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Called To Action is a podcast where the latest trends and research in B2B marketing are investigated and discussed. At the end of each episode, you’ll get ideas for tactics to use in your company’s marketing. What action will you take next?
This podcast, produced by Aimtal, a digital marketing agency, features the company’s CEO and Co-founder, Janet Mesh, and Growth Marketing Lead, Tucker Delaney-Winn, as the hosts, along with special guest speakers and industry thought leaders.
Your 95% of the buyers-
they're not ready yet... yet.
They're not ready yet.
But they are, as we just shared,
people are doing research
or they're
they're even making a list before they do
extensive research on your company.
And they're going to find three companies
and then do the research.
So this framing maps directly how your CFO thinks
about sales
in terms of current and future cash flows.
you need a forecast, okay
what is the potential of this market?
Say for example,
we're trying to tap into a new vertical
such as health care
we don't have to have all the answers,
but we need to have forecasts
for what the future may hold
and how to approach that.
Hello fellow marketers,
leaders and listeners,
welcome to this episode of Called to Action.
I'm Janet Mesh,
CEO of Aimtal and the host of the show,
and I'm joined here today with Tucker Delaney-Winn
You've seen him around,
you've heard his voice.
So we're going to be digging in today,
to share and analyze the latest trends,
tactics, hot takes and the B2B marketing industry.
And just like all the other episodes
in this episode, we're going to conclude
with one call to action.
So we're going to cover a lot of information,
but tune in till the end, because we will share
one thing
that you and your team
can incorporate into your marketing program
this year.
Today, tomorrow, whenever you're ready for it.
Honestly. So, let's just get into it. Tucker.
We got a lot to cover.
You and I just attended the B2B marketing forum.
It's a marketing conference
that's actually based here in Boston.
So we observed a few different
trends, common themes, topics, a lot of honestly,
what we talk about here
on Called to Action,
which was personally very validating.
So there's a few things
that we're going to cover across
how marketing can better align
and collaborate with departments.
We talk a lot about collaboration with sales,
but really what was coming up a lot
is how do you best communicate and collaborate
with finance?
The importance of brand
and thought
leadership, as a core focus
of your marketing programs.
And of course, no shock to everyone.
There was a lot of talk
about artificial intelligence,
our dear friend AI but in particularly around AEO,
which is the trending acronym
Answer Engine Optimization.
But what was exciting
and what we'll dig into
is just very much this theme around the focus
of human
creativity, critical thinking and context and why,
you know,
we're the we're the keepers of that,
and we need to focus there.
So, yeah, let's let's do it Tucker!
Where do you want to start?
Which which topic should we should we,
kick off with first?
Yeah.
I love it, Janet. Yeah.
I think I'm excited to kind of get into that goal
alignment, revenue focus and financial metrics.
I feel like that's
we saw some awesome, presentations on that
and just been thinking about that a lot in general.
And yeah, we'll dive into that.
Definitely.
Yeah.
And I think if you're listening
to this, we're
currently recording
it is just before Thanksgiving in 2025.
And I'm not gonna lie,
it's been a bit of a rough year in 2025.
You know, like the
it was kind of a slow start for a lot of companies
at the beginning of this year,
a lot of budgets were tightened
or downright removed.
I think that we see and the overarching narrative
and theme of our B2B forum
and just overall this year is,
marketing stuck playing defense.
You're a hockey player, right Tucker?
Were you defense or offense?
I you know, I start a defense
and then I switch to offense.
But if I didn't even know those people, you just
you just qeue me up so well.
I really
I mean, for me, yeah, that's that's exactly it.
All right.
So then you can identify with this
like like marketing is stuck playing defense.
We've been spending a lot of our time justifying
the why, the value of marketing,
how we're contributing to the growth of the company.
And, in one of the sessions,
the speaker,
she was explaining
how marketing budget is
usually has like the largest variable budget.
So one that you can like change and move around.
So that's why it gets usually gets cut first.
So I think
a lot of us felt that into going into this year
that, you know, ad budget was so easy,
just turn it off,
you know,
but then they don't think of that
kind of long term impact.
So really a lot of the time
marketers and a lot of
you were talking about this at the conference
and just what we hear, of course, directly
talking to our clients is that they're always
justifying the value.
So, you know, what we saw was
very much we need to switch to the offense.
Right. Exactly.
Follow in Tucker’s ice skates and being more
being more proactive,
strategic of like, how are we communicating,
showing progress, showing momentum
and really
like that impact and influence
on the growth of the business.
So curious to kind of hear,
You attended a couple sessions to Tucker
and just overall
love to hear like kind of your take on
how you're seeing,
I find that when we talk about this, it's very,
feels just to a feel, right, like, okay, cool.
Let me talk to finance.
But what does that actually mean?
How do we actually show that and demonstrate
marketing's value? Yeah.
So, no,
I think
one of the big things that I've been thinking about
is just that great marketers go beyond marketing.
And by that
I mean they tie marketing back to business outcomes.
So I think even at the B2B forum, we saw this with,
a couple speakers,
Katie Roudabush
of Alpine Intel and Tish Millsap of Revinate
where they were really talking about the importance
of communicating marketing's value to leadership,
the board to finance, as you were just saying,
and if you can't do that,
and this is something that Katie talked a lot about,
you're really at risk of losing your budget
and being seen as a cost center.
And I think, it can be natural for,
you know, marketers to be like,
I don't know, finance.
I'm not a CFO, I don't have an MBA.
I don't know how to do this.
But Katie made this great point
that's really stuck with me,
which is if you're looking to engage your board
or get your, your leadership
or C-suite kind of on board
with with what marketing's doing,
you really need to treat them
the same way you would treat a target audience,
research them, develop messaging,
come up with a strategy or a plan to engage them,
and then frame everything that you're doing that
marketing is doing in terms of the language
and the things they care about.
And when you're able to do that,
I think
you're able to really show marketing's value
and drive wins for the company as a whole,
which is much better than just,
you know, marketing over here doing their thing.
But it doesn't really feel connected.
Back to, business goals and objectives.
