what's happening, you know? So And
Katherine Tsoukalas:here's the flip side of what we're saying too, not to be all doom and gloom and scary, but let's say your brand is tight and then you have a blip. Well Yep. You can identify that blip quickly Yep. And address it and snuff it out and fix it. And that's that's a positive aspect of this too.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. John, your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah. I was gonna say that as long as you have been honest with your branding and consistent with it over, you know, however long you've been in business, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with this. But it is when you've had tons of accounts over a long period of time that maybe, you know, your your brand messaging has changed over time. Right? You're gonna have to go back Yeah.
John:And scrub that sort of stuff. Because otherwise, you know, the LLMs are gonna be confused, and then your customers are gonna be confused with what you do. So you need be really careful. I'd say if you don't already start tracking where you post things.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah.
John:You just have a list of everywhere because you might end up, you know, having to go back to delete things or reword things or even, for example, articles, say maybe on the Brick website, have an article that's eight years old now that isn't quite relevant. Well, at least we know where it is and we can find it and we can either retool it to be more modern or we can just get rid of it completely. Right.
Nick Stamoulis:And that's why we have dates on articles.
John:Exactly. So people
Nick Stamoulis:know that that was published eight years ago and it's not our advice now. It's different. Right?
John:Yeah. And sometimes the LLM might not know that and it might pull that and give it to somebody today without them knowing.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and also another little point on this. Also, it's like, think about every business that's in business for a while. Phone numbers change, right?
Nick Stamoulis:Addresses, how many businesses move from one location to another location, right? And so it's kind of like you have to like all these old Google business, Yelp, Bing local, all these profiles, industry associate profiles, you got to make sure, like you said, John, have a list of it. Have it under control. That's type of things we do for our clients in addition to so much more. But at a basic level, we start there and build on that, you know?
Nick Stamoulis:So anyway, so those of you that don't have it under control, it's it it requires work, but it's not impossible. Definitely not. So moving on. Article from the Brick Marketing website entitled The Power of Unified Marketing. And essentially what we say in this article, great article we published, that basically says that anchor all your marketing channels to specific business outcomes and repurpose core website content against multiple promotional platforms and evaluate holistic strategy impact instead of isolated channel silos.
Nick Stamoulis:So essentially, what we're trying to say here is your marketing strategy should be just that, a strategy, not a tactic of siloed activities that you check off of a list. Right? Because, you know, we have clients that we might manage their social media or manage their pay per click advertising or manage their email newsletter or their SEO or AI SEO or, you know, manage their website, literally a plethora of things. But we even if we're only doing one specific task or we're training a client or offering consulting, we need to understand big picture and so should you, because big picture matters in digital marketing today. You know, it has nothing to do with AI.
Nick Stamoulis:In digital marketing right now, big picture is what matters. You need to understand that, okay, what does the sales cycle look like? You know, who are the audiences are we targeting? What does the competitive landscape truly look like for your business? And then from there, then you make sure each of these channels are really, truly connected.
Nick Stamoulis:So that's really what we're trying to say. And this advice isn't anything new. It really isn't. It's a reminder for people that when you're putting a strategy together, it's important that you do truly tie it all together. So, yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:So Catherine, John, your thoughts. Catherine, your thoughts.
Katherine Tsoukalas:This is our core principle. And it's not as bad as it sounds, because it actually makes intuitive sense. We have seen it over and over again that campaigns that run, let's say you're running a Google Ads campaign.
Nick Stamoulis:Mhmm.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And it's just running, humming along, and then all of a sudden you get a little bit of a blip in your organic traffic. Well, why did that happen? They may have seen your somebody may have seen your ad and searched for it. But then if if search for your brand or something to find your website or or see what your online presence looks like. What if they go and search for your brand and nothing's there or your website itself is like on the second page because you've ignored your SEO and you don't even have social profiles that have cohesive branding.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What happens then?
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And this is how it all works together. This is the intuitive nature of it. Somebody that's curious about your brand should see your website at the top, your social media, any profiles you have online, and they could have arrived there from AI. They could have arrived there from seeing an ad and getting curious. They could have arrived there because you somebody handed them a business card of yours.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And, oh, I have to look this up. And it's all related. It's not separate. Separate task is get business cards printed out so I can hand them out to people at this trade show. But the over underlying strategy is you're doing it because you're handing it to a potential prospect.
Nick Stamoulis:Right. Yeah. And you're so right, Catherine. I mean, how many times have we worked with clients over the years, seriously, that we're maybe managing their pay per click and something happens in their pay per click advertising and people aren't buying in that channel anymore. And just, you know, or for a period of time, a seasonality type thing is happening.
