The Angry Biller
Welcome to the angry biller.
A show where we explore the people and the businesses behind-the-scenes of healthcare, those men and women that are the catalysts that allow providers to concentrate on delivering exceptional patient care.
The Angry Biller
Ep 23 - Alexis Guillen's Blueprint for Business Growth Through Marketing Strategies
Ready to revolutionize your approach to digital marketing? Discover the journey and insights of Alexis Guillen, founder of Leverage Digital Marketing, as he shares his incredible transformation from aiding small businesses in Brooklyn to leading roles in digital sales and advertising. Alexis opens up about the hurdles he faced in these positions and his driving force behind launching his own agency, giving him the reins over client connections and fulfillment methodologies.
Next, we dissect the art of crafting marketing strategies tuned to the unique needs of B2B and B2C enterprises. Alexis emphasizes the power of content creation for new businesses in establishing online authority. From tackling complex topics like poly B piping for homeowners to medical practices leveraging video content, learn actionable strategies to elevate your brand's online presence. Platforms like YouTube aren't just for entertainment; they're essential tools for enhancing search visibility and engagement.
We then tackle some of the biggest challenges in digital marketing, including the rise of AI in content creation and the importance of vetting AI-generated information. Alexis offers invaluable advice on maintaining the human touch that AI often lacks, underscoring the importance of reviews as social proof. Finally, we explore how sophisticated digital marketing strategies, such as display marketing and email campaigns, can foster significant business growth. With a compelling case study of a Boston attorney, see firsthand how optimizing website experiences and ad spend can lead to a surge in brand recognition and referrals. Don't miss this episode jam-packed with expert insights and actionable tips!
Alexis Guillen
Leverage Digital Marketing
Website: https://leverageroi.com
Phone: 954-715-1366
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-guillen-07691510/
THE ANGRY BILLER, powered by J3 Revenue Cycle Management
Phone: (954) 544-2706
Website: https://www.j3rcm.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-angry-biller/
Production of Podcast: VISUALS BY MOMO
Josh Fertel
00:04
Welcome to the Angry Biller, a show where we explore the people and the businesses behind the scenes of healthcare, those men and women that are the catalysts that allow providers to concentrate on delivering exceptional patient care. Welcome to the Angry Biller. My name is Josh Fertel, I am your host and the owner of J3 Medical Billing. We are here at the visuals by Momo Studios. When we talk about practices, we talk about a business. When we talk about a business, we need to talk about marketing. We need to talk about growing that business. Very fortunate today to have Alexis Guillen from Leverage Digital Marketing with us. How are you doing, Alexis? Doing?
Alexis Guillen
00:41
well, thank you.
Josh Fertel
00:42
Thanks for having me your organization and I'm going to thank you, thanks for having me, your organization, and I'm going to let you talk about it a little bit is getting the word out right.
Alexis Guillen
00:51
Yeah, I mean it's Leverage was started because I've helped other agencies build up their agencies from like literally zero to over a hundred people and I've helped, you know, bring in some very, very large like nationally recognized accounts, and the problem was there was very little control I would have with how the sausage was made. Gotcha and you know where. In my capacity, I was the digital marketing director or the digital, you know, sales director capacity.
01:24
I was the digital marketing director or the digital, you know, sales director, and the challenge was getting the relationships that I would go out and build huh and you know, a big factor of my job was getting clients to really understand what their needs were, what my goals were, and the communicate that to our team who do the fulfillment right. But you know, I instances where fulfillment's like well, we know better than our clients, we're just going to go do this thing Right.
Josh Fertel
01:51
So let's go back to the beginning. Tell us your story, how you got into this.
Alexis Guillen
01:56
So yeah, my name's Alexis Guia and I used to be the digital sales director for a small private SEO small, uh, private SEO company called redesign based out of Idaho Right.
02:09
Prior to that, I was the digital ad director for uh for Miami new times and Broward Palm beach new times, which we had an in-house digital agency uh called V digital services, uh, and I started leverage uh the week after my third child was born because I just wanted to really finally have full control from start to finish and really build on the relationships that I built on doing work that was meaningful for my clients.
Josh Fertel
02:42
Let's go back a little bit further. What got you into digital media? What's your background? Something in your past that led you towards that?