And Katie
even kind of closed it with this,
with this great quote that I really liked,
which was just
you want to educate your leadership so well
that, you know, they can articulate
what marketing is doing themselves to other people
when you're not even in the room
and be excited about it.
So I really liked that, framing of it.
Right. Yeah. It's you have to have your own
storytelling internally.
I think that
seems to be an overlooked aspect
of marketing programs.
We are always outward facing,
looking at the audience,
which is of course, the priority.
But at the same time,
you have to think of the internal marketing
and communication
and how it's position
thinking of us as these counterparts or your boss
even as one of your target audiences.
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah. And I think it might be helpful.
We were just talking before the call started about
getting into the real tactics
and not just talking at a high level. So.
Right.
I'd love to just kind of show how Aimtal does this
and how we frame marketing around things
that leaders
who are not in marketing actually care about.
Yeah, that's kind of before.
But what we're looking at here is a single slide.
And there's a few things on here
that I'll point out. We've got,
And also I should I should note
this is a fake example,
not a real example,
but this is kind of- But if Microsoft wants to hit us up,
We, we are booking new clients.
For 2026.
Yeah, coming up fast.
There you go. Yeah.
So what we've got here is a single slide
showing marketing attribution.
A fake example with Microsoft as a client.
Got the company logo, the Microsoft logo.
And you can imagine them as an active deal
or a closed deal.
Really important
to include the deal size right below that as well.
Because if we're tying marketing to revenue,
you've got to show the revenue.
Then we always like to show the actual contacts
that are engaging.
I think this might be the most important thing
on the slide,
the company logo
and then the actual contacts who are engaging.
And then you can show channels
and then listing out
specific
marketing engagements on a very granular level,
you know,
contact created after visiting the website,
like LinkedIn posts 25 times, registered
for three webinars,
and then also showing the actual creatives.
So, you know, which website pages did they go to,
which LinkedIn post did they actually engage with?
And when you start to do these things,
you're starting
to show the actual touchpoints
that nurtured the customer down the funnel.
I think people see touch points a lot,
but they don't actually list them out
and write them out sometimes
and then show that to leadership.
So I think that's really key.
You also want to draw specific connections
between marketing engagement and sales activities.
So okay, you know, liked 25 posts in the six months
leading up to that deal closing
or the contact was created
at this point,
things that the sales team
are going to actually latch on to
and think about themselves.
And then of course, marketing
is doing all these creative,
and the CFO isn't in the room every day
with making creative decisions.
But they might be wondering,
why are we investing all this money
on our website or on LinkedIn?
So you want to really make clear
how the creative that your team is, is
putting out
is actually tying back to revenue as well.
So those are just a couple different ways
that we like to make, I think the connection
from marketing
and engagement back to revenue,
back to pipeline really clear.
And I know you know this, Janet,
but we've seen CEOs,
we've seen, you know, leadership
teams really respond to these slides
because it's it's pretty objective.
It's really the facts.
And it's a simple way
to make that tie back to attribution
and pipeline really clear. Right?
I like that point. It's it's the facts.
This is the data is your friend.
And this case.
And when you're speaking
in presenting to leadership
especially finance and showing
you know show the numbers. They they're numbers.
People speak the same language
put it in the
but not putting it into context necessarily of,
you know,
we say
impressions is somewhat of a vanity metric
which is now changing.
But but I find that here, as you have,
you know,
like 25 plus LinkedIn posts from company leaders
included, and seven in the month, like
included in the month
leading up to closing the deal. Right?
So that in itself
just proves the value of investing in social content
and dollars,
thought leadership programs
and how the buyer wants to be educated.
They're looking around, they're researching you,
your company, the people who work there.
We talked about this on a previous Called
to Action episode about the hidden buyer.
There are a lot of people, especially in B2B buying
committees, that are responsible
and make these decisions.
And you may not even
they may not be one of these contacts
you have in your CRM,
but they're signing on the dotted line, right?
That's a massive power, right?
I love the way of framing
and framing a really simple
and a very simple bulleted one
slide clear away.
By that- if we can't distill it down into one page,
one slide, then it's too much, right?
We're not actually hitting the point.
You hit on many good things there.
But like to take that even further
I think,
one thing you said is the facts.
And that's actually literally a CEO
when I show this to him and said,
I like that
you're showing me the facts, like exactly that,
you know,
you're not adding all this flowery language,
but you're showing the facts.
It's pretty hard to argue with that.
And people can all align on that.
I also would add that
I think it's really important
to do this on an account by account level.
I think sometimes HubSpot
or other CRMs can kind of do a roll up
where it's like this quarter marketing influenced
7 million and in marketing influence revenue,
but it's not showing you which accounts or where.
And that again, gets a little too vague and broad.
And I think that can be easy for leadership
or sales or other folks
to kind of squint at and be like, well how?
Where? With which accounts?
But going by this account by account basis
and getting it a little granular,
I think actually
is much more effective
than having some big beefy number,
but feels disconnected from the actual facts.
Right.
What's also interesting about there's
a lot of talk about account based marketing.
The past week at the B2B Marketing Forum conference.
Yeah.
And I think what we're saying
is that
you want to report on it as well,
not just doing the marketing,
but then closing the loop to report back on,
okay,
These are the exact- what happened by account
and how we contributed to closing the deal
like it wasn't,
you know, and I think what I'm finding too.
And that big change that's happening is,
There was so much pressure to,
to create this
1 to 1 path from marketing to finance and like the
and to prove like,
you know, revenue and like a direct contribution.
But unfortunately that just becoming
increasingly difficult with
one with artificial intelligence in generative AI.
And then on the other hand, like
people are not giving as much of their data.
They don't want to be tracked.
There's like laws against doing it.
So like there's literally, you can get sued.
I'm actually
actually a little excited that attribution
is not hopefully not as much of a focus.
But really what we're saying is
you still need to prove the influence and impact
in like the contribution
of marketing to revenue and closing deals or,
you know,
helping the sales team
make the conversations easier.
And that all my opinion comes back to
the brand, the thought leadership, the content
that you're providing,
like buyers are educated,
they want to do the research.
We talk about this so much.
