A 12-month plan for making the shift from SEO to holistic brand building – PR Daily
Steps to take now to pivot to AI-based search.
Kathleen Lucente is CEO of Red Fan Communications.
Your competitor just landed a major deal. The prospect never visited their website, never clicked a single link, but cited them as the “obvious choice” based on their market reputation. Sound impossible? Welcome to the zero-click world — where your audience consumes your content, forms opinions about your brand and makes purchasing decisions without visiting your website.
The numbers paint a stark picture. Almost 60% of Google searches in the U.S. end without a click. Of searches that do generate clicks, nearly 30% go to Google-owned platforms like YouTube, Google Images and Google Maps. For B2B companies, the situation is even more severe. Click-through rates have plummeted 30%in B2B software categories since AI-powered search summaries became standard. The average click-through rate now sits at just 16% across B2B software categories. Perhaps most telling: 85% of B2B buyers purchase from their “Day One” list — vendors they had in mind before they began searching.
When press clips and referral traffic no longer tell the complete story, PR teams must adapt their approach and measurement framework. The key is understanding how your specific audience consumes information and where AI systems source authoritative content.
The new authority equation
If prospects are making decisions based on what they see in AI summaries and search snippets rather than visiting your website, your brand’s authority must be established before they even begin their search journey. This requires a multi-pronged communications approach:
Create proprietary insights AI can’t replace: Publishing industry reports, creating methodologies that become industry standard or sharing proprietary performance benchmarks establishes your brand as an authoritative source rather than just another voice in the chorus.
Develop authority beyond traditional channels: Transition toward targeted earned and owned microchannels — trade publications, podcasts, analyst reports, newsletters and industry events — that deliver comprehensive opportunities to develop authority within specific stakeholder groups.
Prioritize brand building over SEO: Invest in brand awareness campaigns that build mental availability, focus on memorable brand experiences over click-through rates and measure brand recall and consideration rather than just website traffic.
Making the strategic shift
While these principles provide the foundation, tackling such a fundamental shift in mindset can be daunting. Here’s a practical roadmap with realistic timelines:
Short-term initiatives (zero to three months) should focus on assessment and quick wins.
● Audit your current content strategy, distinguishing between proprietary insights and generic information.
● Assess your current reputation and narrative positioning in the market.
● Identify your top three owned channels for building direct relationships with key stakeholders.
● Evaluate which executives could become authoritative industry voices with the right support and positioning.
Medium-term strategies (three to 12 months) involve building new capabilities and processes.
● Launch one proprietary research project or industry study that positions your company as a thought leader.
● Integrate PR and marketing teams to eliminate messaging silos and align strategies across all touchpoints.
● Develop targeted microchannel strategies for key stakeholder groups, ensuring consistent authority-building messaging across platforms. Expect to see initial authority signals — like increased mentions in industry conversations — within six to nine months.
Long-term transformation (12+ months) requires comprehensive strategic realignment and patience.
● Implement PR strategies that build lasting market authority and memorable positioning.
● Build and strengthen strategic relationships within targeted microchannels where your audience already congregates.
● Most importantly, shift measurement focus from traffic metrics to reputation, recall and relationship metrics that better reflect your influence. True zero-click authority typically takes 18 to 24 months to establish, as AI systems need time to recognize and consistently surface your content as authoritative.
Authority building in action
Recently, while helping a B2B tech client expand their conference speaker base, I conducted a real-time AI search for industry thought leaders. The first result? Their own company’s lead scientist, validating that our client was already building meaningful authority in the zero-click landscape. After refining the search, we identified speakers with strong zero-click presence who hadn’t been under consideration.
This exercise revealed something crucial: Traditional speaker sourcing might miss voices that have strong zero-click presence. Understanding who AI systems surface as authorities is becoming essential for competitive intelligence, partnership decisions and strategic positioning.
Consider HubSpot’s response when AI Overviews launched in May 2024. After initially losing significant traffic traffic, they executed a pivot that other B2B companies are now studying. Rather than doubling down on high-volume content, they shifted entirely to expert-led, transactional content aligned with Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority and trust) principles. Their SVP of marketing now emphasizes creating “credible perspectives and authoritative tips most readers won’t find elsewhere” instead of generic informational posts.
The competitive imperative
The zero-click world isn’t coming — it’s already here. Your competitors adapting to zero-click strategies are building authority that influences prospective customers before they’re actively searching. They recognize that PR has evolved from a “nice-to-have” support function to a core, strategic business driver that shapes market perception and purchasing decisions.
In this new landscape, the brands that win are those that establish authority before the search begins, create memorable experiences that stick in minds and build relationships that transcend individual touchpoints.
The question isn’t whether to adapt, but how quickly you can transform your PR strategy to build the authority that’s driving decisions before customers ever start clicking. In a world where influence happens without clicks, your brand’s reputation becomes your most valuable asset — and your PR strategy the primary tool for building it.
Topics: AI and Automation
Topics: AI and Automation
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