Marketing attention is the scarce resource in 2026 Most small businesses aren’t under-marketing. They’re over-touching everything: a little SEO, a little social, a little email, a little “AI,” a little print, a little whatever their competitor posted this week. It looks like activity. It’s mostly noise. Here’s a useful filter for 2026: if a tactic… Continue reading Marketing Tactics Business Owners Can Safely Ignore in 2026
Month: January 2026
AI Search Visibility: Why Local Businesses Are Disappearing
If you’ve driven Highway 12 toward Lolo Pass in January, you know the moment. The sky and the road turn the same color. Trees blur. Mileposts vanish. When that happens, you stop looking for options. You look for one thing: a signal you trust. Search is moving in that direction. Over the last two decades,… Continue reading AI Search Visibility: Why Local Businesses Are Disappearing
Why Digital Marketing Fails Early
Why Digital Marketing Fails Early A few weeks back, I was walking through campaign data with a Montana-based client. Local service business. Solid offer. Decent spend. Their Facebook ads had stalled, and they were convinced something changed behind the scenes. “The algorithm’s just not showing our stuff,” they said. But the problem wasn’t the platform.… Continue reading Why Digital Marketing Fails Early
The Digital Inversion: Why Your Business is Vanishing from AI Search
What is AI Search Visibility? AI Search Visibility is the measure of how effectively Generative Engines (like ChatGPT, Google SGE, and Perplexity) can parse, understand, and recommend your business data to a user. Unlike traditional SEO which ranks links, AI Visibility ranks answers based on the structured confidence of your digital footprint. The Missoula Fog Effect If you’ve… Continue reading The Digital Inversion: Why Your Business is Vanishing from AI Search
Clear marketing decisions for Montana business owners
Clear marketing decisions for Montana business owners Walking across the Higgins Avenue Bridge on a winter morning, you’ve seen the fog thick enough to hide the Clark Fork below. You know the water is moving. You can hear it. You just can’t see where it’s going. That’s how most Montana business owners feel when they… Continue reading Clear marketing decisions for Montana business owners