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Digital Reset: Build Customer Relationships Big Tech—and AI—Can’t Touch (Thinks Out Loud 458)

Cover illustration of Tim Peter's new book, Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech

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This is a huge week around here. I’ve just announced the release of my new book, Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech. Which, yay, and all. I mean, good for me. But how does that help you?

Instead, what you need to focus on is the animating idea behind the book. And that is that Big Tech wants to be a gatekeeper between you and your customers. They’ve admitted it again and again. The question you should be asking is how do you escape their web and bypass Big Tech?

And that’s what this episode of Thinks Out Loud is all about. I hope you enjoy it.

Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you.

Digital Reset: Build Customer Relationships Big Tech—and AI—Can’t Touch (Thinks Out Loud 458) — Headlines and Show Notes

Show Notes and Links

You might also enjoy this webinar I recently participated in with Miles Partnership that looked at "The Power of Generative AI and ChatGPT: What It Means for Tourism & Hospitality" here:

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Recorded using a Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 (3rd Gen) USB Audio Interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

Running time: 12m 30s

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Transcript: Digital Reset: Build Customer Relationships Big Tech—and AI—Can’t Touch

Have you ever wondered how your business could thrive without relying so heavily on Google, Facebook, Amazon, or Apple? How you can build more human connections with your customers in an age of AI?

That’s exactly what I’m going to talk about today. And it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So long, in fact, that it’s now a book. This week, I am beyond thrilled to share some super exciting news.

My new book, Digital Reset: Driving Marketing and Customer Acquisition Beyond Big Tech, is launching very soon. But more important than the book itself is what it represents for you and your business. I promise you, I promise you that today’s episode is not a pitch. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if you read the book when it’s out.

More importantly, today’s episode is a conversation about why the ideas in this book matter for your business right now. And I want to talk about how you can put these ideas to work and build your business to bypass big tech. Are you ready to hear more about how? Cool, let’s dive in.

For years, Big Tech platforms have made it easy, maybe too easy, to reach customers. I mean, organic search and organic social were effectively free advertising for your business for a long time. That’s a really cool thing that we can look back on fondly. But we’re looking back on it fondly because that ship has sailed. That is no longer the case.

Where are we now? I’ve talked for some time about how increased ad loads on Google and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, along with reduced or more expensive targeting, as well as their ever-changing algorithms, have made that game unsustainable.

You’ve heard me say it again and again, gatekeepers gonna gate. They’re going to charge you tolls for access to customers, your customers, your own customers, every time they can.

As if they wanted to prove my point, there was a bunch of research released just this past week that talked about how Google’s new AI Overviews hurts click-through rates from Google to the sites that they are “linking to.”

Do I sound shocked? No, of course not. This is where we’ve been heading for a long time. This is nothing new and it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. Unless you do what’s necessary to make it better.

Fundamentally, this is a question about whether you own your customer relationships. Or if you just rent them from Big Tech. I know which one I would choose.

I’m going to quote Search Engine Land here for a moment and share that the studies that I just mentioned include

Ahref’s data that shows a 34.5% lower average click-through rate for the top ranking page compared to similar informational keywords without an AI overview.

Data from Amsive that shows a click-through rate decline of 15.5% on average when AI Overviews are on the page.

SimilarWeb data that shows 20% fewer clicks on search results with AI Overviews.

That’s massive, right? We’re talking about at least a 15% decline and as much as a 35% decline. SEO Roundtable also highlighted two other studies that said very similar things in February. So, you know, that’s not great.

We’re also seeing clients who have ranked better in Google’s organic search over the last 12 months and actually getting more impressions who have also seen clicks decline.

Why? Say it with me now. The increased ad loads and the increased use of AI Overviews in Google’s search results. We see very similar realities from social. If you want to add to the fun, have you seen that Google is getting its ass kicked in two different federal antitrust trials right now? If you’re like most businesses, you’re probably getting somewhere between 40% and 70% of your traffic from organic search, paid search, maps, metasearch, and all the other search products on Google.