Nick Stamoulis:And then, you know, and you know, the company flips out. What's happening? Why am I not getting business? Well, what else are you doing for marketing? Nothing.
Nick Stamoulis:Okay. Well, maybe that's the problem. This is when we say it's unified, has to be. It really truly should be. And I know to my fellow marketers that are listening, you all may be saying, oh, well, that's yeah, I'm not going to swear, but you would say no, whatever, right?
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. It's all tied together. But your business owners, your C suite, you got to understand that, that all of this just works together in a unified approach is certainly a lot more powerful than a siloed approach, for sure. So, John, your thoughts on this one.
John:Yeah. So something I wanted to say, something you were saying earlier about having everything kind of interconnected. I want to use our articles as an example. Right? We reuse these articles in so many different ways over the course of a couple of months.
John:Right? Right. So this one was published on July 13. Then today, we're talking about it on the live. And then this Right.
John:In, you know, a couple weeks is gonna go on the social media. And then after that, it's going to end up on our sub stack in a slightly different form. So it reinforces the things that you are posting in your brand and the things that you stand for. It's making everything consistent and cohesive.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. I mean, of the advice we give, we do for our own company and for our clients. I mean, that's literally we're a believer in it. It works. It certainly does.
Nick Stamoulis:Moving on. Next, article from Marketing Week entitled Marketing Made Human in the Age of AI. This is a fantastic article at Marketing Week written by Dot Digital CMO, Juliet Aiken. I'm going to give full credit here because it's a great it really is. I know I usually don't give credit, but this is just a wonderful article that explains why AI is changing how marketers work, but not what makes marketing effective.
Nick Stamoulis:And it's really great. It says here that AI at work, human at heart, staying relevant, And tech and talent are now the new dream team. And so this is very true. We're seeing it with our company. We're seeing it at our clients and the work we do for our clients, whether it's service work, consulting work, or training type clients that we're working with, which is AI is a tool.
Nick Stamoulis:And AI is an extension of real expertise and experience that should be leveraged. And and and that's what we're seeing is, you you know, an analogy, very basic analogy that all of you listening can truly get of what what we're talking about here. Okay. An analogy is you have a carpenter, right? A master carpenter that does amazing work, that's been working for many, many years, that makes just excellent quality of work, Right?
Nick Stamoulis:The hammer and saw that the carpenter uses isn't going to do the work for them. Right? It is a tool that they use to craft the end result, which is what they're building. The exact same concept is with AI and how it should be properly used in marketing. I was actually I had lunch today with a partner of ours that really, really great guy and a branding agency local to us.
Nick Stamoulis:And we were talking about it. And he was basically telling me that this exact topic that he believes, and I agree, that companies right now are trying to not all, but some companies that don't understand this concept that AI is really a tool are trying to use AI to substitute real marketing expertise. And what the output is, it's all cookie cutter. It's generic, not impactful and will fail. Literally, we were talking about this like literally today.
Nick Stamoulis:And so I agree a million percent. And we've talked about this many times on this podcast, but it's true. There is no substitute to real human expertise. Someone that can look at an output from ChatGPT or Gemini or Copilot or Claude and say, You're full of it. This is incorrect.
Nick Stamoulis:This is not correct. This is not going to work. This advice, strategic advice isn't going to work because the knowledge is there. And so I think that that's what makes and that's why this article is fantastic at Marketing Week, because it supports that, that the future is finding the balance. As the article says here, that it's talent, tech and talent are now the dream team.
Nick Stamoulis:A 100%. You need a talented marketer that knows how to use these AI tools beautifully. That's the dream team right there moving forward. So, and this is what we use for our company and our clients. I mean, I couldn't have said it better.
Nick Stamoulis:So anyway, it's a great article. I recommend everyone check it out. Catherine and John, I want to hear your insights on this one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:You all may have heard me say this before, but we have to know what good looks like. That's what I say in my trainings.
Nick Stamoulis:Yep.
Katherine Tsoukalas:When giving a talk, I've probably said it here. It's a human that knows what good looks like.
