# The MAPS Method

> The MAPS Method is a marketing framework created by Grant Simmons for making a brand understood, trusted, found and usable by the people it serves, the markets it competes in and the machines that sit between them. Its core is the MAPS Framework: Meaning (understood), Authority (trusted), Presence (found) and Signals (usable). Four workstreams, Define, Prove, Distribute and Enable, turn the conditions into work, governed by Consistency, Utility and Measurement & Validation. AI visibility, SEO and GEO are applications of the method.

Meaning makes you understood. Authority makes you trusted. Presence makes you found. Signals make you usable. Each condition is checked for three readers: people (buyers, users, advocates, the team), markets (the channels and surfaces where buyers look) and machines (search, AI answers, agents, feeds, screens).
Each pillar has a one-word quality: Meaning is Clarity, Authority is Consensus, Presence is Coverage, Signals is Consumable. Clarity, consensus, coverage and consumable are how a brand becomes the trusted choice. In the method's own metaphor the three readers are the driver (people, who choose), the roads (markets and channels) and the sat-nav (machines, which shortlist): shortlisted by machines, chosen by people.
The method reports three outcomes rather than reach: Shortlisted (citation and inclusion rate), Described right (mention accuracy) and Chosen (recommendation rate).

## The MAPS Framework
- [Framework](https://themapsmethod.com/framework/): the four conditions and the three readers.
- [Meaning](https://themapsmethod.com/meaning/): who you are for, what need you meet, what you should be known for; worked by Define.
- [Authority](https://themapsmethod.com/authority/): the proof that makes a claim credible and the experience that makes a customer recommend you; worked by Prove.
- [Presence](https://themapsmethod.com/presence/): available with proof wherever the audience looks, including where machines look on their behalf; worked by Distribute.
- [Signals](https://themapsmethod.com/signals/): facts, offers and assets usable by every person and every machine on every surface, including agents; worked by Enable.

## The MAPS Method
- [Method](https://themapsmethod.com/method/): Define, Prove, Distribute, Enable, governed by Consistency, Utility and Measurement & Validation. Start with the constraint, not the tactic.
- [Audit](https://themapsmethod.com/audit/): 24 statements scored 0 to 4 by pillar and by reader.
- [Playbooks](https://themapsmethod.com/playbooks/): the method applied to a job.
- [AI visibility playbook](https://themapsmethod.com/playbooks/ai-visibility/): The brand is described wrongly, cited rarely or recommended never in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Claude or Copilot.
- [Product or company launch playbook](https://themapsmethod.com/playbooks/launch/): A new product, category entry or company goes to market and nobody, human or machine, has an association to start from.
- [Rebrand or repositioning playbook](https://themapsmethod.com/playbooks/rebrand/): The name, category, audience or promise is changing, and every existing association, human and machine, is now partly wrong.
- [New market or language playbook](https://themapsmethod.com/playbooks/new-market/): Entering a geography, language, vertical or platform where the source ecosystem, the buyers and the competitors are different.
- [Agent readiness playbook](https://themapsmethod.com/playbooks/agent-readiness/): Assistants, shopping agents and browser agents are starting to find, compare, configure, book and buy on behalf of your customers, and you do not know whether they can complete the task on your properties.

## Use it
- [Resources](https://themapsmethod.com/resources/): framework visuals, audit checklist, implementation worksheet, fact and entity ledger, ICP sheet, message architecture, channel-by-ICP map, surface inventory. Reuse with attribution: "MAPS Framework by Grant Simmons".
- [About](https://themapsmethod.com/about/): why the method exists.
- [Get help](https://themapsmethod.com/contact/): work with Grant Simmons.

## Machine-readable
- EntityMap v1.0: https://themapsmethod.com/entitymap.json (HTML view: https://themapsmethod.com/entitymap.html)
- XML sitemap: https://themapsmethod.com/sitemap.xml
- Schema.org graph on every page.

Created by Grant Simmons (https://www.grantsimmons.com).