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2027 Marketing Trends for Small Businesses: AI, Trust & Content Overload · Growing a Deeply Rooted Business: Launches, Funnels & Email Marketing with Intention

• 0:00
  Rachel: I cannot even believe that 2027 is creeping up around this corner right now.
• 0:05
  Rachel: I think it's wild to sit here that we're about to start our annual planning, and I think we're gonna pause on annual planning talks and really get into some of the trends and things that we're seeing happening in
• 0:19
  Rachel: the industry right now.
• 0:21
  Rachel: Because I think what you're gonna see is two conflicting pieces of advice, because we're living in a world of AI where the possibilities are endless.
• 0:30
  Rachel: So you may have one camp saying, do more, do more, do more," and you may have another camp that is saying, "Actually, just do it like this, and maybe this is your secret sauce."
• 0:40
  Rachel: So today we're going to be talking through some of the trends in the industry that might make you think about planning a little bit differently
• 0:49
  Jess: Yeah, and let's be real today's marketing landscape is probably one of the roughest, toughest that I have seen since I have been an online business owner.
• 0:59
  Jess: Things are crazy.
• 1:00
  Jess: The world is crazy.
• 1:02
  Jess: It's a crazy time, so today we're gonna be talking about how do we build trust in this world where trust has been just eroded by every single facet of the universe?
• 1:12
  Jess: How do you get found in a world that has become the noisiest, loudest, most aggravating thing?
• 1:19
  Jess: I don't even open my social media that much anymore.
• 1:22
  Rachel: And then also I'm gonna add in a caveat there, how to market to people who, if you're like me or Jess, probably have a little bit of a dysregulated nervous system from everything that's going on in the world.
• 1:34
  Rachel: So how do you interject yourself in a way that is trustworthy, builds your relationship, while also considering the many, many factors at play here?
• 1:45
  Rachel: And I think this is a much needed conversation when it comes to marketing, when it comes to being a business owner and all of that.
• 1:51
  Rachel: So we're gonna be breaking down some of the marketing shifts that we're seeing and really just dive into, our honest opinion on all of them
• 1:58
  Jess: But before we get into it, welcome back to another episode of Growing a Deeply Rooted Business, the show for women building businesses that support their lives instead of swallowing them.
• 2:08
  Jess: I'm Jess, your sustainable systems and growth strategist, and I am here with our marketing ecosystem gardener, green thumb extraordinaire.
• 2:18
  Jess: This is gonna be just one part of our 2027 trends outlook.
• 2:23
  Jess: We're gonna bring you not only what we're seeing, but how to implement and what things to keep in mind as you're figuring out what your plan is for 2027.
• 2:32
  Jess: But before we get into it, I'm gonna do a quick energy check, because like we said, it is a little cray-cray out in the world right here.
• 2:38
  Jess: So I just want you to take a deep inhale And release
• 2:46
  Rachel: Oh.
• 2:47
  Jess: The bullshit.
• 2:48
  Rachel: episode
• 2:51
  Jess: Now we're explicit.
• 2:53
  Jess: Now we're explicit, and whatever.
• 2:55
  Jess: Okay, here we go.
• 2:56
  Jess: So let's kinda get our three shifts that are happening.
• 3:00
  Jess: Our first shift is AI robotic slop is everywhere, so human expertise is going to matter so much More.
• 3:12
  Jess: And we're not saying you can't use AI, but we are saying there is a good way to use AI, and there is a really gross, sloppy way to use AI
• 3:23
  Rachel: Yeah, and I think, at this point, information is available to everybody at their tip of their fingers.
• 3:29
  Rachel: They can generate a polished response and come off as the actual expert in some way.
• 3:38
  Rachel: And so when we think about it, the advantage that we have now as true actual experts in our space is the competitive advantage that I think people are actually looking for, because that trust, that layer of, do they
• 3:56
  Rachel: actually know what they're talking about, or are they just really good at reading a script that was generated for them to post on the internet is the filter of what people are trying to decipher at this point.
• 4:08
  Rachel: And I think a lot of the things that we're seeing, like in customer behavior, consumer behavior surveys, is that AI-generated content has impacted the buyer behavior, the buying decisions that people are making because there are so many people
• 4:25
  Rachel: that do not trust what they see on the internet, as they should, now have created a delay in their buying behavior because they're like, "Whoa, what is real and what is not real?"
• 4:39
  Rachel: And I think that that's an accurate and very valid thing that we're seeing in the online space now.
• 4:45
  Jess: Yes, we've got some stats for you, 'cause we know we are numbers girlies.
