By Jenny Weeden, who owns Accelity’s internal marketing, where she’s been heads-down optimizing the agency’s content, website and tech stack for AI search.

The shift happening right now

Something has shifted in how buyers search, and if you’re still only optimizing for Google, you’re already behind.

More and more, prospects are skipping the search results page entirely and going straight to AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode to ask questions. Instead of getting ten blue links and choosing one, they get a single synthesized answer, citing maybe three to eight sources. Either your brand is one of those sources, or you risk being overlooked. Harsh… but true.

That’s not hypothetical. We’ve seen it firsthand. Prospects have found Accelity through AI search. A client came to us that way, too. And that’s what pushed us to stop watching this shift happen and start doing something about it.

What optimization actually means for a marketing agency like ours

We hear two acronyms thrown around a lot in this space: GEO and AEO.

GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, is about getting cited in AI-generated answers. AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, is about getting featured as the direct answer to a specific question. They work together, and together they represent the new frontier of being findable online.

The good news: according to Opollo’s 2026 AI Search Benchmark Report, AI referral traffic converts at 4–5x the rate of traditional organic search, so even with lower volume, every citation carries real weight.

What actually earns those citations? A few things work together: writing for citability over clicks, structuring content so machines can parse it easily, building authority beyond your own site, publishing original data and thought leadership and keeping your technical foundation clean enough for AI crawlers to interpret accurately.

At Accelity, we’ve been doing all of the above, and I’ve especially been rolling up my sleeves to do the work. In this post, I want to pull back the curtain on exactly what that looks like: 

• The tools we’re using
• The content and website changes we’ve made
• The behind-the-scenes technical work
• A new type of page we built specifically for AI readers. 

Here’s how we’re optimizing for AI search and why it’s already paying off.

The tools powering our GEO stack

GEO isn’t something you can do with one tool and a good attitude. It requires visibility into how AI tools perceive your brand, the ability to audit and fix what’s broken, and a content workflow that can actually keep up. Here’s what we’re working with.

Gumshoe 

We use Gumshoe, an AI search audit tool, to measure structured data, page layout, schema markup, navigation, content balance and metadata. It then surfaces clear, prioritized recommendations for what to fix.

From there, we work systematically: collaborating across the team, tackling low-lift updates first with no developer required and escalating anything that needs heavier technical lifting only when it’s worth it.

The target isn’t 100% perfection. It’s the “very good” score range of 70-80% (higher is okay too)—and that’s intentional.

Here’s the thing about AI search: the content that gets cited isn’t robotic, over-optimized copy stuffed with schema. It’s clear, credible, well-structured content written for actual human beings. AI models are trained on human writing. They surface content that reads like an expert talking, not a brand performing.

So our north star is always humans first. We optimize for AI visibility as a byproduct of clarity, not at the expense of it. Hitting “very good” puts your content squarely in the range where AI systems can parse, understand and cite it, without stripping out the voice and substance that made it worth reading in the first place.

An example of a Gumshoe technical page audit—we increased our technical page effectiveness by 28% in a few days.

SEMrush

SEMrush has been part of our toolkit for a while, but the way we’re using it has evolved. In a traditional SEO context, it’s a keyword research and rank-tracking tool. For GEO, we’re leaning on it differently: content auditing, identifying topical gaps and making sure our existing pages have the depth and structure that AI systems reward. Where we used to ask, “What keywords should we rank for?” we’re now asking, “Do we have enough authoritative, well-structured content on this topic for AI to consider us a credible source?” SEMrush helps us answer that question at scale.

Here’s something worth understanding about GEO and SEO: they’re cousins. They’re not the same discipline, but they share a foundation. A lot of the technical work that makes a site good for Google also makes it more readable and credible to AI. That overlap is where SEMrush has been especially valuable for us.

When we ran site audits, we weren’t just looking for SEO issues. We were looking for anything that was degrading overall site quality:

• Broken links
• Crawl errors
• Slow pages
• Poorly structured content
• Missing metadata.

These are the same issues that make AI crawlers struggle to interpret your site accurately. Fixing them improves your SEO foundation and your GEO readiness at the same time. It’s some of the highest-leverage work you can do because it pulls double duty.

Think of it this way: if your site is hard for Google to find and trust, it’s probably hard for AI to cite with confidence too. SEMrush helped us see exactly where those problem areas were, and prioritize the fixes that would move both needles at once.

Claude 

We use Claude across several parts of our GEO workflow, but the most structured way we’ve built it in is through a custom Claude Project we call the Content GEO Scorer.

Here’s how it works: before we publish a blog post, we run it through the scorer. It evaluates the content across seven dimensions that directly affect AI citability:

• Clear direct answers
• Structured format
• Authoritative sourcing and data
• Entity clarity and named concepts
• E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority, trustworthiness) signals
• Semantic completeness
• Duplicate content risk

Each dimension gets a score, and the tool prioritizes the fixes that will have the biggest impact on how AI tools read and cite the piece.

What makes it especially useful is the ability to track scores across versions. We revise a post based on the recommendations, run it again, and see the delta: exactly where we improved and what still needs work. It turns what could be a subjective “does this feel optimized?” gut check into a repeatable, measurable process.

Beyond scoring, we also use Claude for drafting, restructuring and cleaning up content. That includes reviewing existing pages for vague language, gaps in topical coverage and structural issues that make them harder for AI to parse.

One thing we’re intentional about: Claude is a strategic writing partner, not a replacement for human thinking (our copy team is incredibly talented). Everything it helps us produce gets shaped, reviewed and refined by our team. The goal is precision and speed,not automation for its own sake. And honestly, building the GEO Scorer ourselves meant we could tailor it exactly to the criteria that matter instead of relying on a generic tool that wasn’t built with content in mind.

The point of pulling in multiple tools: no single tool does it all; this is a coordinated workflow.

Content cleanup: making what we have work harder

If you want AI to cite you, you have to give it something worth citing. That sounds obvious, but when we started auditing our own content, we found a lot that wasn’t always pulling its weight.

The first pass was about identifying what we had. Some pages were outdated. Some were thin on substance. Others were written in a way that made perfect sense to a human skimming a blog post, but gave AI nothing concrete to grab onto: no clear answers, no direct takeaways, no logical structure. That’s a problem in a world where AI tools are scanning your content and deciding in seconds whether it’s worth surfacing.

What actually gets you included in AI search results

Writing for citability, not clicks

AI prefers content that sounds like an expert talking to peers, not a brand pitching to buyers. That means clear, unambiguous language. Direct answers. Consistent topical depth. We went back through key pages and rewrote sections that were vague, over-hedged or structured more for persuasion than clarity. The goal? Making it easy to understand (for both humans & robots) and easy to repeat. 

Staying human first

Here’s the thing: what’s good for AI citability is usually just good writing. It’s content that aligns with buyer intent. Clear structure, specific claims, logical flow—those things work for human readers too. We weren’t trying to optimize our way out of sounding like ourselves. Every change we made, and still make, passes a simple test: does this still sound like Accelity, and would a real person find this useful? 

Fixing links

Broken links undermine credibility. We did a full audit of internal and external links across our site, fixed what was broken and improved our internal linking structure so related content is actually connected. This matters for AI because it helps crawlers understand the relationship between your pages and build a more accurate picture of your topical authority.

