You're Not a Marketing Expert: What You Need to Know

## Wearing All the Hats (But Not This One)

As a small business owner in Canada, you probably wear all the hats – CEO, salesperson, accountant, even tech support. It's tempting to think you can wear the marketing expert hat too. After all, who knows your business better than you? But modern marketing has become incredibly complex. In fact, nearly half of business owners handle their marketing entirely on their own, yet 46% of small business owners aren't even sure if their marketing is working. Sound familiar? If you're trying to do everything yourself, it's time for a reality check: effective marketing today requires specialized knowledge, up-to-date strategies, and more time than your lunch break can cover.

## The New SEO Landscape: "Search Everything" Optimization

Digital marketing isn't what it used to be. Gone are the days when Search Engine Optimization (SEO) just meant tweaking your website to rank on Google. We've entered the age of "Search Everything Optimization" – ensuring your brand is discoverable everywhere people might search for solutions. In other words, SEO is no longer just about Google at all. Consumers now find answers on YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, ChatGPT, Amazon, and dozens of other platforms – not just on a Google results page. Consider this: 40% of Gen Z users prefer searching on TikTok over Google, and around 20% of mobile searches are voice queries ("Hey Siri...").

What does this mean for you? It means your customers' eyes and ears are everywhere. They might be searching for a product recommendation on TikTok or asking a voice assistant for local services. "Search Everything Optimization" (SEOx) is about making sure your business shows up wherever people are looking. That could be Google or Bing, but it's also TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Amazon, Google Maps, voice assistants, and even AI chatbots like ChatGPT. If your marketing strategy focuses on only one channel (say, just your website or a Facebook page), you're invisible to a huge chunk of potential customers. As marketing guru Neil Patel puts it, the modern search landscape is fractured – you have to meet your audience on whatever platform they use to seek information. The new SEO means being discoverable everywhere.

## AI Overviews and the Rise of Zero-Click Searches

Here's a wake-up call: getting that coveted #1 spot on Google doesn't guarantee traffic like it used to. With the rise of AI-driven search results and rich snippets, users can get instant answers without clicking through to any website. Nearly two-thirds of Google searches now end without any click to an external site. Google's own info boxes, AI-generated summaries, and featured snippets often give people the information they need at a glance. If Google's new AI-powered summary (known as an AI Overview) appears for a query, the top organic result might snag only about 3% of the clicks – a shockingly small share.

In short, search engines are becoming answer engines. Users ask a question and get their answer right on the search page or via a voice assistant, with zero incentive to visit your website. Many businesses are seeing their organic web traffic decline as a result. Some marketers report 20–40% drops in organic clicks on informational content since AI answers rolled out. And despite search volumes increasing (people are actually searching more), clicks to websites are flat or falling – the gap between searches and site visits is widening. This "zero-click" world isn't coming; it's already here. For a do-it-yourself marketer, it means the old playbook of chasing Google rankings is no longer enough. You have to adapt so your business still gets seen. That might involve optimizing for how you appear in those AI summaries and answer boxes, not just the "10 blue links" of yesteryear.

## Brand Visibility and Trust Matter More Than Ever

With search algorithms now driven by AI and user intent, credibility is king. If you're not a marketing expert, you might not realize just how crucial building a strong brand has become. The reason? AI-driven search results heavily favor trusted, authoritative sources. One analysis found that a whopping 61% of AI-generated search answers come from reputable editorial sources. In plain English: what others are saying about your business (news articles, reviews, authoritative blogs) can influence whether you show up in an AI summary or not. Your brand's online reputation and visibility across the web now directly affect your discoverability. Simply put, credibility is the new SEO currency. If an AI summary doesn't deem your content or brand worthy, you won't be included in that coveted answer box.

This is why brand visibility and trust are more important than ever. It's not enough to rank for some keywords; you need people (and algorithms) to recognize your brand as a reliable source. The good news is that strong brands are somewhat insulated from the AI upheaval. For example, Google's AI overviews rarely trigger for branded queries – only about 4.8% of searches for specific brands even show an AI summary, and when they do, those brands often gain clicks rather than lose them. In contrast, generic searches (like "best budget laptop") are where clicks plummet. The takeaway? If customers are actively searching for your business by name, you have a huge advantage. Building that kind of brand recognition requires consistent marketing and excellent customer experience, but it pays off by making you visible even as algorithms change. Focus on establishing trust: encourage positive reviews, get mentioned by industry publications, and create quality content that others cite. In the AI era, your reputation precedes you – literally.

## The Multi-Channel Challenge (and the Attribution Puzzle)

Marketing today isn't a one-lane road – it's a sprawling highway with multiple lanes that all lead to your business (hopefully). Between your website, social media, email newsletters, online ads, webinars, referrals, and more, customers can discover and interact with your brand in countless ways. An individual might see your witty TikTok video, then Google your product, then read a blog review, then finally click a retargeting ad to buy. This is the norm now: a winding, multi-touch customer journey.