Alexis Guillen
02:49
So my parents were small business owners in Brooklyn, new York, in Brownsville, and they had a series of shoe stores on a busy street called Pitkin Avenue. And I just remember as a kid I'm like my parents don't do any marketing, so business would just like either really come in or it wouldn't. But here we are in the middle of East New York, in a not so great still today, not a great part of the city, but like we did well enough where you know, I was very fortunate to live in Long Island and go to private school and whatnot you know. But it was always just, you know, I always felt that we were so reliant on the ebbs and flows of what was happening in the market without really taking control ourselves. Got it so in.
03:34
Well, I went to, to, to school at the university of Miami and, uh, you know, really enjoyed the marketing classes there. Okay, from that I became, uh, a South beach club promoter many, many, many moons ago, and then I started my own event management company. I was doing corporate events and things like that, and then 9-11 kind of just put event and partying and all of that at a screeching halt. No one wants to go celebrate when you know when we're under attack. So, um, so I, I I accepted an offer from the local alt weekly that I would read and I'm like, well, these guys are kind of cool, like I could.
04:15
You know, it's a job and and uh, it'll cover the rent, and uh. So I started with them in the classifieds department and then I moved from classifieds to retail sales. I did, I was the classified sales manager, I was the online sales manager. I would start training our staff on selling digital assets on our website, because when I first started we wouldn't even sell ads on our website, which was crazy. And then we created our own in-house digital ad agency and my responsibility was to kind of lead the charge. So I was a selling manager. I would go and cultivate my own relationships and then join my reps on their appointments to help them really communicate what we're trying to do and ultimately sign the business. So you've been in marketing your whole career.
Josh Fertel
05:06
A long time One way or another.
Alexis Guillen
05:07
Yeah, a long time, over 20 years advising small businesses, okay.
Josh Fertel
05:11
And your forte, as I know it, is to make websites effective.
Alexis Guillen
05:18
I think, a major challenge that I have with. When I talk to a business owner or stakeholder, I think the biggest challenge that they have is really understanding what they need. There's a concept like I just need to be on social media. The reality is well, who's your audience on social? There's a perception of, well, if I post on social, my potential customers can see it and then that's going to help grow my business. But the reality is the second that these companies went public, they're beholden to their shareholders to drive a profit.
Josh Fertel
05:55
We're just talking about Facebook and LinkedIn and those kinds of things.
Alexis Guillen
05:58
Okay, yeah, facebook, linkedin Instagram, all of them. Linkedin Instagram, like all of them. Right, if you aren't turning a profit, that's going to be a problem, you know, right? Yeah, absolutely so. When Facebook first launched, companies loved it because they're getting all this visibility and everything else and it was free. So then they kind of switched it and what they've been doing over the years is moving the needle in the sense of, well, what percentage of your organic audience will see a post when you put? Publish it on your wall? Gotcha, you know? And today, if you have a thousand followers, maybe 50 people will see it on their wall. Um, without boosting that post or paying for an ad campaign.
Josh Fertel
06:38
Right, let's. I want to talk about social media, sure, but I want to talk about the websites first. Okay, I'm a brand new business. I'm a brand about social media, sure, but I want to talk about the websites first. Okay, I'm a brand new business. I'm a brand new medical provider, and I was like Alexis, I know you're not going to build it, but I want you to help me with the content. What are you looking for? Actually, just make any business, any business. Tell me what you're looking for.
Alexis Guillen
06:58
So, and that thing, there is no one box solution. A silver bullet in marketing does not exist. It is different for every business of every business size, of every business market that they are operating within. So one of the first things I do is I like to do we have a conversation and really to discover what your needs, what your goals are, who your audience is, where are they. Okay, so in your instance, you are very B2B, right, right. B2c messaging really falls flat because that's not who you're going to grow your business behind.
07:34
Right, that's not my Right. Your clients care about the C. Yes, you know the customer side of it.
07:40
Yes. So for you, it's like how do I engage on the business, business side? So that, right, there is going to eliminate a lot of different marketing avenues and platforms because they're just not going to be as effective. So, because you're new, I think the first thing you really should invest in is in content, because content is everlasting. Content is going to help you in several iterations of growing your business Right, no-transcript and added to an email newsletter, uh, and then pushed back, bringing more traffic back to your website, engaging past customers, prospects, you know what have you? Uh, you could take capsules of that content and then publish it on social media and then boost that to reach the right audience where it makes sense. Okay, uh, you. So content is really think of it as foundational, right, right, you can't be found online for what's not there. Right, and one of the biggest things from a search capacity is demonstrating expertise and authority within your space, and content's really going to build that.