Nick Stamoulis:Mhmm.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's AI that could give some advice, but the human needs to say, that won't work for my industry or that sentence does not make sense for the task that I'm telling you the sentence needs to exist for, things like that. Or you may give it some copy to, like, check over, and it could be like, well, this is how you could improve it. And then I'll give you all these terrible suggestions. I have a friend that's actually writing a novel, and he, for some reason, put his put his novel manuscript through AI, and it tore it apart. But it's actually really good.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It's like, what does AI know about this person's creative take on the subject matter he's writing about? You have to know what good looks like and AI is not gonna tell you. It's a great No. Maybe you can use it to help you outline something, but then you go and write it.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. For example. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:Great, great, great example. John, your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah, I see threads a lot online that are like, oh, as a new marketer, what should I be learning how to do? What's one thing that's a great thing to learn? And all the answers are always learn how to use AI. While that's true, I also think that things like copywriting and article writing are now somehow an undervalued sort of skill to have. Because I personally believe that at some point, AI regurgitated information online is going to be dinged in some way if you have it on And website social right now, everyone's just using AI to write everything they post online, whether it's social media posts or I'll go to somebody's website and their product descriptions are all AI.
John:Think that eventually, they're going to get dinged for it, and then they're going to need people who can write again. Right? So I always say that's always my advice. I always say, I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I think that one of the best things you can do is be good at writing.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree 100%. And I'll tell you not only that, but it's like you can use, like for instance, your example about social media, you can use AI to help you write social But media what it's doing is summarizing what a human being has written before that. So it's your authentic real brand and voice and message and not just made up out of thin air. Yeah, you're right. I mean, I think the writing is one application I agree with.
Nick Stamoulis:I also think, honestly, just strategy. I don't think AI can really do the strategy as well as we can. It just can't. It just can't. It can maybe help you find holes and help you find research and maybe look for things that you hadn't thought of in that strategy.
Nick Stamoulis:But the concepts need to come from human real expertise. Definitely. So yeah. Alright. Moving on.
Nick Stamoulis:Just want to let everyone know that this Brick Marketing Live podcast is being streamed live on the Brick Marketing website, brickmarketing.com/live, and also will be available for download on every major streaming podcast platform later today. So definitely let everyone know about Brick Marketing Live. Make sure you follow it, leave a review, chime comments, whatever you'd like, and we appreciate the support. Moving on. Article, another one, actually really good article from Fast Company.
Nick Stamoulis:Social media marketers are stuck in a burnout trap. Here's how to break free. It says here it's a great article at Fast Company that it basically says that professional social media marketers are caught in a kind of like a 24 by seven kind of FOMO loop of work that never ends. And in many cases, like tool overload. And I I think it's a great article at Fast Company.
Nick Stamoulis:I really I mean, I I really recommend reading it. And I think that there's multiple types of social media marketers. There's people like us that do professional social media management for companies. Right? And then there's people that are maybe influencers.
Nick Stamoulis:I feel that with us, as social media marketers that are B2B social media marketers, we tend to have boundaries where we say, okay, we're going to do our work, come up with the strategies, implement it, check it, schedule it, report it, look at engagement, improve it, refine it and move on. But when you're an influencer, it's very hard. And I know, John, you're an influencer on YouTube and it's hard. And, you know, like, I know, like, you know, we have in Brick Marketing, we have side we have like a side, you know, a few brands that we test on that have a big social media presence. I know from personal experience, like you got to have that off switch where you say, okay, I'm going to unplug now.
Nick Stamoulis:I've done my work for the day. And social media is continuing. There's comments, there's engagement, there's reshares, there's other people posting stuff. You're not going to catch it all. It's impossible to catch it all.
Nick Stamoulis:So I feel like burnout's a very real thing, really in social media, I really do. But I feel that, like, you know, I can say this because we're older. Not a bad thing. We're seasoned, right? Catherine, you and I, I mean, we're seasoned.
Nick Stamoulis:We've doing this for many years. So we know the off switch. Like me personally, at a certain time at night, I'm off. My phone's off. It's do not disturb.
Nick Stamoulis:I'm not looking at anything social media or anything work related at all. And I feel that my personal opinion, it's important for social media marketers that are either B2B marketers like us or folks like you, John, that are influencers should have that off time because it makes you do your job better when you're on. So, Kat, I want to get your thoughts on this, John, first. I'll go to you first because I want to hear your thoughts on this one.
John:This is definitely something that even, like, I struggle with a lot because, like you said, you know, I I do social media. I I have a YouTube channel that's gone from, like, think it was three like, it's grown 10 times in the past year. Right? And it's something where you feel like you cannot stop because once one project is done, you're on to the next video. You're on to you're even on to the video after that, thinking about what you're gonna do and how you're gonna do it.
John:And it gets to a point where you get into a loop of right. For me, a lot of the time is spent editing and and and all that sort of stuff. And at the end of the day, you're like, okay. This video is done. You upload it.
John:You have to look at the feedback. You have to go to your for I do everything on YouTube personally. You look at YouTube studio, and you're saying, oh, god. The click through rate on this video is down over the last one. I have to go make a change to my thumbnail
Nick Stamoulis:or
John:pad.