Improving structure

We added FAQ sections to key pages, tightened up heading hierarchies and made sure our most important points weren’t buried halfway down a long block of text. If AI has to work too hard to figure out what a page is about, it’ll move on.

Technical backend optimization

Content is only part of the equation. If your technical foundation is a mess, AI crawlers will struggle to interpret your site accurately. A site they can’t interpret confidently is a site they won’t reference.

Traditional search crawlers are relatively forgiving. They’ve gotten good at piecing together meaning even from imperfect markup. AI models are less flexible. They rely on clean structure to understand what a page means, not just what it says. That distinction changed how we thought about our technical cleanup.

Structured data and schema markup

We made sure our key pages have proper schema in place, including FAQ schema on pages where we’d added Q&A content. This gives AI a cleaner signal about what each page contains and makes it more likely to be pulled into a direct answer.

Metadata and heading hierarchy

Every page needs a clear, descriptive title tag and meta description, not just for Google, but because AI tools use this information to understand what a page is about before they read the full content. We also went through and cleaned up heading structures so they follow a logical hierarchy rather than being used for visual styling.

Robots.txt and crawler access

This one is easy to overlook: if your robots.txt is blocking AI search bots, you’re invisible to them regardless of how good your content is. We reviewed ours to make sure the major AI crawlers, including GPTBot, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot, have access to the pages we want indexed.

Page speed and core web vitals

These have always mattered for SEO, and they carry over to GEO. A slow or unstable site creates a poor crawl experience and signals lower quality. We did a performance audit and addressed the biggest issues.

The through line

None of this is glamorous work. It’s the kind of work that’s easy to deprioritize because it doesn’t feel like marketing. But it’s the foundation everything else sits on… and skipping it means your content improvements won’t get the credit they deserve.

AI-Specific Pages: A New Content Format for a New Audience

This is the part of our GEO work that feels most new… because it is.

In addition to optimizing our existing pages for human readers and AI alike, we built a set of pages that are designed specifically for AI.

Not for people browsing our site.

Not for SEO rankings.

For AI tools that are trying to understand who Accelity is, what we do, who we serve and why we’re credible.

Think of it this way: when a prospect asks an AI tool, “who are the best marketing agencies for scaling tech companies,” that AI is synthesizing an answer from everything it knows about you: your website, your mentions across the web, your content and your positioning. If that picture is fuzzy or incomplete, the AI either won’t recommend you or will describe you in a way that doesn’t land.

These pages are our way of making sure AI has a clear, accurate, and complete picture of Accelity.

What’s on them

Our primary AI-readable pages are in .txt format,a format specifically designed to give AI tools a structured, unambiguous summary of who we are and what we do. Think of it as a briefing document written for machines, not a brochure written for people. (See one of our llms.txt pages here.)

It covers everything an AI tool would need to accurately describe and recommend Accelity:

• Who we are and what we do: a plain-language description of Accelity as a full-service digital marketing, branding and web design agency for scaling B2B companies, including our location and contact information.
• Our services: digital marketing, brand strategy, website design and development, each with a summary of what’s included.
• The industries we serve: AI, education, finance, food and beverage, healthcare, insurance and transportation, with context about our specialty in complex, niche, and technical industries.
• Our ideal client profile: company size, geography, decision maker types, common challenges and psychographics, written specifically so AI can match us to relevant queries.
• Case studies and results: real, specific outcomes from client work, including pipeline numbers, traffic growth and lead volume, so AI has proof points to draw from when evaluating our credibility.
• Our process: the three-phase engagement model explained clearly enough that AI can describe what working with us actually looks like.
• Pricing: all three retainer tiers with ranges, so AI can accurately answer questions about cost.
• FAQs: direct links to structured answers for the most common questions prospects ask.

The goal was completeness and clarity. If a prospect asks an AI tool “what does Accelity do,” “who is Accelity best for” or “how much does Accelity cost,” we want the AI to have a confident, accurate answer, not a vague one pieced together from whatever it could infer from our homepage.

What makes them different from a standard About or Services page

A regular About page is written to convince a human. It has personality, narrative, maybe some brand voice flourishes. These pages are written to inform a machine. The language is direct and declarative. The structure is explicit. There’s no ambiguity about what we do or who we do it for because ambiguity is exactly what causes AI to skip over you or get your description wrong.

The logic behind it

If AI can’t summarize you accurately, it won’t recommend you confidently. These pages are our way of handing AI the summary we want it to use.

Early Results: It’s Already Working

We want to be straightforward here: because the goalpost with AI is constantly shifting, this continues to be a journey, not a destination. GEO is not a switch you flip and watch the leads roll in overnight. But we’re already seeing signals that it’s working,and they’re meaningful ones.

Prospects have reached out to Accelity after finding us through AI search. Not through Google. Not through a LinkedIn post or a referral. Through an AI tool that surfaced us as a relevant answer to their question. And at least one client relationship started exactly the same way.

A prospect found Accelity through Perplexity after searching for marketing agencies with expertise in insurance AI. They saw our other similar work, reached out, we had a conversation and they’ve now been a client for nearly a year. That’s not a click on an ad or a cold outreach that finally landed. That’s a buyer who had a specific need, asked an AI tool for a recommendation, and got our name.

That’s not a vanity metric. That’s pipeline. And it’s pipeline that came to us already pre-qualified.  By the time they reached out, they knew who we were and why they were contacting us.

What This Means for Our Clients

Most companies haven’t started doing this work yet. The conversation about GEO is loud in marketing circles, but the actual implementation is still rare: the content audits, the technical cleanup, the AI-readable pages, the team training. That’s a window, and it won’t stay open forever.

The good news is you don’t have to do everything at once. If you’re just getting started, here’s where we’d point you first:

1. Audit your existing content for citability: look for pages that are vague, outdated, or structurally messy.
2. Check your technical foundation: make sure AI bots can actually crawl you and that your schema is in place.
3. Add FAQ sections to your most important pages: it’s one of the highest-impact structural changes you can make.
4. Start tracking AI referral traffic in GA4 so you have a baseline to measure against.

And if you want help doing any of this? That’s exactly what we’re here for. We’ve built and refined this approach on our own brand, so when we bring it to clients, we’re not guessing. We’re applying what we know works.

Ready to show up where your prospects are actually searching? Let’s talk about how Accelity can help you build a GEO strategy that gets found, understood and cited.

From our President, Jenny Weeden, Accelity’s resident CRM and tech lead, and one of the leaders shaping our AI content optimization standards.

Buyers aren’t just searching anymore. They’re asking. And instead of clicking through pages, they’re getting a single answer that’s generated, summarized and served instantly. In fact, 60% of searches now end without the user clicking through to a single website. (Bain & Company). I’d bet that number is only going to grow.

Sometimes your brand is in that answer. Most of the time… it’s not.

This is the new visibility problem. It’s called Generative Engine Optimization or GEO, the practice of structuring content so AI tools can cite it directly, and it’s why content that ranks well in traditional search (think SEO) can still be completely invisible in AI answers.

Your content isn’t bad. It’s just not built for it.

Visibility doesn’t mean ranking anymore

The old model was simple: rank → get clicks → drive pipeline.

