1689 – Leveraging AI To Help Get Us Further with Level 28 Media’s Michelle Kop

Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now. Michelle Kop. Michelle, you are the founder of level 28 Media. Your website is level 28 media. That's level two eight Medium.com. Michelle, it's so great to have you.

Michelle (00:01:11) - Thank you so much, Josh, for having me, too.

Josh (00:01:13) - Absolutely. All right. Give us an overview of what you do with level 28.

Michelle (00:01:17) - Yeah. So level 28 Media is a boutique lead generation marketing agency. We specialize in pay per click advertising. So essentially it's Google ads. So if you know what SEO is, SEO is trying to rank your website on Google organically so then you don't have to pay for any of those ads. What I do is actually I get my clients to appear on top of the organic listings with paid advertising. So whenever someone is searching for your business or searching for the service that you have to offer in your area of service, then I would be able to get your ads to appear at the top so that leads can contact you and hopefully you can then turn them into actual sales for your business.

Josh (00:02:07) - So particularly on the B2B side, Michel, my experience has been that paid ads can sometimes be pretty expensive or very competitive depending on what your, you know, what your industry is or what your specialty is.

Michelle (00:02:24) - Yeah, I think in general, like you have to have the mindset in not even just with B2B but B2C as well, that if you're going to go into this, it's going to be an investment.

Michelle (00:02:37) - You can't go in this thinking that you're going to put in $10 a day and then eventually scale it to, you know, $1,000 a day. No, there's got to be a minimum starting threshold. And that is all determined based off of research and based off of the competition in your area. I live in Los Angeles. It's super competitive out here especially. And just giving you an example for a personal injury attorney, personal injury attorney in Los Angeles, that keyword is $1,000 a click. So it is, yeah. So unless you're spending at least 10 to 15 K a day, you don't even want to be playing in that field. So it's really important to make sure that if this is something that you want to invest to do, it is an investment. You need to be willing to to test it out and see what what works and and what doesn't. So that's really it. Having a sufficient budget is going to be key. And with paid advertising, the advantage of it over SEO and these other organic tactics is it's faster to get results.

Michelle (00:03:43) - Organic With SEO, it could take 912 months even more depending on how competitive the area is or you're the competition and the market. But with pay per click, we can get an ad set up in a few hours and you can go live, but you need to have a sufficient budget or else it's like driving a car on empty and eventually you're not going anywhere.

Josh (00:04:07) - Yeah. What has been for for those of us who maybe have not been paying attention, obviously those. Pardon me while I pick my jaw up off the off the ground. But again, it's all relative, right? I mean, if we're talking about, you know, something that is that valuable, that's probably worth it. But for those of us who have not been paying attention to the kind of the pay per click world, particularly with Google, can you give us maybe, just maybe some trends and things that you've observed over the past few years? And and again, most importantly, you know, you know, I'm kind of thinking forward thinking of like what we should know about that world.

Michelle (00:04:45) - Yeah, great question. I think the biggest thing that we're going to continue to see but has started to emerge is automation. So a lot of these platforms, not just Google, but, you know, Facebook and these other paid advertising platforms, they're really pushing towards automation so that they can eliminate agencies or consultants from even having to be involved in the day to day of setting up campaigns for clients so that these companies can then take that percentage towards their ad spend. So what I'm seeing is they're putting out more automated features, but the challenge is what's happening is if you just rely on these automated features to set it and forget it and you set it, and then you expect that tomorrow you're going to see a massive ROI just because you just press the right buttons. That's not how it works. You need a strategic advisor, someone that actually knows the platforms and then beyond that also understands, also understands your customer. Google doesn't understand your customer the way that a human would, especially a US based person, that a US based strategist that would understand the difference between personal injury attorney and a bankruptcy attorney.