Josh Fertel
09:02
Okay, so let me dive down a little bit deeper. Sure, Depending, of course, on the nature of the business and you could pick one what is good content?
Alexis Guillen
09:15
Unique. It's genuinely beneficial to your audience. Okay, if you're adding it to the website, gave her some tips, I'm like, but this isn't really an infographic. Okay, you know, and, by the way, graphics, like you know, whether it's an infographic or even photos, that's all content right.
09:51
Right Words on the page. That's content. So content is all about putting information out that can be, you know, really consumed by an audience, and image searches really do drive traffic, an audience, and image searches really do drive traffic and it's, it's, it could be a faster vehicle of generating traffic and building relevance than actual words on a page. So with her it was. You know she had sent me something about like poly b. Okay, and I'm like you, look, I'm a homeowner. I have no idea what poly b typing is or where to find it, if if I have it or not, or why it even matters. Right, I'm like that would be amazing content for your website, right, right, because you know from a, from the plumber's perspective, if you have this pipe that's known to fail, because ultimately what happens is, you know, the impurities in the water is going to break it down super fast and you're going to have a ton of plumbing issues.
Josh Fertel
10:43
My old house had that, yeah, so they have going to break it down super fast and you're going to have a ton of plumbing issues.
Alexis Guillen
10:45
My old house had that. Yeah, I don't check it with it. Yeah, so they have to do a re-pipe. That's a big job. They definitely want that it is. But as a homeowner we don't know, like we don't know what we know. We don't know what we don't know right Exactly. So I think really just putting for your target audience that needs to be you know the central focus of any content you produce and if you think of it from like a hub and spoke model, you know where you have this central concept and then you want to just start putting out like different spokes from different perspectives. So you want to answer the who, what, where, when, how. You know why is this thing going to be beneficial? Who benefits from this? What things should you look for to know that this could be a problem for you, gotcha?
Josh Fertel
11:29
And so let's stick with the plumber Sure. What is the who? What?
Alexis Guillen
11:35
What are the spokes in his situation? So for them it's more of like well, why should you know that if you have poly B? Okay, well, because it's not a matter of if it breaks down, it's a matter of when, and it breaks down very rapidly, and this was something that was installed in a number of homes in our community not so long ago. It's actually now is when those things are going to start failing. Okay, so as a homeowner, you want to find out that this could be a potential big hazard before your pipes start rupturing, because then your problems just multiply Um.
Josh Fertel
12:11
so let's, let's talk about a medical practice. I know you have medical practice clients, yep. What kind of things would you want to see them put on their websites? More videos, more videos, absolutely.
Alexis Guillen
12:22
Specifically yeah, just, you know so, video. So in in talking about what content is Right so it could be images, videos is also content. Taking that video, posting it on a YouTube channel, um, whether or content, taking that video, posting it on a YouTube channel, whether or not you have followers on the channel, is, you know, you know well, I guess to the business owner it's important, but for the grand scheme of the market, of where this fits in your marketing matrix, you know, youtube is the second most visible. It's the second most you utilized search engine in existence today. It's also owned by Google. So by adding the content to your YouTube channel, you can then go and add these keywords to the content that you just posted and then now you have a piece of content that's relevant and ranking within the second most popular search engine on earth.
13:08
And then you can take that content that's living on that hosted on that website, and then embed it on your website, which allows content to be streamed on your site very easily without really creating lag for the user.
Josh Fertel
13:21
So stop me if I'm wrong. Sure, even if I don't have a million YouTube followers, posting a video onto YouTube or on my website is beneficial Absolutely.
Alexis Guillen
13:31
And remember every YouTuber that has a million followers started with one. That's right how?
Josh Fertel
13:38
do you eat an elephant? Exactly when you're creating a website and you want to make sure that the return is the maximum, what kind of strategy do you put in place outside of the content?
Alexis Guillen
13:54
Okay, so really start looking at what are the metrics right.
14:00
You're only going to be successful if you have measurable metrics that speak to what your goals are. What are some of those metrics? Okay, so in your instance, right, maybe you have a different phone number that's tied to your website so that you know when you start getting calls that these calls are coming from my website. Your form fills, right. So having form fills from people who are interested in learning more about your services that you follow up with and ultimately close tracking that back, like where did this lead come from? So websites should be driving leads and driving opportunities.
