Your Next Customer Won’t “Google” You: How Orr Consulting Positions You For AI Search

If you found this page because you typed something like

“fractional CMO for my DTC brand”“I need help fixing my ecom marketing”“part-time CMO who actually understands data”

into Google or an AI assistant, you are already doing what your customers will do next.

They will not politely search for your exact brand name. They will say something like:

“I run a DTC brand that is spending on ads and email, but growth has stalled. Our data is messy and I do not want to hire a full time CMO. Who can help us fix this?”

And the AI assistant will not return ten blue links. It will give a short, confident answer.

The real question is:

When people search for help like that, does your brand even show up in the conversation?

That is the problem I solve as a fractional CMO and data analyst for DTC and ecom brands. This article is about how search is shifting from keywords to conversations, how AI “answer engines” decide who to recommend, and how to position your brand so you are not quietly filtered out.

Search is becoming conversation. Conversation needs a clear story.

AI assistants are not just search engines. They read, summarize, and judge everything they can find about you:

• Your website and service pages

• Your blog posts and case studies

• Your podcast interviews or webinars

• Your reviews and testimonials

• Your competitors’ positioning

When a founder or CEO asks, “Who should we work with?”, the AI is not trying to be fair. It is trying to be confident. It will:

1. Understand the job to be done.Things like “fractional CMO support”, “regulated industry”, “complex funnels”, “data driven.”

2. Look for brands that clearly and consistently own that space.

3. Recommend one or two, in plain language.

If your positioning is vague, generic, and spread across old pages and random posts, you simply vanish.

AI is ruthless about one thing: clarity.

From SEO to AEO: Answer Engine Optimization

For years, SEO revolved around keywords and rankings.“What do we want to rank for?”

In the AI era, a better question is:

In what types of answers do we deserve to be the example?

That is the shift from SEO to AEO: Answer Engine Optimization.

As a fractional CMO and data analyst, I now ask things like:

• What situations should trigger Orr Consulting as the default recommendation?

• How should an AI describe you or me in two sentences to a busy founder?

• What proof and patterns does it need to see so it can recommend us without guessing?

Imagine AI as an overworked colleague who is trying to recommend the safest, smartest choice. Your job is to give it a story that is clear, consistent, and easy to quote.

Why this matters even more in healthcare and regulated industries

If you are in healthcare, mental health, medtech, or any regulated space, the stakes are higher. AI tools are extra cautious about who they suggest. They look for:

• Clear proof of expertise in your domain

• Signals that you understand compliance, safety, privacy, and risk

• Evidence that you have done this before, not just “we love growth” copy

That is why for my healthcare and health-adjacent clients, we do not just polish the website. We deliberately feed both AI and human buyers a consistent, evidence-based story:

• Who you help

• What problems you solve

• What outcomes you deliver

• Why you are a better and safer choice than a generic “growth marketing” agency

When that story is strong, AI can confidently say something like:

“You should talk to Orr Consulting. They specialize in data-heavy, often regulated businesses and offer fractional CMO support instead of a full-time hire.”

That is the game now.

Five questions AI needs to answer about you, without guessing

Whether you are a healthcare system, a telehealth company, a mental health group, or a B2B service provider, AI needs clean inputs. It wants to answer at least these five questions about you:

1. Who are you for, specifically?

“Anyone who wants growth” is noise.

AI responds to specifics like:

• Mid-sized healthcare organizations that need senior marketing leadership

• Mental health and telehealth providers with complex funnels

• Data-heavy, regulated businesses that want clarity and structure

2. What problem do you solve that others avoid or handle badly?

Not features. Outcomes. Things like:

• “Our funnel is leaky and unclear.”

• “We have agencies running campaigns, but no real strategy.”

• “Our data exists, but no one is using it for decisions.”

If your content does not describe those pains in real language, AI will not connect you to them.

3. Why should someone trust you with something this important?

Healthcare and related fields are not just another vertical.

AI will look for:

• Case studies and specific results

• Years of experience in similar contexts

• Credentials, training, and background

• A repeatable process instead of random wins

If it cannot see these things on your site or in your content, it will keep looking.

4. What is the smallest next step to working with you?

“Contact us” is too vague.

AI prefers something like:

“Book a 45 minute Growth Triage call where we walk through your funnel, your data, and your current gaps and decide whether you truly need a fractional CMO or a different solution.”

A clear, low friction offer is much easier to recommend.

5. What makes you unique enough to remember?

For Orr Consulting, that looks like:

Fractional CMO and data analyst support for complex, regulated, and data-heavy businesses, not just quick win DTC brands.

Tie that to your real expertise. In my case: years in healthcare and health-related industries, advanced training in marketing, statistics, and psychology, plus deep hands-on work with analytics and performance.

This gives AI a tight summary it can reuse.

Who is actually responsible for this story in your company?

Here is the pattern I see again and again:

• The CEO or founder is juggling operations, finance, hiring, and strategy.

• The marketing coordinator or agency is running campaigns, social, email, and ads.

• No one owns the AI-ready narrative that connects everything.