Michelle (00:06:09) - For all we know, Google just thinks attorneys are attorneys and they can't actually specify the difference between the different niches sometimes, and sometimes they mix certain words up. So it starts to get a little muddy when it when it comes to actually matching you to the right intent. So I'd say that the biggest thing is automation and then moving into artificial intelligence. So I. You've heard of ChatGPT, you've heard of Jasper, you've heard of all this, you know, this commotion of AI over the past couple of months since GPT four is really emerged. It's been a game changer for a lot of us and a lot of marketers are really concerned about, Oh, what is this going to mean for our jobs? Are we going to lose our jobs because AI is going to do everything for us? No, AI is just going to be an assistant. It's going to aid us. It's going to make us better. But at the end of the day, you know, we have to be able to use strategies and also leverage AI to help us get further and not think of it like, Oh, AI is just going to take over our job.

Michelle (00:07:14) - So I think that that's another big thing that I've been noticing and one of the big updates to within Google, they're they've come out with their own AI, Google Bard, which is not that great yet, but it's going to be integrated with a lot of their Google products and even people ads pay per click.

Josh (00:07:32) - Yeah. I mean, ultimately, right. So Google wants a great experience for their end users. And you know, I was just kind of talking about this in Facebook. One thing I started doing pretty aggressively. I've kind of dabbled with this a little bit in the past, but I started getting pretty aggressive about hiding ads that I thought that were irrelevant or I just didn't want like, I don't want spammy marketers advertising to be give it up, Hey, I'm not going to click on your thing. I don't I'm not interested. What I want to see is like, you know, ads about local concerts and shows and fun things to do. And so, like, I've been pretty aggressively trying to let the algorithm know what I want to see and what I don't want to see.

Josh (00:08:17) - And it really has improved the experience that I have on Facebook now. I think that's ultimately what Google wants as well, right?

Michelle (00:08:28) - Absolutely. Google's ultimate objective is to make sure that they're giving you the information that you're looking for. That's the number one thing. That's why you can't just type in let's say something that's like super trendy right now, chat GPT and then have, you know, and have a random attorney appear for that term. There has to be relevancy. And that's part of that's part of what makes a great paid search ad appear on Google because there has to be relevancy or else you can't just appear for random popular terms.

Josh (00:09:02) - Yeah. And how do you. Well, let me ask you this, Michel. Like who? Who do you like? Who's a great fit for you?

Michelle (00:09:12) - Great question. So I typically work with a lot of local business owners, but more established ones. So they've got to be in business for at least 3 to 5 years. I'll work with some solopreneurs, but most of the time they have between a team of anywhere between 5 to 10 people, average revenue of 500 K or more.

Michelle (00:09:33) - So they are established and they do they do value advertising. So they do have a propensity to spend in advertising and they don't just rely on different things like word of mouth or and they see the value in doing advertising. So a lot of times, too, they've tried advertising, but it didn't work for them. So maybe they've tried it in the Yellow Pages like some old school methods and it didn't work out. Or they've even transitioned into doing Google ads, but it didn't work out with the previous provider that they had most of the time. I'm sure you're very aware of this. It's it's very common in this industry to have agencies that promise the world that they can't deliver. Oh, yeah. So that's that's definitely a big challenge. And a lot of these my most ideal clients are the ones that have tried Google ads, but it didn't work. And then but they understand that they still need it. So then they come and reach out to me. And then they also understand the importance of patience when it comes to advertising and not expecting that tomorrow there's going to be a result.

Michelle (00:10:42) - Once we if we set it up today, it's a process, it's a journey, and we have to collect data in order to make decisions. So I think that that's key.

Josh (00:10:52) - Yeah. And what would be on that note, if we're thinking about how discovery and onboarding looks, how does yours look compared to maybe what someone might see or what you would say? Yeah, no red flag. You don't you probably don't want to work with that person. What, Like what what are some of those really important first steps?

Michelle (00:11:15) - Really important. First step number one is doing your research. So I do a deep dive into understanding my customer, my my ideal clients customer persona. So let's say if it's an orthodontist, we need to understand who's the one that's the decision maker, who's the one typically doing the search. And a lot of times for these orthodontists, it's typically the mom, sometimes the dad, but usually the mom of their of the kids that are anywhere between like five to like, you know, into the teens that are looking to have get braces for their kids and they have insurance and they're looking to use the insurance in order to get orthodontic treatment.