Josh Fertel
14:37
So the first thing is we're going to find out where everything came from once it starts coming in, absolutely.
Alexis Guillen
14:41
Okay, and then what's the next step? So how do we get more of it? Okay, right, um, how? What are my competitors doing that I'm not that. Maybe we can learn from them, maybe we can, you know. Uh, there's an old's, an old adage called a case copy and steal everything, right?
14:57
From a digital marketing standpoint. It's very relevant because you don't want to mimic everything your competitors are doing, but they can illuminate a path of success of saying what kind of content do they have, how many words on that content, how many images do they have, are they unique images, how many backlinks do they have? And you know, and you start following that path, obviously making whatever content you put on your website, it needs to be unique, right? Google doesn't care about content that is on seven different websites. You know verbatim because that kind of plagiarism.
15:32
it can sense that and that affects negatively how your site can rank.
Josh Fertel
15:38
Right, right. So we have the content, we have the metrics. Yep, how do we get that word out now?
Alexis Guillen
15:46
So now, then, you're in a position to start proactively going after a defined audience. So if you have over 1,000 visitors to your website, you can do this thing called remarketing. So, if they went to your website, that there's clearly interest on their part. Whether they got there because of an ad, they got there because they, you know they were handed your business card or referred you or found you on a search engine. Um, if they made it to your website, you can remarket to them with a display banner that follows them as they go about. You know, consuming the Internet of Things and this doesn't have to be on the same device, right? Because you're logged into your Gmail on your phone, on your tablet, on your laptop that following with your message can basically go and jump from one platform to another. The important thing is that it's reaching you and you're staying visible with them.
16:36
I think whenever you go to shop online, the remarketing really just kicks in at that point, Because it works especially for things like shopping cart abandonment, right Like? I can't tell you the amount of times I just sat down trying to buy my kids like three pairs of sneakers.
Josh Fertel
16:51
Right.
Alexis Guillen
16:52
And it probably like on the fourth try, I finally executed the damn deal, right, and but in the, you know, I was getting reminders like hey, you want to finish this shop. You know, do we want to finish this purchase? And I was like I got to.
Josh Fertel
17:04
Shopping cart abandonment. Yes, all right, that's a term. What happens when life intervenes and you don't complete the purchase? No time for life. I have way too many stories about that. We're going to take a break. Okay, when we come back with Alexis, we're going to go ahead and talk about how really getting the word out there.
COMMERCIAL:
Visuals by Momo passionately brings your vision to life with expert video production. We create impactful, community-focused content for businesses and nonprofits, helping you connect and engage with your audience. From concept to completion. Our dedicated team is committed to telling your unique story with creativity and precision. Elevate your brand, making a lasting impression with Visuals by Momo. Visit visualsbymomo.com or call 954-745-7922 to start your journey today. Your story, our passion.
Josh Fertel
17:59
We are back with Alexis. Leverage Digital Marketing. Alexis, tell me where AI is starting to fit in.
Alexis Guillen
18:10
I think the easier answer is where is it not right? Because it's permeating in everything From a, you know, just from a consumer standpoint. It's how can we make interactions more effective, more efficient, faster, definitely streamline processes. So I use AI to help understand context that I just I may not be thinking of or considering, so it helps me understand things from a different perspective. Okay, so if I'm taking on a new client, if I'm having conversations in an industry or space that I previously don't have direct experience in, Okay.
18:49
It just helps illuminate things that I otherwise wouldn't have considered Right, things that I otherwise wouldn't have considered. Where I think AI is going to fit in our lives is it's going to be an effective tool, like a calculator, but like a calculator, it's not going to budget, it's not going to balance your books for you, it's not going to exactly you need to put in the work and then it's going to give you back the responses, because we're still today at a spot where you know the responses it gives you. You can't trust, right? You know, I just went to Paris with my wife and I thought I was so slick because I came up with an itinerary for our trip within like a couple of minutes after us deciding, okay, we're going to go on this trip.
19:38
And I didn't. I failed to vet the information that it gave me. So you put into ai for the itinerary. I did, I did. I was just like, hey, this is what I like to do, this is this is where I want to go check out this. I'm going up from this date to this date. Ai didn't account for the time change from travel Interesting. It booked our tour at the Louvre the day we landed and I didn't realize this until we're sitting in our B&I meeting on a Thursday morning and I got my confirmation email and I'm like, wait a minute, something looks wrong here. And I checked the dates and I'm like, oh my God, it's for the day before we're there.