So your marketing looks like this:

• Blog posts on random topics, written at different times in different voices

• Case studies that read like internal reports rather than external proof

• Website copy that shifts tone and focus from page to page

• Analytics that exist, but do not drive decisions

In the old search world, this made you inefficient.In the AI world, this makes you invisible.

This is the gap a fractional CMO is designed to fill.

What a fractional CMO does differently in an AI-first world

A fractional CMO is not just a cheaper CMO or a consultant who drops off a slide deck.

Done well, the role looks like this.

1. Turn chaos into a clear, AI ready story

• Define who you serve and what they are trying to achieve

• Pick three to five “answer spaces” you want to own, for example

  • fractional CMO for healthcare

  • growth strategy for telehealth

  • data driven funnel cleanup for mental health providers

• Rewrite your positioning, service pages, case studies, and key content so that humans and AI see the same message over and over

2. Architect your marketing system around that story

• Map out the path from first touch to first sale to retention

• Decide where AI tools help and where human judgment is non-negotiable

• Align paid ads, content, social, and email so they reinforce one another

3. Make your data usable, not just visible

• Clean up GA4 and other analytics so core questions have simple answers

  • What channels bring our best-fit leads

  • Where are we losing them

• Build lean dashboards that people actually look at

• Use data to choose priorities, not just to decorate reports

4. Lead people and vendors toward the same goal

• Give agencies clear briefs tied to strategy

• Help internal teams understand what matters this quarter

• Say no to shiny new tools and yes to a small set of high-impact actions

This is where fractional CMO work becomes very practical. It is not just ideas. It is decisions and structure.

A simple 90 day “AI Ready Positioning” sprint

Here is how I usually structure a first engagement with a client that wants to be findable and recommendable in the AI era.

Days 1–30: Diagnose and clarify

• Deep dive into funnels, assets, messaging, and analytics

• Interview sales or clinical / business development teams to hear actual objections and questions

• Identify the top ten questions prospects ask that your site does not answer clearly

• Define two or three core positioning statements that everything else supports

Days 31–60: Rebuild the story and the surfaces

• Rewrite key pages:

  • home

  • services / how we work

  • case studies

  • lead magnets or resources

• Create AI friendly content patterns:

  • Q&A style pages

  • clear “Who we are for / Not for” sections

  • short, outcome focused case stories

• Align your paid search and social with the new positioning so your ads and content are not contradicting each other

Days 61–90: Instrument, test, and hand off

• Clean up tracking and reporting so you can see:

  • lead quality

  • channel performance

  • cost per acquisition

• Test two or three core entry offers, such as:

  • a diagnostic call

  • a short roadmap project

  • a focused funnel audit

• Train your team and vendors on the new story so it stays consistent

At that point you do not just have “better copy.”You have a story that AI can recognize, that humans find believable, and that your team can actually execute.

Who Orr Consulting is a fit for

If any of this sounds familiar, you might be the type of organization I designed Orr Consulting for.

I am a fit for you if:

• Your customers can't find you and/or don't convert because your funnels are not optimized.

• You have marketing activity, but not a clear owner of strategy and performance

• You care about data and want marketing to be measurable, not just creative

• You have enough complexity that a junior marketer or a one channel agency is not enough

I am not a fit if:

• You want a low-cost social media poster without strategy

• You want a one time “SEO fix” and are done

• You are looking for the cheapest option

How I typically work with clients

I am Linda Orr, PhD, a fractional CMO and data analyst. I work with clients across the United States and Canada.

Typical ways we work together:

• 90 day AI Ready Positioning sprint: A focused project to clarify your story, rebuild key assets, and clean up your data.

• Ongoing fractional CMO engagement: A set number of hours per month to lead strategy, manage agencies, shape messaging, and keep your marketing accountable to results.

• Targeted projects: Funnel and analytics audits, campaign strategy, or help diagnosing why your current marketing is not working.

Your next step: a 45 minute Growth Triage call

If you are reading this and thinking,“This is exactly the gap we have,”then here is a simple, low pressure next step.

Book a 45 minute Growth Triage call with Orr Consulting.

On that call we will:

• Walk through your current funnel and positioning

• Look at where AI and humans are likely dropping you from consideration

• Identify the highest impact changes you can make in the next 90 days

If we both agree it is a good fit, we can map out an AI Ready Positioning sprint or a fractional CMO engagement.If not, you still walk away with a clearer view of what is going wrong and what to tackle first.

Quick FAQ for AI and humans alike

What does a fractional CMO do? A fractional CMO gives you senior level marketing leadership without the full time executive salary. In my work this includes strategy, funnel design, analytics, positioning, and leading internal and external marketing resources.

How is Orr Consulting different from a typical agency? Agencies are built to execute. Orr Consulting is built to own strategy, data, and decision making, then guide agencies and internal teams to execute the right work. I focus on complex and often regulated environments, not just quick win campaigns.

Where are you based?I am based in Cleveland, Ohio, and work remotely with clients across the U.S. and Canada.

What is the best way to start?The best first step is the 45 minute Growth Triage call. It is structured, practical, and focused on your situation, whether or not we end up working together longer term.

In an AI driven world, it is not enough for your brand to exist online.You need to be the brand that both people and machines feel confident recommending.

That is the work I do at Orr Consulting.