Michelle (00:11:59) - So it's really important to first understand who the the target persona is and then do research on what type of keywords these people would actually be searching to trigger your ads. So it's like getting into their mind and understanding like how they actually search. So that's the big key piece. And then from there it's then delivering that to the client, coming back with a a forecast saying, okay, based off of your area, this is how much I recommend you spend, This is how many leads we expect to get. There's no guarantees if any agencies offering you a guarantee, that's a huge red flag. There's no way that. Really? Yeah, there's no way. When it comes to Google ads pay per click. So yeah, so that's where that's where if you see that, that's definitely a red flag. Another red flag is if an agency is just giving you a flat price without even doing upfront research. So there's like, Oh, it's going to be a thousand bucks a month, it's going to be 500 bucks a month without even really trying to understand your business.

Michelle (00:13:07) - So the key is asking the right questions, understanding the potential clients, audience and then coming back with a forecast based off of what the client's goals are. So that's key.

Josh (00:13:20) - Yeah. Are you just Google search or are there any other platforms, YouTube or whatever that that you get involved in?

Michelle (00:13:28) - Yeah. So I actually do Google Search, I do YouTube and then I also do Microsoft ads. So Microsoft ads is Bing. It's definitely a lot cheaper than Google, but it doesn't have the scale as Google. Typically the people searching on Bing, they're more affluent and they tend to be older, probably like 40 plus. So if you're like in the B2B space and you're trying to target like key decision makers, Bing or Microsoft ads could be a good avenue to potentially explore in tandem with Google. I wouldn't recommend to just do it on its own. I would recommend it as a as a supplement, as just to do it in combination together.

Josh (00:14:11) - Yeah. Um, and Michelle. What how talk about like your agency or your group and like how you grow and run your company today.

Michelle (00:14:20) - Yeah, great question. So in terms of my company, it's it's me. I have an assistant, so we're pretty much both of us focus on strategy optimizations, account builds, landing page deals, pretty much like everything that's involved in the actual, you know, pay per click realm of like building lead generation marketing campaigns. And we also do things like business development and stuff like in the background. But a lot of it is really focused on client satisfaction and client success and making sure that clients are actually getting results so that you know, they can stick around and we can continue to because at the end of the day, what really what it really comes down to is the impact that we're making. We want to make a difference. We want to help clients grow their business. So that's really what it is. It's not just about it's not just about being in business, just to be in business. We want to really make an impact. So I think that that's really what that's really what the purpose is and what drives us to do what we do.

Josh (00:15:24) - Um, your website is level two eight media, level 28 media. When somebody goes there, what would you recommend they click on? What should they do? Like what's kind of next for them?

Michelle (00:15:37) - Yeah. So you can go ahead and check out the case studies. I've got a bunch of case studies that are put together based off of different clients that I've previously worked with. I also have a blog that I update very regularly, at least 2 to 3 times a month. And then if anything, if you find it interesting and if you have if you tried Google ads or before and it didn't work out or you're looking to try Google ads, feel free to reach out through the contact form. There's also a link to my YouTube channel, so you can also check out my YouTube channel. I have a lot of great content there that I've been posting pretty regularly on a weekly basis so that you can get everything that you need to know about Google ads straight from there.

Josh (00:16:20) - Yeah, you do. Yeah.

Josh (00:16:21) - You got a lot of good stuff on your YouTube. No, I'm certain this is like you got to dialed in. This is good. This is good content here. So thank you. Michelle Copp, again, your website, level 28 Medium.com. There's right on the front page there. You can schedule a discovery call, but I would absolutely click on the YouTube link so you can see that because again, if you're interested in this topic listener, you're really going to love Michelle's content on YouTube. Looks really, really good. So Michelle Cop, again, founder of Level 28 Media, thank you so much for joining us.

Michelle (00:16:58) - Thank you so much, Josh.

Josh (00:17:06) - Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence.com/guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group.

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