AI search changes that. You’re no longer competing to be #1 on a results page. Instead, you’re competing to be included in the answer itself.

And that requires more than good writing. It requires structure that allows you to build credibility and align more closely with the searcher’s intent.

GEO vs. SEO: What’s actually different

SEO and GEO share the same foundation — quality content, strong structure, credible sources. But they optimize for different endpoints, and that distinction matters.

SEO gets you ranked. A well-optimized page earns a spot on a search results page, and the user decides whether to click. The goal is visibility on the list.

GEO gets you cited. A well-structured page gets pulled directly into an AI-generated answer, often without the user ever seeing a list of results. The goal is inclusion in the answer itself.

That means SEO alone is no longer enough. A page can rank #1 on Google and still be completely invisible in an AI response — because ranking and citation are two different things. GEO is the practice of closing that gap.

SEO gets you ranked. GEO gets you cited. You need both — but most brands are only doing one.

How AI reads your site

LLMs don’t read like humans. They scan for structure, break content into chunks, and pull clear answers to specific questions. Rather than reading your page top to bottom, they scan it for the most direct, extractable answer to whatever was asked.

That means a well-written paragraph with a vague header like “Our Approach” will get skipped. A shorter, blunter section under “How does [X] work?” will get pulled. Structure is the signal.

TL;DR: If your page can’t be skimmed into an answer, it won’t become one.

Why are most websites invisible in AI answers?

The scale of the problem is bigger than most marketers realize. According to the 2026 2X AI Visibility Index, which analyzed 70 B2B companies across generative AI platforms, only 4.3% of brands appear in early-stage buyer questions — meaning 95.7% are invisible when it matters most. (2X AI Visibility Index)

Most websites:

• Take too long to get to the point
• Use vague headers (“Our Approach”)
• Bury answers in long-form copy
• Assume context instead of explaining it

That works for humans who are willing to read. It doesn’t work for systems trying to extract meaning fast.

How to structure your existing marketing content so AI can use it

This isn’t about writing for bots. It’s about making your content usable. And it’s a big opportunity: only 25.7% of marketers plan to develop content specifically for AI citations. (Loganix/Yext, 2026)

1. Start with the answer. Lead with a clear, direct response (1–3 sentences), then expand. AI pulls from the top of sections, so if your key point sits three paragraphs down, it won’t make the cut. If someone asked your header as a question, your first sentence should answer it completely.
2. Use question-based headers. Mirror how buyers search, verbatim when you can. A header like “Our Approach” tells AI nothing. In contrast, a header like “How do I know if my marketing is actually working?” tells AI exactly what question this section answers and makes it far more likely to surface in a relevant response.
3. Make sections standalone. Write each section so it makes sense on its own. Avoid vague references like “as mentioned above.” Because AI pulls chunks rather than whole pages, every chunk needs to hold up without surrounding context.
4. Use clean formatting. Bullet points, numbered lists, and short paragraphs are how AI breaks content into usable pieces. Dense prose gets skipped. So if a paragraph runs longer than four lines, break it up or convert it to a list.
5. Define key terms. Don’t assume your reader knows your shorthand. If you introduce a concept, define it. The brands that show up in AI answers are typically the ones that took the time to explain rather than assume.

Should you create content specifically for AI?

In some cases — yes.

Not every page on your site needs to do this. But building a set of pages designed to get pulled into AI answers is becoming a real advantage.

Think of these as answer-first pages built for retrieval. They’re not company narratives or brand storytelling.

Just clear, structured answers to high-intent questions your buyers are already asking. (See an example of Accelity’s here.)

What these “AI pages” actually look like

These pages are intentionally different from your typical marketing content. Specifically, they:

• Focus on one core question or topic
• Lead with a direct, concise answer
• Use clear, descriptive headers
• Break information into structured sections
• Avoid fluff, filler, or heavy brand language

In other words, they’re built to be understood quickly and extracted easily.

Where do pages built for AI fit in your site?

These aren’t your homepage. They’re not your core services pages either.

For us, they live quietly in the footer — not built to be browsed, but built to be found.

They can also act as a supporting layer to main content. For example:

• High-intent question pages
• Clear concept breakdowns
• Straightforward, answer-first explainers

Their job isn’t to convert on the page. Instead, it’s to get pulled into AI answers and introduce your brand before a buyer ever clicks.

The balance to get right

Some pages are built for AI. That’s the point.

They’re not trying to convert, tell a story, or sound like your homepage. They’re designed to be understood instantly and extracted cleanly.

That means actively stripping out anything that slows the read: clever phrasing, long intros, heavy brand language. In AI search, clarity and structure are the whole point.

And that’s actually a higher bar than most marketing copy clears. Every sentence needs to pull its weight. If a line doesn’t answer the question or move the idea forward, cut it. Some might see this as “dumbing it down,” but it’s not. It’s discipline. And it’s exactly why most brands aren’t showing up.

Does this replace your website?

No. Your core site still does what it always has: builds trust, tells your story, and drives conversion. AI pages don’t replace any of that. Instead, they do something earlier — they get you into the conversation before a buyer ever clicks.

The takeaway

Some pages are meant for AI, not humans.

Don’t panic. You don’t need to rebuild your entire site this way.

But if you aren’t creating any content designed to get pulled into answers, you’re leaving visibility on the table. Remember: some pages should convert. Some should educate. Some should exist to be the answer.

Teams that evolve for AI search will lead the conversation.

I want to improve how AI understands our website →

Every few years, marketing goes through a panic cycle.

“SEO is dead.” 

“Search has changed forever.” 

“If you’re not doing this new thing, you’re already behind.”

But in the last couple of years, AI has absolutely changed the game. Generative search experiences are reshaping how people find answers. Content is being summarized, synthesized and surfaced in new ways. The way we search—and the way we create content—has shifted.

And if you’re a founder, CMO or sales leader trying to keep revenue moving, it’s easy to feel like you missed a memo somewhere.

Now we’re debating what to call it (GEO, AEO, AI optimization; pick your acronym, we chose GEO), and the pressure ramps up again.

Here’s the steadier truth: yes, search is evolving. But the foundation that drives visibility hasn’t changed as much as the headlines suggest.

What actually changed between SEO and GEO

Generative engine optimization (GEO) refers to structuring and developing content so it can be cited, summarized or referenced within AI-generated search experiences. There are differences between traditional SEO and generative optimization. It helps to understand them without overdramatizing them.

In traditional SEO, your goal is to rank high enough to earn the click.

In generative environments, your content may be pulled into a summary, quoted or used as a source. That means clarity, structure and authority matter even more. Engines are trying to answer a question well. They need strong source material to do it.

The good news is that while the mechanics have shifted, the selection criteria are more similar than they are different.

The signals that still matter in SEO and GEO

Underneath the acronyms, the core signals remain remarkably consistent.

Both search engines and generative engines prioritize content that:

• Clearly answers a real question.
• Aligns with specific user intent.
• Demonstrates depth and expertise.
• Is structured in a logical, easy-to-follow way.
• Builds trust through specificity, examples and proof.