For a business owner doing it all, this multi-channel reality is overwhelming. Each channel has its own best practices and algorithms. Even more challenging is figuring out what's actually working – this is where the term "multi-channel attribution" comes in. Multi-channel attribution is the method of evaluating the impact of various marketing touchpoints across a customer's journey. It tries to answer the question: which of the many interactions (Facebook ad, email newsletter, Google search, etc.) contributed to that final sale? Unlike old-school models that credit just the first or last click, multi-channel (or multi-touch) attribution gives you a holistic view of how all the pieces fit together.

Why should you care? Because if you're pouring effort into, say, Instagram posts and Google Ads, you need to know which one (or what combination) actually drives sales. Many small business owners lack the tools or time to track this properly. The result: you might be flying blind, investing in marketing tactics without knowing their ROI. That's a common plight – one survey found nearly half of owners aren't sure whether their marketing strategies are effective. Effective marketing today means not only being present on multiple channels, but also measuring and adjusting across those channels. It's a strategic juggling act that professional marketers and agencies spend their careers refining. Without that expertise, it's easy to misallocate your precious marketing time and budget.

## DIY Marketing: Why It Falls Short

Let's call it like it is: trying to do all your marketing solo (on top of running your business) often leads to subpar results. It's not because you're not smart or capable – it's because marketing has become a specialized, fast-moving field. The truth is, what worked 5 or 10 years ago may hurt you now. Remember those "SEO hacks" you read about in a 2015 blog post? Many of the old tricks – stuffing your pages with keywords, buying sketchy backlinks, or plastering your site with every possible search term – are not just obsolete, they're counterproductive today. Search algorithms (Google's especially) have evolved to weed out spammy, over-optimized content. Focus now is on E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness. Google wants to see quality content that truly helps users, written by people who know their stuff, and endorsed by others via genuine links or mentions. If you're winging it on marketing, you might inadvertently be using outdated tactics that actually get your site penalized or buried.

Then there's the matter of staying up-to-date. The digital marketing landscape can change overnight – a new social platform emerges, Google drops an algorithm update, privacy changes make your ad targeting less effective, AI tools disrupt how people find information (as we discussed above). Professional marketers live and breathe these trends. They're constantly learning and adapting. For a busy entrepreneur, it's nearly impossible to keep pace. You have a company to run, employees to manage, clients to serve – and you're supposed to master the intricacies of Google Analytics, SEO schema markup, Facebook Ads targeting, TikTok trends, email segmentation, and AI-driven search results? That's asking a lot. No wonder so many owner-driven marketing efforts end up being inconsistent ("I post on social media... when I have time") or based on guesswork. Doing a bit of everything isn't the same as executing a coherent strategy.

## Focus on What You Do Best (and Get Help for the Rest)

Here's the takeaway: it's okay not to be a marketing expert. Admitting that is freeing, because it allows you to focus on what you do best – whether that's designing products, serving customers, or innovating in your industry – and let marketing specialists do what they do best. A great CEO knows how to delegate. You wouldn't try to be your own lawyer or personally code your company's software (at least, not if you want it done right), so why insist on DIY for marketing, especially in such a rapidly evolving environment?

This doesn't necessarily mean you must hire a huge agency or blow your budget on campaigns you don't understand. It can start with educating yourself just enough to make informed decisions. Now that you know about the "Search Everything" approach, you can ask smarter questions – like how to improve your visibility on the platforms your customers frequent, or how to ensure your content is optimized for the new AI-driven search results. It could mean consulting with a marketing expert who can audit what you've been doing and point out gaps. It might involve using tools or freelancers to handle things that have been on your back burner (when was the last time your website's SEO was audited? Do you have an email list you're nurturing, or is it gathering dust?).

The key is strategy and consistency. A focused marketing strategy – executed by people with the right expertise – will outperform scattershot DIY efforts every time. It will amplify your brand visibility, ensure you're present across channels in a cohesive way, and save you a lot of trial-and-error money. Most importantly, it frees you up to concentrate on running your business with the peace of mind that your marketing engine is running in the background (or, often, very visibly in the foreground bringing in leads!).

Bottom line: You're a capable business owner, but you don't have to be (and realistically can't be) an expert in every field. Marketing in 2025 is a different beast – one that thrives on specialized knowledge, creativity, and constant adaptation. By acknowledging "I'm not a marketing expert" and then partnering with those who are, you're not admitting defeat; you're positioning your business for smarter growth. In a landscape where Search Everything Optimization is the new norm and AI is rewriting the rules, getting the right help isn't just wise – it's essential to make sure your business isn't left invisible. Focus on what you do best, bring in expertise for what you don't, and you'll set yourself up to thrive in this dynamic, digital-first marketplace.