Yes, it should not be a surprise.
But at the same time,
even though we all know this,
we don't form our marketing strategies or programs
around this.
You kind of you're saying
like we
people still undervalue
and I think we're under prioritize brand.
Yeah. Right.
Right, right. Exactly.
And so you mentioned Tish Milsap arriving.
She had a session that we attended
and it was all about speaking to the chief
finance officer.
So we're kind of regurgitating
some of what she said.
But also we see this a lot of
and we’ve shared that in previous Called to Action episodes.
So as I mentioned, it was really validating
because one of them in particular,
was that
she was sharing some research from LinkedIn.
And I think it's also,
actually, you know, sorry,
this is from Bean
in, Harvard Business Review first.
So she shared this research.
It's like a couple of years from 2022, I think.
But I would say
it's still fairly relevant,
even though a lot changes, a lot
stays the same with human behavior.
So 80% of B2B buyers
have a set of vendors in mind
before they do any research.
So that but at the same time, I think that's where
my point is, is that like your company,
product and services
need to be visible within your market.
Not saying you have to have, like,
you know, the budget of Microsoft of course not.
However, if you have is a really targeted content
and information
and you're answering questions
that people are asking,
then you're starting to show up for them.
When they start to look.
And what was interesting
from the same research
is that 90% of them will choose a vendor from the
what they're calling the “day one” list.
So that's like their short list
that they have,
before they even kind of reach out
to book a demo, for example.
So it's like the book a demo or like the
the conversion on your website
once they even get there.
Like there's so much that happens before,
but that's, that's marketing.
That is marketing.
Exactly. No, exactly.
And I think, both of these stats are super,
super informative, especially that 80% one where
they just have a list
before they've done any research.
We used to have stat
I mean, we still have stats about how,
you know, buyers do 3 to 4 months of research,
but now it's like before they even do the research
They have a list, you know.
I, you know, I was thinking about too
there's all this stuff on signals.
I feel like that's that's very popular right now
and important of, like,
what are the buyer signals
and where are we seeing, intense signals from?
But I think this
also speaks to the fact
that if you're waiting around until you find out
your intense signals like you're already too late,
like they already have a list,
and if they're already started, true.
You know, so
just all of the further to the point
that the branding around
people who aren't even thinking about doing buying
that is critical so that you're on their list
when they do start to think about,
oh, maybe I do need to start thinking
about a new product here or something, right?
And so in the same session, she shared
this research, so I pulled it,
I found the original source
and it's the B2B Institute, and, oh,
it's like a think tank of LinkedIn.
And this is really interesting.
So what we're looking at is,
like current buyers
in your market, around usually 5%
are ready to like buy.
And then the,
the other 95% would be considered out of market.
They're not ready to buy or service or product yet.
So but you could consider
these are like 5% out of your current buyers
and 95% of your future buyers.
And this is this is kind of wild because it
but it makes so much sense when you hear
and you see it.
And her point is just a point which I really
loved because it helps simplify
the entire, like pretty much the entire use case
and really the, the pitch for why you invest in
brand is because you're 95% of the buyers.
They're not ready yet, yet.
They're not ready yet,
but they are, as we just shared,
people are doing research
or they're
they're even making a list before they do
extensive research on your company.
And they're going to find three companies
and then do the research.
So that's still where it's
very much like focusing on these folks.
And then in this LinkedIn there's a LinkedIn article
all about this
95:5 ratio, which we can share in the show notes.
And what they said,
like direct
quote from the article
is this framing maps directly how your CFO thinks
about sales
in terms of current and future cash flows.
So that's I was like,
oh, obviously, because you need a forecast.
Okay. What is the potential of this market?
Say for example,
we're trying to tap into a new vertical
such as healthcare.Okay,
What is what is the opportunity there?
The Chief Marketing
Chief
Financial Officer and Chief Market
Officer need to determine that together of like,
okay, this is what the 95%
is in terms of revenue potential for our company.
And it and it helps
I think that's a very good example that she shared.
And then reading this article,
how, you know,
I think all marketers can start
to think of it in this way as like,
we don't have to have all the answers,
but we need to help forecast
for what the future may hold
and how to approach that.
Wow.
You got you got my wheels churning, gears flowing
or whatever it is.
Flowing through the funnels!
So I mean, my God.
So
what I'm hearing is
investing in brand is really an investment in future
cash flow. It sounds right.
You know, and I think that's an amazing way
and an amazing example of framing something
in the language of finance,
framing something
in the language of leadership that the board
not only like, gets excited about,
but actually feels bought into it.
Like, yeah,
we want to invest in future cash flow, of course.
And I think like connecting those two dots to of
okay, so 5% of, of your buyers
are in-market at any given time, 95% art.
And I think obviously the
I don't know
that my takeaway there is
we got to invest more on that 95%.
But I can see folks being like, well,
what about going really hard on that 5%?
But from the previous stat we looked at
it's probably
pretty likely that the 5% who are in market
already have a short list of vendors.
And if you're not on that list,
you know, you're
you're really not in a good position.
So yeah, it
reinforces the focus
on branding to really get in front of that 95%. Totally.
And I think that has to be,
pretty large
aspect of how marketers are communicating internally
and externally to show and prove, like
this is where we need to focus.
And it's not wasted money.
You know this,
the budgets are going to be wasted on this.
It all really compounds over time.
Okay, let's
let's go a little bit deeper
because our next topic is around visibility.
And you know,
how do we discover okay like cool great guys.
But like
How do I even show up in the right places
where my audience is. And like, in what ways?
And as we mentioned, Tucker,
we wanted to share some tactical approaches.
So yes, let's start like,
how do we best reach this 95% of a target market?
How indeed?
And I think for me,
this is where video enters the conversation. I think
video has changed buyer behavior
and we're never going back.
So, you know,
a couple stats that have stood out to me.
And by the way, this, Charlie Unger of Vimeo,
had some great statistics
around this,
as did, Lauren Creedon of Gold Cast, but
two stats right here that really,
I think, set the tone and just are kind of a reality
check on where we are in marketing right now.