20:20
It was just bad. It was bad and yeah. So you have to, you have to, you have to vet the information that it gives you but, it is a useful tool.
Josh Fertel
20:28
Is there a downside to using it in your business?
Alexis Guillen
20:34
Yeah, assuming that every answer it gives you is correct. Okay. Thinking that it can replace people, I think it can help streamline processes Okay, but people like no, I still want someone that can actually think Okay. So that's the answer I was thinking.
Josh Fertel
20:53
I would hear Can you use AI for content and does Google pick that up?
Alexis Guillen
20:59
So Google does not. So I well, I think that the real issue is Google does not currently penalize for AI driven content. Okay, there are new sites, notably like cnet.com, that were publishing AI content and they were ranking for AI content. They got called out for using AI content Right, and it still ranks, so AI content can still rank. I think the challenge is AI content is you know, even without putting it into another algorithm to detect, was this written by AI? Right, you can read AI content and know it was AI content.
Josh Fertel
21:36
You can I mean I can look at it and say well, this was not written by a person.
Alexis Guillen
21:41
Exactly because it's like well, am I writing this for, really, the context of your audience? Right, it'll shift. It'll be like, okay, I'm writing this for someone who's college educated and I'm speaking to a four-year-old, right, some of the questions that they ask are just ridiculously, you know, obvious. And I think that is the challenge with relying on AI to do the complete job. Now, using AI as a resource of saying, well, what would a customer for my business that does X Y Z do? What would they be looking for? Right, you know, what should I be offering them? Right, and getting AI to offer that? Yeah, exactly, offer perspective, right, you know. So don't solve the puzzle. Just, hey, like, help me understand what the equation is, Give me the edges, right, pretty much, yeah.
22:29
And I think in that capacity, you know, ai can help streamline the creation of content. Ai for content generation, I think from a. I think we're seeing some amazing things with video AI. Okay, with AI, images that it's able to produce for you, you know. But again, we have limitations. You get that, you get that content delivered to you, and then it's like well, I want to edit X, y, z, whatever it is. Right, very difficult to get AI to make those edits.
Josh Fertel
22:57
Yes, yes, yes, okay. Reviews Okay. How important are reviews to getting content and getting ranked?
Alexis Guillen
23:07
It really depends on the industry. You know, I think, for your clients, like in the medical space, you know how many clients are really looking at reviews, whether to determine if this is going to be my primary care physician or not.
Josh Fertel
23:20
Okay.
Alexis Guillen
23:22
I think that there may be some other channels that are more efficient for that. Like what is it? Avvo?
Josh Fertel
23:29
No, even Yelp things like that. But having those somewhere on your site, does that help with the engagement?
Alexis Guillen
23:37
Well, so reviews are social proof.
Josh Fertel
23:40
Okay, that's really what it is.
Alexis Guillen
23:42
Right. So again, depending on your audience, if you are a restaurant, reviews matter more than if you are a physician Right Fair, if you are a plastic surgeon, someone's probably going to look at the reviews.
23:56
If anything, I think it's always important to note that, as a business owner and this does go across all industries really look at reviews as social proof. But from a standpoint of if you get a negative review, how do you handle it? Because your future customer can see that negative review and how you respond to that is going to be indicative of well, if everything doesn't align perfectly in our situation, how do you make it right?
Josh Fertel
24:23
Right. When I see a thousand five star reviews, I know something's going on.
Alexis Guillen
24:28
Well, if there's no perfect company, With zero, one star or two star or three stars, yeah, that does not pass the smell test, and I tell my clients you know that all the time. I think the challenge is, though, again, you want your reviews to just be reflective of the service, of the product, of, if you can show that.
Josh Fertel
25:00
Well, you know what. This person gave me a negative review because they their expectations were just told right out of whack.
Alexis Guillen
25:01
Right, and we've reached out to him on multiple opportunities to make it right. Right, because I think, at the end of the day, as a consumer, that's what we care about. Yeah, right, like, how do we make this thing whole? I don't want to trash your business, I just want the service I initially engaged you for.
Josh Fertel
25:14
Right are there instances where you've looked at a customer of yours, a client of yours up you know that's gonna come on board and you look at their website and you say this is hurting you, what you're doing here, that you know you're, you know you, you have a problem here. Is there instance where you see that?