Nick Stamoulis:It's a it's a crisis. Right?
John:It is. Right. And this oh, don't get me started because
Nick Stamoulis:I know.
John:If your video is not doing as well, you have these giant gray arrows on your video, you're like, I have to fix this right now. And then, you know, after that, it's an endless loop of that, and then you're looking at your competitors.
Nick Stamoulis:Are they doing? I just don't John, I just don't look. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. Yeah. But, you know,
John:it it is in some ways in in some instances. But when you're trying to make sure that every single thing does well that you post, it's just an endless loop. And sometimes you might try and offset some of that work to someone else, but other people aren't always reliable. So Right. It's something that, over time, I think that people need to realize that you need to be able to have that off switch because at some point, you're gonna get burnt out.
John:And then, you know, maybe the quality of your work's not gonna be as good, or Mhmm. You might not be able to produce content as often. Right? So there needs to be that off switch so that you can, you know, recover, you know, and get those, you know, creative juices flowing again.
Nick Stamoulis:Absolutely. Well said. Well said. Catherine, your thoughts on this?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. I'm gonna give a different perspective because I've been on the receiving end of working with somebody who discovered they were burned out from it and needed help. It's it's not a great feeling for them because they they describe it. They're putting together their social media strategy as putting out a series of fires, and it never feels in control. And it always feels like we have to post this now.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And so then somebody has to run and go post that now. And it's not a great feeling, but then what happens when you get a professional in there? Suddenly they have a calendar and they're scheduling out two, three weeks ahead.
Nick Stamoulis:That's what we And they're getting
Katherine Tsoukalas:approvals in advance. Wink, wink. Get professional involved. Right? Because it helps you set that boundary.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Now they know, okay, it's not as bad as it seemed. It took was a little bit of a process adjustment so that you can have that boundary and not have social media bleed into your life and not feel like you're it's always on your mind, which is a dopamine hit maybe on some level or definitely an anxiety inducer
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:If you don't feel like it's under control.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:So have that calendar, create that boundary. Just like Nick, I I don't look at my social media that much after after work. If you go to my Facebook, only things that are posted are if somebody in my family tagged me.
Nick Stamoulis:And I'm very boring. I don't use social media for anything personal. Nothing. I only use it for Brick. So sorry, folks.
Nick Stamoulis:Those of you who are connected
Katherine Tsoukalas:to me personally,
Nick Stamoulis:you only see Brick Marketing software. Yes. It is what it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It is. So that's that's that. Get organized, and then that feeling starts to go away, the burnout trap. If you know this is my time to edit, this is my time to post the thing, come up with a calendar. It helps.
Katherine Tsoukalas:It helps.
Nick Stamoulis:It does help. It does help for sure. For sure. Next, great article from eMarketer. Most digital shoppers still aren't sold on AI shopping.
Nick Stamoulis:So this is a recent survey, May 2026, that essentially states that level of interest US digital shoppers have in AI shopping. 47% have not used and are not interested in AI shopping on your behalf. 16%, almost 17% have not used, but somewhat interested. And the rest is made up of people that maybe have not used it, but it might be interested. So I think this is excellent data at eMarketer.
Nick Stamoulis:I'd recommend everyone read it. But what this tells me is the concept of AI shopping. So what that concept is, for those of you that don't know what that means, what that means is you train an AI chatbot to essentially shop for things that you buy on a regular basis on your behalf. And all you do is you set it up. So it's almost like subscriptions.
Nick Stamoulis:Like Amazon has like subscriptions. A lot of sites have subscriptions where automatically every certain period of time, but it's different because it's more intuitive. It's just going to make purchase on your behalf. Personally think my own person Again, this is my personal opinion. I think we're about 10 away from this being effective and viable.
Nick Stamoulis:I think people need to get over the hump of AI search first, right? AI search needs to advance and it's going to advance very quickly as it is now. But that needs to progress. People need to utilize AI more their daily lives and not be afraid of it. Embrace it.
Nick Stamoulis:Not look at it as, oh, it's always wrong. Like use it as a really good tool and a resource, which is happening now. Use it for efficiency in different parts of life. People have everyone's different. So people have different boundaries of how they utilize AI.
Nick Stamoulis:Some people I know don't use AI at all, which is fine. Good luck long term. However, I think AI shopping, I think we're a while away from that personally, just because humans aren't ready for it. And I think the people that will be ready for it maybe sooner, maybe in two or three years, the technology needs to progress. And those people that will be interested in it, I believe, are going to be early adopter people.