The philosophy is still this: create content that genuinely helps your ICP make better decisions..That doesn’t mean trying to outsmart an algorithm or publishing high-volume content that says very little. It means writing the piece your ideal buyer was hoping to find: clear, specific and actually useful to the decision they’re trying to make.

Why fundamentals travel across platforms

Well-built content adapts.

When you deeply understand your ICP’s questions and build comprehensive, well-structured content around them, you create assets that:

• Rank in traditional search.
• Get pulled into AI summaries.
• Support sales conversations.
• Increase engagement and time on page.
• Compound in authority over time.

Weak, trend-chasing content breaks every time the rules shift. It’s optimized for a moment, not for durability.

Strategic content, on the other hand, has range. It survives updates because it wasn’t created to exploit a search tactic. It was created to genuinely answer a question well.

When you focus on the core principles, platform evolution becomes an amplification opportunity, not a disruption.

Feeling overwhelmed? Focus here first.

Instead of overhauling everything, start with these priorities.

Define your ICP with precision

If your content tries to speak to everyone, it resonates with no one. Get specific about who you’re targeting and what they are actually worried about, researching or comparing.

Build around real questions

Use sales calls, customer interviews and search data to identify the questions that repeatedly surface. Then answer them directly and thoroughly.

Go deeper on fewer topics

Topical authority matters more than scattered coverage. Own a cluster of issues that are central to your buyer’s decision process.

Structure for clarity

Clear headings. Direct answers. Logical flow. This helps humans, crawlers and generative engines understand your expertise.

Improve before you expand

Before publishing net-new content, revisit high-intent pages. Expand them. Clarify them. Strengthen proof. Optimization often means refinement, not addition.

Where tactical adjustments do matter

This isn’t an argument to ignore change. There are refinements worth making, for example:

• Clear formatting matters more than ever, especially as AI systems pull and synthesize information.
• Scannable headings help both users and generative engines understand what you’re actually saying.
• Internal linking strengthens topical authority and reinforces how your expertise connects.
• Entity clarity—who you are, what you do and who you serve—reduces ambiguity for both humans and machines.
• Demonstrating real-world expertise through examples, proof and specificity builds trust.

You may also consider:

• Adding concise summary sections where helpful.
• Incorporating FAQ expansions when they match real intent.
• Tightening introductions to answer the core question faster.

These are meaningful improvements, but they don’t replace the need for strong, thoughtful content in the first place.

If the foundation isn’t there, formatting tweaks won’t save it. If the foundation is strong, these changes just help it go further.

Search will change, but strategy shouldn’t

The bigger mistake right now isn’t ignoring GEO. It’s overreacting to it.

When leaders feel behind, they chase tactics and acronyms instead of strengthening the foundation: ICP clarity, aligned messaging, depth of expertise and consistent, useful content. But generative engines still rely on strong source material. Search engines still reward relevance and authority. And buyers still want clear answers.

Search will keep changing. It always has. New formats will emerge and new terms will trend.

The teams that stay grounded in fundamentals won’t have to reinvent themselves every time that happens. They’ll already be building the kind of content that works—no matter what we decide to call it.

Nine out of 10 businesses burn through their marketing budget without seeing a real return.

Dramatic? Maybe.
Accurate? Yes.

After twelve years running Accelity, I have talked with thousands of founders and heard the same stories on repeat. 

They have big ideas but no follow-through. They keep trying different strategies, but nothing makes an impact. They hire marketers or agencies who are not the right fit, or they expect results long before results are possible. 

And the hardest part to watch? I have seen founders blow their budgets on marketing strategies that were never a good investment in the first place. 

Not because they were careless, but because early-stage marketing is confusing when you are moving fast with limited time and money. When you are trying to grow fast with limited resources, it is easy to make decisions that feel right in the moment but sabotage you long-term.

The good news is that most of these problems are predictable. Once you see the warning signs, you can avoid them and set yourself up for real traction—instead of wasted effort. 

There are tell-tale signs of a startup that’s strolling down the wrong marketing path. In this blog, I’ll break down the five biggest mistakes I see businesses make and how to stay off that path for good.

Mistake 1: Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one

Founders love to tell me their product can be used by almost anyone.

And technically, that might be true. But strategically, broad marketing rarely resonates. When you try to appeal to everyone, your message becomes so general that buyers cannot see themselves in it. 

People respond when they feel understood. They want to hear language that reflects their real challenges, not the same vague promises every competitor is making. That level of specificity only happens when you choose one audience and build your message around their unique pain points and motivations.

If you have a limited budget, this strategy becomes even more important. Choosing one segment gives you the clarity to refine your positioning, build relevant content, and understand what actually drives conversion within that group. You may lose a few sales outside your niche, and I know that stings. But you will win far more inside it, because specialization builds trust and accelerates results.

Start narrow. Get good. Then expand.

At Accelity, we help clients identify a single high-fit ICP, then map what that audience needs at each stage of the buyer journey. Once the messaging and content perform predictably, the same structure can be duplicated across additional audiences with confidence.

Keep reading: How to build buyer personas that actually work → 

Once you prove success with your first audience, you can always duplicate your approach and expand with confidence.

Mistake 2: Being unrealistic about what you can actually execute

Have you ever gone to a restaurant hungry and immediately ordered way more than you could ever finish? I have. I went to my favorite Mexican place near my house a few weeks ago, inhaled chips like I had never seen food before, ordered an appetizer and then a huge entrée. I was starving, and it showed.

You already know where this is going.

I hardly ate any of my actual meal, spent too much money and felt terrible after. And honestly, the same thing happens in marketing. When you’re ready to grow with little marketing foundation, you want results fast. You want to try everything. But when your eyes are bigger than your capacity, you overload yourself, do none of it well and then feel discouraged.

This is where realistic planning becomes a superpower. I would love to say I post twice a day on LinkedIn, reply to every comment in real time, and maintain a content engine that pumps out videos like a full production studio. But I have a company, a family and a personal life that is always a work in progress. So instead, I stick to what is realistic for me right now.

My actual plan is simple: I post three to four times a week, set aside dedicated time to film and edit content, engage with my network and respond in the DMs. It is not flashy, but it is consistent, and it works because I can sustain it.

For companies trying to grow, this is even more important.

Your marketing plan should match your available time, skill set and internal resources. At Accelity, we help clients build plans that align with their real capacity by identifying:

• The channels they can realistically maintain
• The amount of content they can create each week
• Who owns each part of the process
• How long execution will actually take based on their team

When expectations match resources, you see progress. When expectations exceed resources, you burn out. Stretching your goals is good, but your plan has to be doable; otherwise, you will abandon it long before it has a chance to work.

Mistake 3: Expecting results without consistency

Consistency is the name of the game. It sounds simple, but it is one of the main reasons I see companies fall flat. They expect momentum after one post, one week, or one campaign. When nothing happens right away, they assume the strategy is broken and start over from scratch.

Your first video did not go viral? Shocking. 

Organic marketing is a long game by definition. You cannot brute force it. You cannot hack it. You cannot shortcut the relationship-building part. 

If you want proof, look around LinkedIn. People like Joel Lalgee talk openly about how no one cared about his first 10, 20 or 100 posts. His audience grew because he kept showing up when no one was paying attention yet.