Alexis Guillen
25:34
yeah, so most recently it was in March Google did away with their free Google business profile website. So basically, the same way, you can have your Google business profile. It literally had a very simple platform that you could build a website on under Okay Uh, and your website really is important from a local search standpoint Okay, it's. It equates to about 20% of your ability to rank.
Josh Fertel
25:58
Okay.
Alexis Guillen
25:58
Uh, and this client has a uh, you know they have a spa and they were relying on that free website. So when it went away, this was like on our cause. They started with me in in January. When it went away, I was like, hey, this is going away, you really should build a new website or just anything. And you know they they literally dragged their heels on it for about three, four months and what really resonated with them was they noticed that the volume of new customers calling went down dramatically. They went through a whole month of like what is going on? And I'm just like, well, you're not ranking on local search anymore because you don't have anything tethered to a website to verify the information that's on your business profile, right? So it really does that. That really does matter.
26:47
Um, I've worked with a dentist that had really toxic backlinks, like really really toxic, egregious backlinks, which would. So he was uh, so he, he, he was uh. Um, you know he's a dentist out in Sarasota and he's Muslim and like people were just tagging the most atrocious things like super racist, he was tied to gambling sites, tied to porn sites, even child porn things. Like it was really really, really bad and that was hurting his reputation a little bit, yeah, and even though, again, like to the average consumer, this wasn't like his Google reviews, right, these were just other websites that were linking to his website, passing their toxic authority onto him and at the time, that was negatively hurting his ability. How does that happen? You know, you piss the wrong people off, like you know, someone just jumps on one of these websites and hire someone to go and flame you digitally, like it's. Unfortunately, it happens. Wow, I have never heard that.
Josh Fertel
27:48
Yeah, yeah. And how do you?
Alexis Guillen
27:50
monitor that? Well, I just you know I ought. When, when I work with a client, I audit their digital footprint. So I look at the their backlinks, I look at what sites are linking to them, I look to see if there's any problems that need to get disavowed. But I will say that where we are today, google has basically said you know, we're going to stop the need to disavow backlinks because it was all this effort with little return. And so now you know, now, if that same situation were to happen today, it's not going to have as big of an impact as it had on his business. That's interesting. That's interesting.
Josh Fertel
28:24
You had said about this other company that had a website that was free. Is there a benefit to free websites? Yes, absolutely.
Alexis Guillen
28:32
You know what? Well, yes, in all things in life, you get what you pay for. However, a free website is better than no website at all.
28:41
So in that context, I have conversations with clients all the time when they're creating content or adding things onto the website or starting out their very first website. I explain to them I'm like, perfect is the enemy of good. If you drag your heels and do nothing because you're trying to make it perfect and, as a result, you've posted nothing, that is going to hurt you. Good is better than perfect, gotcha.
Josh Fertel
29:07
How often should new content be put on a website?
Alexis Guillen
29:10
Depends on the industry and to that right. That matters because you know, if you know what your competitors are doing right.
29:19
The way you want to stand out is you want to know what your competitors are doing and do more. Okay, right, so if your competitors are posting monthly post twice a month, if your competitors are posting weekly post twice a week, you really just want to outdo your competitors in terms of outwork them, but still keep it central to the, the, the focus of how do we provide content that's beneficial to our audience? Can you post too much?
29:47
Yeah absolutely yes. So from a social standpoint, for instance, right, Not everyone is going to see your posts and then when they do and it's always caught, you know it becomes almost like drivel, right, so it's, it's, it's not super helpful, and you know, then they're just going to start ignoring you, or or, instead of your post getting you know 30 likes, your post is getting five likes. Between you know six different posts, Right, Right, Right.
Josh Fertel
30:14
I get that. Is there a best practices or that would be according to industry?
Alexis Guillen
30:19
It really does, according to industry, according to what your consumer behavior is, who you're trying to reach, what platforms you're on.
Josh Fertel
30:26
Okay.
Alexis Guillen
30:27
You know, as far as like social goes, I think right now where my clients are seeing the best bang for their buck, it's on TikTok.
Josh Fertel
30:35
On TikTok.
Alexis Guillen
30:36
Yeah, from a paid ad standpoint, they're getting more visibility for their dollar there than I think on other platforms. But Facebook is a juggernaut when it comes to lead generation for consumer facing things. If you're trying to reach other business owners, linkedin or you can do direct targeted email marketing or use programmatic platforms to get in front of your very niche audience.
