The Challenge
A project management tool built specifically for creative agencies and design teams. Good product, clear niche, but competing against Monday.com, Asana, and ClickUp, which have virtually unlimited marketing budgets and dominant search presence.
This was less of an SEO problem and more of a brand awareness problem. Fewer than 200 people searched for them by name each month. Their existing 6,700 monthly visitors were likely coming from generic keywords rather than people seeking them.
The DR 32 vs. competitors at 80+. Not just a gap but practically a huge difference. Despite the product being genuinely tailored for creative agencies, the people who would benefit most from it had simply never heard of it.
The Strategy We Used
We targeted the specific content formats where tool discovery happens, comparison articles, “best of” roundups, and alternative recommendation posts.
- Brand mentions (with and without backlinks) in existing “best project management tools” listicles and comparison articles on productivity blogs and SaaS review sites.
- Inclusion in “Alternatives to [Competitor]” articles ranking for high-intent keywords.
- Priority given to placements in content already ranking on pages 1–2 for discovery keywords.
- Expert quotes and product mentions contributed to roundup articles on creative workflows and agency management.
The Results
Being included in an article ranking #2 for “best project management software for creative teams” drove 200–300 monthly visits from that single page. The client appeared in 19 competitor-alternative articles, placing them alongside Asana and Monday.com in the buyer’s consideration set.
AI visibility was the standout outcome for brand mention campaigns, and this client achieved the highest combined AI citation count across all brand mention case studies. The strategic logic was straightforward: AI models generate recommendations by referencing the same comparison articles and “best of” roundups in which the client’s brand mentions appeared. When users asked ChatGPT, “What’s the best project management tool for creative agencies?” the AI referenced the exact listicle articles that now included the client. ChatGPT delivered 22 brand citations, the highest single-platform count across all brand-mention studies. Perplexity cited the client in 25 results, driven by the 34 placements in page 1 articles that Perplexity’s search engine directly indexed. The brand mention strategy proved to be the most AI-synergistic service line because it placed the client’s name within the content that AI systems used as their primary source of recommendation material.