Nick Stamoulis:But I think the masses, what I mean the masses is your eighty year old or 75 year old father is using it. Your grandfather is using it. Right? Like the level of adoption Meta has. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Human over the age of 40 uses Meta, uses Facebook. Everyone maybe over the age of maybe 20, 25 have an Instagram account at least. Right? So I think that adoption took years to happen. So I think, and it took a while for people to actually understand, right?
Nick Stamoulis:Let's remember, let's go back. I remember Facebook launched, everyone were like, oh, it's just for kids. It's never going to catch. No one's going to I literally remember people. I'm not putting my life out there.
Nick Stamoulis:Why would I want to share all my stuff everywhere? Right? Look where things are at now. So it took time. AI is moving faster.
Nick Stamoulis:Point is, I think we're still a little ways off on it. Yeah, it's just interesting. It's interesting topic. So Catherine and John, what do what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I'm a shopper, and I'm not sure I'm the target market for this, but I found the data interesting. I take a lot of joy from the leisure of shopping, whether it's scrolling on my own, on my favorite website to buy stuff, or going in person and hit the streets and do the shopping I want. So thinking about that, I would caution any business that's thinking, should I implement AI shopping on my business? Think about your actual target market. Is it gonna be somebody like is your is your target market filled with people like me that wanna go in, try things on?
Nick Stamoulis:Sure.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I'm I'm not buying the same skincare line all the time, so I couldn't set up a thing to have me buy that on because I have I keep changing my mind. So is your target market like me, or is it like somebody that I always use Cetaphil and for example, not to mention brands, but it's the only brand I thought of. I always use such and such of a brand. And I I run out of it every three months. That's the market for this right now.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And I'm not sure I would still trust that.
Nick Stamoulis:See, Catherine, I'm the target market for it. I absolutely detest Yeah,
Katherine Tsoukalas:makes sense.
Nick Stamoulis:I order it out as like an essential of need. I shop maybe at three or four sites, you know, consistently, and that's it. So I would be perfect. And I don't even feel comfortable with it yet. Because I'm like, okay, you're my credit card, What if what are you buying on my behalf?
Nick Stamoulis:Like, I don't know. I don't know.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Scary. Yeah. It's like having a five year old that has your Amazon has your iPad and starts ordering on Amazon. I have a friend that that happened to. And he kept getting the kid
Nick Stamoulis:Packages of stuff. That's actually kind of funny.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. The kid was like he he learned how it worked. He was like, oh, I need I need new one one time he ordered underwear for himself. I need new underwear. I want this one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:He went and ordered it, and she got it in the mail. And she's like, what is happening?
Nick Stamoulis:That is really funny. That's really funny. That is funny. That's great. John, what do you think on this?
Nick Stamoulis:Are you in on this?
John:I'm definite I I'm not in on this because, you know, whatever. You can say that your phone already has all the information in the world about you, but there's another level of privacy that you're gonna have to give up in order to do something like this. So we we have no privacy as it is, but this is always the example. It's gonna be a little bit funny and a little bit a little bit crass in a way, the example I always think of. But I always think of, you know, when people are like, things that you need to get all the time, I always think about toilet paper.
John:Right? You always need more toilet paper, whatever. But do I want an AI bot to know my toilet paper habits? Right? Because who is it giving that information to?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right? Because
Nick Stamoulis:That's
John:really funny. Maybe it's like you need whatever. You need to buy a pack of toilet paper every two weeks. Right? But who's it gonna give that information to in the end?
Nick Stamoulis:Who I know.
John:Is going to start am I gonna get, like, start getting spam calls from, like, fake doctors or something saying, oh, whatever. You know, it's like, I don't trust anyone with a lot of information and then stuff like that, stuff that you're buying all the time. You don't want, you know, the Internet to be able to find out
Nick Stamoulis:if they agree. I agree. And you're so right. You're so right. That's such a good point because think about it.
Nick Stamoulis:ChatGPT is three years old. Okay. Right. Let's think about that for a minute. We don't like We use it.
Nick Stamoulis:We love it. We love it as a tool. We use it quite a bit. But what is Chat going to be do with that data ten years from now, twenty years from now? We already know Google has privacy issues, right?
Nick Stamoulis:They do. I mean, I've been working with Google since 1998. Okay. I can clearly say that over the years of seeing the trends and products Google has used and how they monetize every nook and cranny and they should to an extent. So it's interesting.
Nick Stamoulis:We see the privacy issues with Meta, with Facebook and Instagram over the years. Right? So, yeah, we don't know. We really don't know. So, yeah, I agree, John.