And if that’s true for you, anything that hurts their business is going to hurt yours too. This is literally the opposite of a win-win scenario. In this case, if Google succeeds in court, if they manage to keep the courts from breaking the and letting them do whatever they want, you’re gonna get fewer clicks. You’re going to have to pay more for the clicks you get because of Google’s increased use of AI. And if Google loses in court or in the marketplace, you’re gonna get fewer clicks because of the reduced market presence.

Neither of those is what you’d call good. By contrast, owning your customer connection via email, your website, your app, your CRM drives greater control, it drives greater revenues, and it drives greater profits. We see this again and again with both clients and with other companies we talk to.

If I connect this back to the book, to Digital Reset, one of the first things I break down in the book is how businesses can regain control of the customer experience working to escape Big Tech’s web and how that becomes a virtuous cycle for you and your business over time.

Think about it.

Your customers always are looking for the same thing. They’re looking for value. They’re looking for trust. They’re looking for connection. I’ve said forever that “content is king and customer experience is queen.” Using digital to enhance your customer’s experience builds long-term loyalty and lifetime value. Put simply, if your digital strategy doesn’t improve your customer’s experience, if you don’t use content and customer experience to improve that customer experience, it’s absolutely not improving your business.

Ultimately, direct revenue isn’t just about profit margins though. It’s about resilience. It’s about breaking you free from Big Tech’s web and making you not so dependent upon them. Your content helps position you as a trusted resource for your customers. If you don’t have content, you don’t show up in search. If you don’t have content, you and your customers have nothing to share on social. If you don’t have content, you don’t have anything you can send in an email. If you don’t have content, AI tools can’t find you or reference you or recommend you to their users. No content equals no search. No content equals no social. No content equals no email. No content equals no presence in answer engines.

This isn’t just about SEO. It isn’t just about social. It’s about building a presence all across your customers day to day experience. As I say in the book, content is your company’s 24/7/365 salesperson and your 24/7/365 customer service rep. Content is the first connection for potential customers with your company.

You need to put that salesperson and put that customer service rep to work for your business. Or you can expect to lose your customer’s business, possibly forever.

Now the book, Digital Reset, goes deeper into each of these topics. And if you’ve been nodding your head while listening today, I think you’d really get a lot out of it. We’re just a couple of weeks out from the book dropping. I will be sharing more in our next episode, along with a sneak peek of what else you can find there.

But what I’d love for you to take away from today’s discussion is, as I say in the book,

“Big Tech are the gatekeepers in today’s business environment. More importantly, they plan to charge you a toll, a tax, every time customers connect. Put simply, gatekeepers gonna gate. Gatekeepers and the tolls they collect are one of the biggest threats your business faces right now.”

You want to own the connection with your customer, not just pay an ever-increasing rent to big tech. Content and customer experience are two keys to helping you escape Big Tech’s web. And you can think about how you do marketing and how you do customer acquisition beyond Big Tech because ultimately that’s what your digital reset is all about.

I hope you’re willing to join us on this journey. I hope you’re willing to hang with us as we go through this over the next few weeks and all. I think it’s going to be a really fun ride and I’m looking forward to having you with us as we do it.

Show Wrap-Up and Credits

Now, looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week.

I’m willing to bet that you might know someone who would benefit from what we’ve talked about today. Are you thinking of someone? Why not send them a link to the episode? Be sure to let them know what you think, too.

You can also find the show notes for this episode, episode 458, and an archive of all our past episodes, by going to timpeter.com/podcast. Again, that’s timpeter.com/podcast.

And, of course, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

Thank you so much for listening today. This show would not happen without you. I’ll be back with a new episode next week. And until then, please be well, be safe, and as the saying goes, be excellent to each other.

Tim Peter is the founder and president of Tim Peter & Associates. You can learn more about our company's strategy and digital marketing consulting services here or about Tim here.

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