So 82% of all internet traffic is video
and 95% better retention rates
for people remembering information
when they watch a video versus read content.
Alarm bells should be going off
for any marketer listening
or watching, saying, I need to prioritize video now
because clearly video is powering
a lot of what's happening on on the internet.
And when people choose to watch something,
they're remembering much more of it.
They're going to remember much more
about your brand, your message.
So I think that's really important.
And then I'd take this even a step further.
And this is something that, lowering
freedom from, from Gold Cast was talking about.
When we think about AI,
she said something really interesting.
She said the underlying principle
powering video is the same thing powering
large language models, and that is language.
Every video has a transcript.
And so all these AI models,
all these LLMS that are going
and scouring the internet, they are absolutely
picking up the words and the transcripts from videos
and using that
to feed their own learnings,
but also pulling that up an AI search.
So I think just another,
really key thing to think about is that, like doing
video is also
what is going to help you rise up in AI search
as well. Right.
You want to get mindshare,
you got to start using video in multiple ways.
Yeah.
Well, there's also we're hitting this point where,
I don't know, off the top of my head,
but I do know that
the LLMS are almost running out of data.
Like, they don't there's not even enough out there.
So this is all the data that they need,
like the language, the data,
the information
that they need to be fed to be able to, prioritize
and pretty much pick up and make
make your content visible.
Yeah.
So, so if you put it also in that context, it's,
it's really helpful to think,
because I feel like
some people may think
that they're really far behind,
but actually, no, you're not.
If you invest in creating this content,
these videos
right
for the machines,
then you have a higher chance of the humans
finding it.
Indeed. Indeed. Okay.
And so it kind of sounds like you're saying the,
you know, almost contrary to what a lot of people
might think
the LLMs are actually hungry for,
for new original content.
Oh, absolutely. That's exactly what they mean.
There's like there's it's
and we talked about this in the last episode.
It's like AI slop.
It's like it's almost
just kind of going in a loop of the same content
that are exists and pulling things
that are
maybe are now outdated when we need to give.
And that's the power of humans, right?
We can come up with we can create things
from, you know, history or whatever.
Like that's our
that's our superpower
is the creation of new ideas and information.
And then we're the facilitator
giving that to the LLMS,like generative AI tools
to then help us turn it into like,
there's good
at synthesizing and repurposing and speed,
but that's where like,
our original thoughts are needed.
100% thought being the operative word there.
I may have qeued that one up. I'm not, I will.
I will say we'll break the fourth wall.
And sure, you gotta qeue Tucker up.
where do we go with all the thoughts?
Like, how do we how do we do?
How do we bring all these thoughts
into a cohesive narrative?
How do we lead with those thoughts?
One might say, yeah.
So thought leadership
I think is is one of the big- it’s where we're going.
The need for human content, kind of human
centric content,
which almost sounds like a robot wrote that phrase.
But yeah, human centric content.
That is kind of where people are sharing
original insights, original research,
original, just perspectives
and stories and opinions
on exactly
thought leadership is where that is happening.
It's happening
increasingly on LinkedIn
and it's happening increasingly with video.
I think the a lot of people know that already, but
some kind of new insights and observations
that I've been thinking about a lot
is that,
this idea, that thought
leadership is really a team sport.
And I'll actually just show a quick example of this.
So here we have,
nine different
executives and employees from HubSpot, obviously
one of the biggest
leading technology companies in the world.
But if you look at that, you've got Yamini,
the CEO, you've got Dharmesh,
but then you've got multiple other employees
and leaders at the companies,
all of whom have pretty sizable LinkedIn followings
and all of whom are posting regularly
on LinkedIn. Some are videos,
some are text, some with graphics.
HubSpot has made a very concerted effort,
to, really post and have multiple different leaders
and, perspectives,
on LinkedIn and share,
you know, different domain expertise.
And so I think that's something
that, is really critical to know
that it's no longer about just
that one employee who is really good on LinkedIn
being your thought leader,
but kind of creating a roster of different
executives and employees
who can be the leaders at your company.
Yeah, I love, the team sport,
if you think of it, really is like a team
like in hockey.
As we were talking at the beginning of this episode,
you know, you have different people on the team
that you want to buy their jersey
and rally around.
You know, you identify
more with their way of thinking,
but they all ladder up to this collective,
you know, values and overarching and like thought
leadership, content
and narrative and product positioning and,
you know, how they see and recommend
others are approaching their industry.
Exactly. Yeah.
And you've got a CTO here, a CEO, you have
product, you've got engineering, customer success.
And so they're all posting their thoughts
and they're kind of strategic
thinking about different areas of the business.
But it all ties back to the company,
even though they're posting their own perspective
and they're posting from their own
LinkedIn accounts.
And I think that's
just an important thing to stipulate.
All these thought leaders are posting
from their own LinkedIn accounts.
It's it's not all coming
out of the HubSpot company feed. Yeah.
Because we know
LinkedIn just prioritizes
and rewards individual content.
We're seeing
that on our clients, too.
Like their
their thought leaders,
like their people in their company,
their channels and content's performing far
better than the brand content.
Absolutely huge content.
Yeah.
And that's even when you boosted his ads, too.
So, that's I think we talked about another episode,
but we haven't done a deep dive.
We need to because it's pretty wild.
We have the data on it.
We can back all of this up and, yeah.
Awesome.
So I guess to that point, though, yeah,
to surround out
this kind of priority theme that we're seeing and,
you know,
very much,
I think the focus is build
all your thought leadership content.
What you're going to talk about the
the people who are actually going to represent,
like it's not just your CEO, like, no,
no needs to be more folks.
Build your team.
Identify those people internally. Right.
But the missing piece, I think is like what
we were just talking about
to connect the two is that like, how do we tie
this thought leadership content
and this investment in this especially with video
to having an influencer impact on revenue?
Yes.
And I think this honestly is something
that a lot of people don't talk about
because there's
all this talk about
make sure marketing, you know, connects to revenue.
And then there's like do
thought leadership do video.
But I frankly don't see a lot of people
talking about how you connect those two things
that are so important.
So yeah, I would say
if you're doing LinkedIn thought leadership,
you have to have a strategy for connecting it back
to revenue.
