The Growth Levers Marketers Should Be Pulling Now

Why AEO, events, and positioning matter more as AI changes how buyers discover and evaluate companies.

The three growth levers marketers should prioritize now are AEO, events, and positioning. AEO helps companies get discovered, positioning helps buyers understand why they are different, and events create the trust and relationships that AI cannot replicate.

Marketing is moving in two directions at once.

On one side, AI is making discovery faster and more efficient. Buyers can now use ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and other tools to research companies, compare options, and narrow a shortlist before they ever talk to sales. That makes Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, increasingly important because companies need to be easy for AI systems to understand and surface.

At the same time, the parts of marketing that are hardest to automate are becoming more valuable. Relationships still matter. Events still matter. Trust still matters. In many ways, they matter more because so much of the rest of marketing can now be scaled with AI.

That is why I keep coming back to three growth levers: AEO, events, and strong messaging and positioning. They are very different, but together they cover the full buyer journey from discovery to understanding to trust.

AEO Is Becoming Part of the Core Marketing Mix Growth Levers

For years, SEO was the obvious answer when companies wanted to improve visibility. That is still important, but buyer behavior is shifting. More people are asking full questions instead of typing a few keywords into Google, and the answers they get are increasingly synthesized by AI.

That changes what good content needs to do.

It is no longer enough to rank for a search term. Your content also needs to clearly explain what you do, who you help, what problems you solve, and where your expertise is different. The more specific and useful that information is, the easier it is for both buyers and AI platforms to understand where your company fits.

That is really what AEO comes down to. It is not another trick or channel. It is about making your expertise easier to find and easier to interpret.

For marketers, that means content needs to be built around the questions customers are actually asking, not just the keywords we hope they search for.

Events Remain One of the Few Things AI Cannot Really Scale

At the other end of the spectrum are events.

AI can help you write content, personalize outreach, research prospects, prepare for meetings, and follow up afterward. What it cannot replicate is what happens when two people meet in person and realize there is a reason to work together.

That is why I think events are becoming more valuable, not less.

The strongest events do more than generate leads. They create familiarity, context, and trust. Someone may meet your team long before there is an active opportunity, stay connected, and come back six months later when the timing is right.

That is hard to capture in a traditional attribution model, but it is a very real part of how B2B relationships develop.

As more marketing becomes automated, face-to-face interaction becomes one of the few things that still feels completely human. That makes it harder to scale, but also harder to replace.

Messaging and Positioning Are Still the Foundation

The third lever is the one everything else depends on.

If your positioning is unclear, AEO becomes harder because AI cannot easily understand what your company should be known for. Events become less effective because people leave conversations without a strong sense of what makes you different. Sales takes longer because every conversation starts with an explanation.

This is why I do not think of positioning as a branding exercise. It is the foundation for growth.

Strong positioning gives the market a clear answer to three questions: who you are for, what problem you solve, and why someone should choose you.

Once that is clear, everything else works better. Your website is easier to understand, your content becomes more focused, your sales team has a stronger story, and your events reinforce something memorable instead of just adding another touchpoint.

The Real Opportunity is in How These Growth Levers Work Together

I would not treat AEO, events, and positioning as three separate strategies.

They are strongest when they reinforce one another.

Your positioning gives you the story. AEO helps buyers find that story. Events give people a chance to experience the company behind it and build trust with the people involved.

That is a much more useful way to think about growth than simply asking which channel produces the lowest cost per lead.

A buyer may discover your company through AI, visit your website to understand what you do, meet someone from your team at an event, see more of your content on LinkedIn, and then come back months later when there is a real opportunity.

That is not a linear funnel. It is a series of reinforcing signals.

The job of marketing is to make sure they all tell the same story.

More Channels Are Not Always the Answer

When growth slows, companies often respond by adding more activity. More campaigns, more content, more events, more outbound, more tools.

Sometimes that is exactly what is needed. But sometimes the better question is whether the channels you already have are doing the right job.

• Can buyers find you when they ask AI for answers?

• Can they quickly understand why you are different?

• Are you creating enough opportunities for people to actually meet your team and build trust?

If those three things are working, the rest of the marketing mix becomes much more effective.

Where Marketers Should Focus Next

The best marketing organizations over the next few years probably will not be the ones using the most AI tools or producing the most content.

They will be the ones that understand how to combine scale with trust.

Use AEO to become easier to find. Use strong positioning to become easier to understand. Use events to become easier to trust. That combination is difficult to automate, which is exactly why it may become more valuable.

As marketing gets more efficient, the things that cannot be automated may matter most.

FAQ

What are the most important growth levers for marketers right now?

AEO, events, and clear positioning are three of the most important because they support discovery, differentiation, and trust across the buyer journey.

What is AEO in marketing?

AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, is the practice of structuring content so AI-powered search tools can understand, summarize, and surface your company in response to buyer questions.

Why are events still important in an AI-driven market?

Events create face-to-face conversations, trust, and context that AI cannot fully replicate. They are especially important in complex B2B markets where relationships influence buying decisions.

How does positioning support growth?

Positioning helps buyers quickly understand who a company is for, what problem it solves, and why it is different, which improves sales, marketing, content, and AI visibility.

How do AEO, positioning, and events work together?

Positioning creates the story, AEO helps buyers find it, and events help turn awareness into trust and relationships.