Nick Stamoulis:I agree on this. Again, I would be a target once it is trusted because I hate shopping. So anyway, we'll move on. Next article. Great article from MarketScale entitled webinars hold the edge in b to b thought leadership, new benchmark data shows.
Nick Stamoulis:It says here that future b to b's 2026 webinar benchmark study indicates that webinars continue to be a powerful tool for marketing, engaging a significant number of participants. The data derived from over 500 webinars in a 150,000 registrants highlighting highlights webinars effectiveness in leading marketing strategies. Great article. I recommend everyone read this one if you're interested at market scale. So here's the thing.
Nick Stamoulis:Webinars do very well. So we at Brick Marketing, we conduct a webinar every month and a half or so. Might as well plug it. We're talking about it. Our next webinar is on September 16.
Nick Stamoulis:You can just find it at the brickmarketing.com website. You'll see it. It's right there. It's free. If you don't have time on the sixteenth, sign up anyway and you'll get the replay for free after.
Nick Stamoulis:But I'll tell you, for years, and Catherine knows this, we were reluctant to doing webinars. For years, seriously, just full transparency, right? Like for years, we used to help our clients run webinars, market them, what to do with the data after, to generate leads and provide useful authoritative thought leadership information for years. And then, to me, webinars were like, they just became like dated. Everyone was doing them.
Nick Stamoulis:They weren't effective anymore. We saw diminished returns for many clients and we're like, okay, webinars are old school things that people don't want. Okay? Then came COVID. That pushed everyone indoors, had created Zoom.
Nick Stamoulis:Zoom wasn't even a thing really in the popular market stream consciousness. But prior to COVID, I mean, was effective, but not like it is now. We do Zoom meetings every day, all day, practically, sometimes. So the point is webinars are fantastic for B2B. I think that they're excellent.
Nick Stamoulis:I think they're viable because if you have something that people really want to know, useful information, you know, you're essentially giving people free information and they're giving you their information. Of course, they know you're going to get market to a little bit. And, you know, you have to do it responsibly after, right? Like people might get our newsletters after, may get reached out to by our sales team, that type of thing. But we're very tasteful how we do it.
Nick Stamoulis:We don't just spam people after. We definitely don't sell the information. We have a rock solid privacy policy, which is important. But the thing that's important here to understand is webinars are very effective and they're not aren't these huge thing undertakings. Like I was talking with a colleague at a different marketing agency recently, maybe about a month ago.
Nick Stamoulis:And I asked him, I said, Oh, do do any webinars with that? So we do really well in our webinars. We have a lot of people that sign up. And he said, No, I find it takes a lot of work and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Well, I mean, everything takes work.
Nick Stamoulis:But anyway, we find those of you that are in B2B, we highly recommend webinars if done properly and consistently. They're excellent for thought leadership, excellent for marketing, excellent for your brand, excellent for creating content like this, video content, excellent for repurposing. It's great in so many levels. Yeah. So Katherine, John, your thoughts quickly on this one.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Yeah. If you're looking for a way to get the word out that you're a thought leader in a certain topic, this is great. And you might even get some names in your pipeline. It's gotten so much easier for people to Oh, yeah. Because of the platforms that are out there, Zoom is so easy to use and and other platforms that are out there.
Katherine Tsoukalas:There's a ton. And I think because it's more accessible now, it's become popular again, not just from the pandemic, but from the resurgence being based on the ease of use for the tools. Like, you can even just put one together. It used to take a massive effort to put a webinar together, and now it does not. Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Assistance getting your slides up. You you could just literally just do it and collect the names and you're ready to go. But it it fell out of favor because, oh, a lot of the webinars that I was seeing started to get really spammy looking and sales tactics and things like that. But now it's different. The world has changed a bit.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And Yeah. Honestly, part of it might also be because of AI because people are looking for human interaction. I agree. I you can clearly tell that none of us right now are AI bots talking.
Nick Stamoulis:No. We are us.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I it's just it's a little bit it's been a little bit you know, we're laughing, and it's our genuine natural laugh and
Nick Stamoulis:Sure. Right. Speaking Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And coming up with thoughts that sound more off the cuff. You know we're not AI, so people are are craving that.
Nick Stamoulis:And and here we are. This is this is supposed to be an hour podcast that we're going over. So thanks for all of you listening.
Katherine Tsoukalas:That is what's happening.
Nick Stamoulis:Over. Right. Yeah. I mean, know, we were getting into these conversations. So Right.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Yeah. And just an advice for anyone, don't hard sell on your webinars. I think that's where we see B2B webinars fail always, is mention who you are, maybe mention your thing at the end of whatever you're trying to sell, whatever it is, once, maybe twice, that's it. Don't just keep trying to sell people because people will tune you out.