• 4:48
  Jess: So Gartner's May through June 2026 survey of US consumers found that 57% said that AI content made them less trusting of a brand and their messaging, and 43% said they relied on people's, other people's expert experience and recommendations
• 5:08
  Jess: because AI has become so prevalent.
• 5:11
  Jess: So what that is telling me, it is not what you say, it is about what your customers say and the results that you can get for them.
• 5:21
  Rachel: Yeah, I actually saw this really fascinating video on TikTok where it was talking about the current space of marketing.
• 5:29
  Rachel: And, when you think of a traditional marketing funnel, and you think you have attract, consideration, conversion, and kind of that pathway.
• 5:36
  Rachel: The assumption is if you get somebody at the top of your funnel, and you have all of the right pieces to push them down, the reality is, is that you have these influencer campaigns that somebody's brother's cousin, and
• 5:50
  Rachel: maybe not traditional influencers in the sense that somebody's paid this.
• 5:54
  Rachel: But somebody has experienced this product, has told a friend, has told a sister, and then that person has then jumped to consideration before you're attract.
• 6:05
  Rachel: So they are making decisions based off of your business and your product before they've even gotten to your attract content.
• 6:14
  Rachel: So the jumping around of funnels is something that, as business owners, we should be planning for in our business, because it's just the current state of how people are experiencing and making buying decisions right now.
• 6:30
  Jess: Yeah, and I mean, if we think back to 2020, everything was tips.
• 6:34
  Jess: Five tips, five meal plans, whatever.
• 6:36
  Jess: All these things, and people don't need tips.
• 6:38
  Jess: They don't need meal plans.
• 6:39
  Jess: They don't need information.
• 6:40
  Jess: Right now, I'm currently redoing a lot of my clients' funnels that were working in the past because now what we need to show is not a tip.
• 6:49
  Jess: We need to show how your thought process is.
• 6:52
  Jess: What you considered, why you chose that certain situation, why it fit that certain situation.
• 6:59
  Jess: Because if people they want cookie cutter, if they want generic advice, they can go to AI.
• 7:04
  Jess: So if you want them to hire you for anything specific, it's really important that they understand your thought process, they understand your way of thinking and how you approach things.
• 7:16
  Jess: So making sure that we're including lots of testimonials in our marketing and lots of specific case studies where we're talking about a starting point, an action, a result, why it works now.
• 7:27
  Jess: Not implying that this result is, like...
• 7:30
  Jess: we just used to say, "I made my client a million dollars on the launch."
• 7:32
  Jess: Yeah, great, but, how the F did you do it?
• 7:34
  Jess: Because we need to know because we don't trust you.
• 7:36
  Jess: We need to know that you actually have the thinking power to do this, and I'm not gonna hire you and you're gonna plug my whole launch strategy into Claude and let him build it for you, because I could
• 7:45
  Jess: do that myself.
• 7:46
  Rachel: Yeah.
• 7:46
  Rachel: Exactly.
• 7:47
  Rachel: And I think that the most beautiful shift that we're seeing going into 2027 is that now there was a gap in, you know, I'm using AI, everybody's telling me to use AI, and my output and my capacity to
• 8:00
  Rachel: do more is just accelerated.
• 8:02
  Rachel: And so when you hear this type of advice being like, "Well, it's really creating distrust in your audience," the flip side is that you can use AI in your business to still elevate execution and streamlining processes and improving
• 8:19
  Rachel: thought leadership between just you and your business.
• 8:23
  Rachel: I think the most beautiful thing now is that, and at least what I'm doing in my business, is creating more streamlined processes using AI assistance, using AI, like Meeting Miles, the things that we've created in our own business
• 8:38
  Rachel: to give me more time to think and find my voice and to use my voice more authentically when in turn, people are outsourcing their voice to AI.
• 8:49
  Rachel: And I think that's the shift that we're gonna start to see is that it's gonna probably be used the right way now.
• 8:55
  Rachel: We're gonna probably see more people put it in the back end of their business, in the weeds of their business, where it belongs, and really reclaim their voice from all of this AI sloppy crap that's been out on
• 9:10
  Rachel: the internet and all of that.
• 9:11
  Jess: Okay, marketing trend number two, getting found is having multiple doors into your world just because all of the platforms are so loud and because we have AI and its ability to help us repurpose human first content across multiple
• 9:27
  Jess: different platforms, really leaning into all the places that your next client might find you.
• 9:33
  Jess: Yes, they may find you through a referral, they may find you through social media, but we know we don't wanna put all our social media eggs in a basket, because they turn things on, off, switch algorithms, all of
• 9:44
  Jess: that.