I have my own receipts. It took our team more than a year to hit our stride with digital content, start attracting good-fit traffic and generate consistent consultation requests from organic efforts alone. Even today, we are still tweaking our systems because organic strategy is something you evolve, not something you finish.

Personally, it took almost three years of showing up on LinkedIn to build this audience. Not just posting, but interacting, starting conversations, responding to DMs and getting to know people. It is real work. If I did not enjoy it, or if I expected overnight results, I never would have made it this far.The takeaway is simple: good things take time.

Mistake 4: Starting marketing without the systems to support it

One of the fastest ways to waste marketing effort is to start executing before you have the basic systems in place to track what you are doing. 

I cannot tell you how many founders come to us after months of posting, emailing or running campaigns, only to realize they have no clean data, no insight into what worked and no way to repeat anything that performed well.

Here is the truth:

• The best moment to set up your CRM is when you only have a few contacts.
• Web analytics should go live the day your website is built.
• Start tracking social and email performance from your very first post or publish.

If you wait until later, you will create gaps in your data that you can never fully recover. And those gaps become expensive when you start scaling.

At Accelity, we help clients establish the essentials before they launch full marketing programs. That includes setting up a CRM they will actually use, turning on website analytics and creating simple dashboards for tracking social, email and website performance. It takes a little time, but it is the foundation that makes every future initiative measurable.

Once you have data, you can make informed decisions. Without it, you’re just guessing.

A little setup upfront will save you a lot of frustration later.

Mistake 5: Forgetting that sales come first

The best way to cash flow a business? Make money.

It sounds obvious, but it’s one of the most overlooked truths in early-stage marketing. When I first started Accelity, a mentor told me that sales were the ultimate cure. Ten years later, I am still repeating his advice because it has proven true over and over.

Talk to potential customers before you ever build a product or service. Make sure there is a real market. You can sell a concept long before you invest time or money into creating it.

You want to invest in marketing? Sell something.
You want to invest in your product? Sell something.
You want to hire? Sell something.

If you do not know how to sell, learn. Sales is not optional for founders. It is one of the most important skills in entrepreneurship, and it will give you the confidence and cash flow to build the rest of your business with intention.

Building a strong marketing engine does not require perfection. It requires clarity, consistency, and a willingness to start with the basics before you scale. When you avoid these five common mistakes, you give your business the structure it needs to grow with confidence.

P.S. I cover this topic in depth on my podcast, The Art of Entrepreneurship! Here are some of my favorite episodes to help you get started:

• Are you making these 5 sales & marketing mistakes?
• Why most marketing programs fail
• 6 ways to persuade your prospects to buy

With all the noise on the internet, it’s hard to find marketing advice that actually works for your business. Most of what’s out there costs a small fortune and leaves you wondering what you even paid for.

I’ve been there. There isn’t one single marketing effort that transforms your business overnight. Real growth comes from doing a few things really well, consistently.

After connecting with thousands of startups and growth-stage companies, I’ve seen the same fears pop up again and again: how to stand out, where to start, and how to do it all without draining your budget. 

I built Accelity from $0 to 7 figures, and I know what it takes to get results that last. The key? Be realistic about what you can accomplish.

This isn’t a magic formula or a promise that one tactic will change everything. It’s a simple, realistic framework you can actually put into practice.

Let’s walk through five tips that make the biggest difference.

Tip 1: Create a brand that speaks for itself

You know what you’re selling and why it’s great… but that doesn’t mean your audience does. Most early-stage companies hit the same wall: people don’t understand who you are, what you offer or why they should care.

Brand isn’t just visuals or a logo. It’s the clarity and consistency that help someone recognize you, trust you and choose you.

Here’s how to build a brand that does the heavy lifting for you:

• Be clear before you get clever. A good brand connects quickly. People should understand what you do in seconds.
• Start with the basics. A simple, focused website or landing page that explains who you are, what you do and how to contact you is enough at the start.
• Build a personal brand alongside your business. People buy from people, especially early on. Show your face, share your perspective and let people get to know the human behind the work.
• Pick one platform and get consistent. You don’t need to be everywhere. Choosing one channel you can maintain is better than posting sporadically across five.
• Engage more than you broadcast. Respond to comments, answer questions and start conversations. Trust is built in the interactions, not just the posting.
• Add value first. Share lessons, insights and education long before you sell. That’s what builds loyalty.

A strong brand isn’t complicated. It’s clear, human and consistent. Show up as yourself, keep your message tight and let repetition do its job.

Tip 2: Marketing to everyone is marketing to no one

Trying to appeal to everyone is a huge trap companies of all sizes can fall into. It feels safe (who doesn’t want all the customers?), but it’s not. When you try to reach everyone, no one feels like you’re talking to them.

Start small and stay focused:

• Pick one audience first. Don’t spread yourself thin across multiple markets. Once you’ve nailed the formula, then you can expand into another market.
• Build concise buyer personas. Think about who’s involved in the buying process and what drives their decisions. Don’t create ten; start with two or three—just enough to guide your messaging for the next few months.
• Track your audience as you go. Add a CRM  so you can see who’s engaging, what they care about and how they move through your funnel (HubSpot offers a solid free option to get started!).

Choosing one audience isn’t limiting; it’s how you grow faster. Focused messaging builds trust, and trust drives results.

Tip 3: Create a plan that you can actually achieve

Being realistic about what you can achieve is the most important part of creating a marketing plan.

Too many founders build aggressive plans they can’t maintain. Once they miss a few deadlines, the whole thing collapses and momentum with it.

Don’t be that person!

The best plan is the one you can actually stick to.

Keep these basics in mind:

• Start with your value proposition. It should clearly state what you do, who you do it for and why it matters. Keep it simple, specific, compelling and unique.
• Choose your channels intentionally. Pick one or two channels (e.g., LinkedIn, email) based on where your audience spends time and what you can sustain.
• Set a pace you can stick to. A weekly post you actually publish beats a daily cadence you abandon after two weeks.
• Keep your messaging simple. If someone can’t understand what you do in 10 seconds on your website, that’s a problem.

Most importantly, remember: good marketing doesn’t mean doing everything. It means doing the right things consistently.

Tip 4: Content creation for the rest of us

I know you’re not a dummy. But let’s be honest, creating content can feel like it requires a degree in everything. The truth? It doesn’t. You don’t need to be a marketing genius to create great content, you just need the right plan, a few good habits and some consistency.

Keep in mind that 78% of people say they’d rather learn about a product or service by watching a short video than reading about it. That actually makes your job easier; the tools to create video are more accessible than ever.

Here’s how to make it manageable:

• Think in themes, not chaos. Pick one key topic each month and build around it. Create a single “anchor” piece (like a blog, podcast or video) and repurpose it across channels.
• Mix formats. People consume content differently. Use a blend of video, graphics and short text. In 2025, video still leads engagement across most platforms.
• Keep production simple. You don’t need a full studio setup. Just solid lighting, clear visuals and a confident message. Authentic beats overproduced every time.
• Plan once, execute often. Set aside time each month to map out your social posts, emails and website updates. Don’t try to plan for the entire quarter at once.
• Stay consistent. One platform done well beats three half-done. Pick where your audience is and show up regularly (for me, that’s LinkedIn).