Here's how we do it.
You do an organic post on LinkedIn
and then you boost that post,
and you can boost an individual LinkedIn account
member's post from your company
LinkedIn ads account.
But here's really the key of
when you boost an account,
you don't just boost it on a random targeting ICP,
you boost it against your target sales accounts,
the accounts that your sales team
is already actively pursuing
and having conversations with.
And then on a weekly basis,
you want to report on the engagement at literally
the individual level,
like we were looking at earlier, is the CTO
from that company
that your sales team is having meetings with?
How are they commenting and liking
who from each of your key accounts
is commenting, liking, following?
And document that and show that literally the who
like we were just talking about-
show their profile picture.
Show their name and job title.
If you can start to do that.
And on a pretty recurring
maybe weekly
monthly basis, show that people from your target
sales accounts are liking and commenting
on the thought leader videos that you are posting.
That's pretty serious impact on pipeline.
I'd say that's an undeniable example of marketing
and thought leadership, shifting the needle
on whether these sales prospects know, like,
and trust you,
which is pretty critical
for whether they're going to buy from you or not.
So, yeah, when we talk about doing marketing,
that impacts revenue,
I think that's
that's what that looks like in terms
of connecting leadership to revenue.
And it is a bit manual.
I think that's the other part that we need to say.
LinkedIn is starting to open up
more APIs that came with a company
intelligence API recently.
So we're going to start to dig into
that and incorporate that
into our services and testing.
So we'll report back.
But unfortunately I think
some of what we see as an agency is that
this is a bit of a manual,
what Tucker just described,
you do need to go into
I mean on the ad side,
you can kind of pull it out,
but at the same time,
like seeing the comments and the likes, it is a
you need to layer in a bit of that
and manual process to find
that, bring that back into the report,
which is fine.
I mean, I think,
I think
you just sometimes you just got to do it
and like it's actually the
some of the most, as Tucker described
when we show this to clients,
they're like, it's like a light bulb.
They're like, oh wow, okay. Like yes, of course.
Like I'm
so happy to see that because like, we've been trying
to get in contact with them
and we think that they're
maybe they're not interested,
but it's like, no, they are interested actually.
They're just not ready yet.
They're in your 95%.
So, yeah, this is pretty I think, you know,
we share a lot of ideas, but sometimes
I remember at the B2B Forum,
I think Ann Handley was talking in our keynote,
but if I miss quote, I apologize.
But she was saying how we like marketers
love efficiency and we kind of love the hacks.
But there's just sometimes where you just
you just need to like,
dig into it
and approach it in a way
to like pull the right information.
And it may be kind of manual.
It may take some time,
but that's also okay because once again,
you're building this narrative.
You're showing the data that's going to make it
very clear internally
that this is the right thing to invest in.
I completely agree, and I think you
I believe that
no one's ever going to be able
to 100% automate their way to greatness
of connecting
all the dots from marketing to revenue,
you know, entirely without human involvement.
And even if they were,
I still think there's a level of creativity
and storytelling and human analysis
that needs to happen
to do the framing up to leadership like
AI, is never going to be able to speak the exact way
that your specific CFO or CEO needs to.
You need to
as the
the creative person,
you know, be able to tell that story.
So and I think that's luckily
marketing marketers are great at that.
That's what we do telling stories.
So yeah, I think there
there's something great in that.
Well, thank you for leading into our next
topic and priority we're seeing, and what a lot
of what folks
were talking about, of course, is AI and well,
very much like what we heard and talk about with
folks
is how
AI needs to be that amplifier of human creativity.
So it's sort of saying like,
we are the ones that have those original thoughts
and unique ideas.
We understand the context.
You know, AI’s
getting pretty good at thinking,
but it really bases off of what you give it.
So like the original kind of data
and information
and unique opinions needs to come from the human.
So I was excited that that was like a really big
theme and just kind of across the board.
Of course,
everyone knows we need to use AI,
but really seeing it as a tool to amplify
how we as a humans are working and operating,
and making sure that we're, you know,
just kind of using it to our, to our benefit,
as much as possible
and not having it like, replace our,
our thinking, like,
you know, it's not just it can do a good job.
It's like kind of have it be like a thought partner.
Like a sparring partner.
That's like the ways that I use it.
I even tell it when it's wrong, you know?
I think that there was it's
a it's a very interesting it's
going to be interesting
to track this because there is, you know, what
Ann Handley
was talking about in her keynote
of the B2B Forum Conference,
and just folks overall, I'm talking about online
is that there's this like
massive pull between the acceleration of AI
and how the speed
and how fast,
like there's
so much pressure on marketers to just, like, churn
content out
churn programs like breeze through stuff.
And I see the problem with that.
I see on the client side, like with our own clients,
like you're moving too fast.
Yeah.
Of the conversation
with people, like
they don't have enough time to even
you don't have enough time to process.
Like, everyone's just like,
churning out information and
content just to see that
they had this quantity goal. Right.
And we're all getting exhausted.
Like the marketers are exhausted
and your audience is is also exhausted.
Let's be honest. Right.
And then after all that speed and volume,
then it kind of becomes an afterthought of like,
oh crap, now, now I have to report and figure out
all the things that we did
and how they worked as a way.
And there's just so much then because it's like,
how do we actually determine that?
What actually worked?
Right, exactly, exactly.
So if there's so much, so much speed and volume,
I think, what was nice
and what we've kind of talked a lot,
a little bit about Janet
is the flip side of that,
of slowing down a little bit
and improving ourselves.
Time to think and reflect and,
be really intentional with our strategy.
So that was
something that I've always valued about him,
and certainly something that I think
Ann Handley talked a lot about that,
that I really appreciated.
And I think, for me,
especially before you get into using
AI a lot or just in the same way
before you really get into execution,
there's actually ties back to something
the CEO of HubSpot Yamini
talked about, a while
back was just,
before you get into all that stuff,
starting with strategy.
And I think starting at the human level
and slowing down and thinking about
what are we trying to do
at the big picture
and how can I kind of connect the dots
before I even get started?
I think that's really important.
