Sometime in the last year, someone above you asked why your company doesn't show up in ChatGPT.
Maybe it was the CEO. Maybe it was a board member who typed in a question and saw a competitor's name in the answer.
Since then you've probably been pitched a GEO package or two. And nobody, including the people selling it, can tell you whether any of it will touch revenue.
I hear some version of this on almost every sales call. So I started The Narrative to share what we're seeing in our own client work, every week.
The short version
I once wrote a LinkedIn post calling GEO a scam. I still think most of what gets sold under that name is. Here's the kind of thing I mean:
Adding "official" to page titles because someone saw ChatGPT favor it
Rewriting every article into whatever format AI assistants seemed to like last month
Publishing hundreds of pages nobody will ever read, because a vendor said a machine would
Building pages and files that only a machine is supposed to read, like an llms.txt or a hidden 'AI instructions' page.
Everything underneath the hacks is what good marketers have always done: a clear point of view, content that proves you know what you're talking about, showing up where your buyers already pay attention, and research of your own that other people want to cite.
AEO/GEO is just good marketing for the AI era.
Done that way, it pays.
For example: we took a real estate brokerage's blog from 0 to 51 leads a month in under a year. In July, 29 of those leads converted, roughly $50K a month in new revenue for them.
I don't have every answer. Nobody does yet (and anyone who says otherwise is selling something). But we run this work every week for clients with real money on the line, and I'd rather share what we're learning than sit on it.
What you'll get
One essay every Wednesday at 9am ET, about 5 minutes long, written by me. Each one comes out of our work: a client result, a sales call, a test that flopped, or an argument I've been having with myself.
I'll tell you what worked, what it cost, and when the right answer is to spend your money somewhere else.
It's written for marketing leaders at companies where the sales cycle is long, the product is complicated, and legal has to sign off, especially in proptech, fintech, real estate, and finance. If you're an SEO looking for tactics, or you want a weekly roundup of AI news, there are better newsletters for you (and I'm happy to point you to a few).
Who's writing
I'm Matthew Proctor. I've worked in search for over 16 years. I taught myself SEO while working the front desk at a hotel in Cambridge, building little affiliate sites at night.
Since then I've been on every side of the table: freelance writer, a small agency selling to car and boat dealers, consulting for Fortune 500’s, building out enterprise software, and 6 years in-house as employee #27 at a proptech startup, where I built the content and SEO program and lead a Content team of about 30.
The whole time, my work got judged one way:
Nothing matters if it isn't growing the business.
In 2023 I started Narrative Bent, a boutique agency that does SEO, AI search, and content-led PR. Most of our clients are in real estate and finance.
Start here
If you're new, these are the 4 issues I'd read first.
A great metric and a terrible target. AI mentions fell at every client we track this year, nobody's business got hurt, and here's what I show a board instead.
I told a prospect to spend his first $5K somewhere else. Content marketing works like a 401(k), and most companies cash out at month 6.
Your proprietary data is in your call recordings. Most B2B brands have more original data than they think.
The survey that kept earning press after we forgot about it. Most PR gets judged in the first 60 days, and the best reports keep working for years.
One favor
Hit reply and tell me how the ChatGPT question is playing out at your company. The 3 sticking points I hear most are getting budget, proving it worked, and struggling to get projects for it off the ground.
I read every reply, and the best questions turn into future issues (but I'll never use your name without asking).
Cheers,
Matthew