Nick Stamoulis:They won't come again. And you want people to come That's part of being the thought leader. You want them to repeat and come and engage with your content and recommend your webinars to other people as well. So, John, your thoughts on this?
John:Yeah. And it shouldn't be that heavy of a lift anyway because you should be making your webinars about stuff you already know about. Right? So whatever. Put in, you know, a couple hours of work to come up with a topic and then, you know, the what you wanna say on each slide, a little bit more time to make the slides.
John:And then that's really all you have to do. You just go in and talk about what you know. And then from that, say you're doing a webinar for an hour, you get tons of content from it as well that you can post to your social media platforms. You can cut it up in whatever way you want, post it, and then it lives there as well as another touch point for your audience.
Nick Stamoulis:Exactly. Exactly. So important. Next, have a few more for today. A great article from the MarTech website.
Nick Stamoulis:Don't confuse ad spend with marketing performance. The gist of it is more budget doesn't guarantee better results. The strongest campaigns prove they work before they scale. Great advice. I mean, those of us that deal with marketing campaigns and specifically digital ad campaigns all the time.
Nick Stamoulis:I mean, yeah. I mean, just because you spend more money advertising a product, your service, your company doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get that immediate ROI, right? Like we've talked about, you have to understand your sales cycle, your target audiences. But when we're testing like a new channel, a new ad program for a client, we always start very small, very conservative, very controlled. And we always tell clients all the time, you can always spend more money, right?
Nick Stamoulis:If you see something's working well, you can always scale it. So it's a great article. Literally says like, fire bullets before cannonballs. True. So true.
Nick Stamoulis:And it says your budget isn't a KPI. It's not a key performance indicator. How much you're spending is not what matters. What matters is the outcome and result that you're seeing. If it's not, you test it, you adjust the variables, you know, your ad copy, your creatives, your landing page, right?
Nick Stamoulis:The timing, any type of promotion or offers tied to it. Those are the variables and the levers you can control. And if you still see that doesn't work after you do some adjusting, then you say, okay, this channel isn't really viable for us. This particular ad program isn't a good fit. It's not guaranteed just because it works for a colleague of yours or a similar business that's going to work for your business.
Nick Stamoulis:Right? So great article at MarTech. I recommend everyone read it. Yeah, it's a good one. So yeah.
Nick Stamoulis:So Catherine and John, what do you all think on this one?
Katherine Tsoukalas:I have had clients say to me, okay. So this is performing well. Let's increase the budget, then it'll perform better. When it comes to ad spend, more is not better. Nope.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Less is also not necessarily good. Each campaign has a sweet spot of how much it wants to spend. And and that's that's really it.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. So true. John, your thoughts?
John:Yeah. Like you said, you can always throw more money at something, but it doesn't always mean that that money is gonna be being you know, it's not always being used wisely. Right?
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
John:You could be, you know, have your campaigns targeting too broad an audience, and you're spending all this money to, you know, advertise to people that don't really care. So, yeah, I I think you just need to find the balance. Like Catherine said, you have to find the sweet spot and make sure that you aren't, you know, overspending.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. Absolutely. So true. Next, article we have two more for today. Article from Search Engine Land, Why the SEO versus PPC Debate is Finally Over.
Nick Stamoulis:Great article at Search Engine Land, essentially saying that it says here, AI shifted buying decisions beyond the click, making SEO and PPC complementary parts of the same strategy instead of competing choices. I agree a million percent on this. And I've agreed a million percent on this, quite frankly, for decades. Because here's the thing, like we've seen it so many times over and over and over. Clients that come to us and say, well, we want to get more results from our SEO.
Nick Stamoulis:And what's the goal? The goal is to get more organic traffic so we're spending less in PPC. And then you peel the onion, a layer out, and you look underneath and you see the PPC has a great ROI. I'm like, okay. You have a good ROI here.
Nick Stamoulis:So how about we improve your SEO? Keep the PPC, improve the SEO, lower your cost per acquisition and improve your ROI even better, even more and diversify your marketing. So it's literally, I agree with this a 100%. It's literally been the same concept. And that's why it even says, you know, why the SEO versus PPC debate is finally over.
Nick Stamoulis:Because people have been talking about this for years over and over. And it's a great article. It's search engine land. Definitely, Definitely check it out. So yeah, Catherine, your thoughts.
Katherine Tsoukalas:I agree with you. I was going to say that to me, it's never been a debate. They serve different functions. Never should have been one or the other. Nothing about your marketing should ever be one or the other.