As we're diving into marketing and using AI.
But I'm curious to hear from you Janet,
and how you are
kind of thinking about this acceleration of AI,
kind of how you are
thinking about approaching all of this, even even
as things
feel like they're getting faster and faster.
Yeah, I would say that
like for the human side, for us, the people
like our responsibility
is, for one, the critical thinking,
like what's the logic behind
what we're creating, what we're doing.
So I think that comes a lot
behind the business, like marketing-
If you have a product or service
that's like not
going to like
just actually work in your target market
or it's just not a strong product,
like there's only so much marketing can do.
You know, like you need to have like
a really strong foundation.
And that's
where like
kind of like I would call it
critical thinking, the business logic,
the like actual kind of data.
Like, is this a viable product service
or positioning our audience
that we want to like, target and then the next
like the second area, see is like,
is this creativity aspect of it?
I think this is very much
where marketing can control
that kind of the creativity.
Like the emotion, the like,
what it looks like,
what it feels like,
very much like the feeling of something like
is only going to base it off
of like what we're giving it.
We can really make those decisions of like,
this is what's going to resonate.
And then the third area where I'm seeing is like,
what we're doing as humans, what we can control
and where we need to focus is the context.
Like this is the empathetic layer of it all.
Like general AI doesn't have any empathy only.
I mean, I find that it is probably the like
most epic people pleaser though,
like they want to please us.
Like when I'm chatting with Gemini or ChatGPT
it's like, oh yes, exactly.
And then you're like, no, that's actually wrong.
They're like, oh, you're right. I'm so sorry.
Like, you're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right.
I was wrong!
So I really see like especially the context
Like, this is,
as you mentioned Tucker, this is the intent.
The intention.
And that's where
we can identify
like who the who the what, the where.
So really seeing what kind of came out from recently
and just an observation and working with like these
this technology it really is that like
it's not capable
of like the level of empathetic ingenuity
that's required to actually make an impact,
to change someone's mind,
to convince them to make a decision.
Like, we're very emotional, irrational beings.
At the end of the day, everyone pretty much-
there was a woman,
her name was Tamsen Webster,
and she had, a session in all about, like,
messaging design,
which was really good
and highly recommend following her.
And she was talking all about this,
like how people make decisions
and then they rationalize
why they made the decision.
But the decision in the first phase is emotional.
So I see that, you know, we can be that bridge
between what technology can do,
which is like synthesize information,
that we give it,
you know, do it
like a massive speech,
like insane speed, like it's pretty remarkable.
And repurpose content kind of help you spar on that.
Right.
And then
but then we need to help
translate that into, like,
what us people can actually understand
and what's really going to resonate.
Right, right.
And be relevant, you know, in that contextual
time, like there's so many examples of this,
do a whole episode of examples of this.
But like you need to make sure that that,
you know, commercial,
you're creating or the ad or the blog article,
whatever it is,
the brand campaign is actually going to make sense
within the context of when you share it, you know,
an example of that would be
do you remember that, like Pepsi ad
with one of the Jenner girls?
Yeah, that's what I was just thinking of before.
Yeah.
Like that's like a really good example of,
like there is emotion to it, but that ad was like
showing them- I think it was like a
protest?
Yeah.
And just the when they released it,
it was just not the right time at all.
It was really bad.
So there's just things like that where we,
the human need to think through that like-
AI’s not keeping up with all these,
daily changes of what's happening in our world.
We're responsible for informing them
and then bringing that back in. Totally.
Completely agree.
And I really like that framing of,
we are irrational beings
so the idea of relying entirely on a,
you know, rational machine to feed us our marketing,
and I don't think- it makes sense.
Right. Yeah.
Critical thinking, creativity in context.
I love that it kind of anchoring
the humans and those things.
And then using AI strategically around
that I think makes a ton of sense.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So the last topic,
what I'm talking
I was kind of just to like, expand off of this,
like a little bit more tactical now of
in the context of AI and AEO,
which stands for answer engine optimization.
This was a
this is like everyone's talking about this.
Everyone does not know what to do.
I will say that at Aimtal we do know a bit of what to do.
We're doing this for clients
and we don't know everything,
but we're figuring it out,
and it's, seeing a lot of success with it.
We did it for Aimtal and we're doing it for clients.
So I wanted to speak to some of that actually,
because in a previous episode,
we did talk about the more technical
kind of foundational side of like,
your website's infrastructure
and all that good stuff.
But we haven't talked about like, kind of what this,
the overarching
like threadline through line of this episode is around
that content,
the thought
leadership, you know, like,
what are you actually like
standing for as a company?
What are you actually, saying to your audience?
And not just the brand, but,
you know, the
the team, the roster of thought leaders?
What are what are you
you know, what unique ideas and information
you're sharing with the world.
So I'd love to kind of spend a little time on that.
Tucker.
And I totally agree because like, here
we are being like
thought leaders
go have like five thought leaders start posting.
But it's like,
well, well, like, what are they gonna talk about?
What. Yeah.
Like what are they saying.
What are their values.
So I think in this year
it's slowing down and zooming out and yeah Janet,
Take us through kind of
how you think about that and how we at Aimtal
kind of think about that.
So what I'm excited about the most about all of this
is that,
if you have a background in content
and SEO, like this is our moment.
Like, let's go.
We've been saying this for years.
It's like
truly the time
to bring back
and not even bring back,
but actually do it properly.
The hub and spoke strategy,
where you're building
authority around specific topic areas
that relate to your company,
your products, services,
just overall like your overall, like IP as a
as an organization.
So very much
this is like the hub and spoke strategy.
It's been around for a long time,
but I see that was like
a bit of like the past five years
where like
there was a lot of investment in organic
and like the whole concept
of like inbound marketing.
And then so everyone really over invest in that.
Now it's started to change.
So everyone's like, oh my God, I'm freaking out.
I'm not getting any traffic.
So I'm just going to
do a ton of performance marketing and a ton of ads.
And now what's happening is it's almost like
not going back.
It's shifting in the fact that we, as we just said,
and people know
you need to give a lot of the data and information
to the LLMs to be able to cite you and answer
people's questions. Like, it is true that
folks are like,
people are going onto Google,
they have the AI overview,
you get the answer right away.