• 9:44
  Jess: It may be a Google question, it may be an AI answer.
• 9:49
  Jess: So how can you expand your reach to cast that wide net, but still give them a clear next step?
• 9:56
  Jess: If that next step can have any sort of human aspect in it, no, you don't have to talk to every lead depending on your price point, but I found that video funnels are doing so much better, or funnels
• 10:07
  Jess: that integrate video are working so much better just because of that trust and because AI can type up a PDF like no matter what.
• 10:13
  Rachel: Yeah, and I think multi-door aspect of this probably is gonna feel overwhelming as a business owner if you're sitting there thinking, "Why are you telling me to do more?"
• 10:24
  Rachel: But we still stand behind 10 toes down on our content waterfall system, where you have your hero anchor that then can get repurposed.
• 10:35
  Rachel: It's what we do with this, podcast.
• 10:37
  Rachel: It's how we have so much traffic to our website, because we have utilized systems to take what we're talking about, flip it into search engine optimized and we try to make it work harder versus having to work harder
• 10:53
  Rachel: on our end 20 different times for a content piece to have a specific lifeline.
• 10:59
  Rachel: So when you think about this, it truly is a process problem.
• 11:03
  Rachel: You have to re-engineer your process so that if you are gonna say, "I'm committing to a YouTube channel," that YouTube channel has a pulse, and then it separates out into a blog that's then search optimized for AIO.
• 11:17
  Rachel: It's a reel, a carousel, and all of those things that it's your one effort that's quality, hardcore driven, that's your energy, and then it's dropped out across the board.
• 11:29
  Rachel: So I think it's just a process flip that a lot of people are gonna have to see if they really wanna take advantage of the things that are working but also not burn themselves out from a content perspective.
• 11:41
  Jess: Yeah, and if you need a little help with this, we have a zillion episodes probably on content waterfall system and our content creation process, and how we turn this one podcast into 60 pieces of content that goes to
• 11:52
  Jess: seven different marketing channels every week in under four hours.
• 11:55
  Jess: You can learn more on our website or get our app, Content Sprout, shameless plug that we have trained to do, this for us.
• 12:04
  Jess: All right, so let's move into trend number three.
• 12:06
  Rachel: So trend number three is something that I think we're just gonna push forward, 'cause I'm seeing this, that is a necessary skill for business owners across all of my business community.
• 12:19
  Rachel: Jess and I, we're doubling down.
• 12:21
  Rachel: This is probably gonna be my word of the year is going to be agile, maybe flexible.
• 12:27
  Rachel: But I think that when it comes to understanding the last three years back when people were posting B-roll reels, and they were popping off, and people really leaned into that.
• 12:39
  Rachel: And now the YAP challenge came out, and everybody's really leaning into yapping.
• 12:44
  Rachel: And so I really think that when it comes to planning your 2027, making sure that you have a level of agile, a level of flexible, a level of understanding that things will change.
• 12:59
  Rachel: And I know that some people have an issue with, like, "I will never jump on the trend.
• 13:04
  Rachel: It will always swing back to whatever I'm doing."
• 13:07
  Rachel: But I think if we want to work smarter and not harder, sometimes putting a foot on the trend train still helps us, and it allows us to understand that attention does lean certain ways sometimes.
• 13:22
  Rachel: Sometimes I'm like, if you put a B-roll reel in front of me right now and tell me to go read the caption or try to hook me with your reel, i'm immediately scrolling away.
• 13:31
  Rachel: I don't care how valuable that was.
• 13:34
  Rachel: Will I sit down and listen to a YAP video?
• 13:36
  Rachel: 100%.
• 13:38
  Rachel: So I think you just have to adjust in the way that your current audience is behaving and not be stubborn in that sense.
• 13:46
  Rachel: And it's a message to myself as well.
• 13:49
  Jess: Yeah, and I mean, I think you really have to think of the times.
• 13:52
  Jess: Like, 2020, everyone had so much time on their hands, so these digital marketing events or live workshops that were two to three hours, or even bootcamp days did great because nobody had anything else to do.
• 14:06
  Jess: Of course they're gonna sit over here and come to the computer.
• 14:10
  Jess: But now we're seeing that, it's getting harder and harder to fill up those virtual rooms, so we're shifting to smaller bite size VSLs where we're still delivering that information.
• 14:21
  Jess: So I think my plan for 2027, is to plan what I want to sell, but be very, very open and aware before my, put my head down to do that thing of what is happening right now and where
• 14:35
  Jess: is my particular customer at, and putting myself into their shoes and how they're feeling.
