‘Brain engine optimisation’ is the new search engine optimisation
Brands – both B2B and B2C – should focus less on keywords and more on making themselves memorable at the point of the buying decision.
“The most important search engine is still the one in our minds.”
That quote – from Jon Bradshaw, founder of the consultancy Brand Traction – is the most profoundly pithy idea we’ve heard in a long time.
What exactly does it mean?
Well, imagine you’re a tourist in Dublin.
You’re inside Mulligans, a fabled 168-year-old pub on Poolbeg Street.
A cheery Irish barman ambles over.
“What’ll you have to drink?” he asks.
So, how do you decide what to order? Do you whip out your iPhone and type ‘What drink should I get in a pub in Dublin?’ into the search box?
Of course not.
You don’t search Google – you search your brain.
And since humans are ‘cognitive misers’, you default to simple and fast searches like ‘drink, pub, Dublin’. Your brain retrieves a short-list of options from its memory banks. And then, to save yourself time and energy, your brain usually picks the most obvious choice.
Guinness.
Today, marketers invest billions of dollars in search engine optimisation. We want our brands to come to mind easily when buyers enter the market. We’ve got the right objective, but we’re optimising for the wrong search engine. The right search engine is the one in your head.
Which is why the real focus for marketers should be brain engine optimisation (BEO).
That’s right – BEO is the new SEO.
But how do you optimise for search results inside a buyer’s brain?
We’re not smart enough to answer that question, but we know someone who is: Professor Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, one of the greatest marketing thinkers of our time.
Our team at the B2B Institute published new research from Romaniuk that we believe could revolutionise the way B2B marketing works. The paper explains how B2B marketers can grow their businesses through brain engine optimisation.
Read full article on Marketing Week.