Content doesn’t need to be complicated if your goal is to be consistent and valuable. Make sure every piece of content gives your audience a clear next step. Focus on education and value, not selling.

Tip 5: Tweak and repeat

You won’t get it perfect the first time… and that’s the point.

Great marketers aren’t afraid to make mistakes. They pay attention, learn and keep moving. Every campaign, post or email gives you something to learn from, so use it.

Here’s how to make iteration a habit:

• Review what’s working and what’s not. Look at data weekly or monthly, depending on your pace, and take notes on what actually drives results.
• Refine, don’t restart. You don’t need to scrap your whole plan when something underperforms. Small tweaks compound into big progress.
• Test one thing at a time. Change headlines, visuals or CTAs one by one so you know what’s actually making the difference.
• Track your metrics. Use tools like Databox to centralize and visualize performance data from multiple platforms so you can make informed, real-time decisions.
• Document your wins. Keep a running list of what works best so your process gets sharper with every round.

If something works, double down. If it doesn’t, pivot and try again. Strong marketing happens when you learn fast, adjust and keep improving.

Turn consistent action into lasting growth

If there’s one takeaway here, it’s this: you don’t need a giant budget or a perfect plan to grow. 

You just need a clear brand, the right audience, a plan you can stick to, simple content and the willingness to learn as you go. Keep moving, stay curious and let the results guide your next step.

P.S. I cover this topic in depth on my podcast, The Art of Entrepreneurship! Here are some of my favorite episodes to help you get started:

• Are you making these 5 sales & marketing mistakes?
• Why you need an ideal customer profile—and how to make one
• Marketing & sales strategies to fill your pipeline in Q1

For CMOs driving growth in competitive markets, the real threat isn’t just a tight budget or a noisy market—it’s internal chaos. When brand, performance (demand) and sales operate in silos, it leads to duplicated work, wasted spend, fractured customer experiences and slower revenue growth. 

Fact: Improving your marketing operations isn’t just about cleaner dashboards. It can unlock as much as 20% of your budget. Imagine what that reclaimed spend could do if it fueled growth instead of inefficiency. 

Here’s what misalignment is really costing you, what the data shows and how to get your teams working together so results climb faster.

What “chaos” looks like (and why you should care)

Here are some of the most common failure points that quietly drain ROI—and the business symptoms that signal misalignment.

Conflicting messaging and brand friction

When brand and sales aren’t telling the same story, customers notice. A campaign might promise one thing, but the sales conversation heads in another direction, leaving prospects unsure about what your company actually delivers. When brand and performance teams work in isolation, both lose impact because audiences experience the full journey, not the departments behind it.

Attribution black holes

If your data lives across multiple platforms that don’t connect, you’re flying blind. Disconnected reporting and long buying cycles make it nearly impossible to see what’s really driving results. That uncertainty leads to wasted spend as teams over-invest in some areas and miss opportunities in others.

The leaky funnel between marketing and sales

This is one of the most common and costly issues. When “qualified lead” means something different to marketing than it does to sales, the handoff falls apart. Sales ends up chasing low-quality leads while marketing optimizes for metrics that don’t move revenue. Teams that align definitions and goals see faster follow-up, higher close rates and stronger morale.

Duplicated work and wasted spend

Without coordination, teams often target the same audiences or create similar content without realizing it. The result is duplicated costs and a fragmented customer experience. When planning happens together, budgets stretch further, messaging stays consistent and every touchpoint feels more intentional.

How Alignment Translates to Revenue

Companies that align sales and marketing are more than twice as likely to exceed their revenue goals. That’s not just about better teamwork: it’s a direct lift in performance that shows up on the balance sheet.

Stronger alignment and smarter measurement can also unlock 15–20% of existing marketing spend. For many mid-market and enterprise companies, that’s a six- or seven-figure opportunity—just by improving attribution and tightening cross-functional processes.

When brand and performance plans are built together, the return grows even faster. Research shows that balancing long-term brand investment with short-term performance activity delivers higher ROI than focusing on one side alone. Teams that treat them as partners, not rivals, see the compounding benefits.

It’s no wonder boards and CFOs are asking CMOs to connect marketing spend directly to business outcomes. The opportunity is too big to ignore.

Why alignment generates outsized ROI

Alignment drives results through three main levers:

1. Efficiency of spend: When teams plan together, you avoid duplicate audience buys and fragmented campaigns. Instead of three separate media plans working at cross purposes, you get one coordinated strategy that stretches every marketing dollar further.
2. Higher conversion quality: Creative that’s designed for both sales and performance and guided by data-driven optimization helps move leads through the funnel faster. Aligned teams consistently close more of the right deals and see stronger win rates.
3. Better measurement and decision-making: Sharing data and agreed-upon measurement frameworks make budgeting and channel decisions much clearer. Using marketing mix modeling and multi-touch attribution helps teams act on evidence, not assumption, and keeps reporting accurate and consistent.

The CMO playbook for scalable alignment

Below are practical moves CMOs can deploy immediately—and over the next 90 to 180 days.

1. Executive alignment: set one north-star metric

Pick a single business-level north star that brand, performance and sales map to. Shared incentives and an executive sign-off make alignment real. 

There many ways to measure marketing ROI; here are some examples:

• Revenue influenced: The total amount of revenue that marketing efforts help drive, whether directly or indirectly. It shows how marketing contributes to deals that close.
• Pipeline creation rate: The speed or volume at which marketing generates new opportunities or leads ready for the sales team to pursue.
• LTV:CAC (customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost): A ratio comparing how much value a customer brings over their lifetime to how much it costs to acquire them. Higher ratios mean more efficient marketing and sales efforts.

2. Define handoffs between teams

Document lead definitions, content handoff processes and acceptable lead quality. Capture them in a one-page go-to-market playbook and review monthly. This eliminates the “he said/she said” handoff problem fast.

3. Create a single source of truth for data

Bring all your data together—CRM, ad platforms, analytics and CDP outputs—into a unified source of truth (our agency uses Databox for this). Make sure everyone agrees on campaign naming and experiment labels so reporting stays consistent. 

When everyone looks at the same numbers, budget and strategy discussions stop being political. Experts recommend using centralized modeling, like marketing mix modeling and multi-touch attribution, to make smarter, evidence-based investment decisions.

4. Establish a joint planning cadence and shared creative briefs

Hold quarterly GTM planning where brand narratives, performance audiences and sales plays are planned together. Use a single creative brief with clear outcomes and measurement tags so every asset supports both demand and sales channels.

5. Treat sales enablement as a core responsibility of marketing

Marketing owns the content and signals that make sales faster. Make enablement part of marketing’s KPIs—such as enablement score, content usage rate and pipeline influenced. This kind of coordination consistently links to stronger sales performance.

6. Keep alignment simple

Designate a lean team to manage the processes that keep everyone on the same page. They ensure data hygiene, consistent metrics and alignment meetings that move work forward instead of eating up time.

From alignment to advantage

Boards and CEOs expect marketing to prove impact. The fastest path to predictable marketing ROI isn’t adding another tool or hiring another agency—it’s building operational alignment. Shared goals, clean data and a culture that treats brand, performance and sales are all parts of the same story. When you fix the operating model, your spend works smarter, not harder.