• 14:41
  Jess: I actually just had this conversation with my VA, or I'm training her to do some marketing, and she had suggested a workshop and those are working right now.
• 14:50
  Jess: They are working right now.
• 14:52
  Jess: I would not implement a workshop into my particular agency business though because I am going after companies that are in the millions, three to five million.
• 15:02
  Jess: That owner does not have time to sit there and come to my workshop.
• 15:05
  Jess: They wanna just know, do you know what you're talking about?
• 15:07
  Jess: Can you get me these results, and are you cool?
• 15:10
  Jess: You need to be meeting your client where they're at and be super hyper aware of what they are going through and, the time they have, and even, the money or, what would be their objections, not overall.
• 15:21
  Jess: Sometimes we write these objections, "These are my client's objections."
• 15:23
  Jess: They change based on the time.
• 15:25
  Jess: So, to, go back and revisit your marketing and, what is working and what is not.
• 15:30
  Jess: I had a client the other day, we're redoing her quiz funnel, and she was like, Yeah, we're gonna redo this.
• 15:35
  Jess: It's gonna work, and we're never gonna have to touch it again."
• 15:37
  Jess: I'm like, we're gonna have to touch it again."
• 15:39
  Jess: That's just how the cookie crumbles...
• 15:40
  Jess: I love all my little analogies today.
• 15:42
  Rachel: I know.
• 15:44
  Rachel: Man, maybe we should record on Tuesdays more often.
• 15:48
  Rachel: Okay, so all of these shifts I think are really fun to just let marinate.
• 15:53
  Rachel: I think that's gonna be my main call to action for this is, when you're deciding what you want 2027 to look like for you...
• 16:00
  Rachel: I think that's really important, too, is that when you're coming into a plan, you really do wanna be excited, and you want to have a certain energy to it.
• 16:09
  Rachel: So think about, what's the stuff that you're seeing in your specific industry.
• 16:14
  Rachel: If you're a dietician or if you're in the health space or if you're service providers.
• 16:18
  Rachel: However you operate, there are things happening in your industry that I think right now is the right time to just sit there and try to observe and try to decide what is coming forward with you into the next
• 16:33
  Rachel: year.
• 16:34
  Rachel: Gonna recap a little bit of what we've gone through in this episode, because I do think it's super important.
• 16:39
  Rachel: The trust is probably...
• 16:42
  Rachel: Like, we stand 10 toes down on the fact that we are still in a trust economy.
• 16:46
  Rachel: You have to prioritize building trust and really, really making sure that you are not taking shortcuts that deteriorate those elements of trust that you have built up.
• 16:59
  Rachel: Making sure that you are working smarter and not harder when it comes to your Content, when we all said, "Oh, I didn't become a business owner to become a content creator," It's unfortunately how the world is right now.
• 17:11
  Rachel: So when you are sitting there and you want to make sure that you're putting your best effort in, but not having to become a content creator, really look at the process at how you're doing it and say, "Okay,
• 17:23
  Rachel: how do I make this one piece that I'm gonna put my whole heart into stretch so that I don't have to do this 10 different times?"
• 17:32
  Rachel: And then lastly is just understanding that a level of agility, a level of being flexible with your plan is going to be necessary.
• 17:42
  Rachel: And sometimes the path to easier attention gaining or growth comes with putting a toe on the trend train and making sure that you're still staying authentic to yourself, but you can lean into what's working to make your life
• 17:58
  Rachel: just a little bit easier.
• 18:00
  Jess: So if you enjoyed this episode today, make sure you send it to a business bestie, you know the one who is really not getting the sales right now because maybe some of these points are gonna help her and
• 18:12
  Jess: be the unlock, so send this to her.
• 18:15
  Jess: If you would like help, we do have a free guide called Off the Content Treadmill: Creating Content that Compounds.
• 18:21
  Jess: We also have an app we built called Content Sprout.
• 18:24
  Jess: That's how we turn this one piece of a podcast episode into 50 to 60 different pieces of content.
• 18:31
  Jess: And then tell us, we want your feedback, what are some of the marketing trends or what are some of the issues or the hurdles or the hesitations that you're facing in this current climate?
• 18:40
  Jess: Let us know on Instagram.
• 18:41
  Jess: We love to chat and nerd out about these things.
• 18:43
  Jess: Next week we're gonna be continuing this trends series, where we're going behind the scenes, the trends that are happening, operational-wise with AI and automations.
• 18:53
  Jess: And strategies and tools that help you do more for the sake of doing more and sounding like a robot, and then which ones, actually help you get stuff done.
• 19:01
  Jess: But until next week, we are
• 19:04
  Rachel: Rooting for