Here's the website version of Propllr's January 2026 newsletter. Want to get these babies in your inbox? Give us your email! (You'll get a nice little pop-up form when you try to x out of this page.)
As I write this, snow is on the ground and ICE is on the loose. Yes, this is a newsletter about B2B comms, but let’s get serious: what's happening right now is not okay. If you want to do something useful but you’re not sure where to start, shoot me an email (brenna [at] propllr.com). I’m a few steps along and I might be able to help.
Sending you all love because gosh darn we need it right now.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
A golden age for copywriters?
A recent piece in Search Engine Land makes the bold claim that, thanks to the rise of AI, we’re entering a golden age for copywriters.
His argument goes like this: now that informational content can be created with the click of a button, there's more value than ever in crafting words that persuade rather than inform. Information is out; positioning and persuasion are in.
That sentiment is backed by a recent Axios piece that cites a Workday study on AI’s impact on productivity. A key takeaway: AI is best for “low-level commodity writing.”
So what does all this mean for B2B tech companies? A few things.
First, don’t kid yourself about AI’s writing abilities. Yes, it can write plausible and grammatically perfect prose. But if you want words that persuade, convert, convince, delight – well, you still need humans.
Second, now is a great time to double down on zero-click marketing efforts. Yes, it’s still smart to pay attention to how your website is performing in search. But if that’s the only or even primary way you’re measuring success, you’re in for a painful 2026.
Increasingly, we get information without visiting third-party websites. Think: AI overviews, LLM responses, threads and carousels on social media.
Algorithms have forced this behavior on us by de-prioritizing anything that takes us off a platform. So it’s not a matter of making your content “good enough” to get a click. We’re talking about a foundational shift in how people use the internet.
If you’re not yet strategizing ways to appear and influence prospects on platforms that aren’t your website (think: LLM results, social media feeds, email inboxes), now is a great time to start.
Speaking of which…
Ranking for LLMs vs. SEO: 5 best practices
The great people at SparkToro partnered with Michael King of iPullRank last week for a webinar on how to approach LLM visibility differently than search visibility. It’s definitely worth a watch (catch the one-hour replay here).
First, the context: optimizing content to appear in LLMs is not “just SEO.” It’s not entirely different (phew) but it’s not exactly the same.
One thing that fascinates me, for example: LLMs are still very manipulable.
Certain on-page behaviors that haven’t worked for SEO for like 20 years are currently effective at helping boost your website’s visibility in LLMs. These include…
- Meta descriptions (write descriptions that answer the question your page answers).
- URLs (more detailed is better, which is kind of the opposite of SEO).
- Recent publish dates.
- Extractable data (think: tables, lists, interactive graphs).
- “Chunked” content (briefly: one idea per paragraph; get into the weeds here).
My take is that, because none of these things has to negatively impact the human experience (and some may positively impact it), they’re all worth doing if your audience uses LLMs.
The other important thing to consider, though, is that everything about LLMs evolves fast. What works today may not work in six months.
(Heck, given the new copyright study that just dropped, none of this might be relevant at all in six months – wheeee.)
So what's a busy marketer to do? Let’s start a new section to deal with takeaways!
Stay informed. Avoid gimmicks. Invest in the long term.
As the saying goes, the best-laid schemes of mice and men, etc. etc.
This is crucial to remember when doing comms in the digital age and especially in the age of AI.
You may have a strategy and a plan. But something will inevitably change as you’re carrying it out. And you’ll have to decide whether to stay the course or adapt.
The good news is, there are certain things that work in comms that have worked forever and will continue to work forever:
- Have a clear goal.
- Have a clear message.
- Communicate that message where your audience is in a way that resonates with them to get closer to your goal.
- Repeat and adapt as necessary.
All the optimization in the world can’t make up for an unclear message. Similarly, the world’s best ebook could easily rot on a server somewhere if it’s not marketed effectively.
This work is a balancing act. I hope this newsletter is helping you keep your center of gravity.