Keep the momentum going—explore how small marketing shifts lead to big inbound wins in From Mistakes to Mastery: Your Blueprint for Inbound Marketing Success.

If your landing page isn’t converting visitors into leads, it’s not doing its job. A solid benchmark to aim for? At least a 20% conversion rate, according to HubSpot. If you’re falling short, just starting inbound marketing or want to sharpen your strategy, these landing page best practices will help you turn more clicks into contacts.

Avoid a navigation menu or other links

Fewer distractions lead to higher conversions… so cut the clutter. Your landing page should clearly direct the page visitor to download your content. You want visitors to complete a single action without giving them exit points to wander off to other areas of the site. Menus and additional links only distract and dilute your message. A focused, single-goal page also makes it easier to measure what’s working and what needs to change.

Provide a clear headline

Your headline is your first impression. Make it count. Tell visitors exactly what they’re getting and why it matters to them. A great headline delivers fast value, sets expectations and builds trust. If your headline doesn’t make someone want to click, it’s time to rethink it. When people instantly understand the benefit, they’re more likely to act.

Take this example from a recent Accelity project we had the pleasure of creating: we created a HubSpot landing page for LERETA’s LERETA University campaign. The site is a learning hub where customers can master LERETAnet and streamline their real estate tax servicing operations. LERETA wanted to upgrade the experience to better reflect their current brand and create a more user-friendly experience. The headline? It focused on the ultimate benefit of the page, making it immediately clear what users would gain.

In a small amount of space, this hero section included:

• A clear headline focused on value
• A subhead qualifying what the offer is
• A CTA button to learn more
• A hero image

Engaging headlines capture attention like that—fast, focused, and benefit-driven.

Additional copy is concise and scannable

Try this: take 10 seconds to evaluate your landing page (known as a “blink test”). If your copy doesn’t demonstrate the value of the offer in this time, your website visitors are likely coming to that conclusion as well. 

Visitors won’t read every word—and they don’t need to. The goal is for them to understand the value of your offer with to-the-point bullet points, bolding, emojis (if they fit your brand) and whitespace to make the page easy to skim. Keep paragraphs short and focused. If your offer’s value isn’t obvious at a glance, your visitors will bounce.

Use visuals to support the message 

As my creative writing teachers always said, “Show, don’t tell.” Visuals can demonstrate the value of your product, service or resource and build credibility. When used well, they increase conversion rates by helping page visitors connect emotionally with your desired end goal. That connection can be the tipping point between someone clicking away and someone converting.

Remember: When adding images, make sure the resolution is clear. When adding videos, try to keep them to 30 seconds or less (shorter is better). Pair visuals with concise copy for maximum impact.

Right-size your form

The length of your form should match the value of your offer. A short, actionable checklist? Ask for just the basics. A deep-dive whitepaper or webinar? You’ve earned the right to request a bit more info.

We’ve found that shorter, clearer forms generally convert better. But context matters: forms targeted to specific audiences can justify more fields if the offer is worth it.

Keep an eye on your landing page conversion rates. If downloads are high, test by asking for additional information. If conversions are low, try shortening the form. It’s all about finding the balance between quality leads and a frictionless experience.

Make the CTA button unmissable 

Your CTA button shouldn’t just be visible—it should be irresistible. Guide your visitors’ eye toward a clear button that’s easy to click. On mobile, especially, make sure it’s tap-friendly. A hover effect can give users the confidence they’re clicking in the right spot.

Tips: button copy matters too. “Submit” feels cold and transactional. Instead, try action-oriented, benefit-focused phrases like “Get the guide,” “Claim my spot,” or “Start learning.” The more specific, the better. Personalized CTAs perform 202% better, a study of 330,000 CTAs over six months found that personalization, like showing different buttons to different audiences, dramatically improves conversion rates. 

If you’re using a platform like HubSpot, smart CTAs are a great way to implement this.

Keep content above the fold

Don’t bury the good stuff. All key information—your offer, your headline, your CTA—should be visible without scrolling. This gives visitors immediate clarity and minimizes friction. The faster someone understands your offer, the more likely they are to convert.

Scrolling delays decision-making. If a user has to dig to find value, they’re more likely to leave. Keep the essentials up top and easy to access.

When in doubt, test everything

Even with best practices in place, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Test headlines, button text, form fields and images. Small changes can make a big impact on conversion rates.

Want to turn more clicks into conversions?

Whether you’re optimizing an existing page or building from scratch, we’ve got your back. Let’s build something that converts.

When Accelity signs on a new client, our copy team has 6 weeks to sound like we’ve worked with them for years. That means we need to quickly understand the ins and outs of their business, industry, customers and communication style.

To make that happen, we follow a tight onboarding process that goes way beyond surface-level brand notes. We dig into buyer personas, conduct competitive research and SEO audits, and lead interactive workshops to uncover the voice, tone and brand story that makes each company unique.

This isn’t just helpful for us, it’s a valuable process for any business looking to tighten up their content strategy. Whether you’re B2B, B2B2C, B2G or B2NGO, aligning your brand’s voice and style across channels matters. 

Here’s a look at how we do it—and what you can borrow for your own brand.

Brand personality and voice

Not every brand can, or should, say things like, “Our software is so crazy good, you’ll totally save a ton of time!” Your personality should match your audience’s expectations and your company’s goals.

Here’s how some example brand traits listed above translate into a brand writing style:

• Expert = Confident, not boastful. Prioritize clarity and insights over buzzwords.
  
• Bold = Direct and decisive. Don’t hedge. Take a stance.
  
• Precise = Cut the fluff. Say only what needs to be said.
  
• Trusted = Cite credible sources and ground opinions in industry facts.
  
• Innovative = Avoid the status quo. Focus on what’s next.

We’re not just looking to write in your voice—we want to embody your perspective. That means looking at how your team naturally speaks, what your audience responds to, and what role your brand plays in the market. Do you educate? Challenge the status quo? Reassure customers with a sense of stability? We shape your voice around what makes your brand stand out.

We also review your existing materials—website copy, social media, one-pagers, email campaigns—to identify inconsistencies and opportunities. And we work with your team to close the gaps.

From traits to tone: building your brand style

Once we land on brand traits, we translate them into a brand style guide—something every Accelity client walks away with. This isn’t a dry rules document; it’s a living, breathing reference our team and yours can use to write like one voice, across every channel.

Your guide covers things like:

• Tone of voice by channel (e.g., confident on LinkedIn, helpful in email nurture)
• Sentence structure and word choice
• What to say… and what not to
• Guidelines for formatting, punctuation and emojis (yes, we have rules for emojis)

We also share examples of “good, better, best” writing for your brand, so internal teams can understand how to apply the guide in real life.

Here’s an example of an awesome brand style guide from Firefox that covers visual and written brand—something we create for our clients too!

This brand style shows up everywhere—from your website copy to your outbound emails to your product descriptions. And the more consistent your voice, the more memorable your brand becomes.

How we uncover your messaging

Some companies come to us with a full brand book, audience research and content goals already defined. Others are still figuring out their value proposition. Either way, we meet you where you are.