You're not getting the traffic driven
to your website,
blah blah blah, blah blah,
or even it pulls other sources like that's
what's cool about it.
It's not just about your website.
Like you can put this information
across channels like LinkedIn
is a good example, right? Reddits another example.
You're, you know,
there's a range of tactics
that make sense where your audience- YouTube.
Exactly. Thank you. Yeah.
So
this is a very helpful
clear way to categorize
and start to think about, okay
what are these like
topics that we want to be known for to build
authority and connection to our product or service.
And you really structure this around
like they call it like a hub.
So as you can see there's four on here.
You can call it
whatever you want like one would be for us,
like video marketing.
That's a hub.
You know, another one is just marketing strategy.
That would be a hub for Aimtal. If you’re a client
you know,
that's
for example I can give another one like they are
want a hub around AI agents because they're creating
agentic products like that would be a hub.
But- you have to do the research to identify
what are those
kind of like niche spokes or keywords?
There's a lot of like push back on
like using the word keyword.
But right now the data is like only shows things
like if you go to SEMrush for example,
it's showing you the keyword,
but it also shows the questions now.
So you really need to frame,
so you identify and build out the topic hubs
and by each hub identify around 3 to 5
keywords are questions
that people are looking for
like they're searching for.
And then you take that information,
you literally are getting it.
And then you create your content around
answering these questions,
and/or having it pretty much solving the problems
that people are looking for at the end of the day.
so I can kind of show this.
I actually anonymize this with the next slides
I have here.
This is another way to like represent the data.
So once you
identify those questions and keywords in an SEO tool,
you can pull in like global search volume ranking.
As you can see here,
some of this is like really high, like 20,000.
I blocked out the site.
But this is like literally
what Aimtal created for a client, so to show
from their hubs,
like from the keywords that we’re recommending
which ones that they should like,
we should in questions which ones we should target.
We recommend going between like
2500 to like, 10,000 range.
So kind of this little sweet spot
area in the middle of the chart,
there's like a, there's a lot of opportunity there.
So and then in addition to that,
you can kind of look at the data
around like keyword difficulty,
like how difficult would it be
for us to be cited for this information?
Anything over a 50 will be or actually,
I would say like a 60 at this rate
because there's just so much content in the world.
You really want to kind of have like a 50% or below.
In SEMrush it goes up to 100.
So there you go.
That's the range there.
So from this you can kind of start to identify
and like start to like
look I like literally
just like Google things myself.
Like I just take the human approach
and like search for the keywords,
see what comes up, what comes back,
and then pull the data in.
But I think a big part of it.
Oh, the other area to look at,
which is really interesting, is like
for this client in particular,
we looked at the intent of the keywords
and questions
and this is like proves
the point that we were just making in the episode.
Is that
so the green here,
the 80% of the intent of the content
that people are like,
pretty much what they're looking for
is like informational.
They're looking for information only 70% like,
I want to go by something-
7% was commercial.
Wow.
So the people
and like this, this client
like I mentioned there in like the agentic AI space.
They want to learn.
They're like, how do I do this?
What is this?
They're not ready to make it like a purchase yet.
That's like the this the point of this is that
this is the opportunity
for your brand,
for your team of thought leaders
to share and be known, to provide that information,
answer the questions, make sure you're showing up
and providing that level of like value,
but you can't expect them to come to your party or
on your website. Yeah.
I mean, makes total sense.
I guess I wanted to ask a clarifying question.
So when we look back at like the hub and spoke,
model that you were showing
my sense, Janet, is that,
you know, I feel like back in
back in the olden
days, like ten years ago, people would use this
mostly for a blog strategy.
But my sense is, what you're talking about is
this wouldn't just be for a blog.
This would be for... yes.
So this is
this would be for your multichannel program.
And people not just the brand,
but also you can use this exactly like for,
so you kind of have at the brand level. Right.
But then your thought leaders can also align
to these topic hubs,
keywords questions
along to like what their expertise is. Yeah.
And then from there
you can hit it on different channels.
So not... sure. Absolutely.
You need blog content on your website.
You need to make sure it's like up to date.
You're coming up with a lot of that
relevant information,
but also putting into video onto YouTube,
putting it into LinkedIn, Reddit,
answering questions there, like, taking that
very much like,
I mean, we've started before,
like use Sparktoro to identify
where your audience, which top channels
they're on,
like the data is available,
like you just got to go look for it
and then bring that back in to show, okay,
this is kind of the high level
of what
we want to be known for
and have authority around of these conversations.
And this is like where and this is and then the
then you are talking about the
who like this is who's going to talk about it.
Wow. Okay.
So if I'm if I'm a marketer right now,
I could be thinking about creating, a hub
and spoke model
at several, several key topics
and then associated with each hub.
But then maybe we combine that with our,
our kind of team sport,
where we associate
a thought leader with each hub
who's talking about maybe each topic,
and then they've got specific subjects to
to talk about that.
yeah.
So you can almost like I guess
the next step is like building
the little additional spokes.
I don't know what they could be called,
but like pretty much like the channel distribution,
like the distribution
would be the next layer from us, right.
Oh I love that. Okay.
I feel like we got a pretty good
winning strategy right there.
Yeah, I think we'll have to share in 2026.
Yeah.
Next I've coming episodes of like how this is so
some data behind the
the theory I guess because we were theoretical.
But this is a way
that I found me like I'm showing the exact charts
that we created and the data we presented forward.
It's like, take that.
Like go
take this
like template
and then put it into your own deck
and show it that way.
Like it's a very easy
way to like, understand the kind of through line
and how it all use that.
Go do it. Yeah, yeah.
One hundred percent.
I think one other aspect that
I know we talk a lot about, Janet
just with AEO
is the kind of technical side,
the more foundational infrastructure side.
And I know you've been doing a lot of work
on this yourself for both Aimtal and clients
And I think that's just a really key
component as well
that we don't want to be forgotten
is that you can do all
these things on the content side,
but there are also technical, structural things
that companies need to do on their websites
to kind of adapt to the way that
AI and LLMS
kind of scrape information off your website
or pull information.