Katherine Tsoukalas:All interconnected. It all helps. It always helped. It's important now more than ever, maybe for different reasons, but it was never one or the other. They take care of different things and different things in your sales cycle too because your PPC campaign, you have the ability to create high intent campaigns.
Nick Stamoulis:Right.
Katherine Tsoukalas:And and that's that's that's it. I think we might have lost somebody, by the way.
Nick Stamoulis:I know. Know. John I don't know if I John I just texted you. You you're having technical difficulties.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Saw that and I started laughing.
Nick Stamoulis:I It's no problem. It's no problem. Okay. So we have one more article for today we're gonna talk about and just wanna let everyone know. So we are taking our summer break a little bit here.
Nick Stamoulis:And our next Brick Marketing Live podcast, we will be streaming live on Wednesday, August 19 at four p. M. Eastern. Streaming it live on the brickmarketing.com website slash live. Also, you can check it out, obviously, as we've talked about right after this, you know, we will put it on all the major platforms.
Nick Stamoulis:So, and we appreciate the support. We appreciate everyone sharing it, commenting, you know, give that five star if you like the stuff we talk about, then we'd appreciate it everywhere. And so yeah. So next Brick Marketing Live podcast will be with you live on August 19 at 4PM. So last article for today is from the Brick Marketing website entitled How Social Media Validates Your Expertise.
Nick Stamoulis:And basically what this talks about is that social media should you should be able to align it with your content. And it should always align with your content, with the goals of your company, the goals of your website. And it builds buyer confidence by, you know, not just sharing salesy stuff, by, you know, this, you know, promotion, promotional type social media posts. That's fine. We always tend to recommend the eighty twenty rule anyway.
Nick Stamoulis:80% of your social media posts and content you're sharing in social should be informational in nature, should be for your visitors, for your audiences, for your customers. That's who it's for. And then that 20% can be about your company, initiatives you're working on, know, nonprofits you're working with and things of that nature and then promotional stuff. Even B2C's out there. You're targeting, we don't remember because what ends up happening is your audience, they'll unfollow your brand.
Nick Stamoulis:If they do follow you, they'll unfollow you. They're not going to even see your content anymore. They'll maybe remove themselves altogether. So then now you're losing followers, you know, and subscribers and, you know, and it puts a poor taste in, I would say, people's mouths if they see all the social media content you post is trying to get sales. I mean, that's not the purpose of social media.
Nick Stamoulis:That's what advertising is for. So anyway, Catherine, your thoughts on this and we'll close it for today.
Katherine Tsoukalas:People don't like it when your social media is filled with sales stuff, coupons, product demos. They're like, okay, boring. What they wanna know is how can they connect with you? And they wanna connect with you in very real ways. They wanna get a glimpse into what's in it for them.
Katherine Tsoukalas:What's the benefit? What is your expertise? Your company's story? Your social media needs to be a validator in their eyes for your expertise and that your expertise is not your product and it's not Your your expertise is why you did it. What your what your what you bring to the table and that's what your social media should convey.
Katherine Tsoukalas:In I the meantime we
Nick Stamoulis:know John, last one, last one. I was just texting you. We're good, we're good. So yeah, yeah. So if you wanna chime in on this last one for today.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Oh, we can't even hear you.
Nick Stamoulis:Oh, we can't hear you. It's okay.
Katherine Tsoukalas:That'll go.
John:Maybe we'll
Katherine Tsoukalas:call it. There we go. Oh, yes. Yes.
Nick Stamoulis:Yeah. We are live, right?
Katherine Tsoukalas:Is real.
John:I mean, yeah, you need to, you know, align your social media with everything that, you know, your buyers are looking for. I mean, if you if you have scattered social media, I've said it a million times now, your prospects or whatever, they're all going to be confused on what you're offering them. So you have to make sure that everything is consistent everywhere on every platform. Yep.
Nick Stamoulis:Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. And those of you that I know I see it quite a bit, we don't do it. We don't recommend it.
Nick Stamoulis:But you don't have to wish everyone a happy whatever holiday it is all the time. That's some good advice right there anyway. Anyway.
Katherine Tsoukalas:Right.
Nick Stamoulis:We'd like to thank everyone for joining the Brick Marketing Live Podcast. On behalf of myself, Nick Stamoulis, Catherine and John, and the rest of the Brick Marketing team, we'd like to thank everyone. You'll catch us live again on Wednesday, August 19 at 4PM. In the interim, share, listen, and comment on this podcast on all major podcast platforms. We'll see you soon.
Nick Stamoulis:Thanks, everyone.
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