Through facilitated workshops and interviews, we help companies:

• Identify their brand archetype
• Clarify their brand story and positioning
• Define and prioritize value propositions
• Create content pillars that shape their strategy

These aren’t off-the-shelf exercises. They’re guided by what your business needs. A startup trying to gain traction has different messaging priorities than a growth-stage company expanding into a new market. We adapt the process accordingly.

And while the outcomes are strategic, the process is creative and collaborative. We believe your team should walk away not just with deliverables, but with clarity. Knowing who you are, how you talk about your work and why it matters.

We get personal

As part of marketing a brand, we often write on behalf of individuals within the companies we support. (Personal brands are a huge growth opportunity and help generate trust.) Founders, executives, and subject matter experts need to show up consistently across channels. And we help make that happen.

We use a similar voice and style process to write for individuals:

• We review past writing, interviews or LinkedIn posts.
• We conduct a short voice activity to define tone, topics and takeaways.
• We map out goals for each content type (thought leadership, recruiting, brand building, etc.).

And most importantly, we listen. What someone wants to sound like and how they actually sound can be two different things. We align those pieces to make sure personal content feels authentic and aligned with the larger brand.

Copy that grows with your company

Your brand will evolve—and your voice should, too. We create documentation and systems that scale with you, so no matter who writes your content next quarter (or next year), they’ll sound like part of the team.

When it all comes together, your brand voice becomes more than just a marketing tool. It becomes a signal of who you are, what you believe, and how you work. It builds trust before you ever hop on a sales call. And it sets you apart in a crowded market.

At Accelity, we build that voice from the ground up, then bring it to life with content that gets results. That’s because great copy isn’t about writing more… it’s about saying the right thing, the right way, every time.

👋 Reach out to us here if you need help aligning your brand with your message.

If you’ve ever tried to get the word out about your business, you know that running a marketing campaign is easier said than done. 

As much as we wish it were simple, a campaign is so much more than picking a topic, creating a few content pieces, and hitting “publish.” There’s nuance, strategy—and a lot of moving parts. 

Whether you’re launching a new product or building thought leadership, Accelity follows a proven process to make every campaign strategic, impactful, and results-driven.

(more…)

This blog was originally published in 2023 and has been updated in 2025 to reflect how we’re using AI in copywriting today. At Accelity, we’re always testing new tools to help us work smarter and better serve our clients.

When you think of using AI for marketing, content is probably the first thing that comes to mind. If students are writing essays with it, marketers must be using it too… right?

Yes and no. AI tools like ChatGPT can crank out a blog post in seconds, complete with keywords and a passable attempt at brand voice—but let’s be real, it still sounds like a robot. So while it’s not replacing your marketing team anytime soon, it is helping us write stronger, faster, and more creatively.

We asked our Strategic Copy Manager, Michelle Breen (hi, it’s me 👋), to share which tools are actually worth your time and where human creativity still reigns supreme. Here’s what she had to say about AI in content marketing. ⬇️

Tools our copy team is testing

We don’t just talk about AI—we experiment with it regularly. These are the tools we’ve been hands-on with lately, along with some quick takes on when and how we use them.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is still the most well-known AI writing tool. It’s flexible, fast, and—with the right prompt—can do everything from outlining a blog to planning your next vacation.

The paid version has been well worth the spend. I’ve been able to customize my chats to understand exactly how I prefer to write and what style I’m going for. Accelity’s recent rebrand was a breeze because I was able to upload our new brand guide, which included writing conventions, style and tone, and train ChatGPT to write in our brand voice. 

Google Gemini

Gemini is Google’s answer to ChatGPT: a generative artificial intelligence chatbot. Gemini is included with our Google Workspace membership, and it’s embedded within Google Docs. So while I write this, I can highlight a section of copy that I’m struggling with and ask for help rephrasing, shortening, elaborating or changing the tone. It’s not quite as robust as ChatGPT, but if the tool is already included in your Workspace, it’s great to test. 

GrammarlyGO

For years, Grammarly has been helping us tighten copy and triple-check for typos. The addition of generative AI features inside Grammarly Pro goes beyond grammar to rewrite, shorten, and shift tone based on your goals.

Perplexity

We haven’t used Perplexity as much yet, but it’s supposed to be the next big thing, even bigger than Google. We’ll see if that claim sticks. It’s on our list to try next!

If you’re curious about whether Perplexity or ChatGPT is the right tool for you, there are tons of comparison articles on the subject.

4 ways AI makes content marketing easier

AI can’t replace a great writer—but it’s a useful tool for getting started, moving faster, and exploring new angles.

1. Get unstuck with outlines

Staring at a blank screen is the worst. AI can create a solid content outline in seconds, giving you a running start and structure to build on.

Prompt: Write a high-level outline of a blog about writing a website that converts.

• Start with strategy: Know your audience and goals
• Nail your messaging hierarchy
• Write clear, compelling headlines
• Focus on benefits, not just features
• Use calls-to-action that inspire action
• Keep the copy scannable and easy to digest
• Build trust with social proof
• Optimize for search without sounding robotic
• Test, tweak, repeat: copywriting is never one-and-done

2. Say it differently (again and again)

Campaign messaging is often repetitive by design, but that doesn’t mean the copy has to be. AI helps shake up your phrasing without changing the message. This is especially helpful when testing variations for email and paid ads!

3. Tailor copy to different brand voices

Your marketing doesn’t have to be boring. With a little tweaking, AI can help adapt content for different tones and styles. Just keep in mind it still struggles with humor and nuance—your client’s voice will always need a human touch.

4. Brainstorm headlines, subject lines and microcopy

It’s easier to write 1,000 words than six perfect ones. AI tools are great for brainstorming short-form copy that grabs attention and includes the right keywords.

Prompt: Write 5 headlines for a blog about using generative AI in copywriting

1. How to use generative AI to write smarter, not lazier
2. The copywriter’s guide to working with—not against—AI
3. Generative AI won’t replace copywriters—but it will change the job
4. Exploring the role of generative AI in copywriting
5. Blending human creativity with AI: A modern approach to content creation

How NOT to use AI in copywriting

Let’s be clear: AI is a tool, not a replacement. 

If you’re thinking about overhauling your content process, keep these limitations in mind:

AI isn’t always up to date.

It can’t give you the latest on breaking news, industry trends, or even changes from the last few months. If you’re writing time-sensitive content, human research is non-negotiable.

It won’t generate unique ideas.

AI pulls from what’s already out there. It might help spark a new perspective, but it won’t create something truly original. That’s your job.

It lacks human nuance.

Marketing that resonates? It’s emotional. Sarcastic. Empathetic. Brand-savvy. AI can get you started, but people write the words that truly connect.

Where AI fits in your content strategy

Generative AI has come a long way, and it’s only getting better. While it won’t be taking over your copy team anytime soon, it’s already making our work sharper, faster, and more flexible. The key is knowing when to use it—and when to trust your gut instead.

Curious how we blend smart tools with human creativity to build bold, effective marketing? Let’s talk.

^ChatGPT wrote that. It’s pretty good! When I originally wrote this blog in 2023, the conclusion was way too long, spent too much time regurgitating what I said, and didn’t have the main takeaway I would’ve wanted to share. 

For more on using AI in your marketing strategy, check out Superpower Your Marketing Strategy with AI and Friend or Foe? Generative AI for Graphic Design.