AI Is Rewriting How Customers Choose Your Business

AI Is Rewriting How Customers Choose Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode Overview 94% of buyers now use AI before they ever land on a website. Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, joins John Jantsch to unpack what that means for the marketing hourglass, the framework John built over 20 years ago to map the customer journey through its seven stages: know, […]

AI Is Rewriting How Customers Choose Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Catch the Full Episode

Overview

(image) 94% of buyers now use AI before they ever land on a website. Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, joins John Jantsch to unpack what that means for the marketing hourglass, the framework John built over 20 years ago to map the customer journey through its seven stages: know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer.

The stages haven’t changed, but how buyers move through them has. Nay shares an example: an event organizer looking to book a speaker found her through ChatGPT, compared her against other speakers inside the same conversation, and arrived at the sales call already educated. That shift changes what businesses need to show up with online, from homepage structure and review strategy to how AI itself decides who gets recommended.

This one’s for business owners and marketers wondering why organic traffic feels different lately, and what to do about it.

Guest Bio

Sara Nay is CEO of Duct Tape Marketing. She joined the company as an intern in 2010, worked through nearly every function in the business, and took over as CEO in December 2024. She’s also co-author, with John Jantsch, of Unchanged: Breaking Free from the Broken Marketing Models.

Key Takeaways

• AI search often starts inside a normal Google search. Buyers reading AI-generated snippets are still counted as AI users, even if they never opened an LLM directly.
• The customer journey increasingly happens inside the AI conversation itself, not on your website. Buyers compare options, ask follow-up questions, and self-educate before ever reaching out.
• Homepages need to be restructured for what AI pulls from: FAQs, specific testimonial statistics instead of vague links, and described (not just displayed) credibility logos.
• Reviews matter more than ever. AI pulls trust signals from review sites and directory listings, not just from your own site.
• Authentic, unpolished content (team members, customer stories, unscripted voice) now builds more trust than overly produced content, because so much content already looks AI-generated.
• The back half of the hourglass, repeat business and referrals, is a growing opportunity as the front half gets more competitive and harder to control.

Great Moments

• [01:24] – Nay’s example: how a client found her through ChatGPT, and her takeaways
• [04:07] – Why showing up in AI recommendations still starts with the “know” stage of the hourglass
• [06:16] – Nay’s advice for businesses watching their SEO traffic disappear
• [07:14] – The homepage restructuring AI search demands: FAQs, specific stats, described logos
• [10:29] – Why authentic, slightly imperfect content now builds more trust than polished content
• [12:22] – Case study: $500 a month in ChatGPT ads led to an $18,000 sale with a shorter sales cycle

Memorable Quotes

• “Marketing is clearly changed if you want to look at platforms. But the thing that’s changing the most is the buyer journey.” — John Jantsch
• “AI is pul