And so in order to really increase
the likelihood
that your site is sourced
and surfaced in AI search results,
there's kind of a seismic shift where, where
there are some technical updates
that that folks really need to do.
And I can share that
this happened to us this morning.
Yet
we've we've made some updates on our website and,
there's been a pretty significant increase
in, form fills from people
who are coming through the channel of AI search,
which has been amazing,
but also just very,
not not even validating, but like, okay,
if you want to get people to come,
you need to do some technical things
so that people find you through AI.
Is there anything you would want to share Janet,
just about the
the technical side,
because I know you've been in the weeds.
Yeah,
I think yeah, I talked about
in the last episode of Called to Action.
We can link it on show notes.
And I will also say like,
definitely not even just listening to me,
but go check out WebFlow.
They're doing a lot of really good work around this.
Like a more technical side. Yes.
So but just like three things
that stand out and we know really matter.
One, your, your website sitemap
like and the hierarchy of the pages.
So you should also think of this
like hub and spoke as also the hierarchy
of your website pages, not just your content.
So how are you?
How is everything
linking to one another back like the back
linking interlinking is still really important.
Around
URL hygiene is really important.
So also having that kind of in
the URL slugs, it's represented of how.
So first let's I'll give you an example.
You have your
your website homepage
which links to your services page
which needs to then like have it
mapped to the specific.
So you have a range of services.
So you want to have that
like clear breadcrumb and hierarchy
of how those pages
are all laddering up to the services
or your product features.
And there's a difference
of that versus the, for example, like resources page
that may not have as high up.
You can set priority level on your site map as well.
So you want to just
you're pretty much
just giving instructions to the oh, to follow
to understand how it's all
categorized.
And then the other area,
which shouldn't be too surprising.
And then a lot of people here
now, but just as a reminder,
is like adding schema to your website.
So schema data, it's
actually created by Google,
Yahoo, a bunch of tech companies.
It's like a public accessible,
schema markup.
Like you can just go
Google schema.org and it's there.
And so you want to add schema to all of your pages.
And that's what we did. And it did help.
And then that also helps make the connection
between like pages.
You can tell it like this one's similar to this one,
but it's different in these ways-
So and that's where you also like
feed in the keywords.
I don't think the keywords are necessarily
that important, but on the schema.
But it's
it helps
just makes it very clear of how everything connects.
Got it.
Okay. I'm like taking notes.
I mean I like know this stuff,
but you got me hook line and sinker. Yeah. I'm like, you know.
Yeah, you just keep asking the questions
to queue me up.
Sitemap URL hygiene and schema.
There's more.
There's obviously more.
But I would say like
those are the three things
to look at going into 2026.
That is investment of like foundational work.
And what I was saying before is like a lot of
companies have focused on promotion,
amplification, distribution,
which sure is important.
But if your foundation isn't strong,
AI is just amplifying that.
Like it's just showing all the cracks
in the foundation.
Yeah, it'd be a real bummer to invest a ton of
time, energy,
money, resources into just the content
and not make some foundational updates
that are actually gonna
surface this content in the ways that AI is pulling.
So right is as if you are going to go
build remodel your kitchen.
And they told you they had to tear down the house
and build it again.
Yeah, yeah.
Or you don't do that.
Like probably that with the hockey metaphor.
You work on your shot a bunch of times
and then you're
playing with a broken stick or something.
And so yeah, you know, exactly.
Awesome.
Well, we covered a lot, Tucker
Another full hour of Called to Action.
So thank you.
If you've listened this long, we appreciate you.
And hope we shared some nuggets of wisdom,
some trends, hot
takes, all of the things so that you can,
you know,
try something in your own, in your own company.
You know, just one thing, you know, pitch it,
try to even just report on it,
whatever that looks like.
So as I said,
we'll round out with one call
to action to our audience.
Do you want to, like, kick us off, Tucker?
What's your one...
There's one thing for folks listening to do.
What should it be?
Let's see.
Maybe, you know, I'm kind of doing a curveball.
I might give folks a call to action
that I kind of gave myself.
Which is I last week recorded
a video and I posted on LinkedIn.
And now, of course, I'm looking for the,
the name of it,
downloading an app of just,
I think the name is called Capcut of,
just download an app and try, recording a video
and adding some branded subtitles.
And it's really easy. AI makes it really easy.
And I think as marketers,
we need to become fluent and comfortable in both,
you know,
doing
video, but also understanding
a little bit of the mechanisms behind it.
It's a lot easier than you think.
And once you start doing it,
even if that's not your bag
all the time,
I think
it's something that will help you
coach others and yeah, give it a shot.
What about you, Janet?
Yeah Tucker’s been crushing the
LinkedIn video game,
I'll say might be do the research.
Like take time to go back in the data.
You can go look at your Google Search
Console keywords, see what was coming up,
what was coming to your,
you know, how people were discovering your brand.
Go look at,
you know if you have a SEMrush tool or equivalent
they're all they're not that different.
I don't think. So,
You know,
whatever you have access
to, Sparktoro is also great.
But go look around these tools.
Go look at your own website,
your own data, do the research
and then use that to build your topic hubs
and keyword spokes.
Build that out,
because that's going to be the foundation of
your company, the brands thought leadership content,
the people- it becomes, you know,
it becomes a lot of different things
that can pretty much be what drives
your overall strategy for,
for now into the next year.
Love it.
Awesome.
Well, we'd love to hear from you, our viewers.
Listeners, what do you think?
What's going to be your top priority for 2026?
We are now recording this episode,
in November 2025.
So we're very much kind of in this reflection.
Look ahead mode right now.
Yes.
We'd love to hear, you know, what,
have you been trying
or you've seen
that thought leadership is working for your company?
Something else?
Have you been trying to
AEO optimize your website
or just don't even know where to start?
Let us know.
We'd love to help talk further about it.
So let us know in the comments!
You can hit us up on LinkedIn.
Definitely
be sure to subscribe
not to miss an upcoming episode.
Until next time. Thanks everyone.
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