Josh Fertel
31:05
Right, you said email marketing now a couple times. How does that fit into your big plan when you have a client?
Alexis Guillen
31:13
So marketing should be looked at like fishing If you want fishing, with one pole and one hook and one piece of bait, good luck, right, right, yeah, marketing should be looked at from different capacities, of different ways to communicate with your audience and according to different levels of where they are in the consumer buying process. Okay, right. So some focus certainly should be, you know, attributed to bottom funnel things, like you know, people who are ready to take action because they did X, y and Z keyword. That really fits what you're looking for. So you are ranking on with your uh, google ad campaign or your Bing ad campaign. Great, that's going to be. That's going to lead to direct lead generation. But sometimes you need to nurture those, those behaviors or you know, really explain to people how your business is different from your competitors or what they can expect from you. That's really, you know, different. Or if you have a product or a solution that has never been done before, right, who's searching for that?
32:19
We's searching for something that's never been done before, right, exactly. So you have to really educate and nurture that consumer journey, right, and you can do that with display marketing, with video ads, with content marketing and things like that. And email marketing is important in your marketing matrix because it offers first party data, which means information that know, like information that you control. So your, your email list is your company's first party data, right? Um, once you are at a certain threshold so on meta, for instance, if you have between one to really around 2000 emails then you can start doing what's called a lookalike audiences. So, hey, this is our audience that's interested in our product. Find people who are similar to them using Facebook's algorithm, and then your ads are going to now reach those people Because you're using your data. The cost to get those ads in front of people costs less Gotcha.
Josh Fertel
33:16
Okay and then so let's talk about social Cool. All right, business to business. Linkedin is the way to go.
Alexis Guillen
33:23
Business to business. Linkedin is definitely a strong communicator. The one thing to really navigate, though are they there to conduct business or are they there looking for another job? Got it?
Josh Fertel
33:34
I get a lot of spam.
Alexis Guillen
33:35
Yeah, I get a lot of spam, absolutely, but I think in your space, for instance, it's one that I would give it serious consideration because in either scenario, I think it's beneficial to your business, right.
Josh Fertel
33:47
I agree.
Alexis Guillen
33:48
If someone is leaving a practice and going somewhere else and they know of you and then take you somewhere else and they're in a position to make change and bring you in, that's a good thing.
Josh Fertel
33:56
Yeah, I mean I'm LinkedIn forward.
Alexis Guillen
33:59
Yeah, you know, when I do my social, absolutely, I try to be on everything, but I'm LinkedIn forward, if that's a term, no, it is it is that should be the priority when it comes to developing content, and then you can take whatever content you created for LinkedIn and then repurpose it for some of the other channels you want to be on.
Josh Fertel
34:15
Yeah, all right, it sounds like you have everything covered.
Alexis Guillen
34:19
No, absolutely not. I think that's the key thing is I try to be self-aware, right? Okay? Digital marketing is a space where it is ever-changing. It is constantly changing. Change is the one thing I can count on, so I try not to ever feel like I know everything. I don't know how you feel Constantly learning. Yeah, I am constantly learning. I don't know how you feel Constantly learning. Yeah, I am constantly learning. I'm constantly trying to consume information. I'm constantly surrounding myself with category specialists, people that really know that, because I look to their guidance on where things are changing and how can we stay ahead of things. Give me a great success story. Okay, so I was working with an attorney out of Boston and they wanted to. Really. They were making a sizable investment on social and Google ads, but they were seeing diminishing returns.
Josh Fertel
35:14
Okay.
Alexis Guillen
35:14
All in all, she was spending maybe $50,000 a month on on ads for her firm and this is a personal injury and and an immigration attorney. And I went in and first thing I wanted to look at was their website. I wanted to identify, okay, what does that consumer experience look like? Where, you know, are you identifying when people are taking actions that are beneficial to your business? And we found that they weren't there. There were different phone numbers that it was very hard to kind of really identify where things are coming from.
35:46
Then, you know, I put forward a strategy to kind of really streamline their Google ad spend, make it more efficient, make it more effective. Same with their meta campaign. Then they asked me to take that on. And then, you know, she wanted to do more. So she was asking about my opinion on doing outdoor marketing. Right, because marketing should not just be digital, right? I mean, we are both members of an in-person marketing organization because you know that's an important you know line to have in the water, absolutely. So you know.
36:16
So then you know, I was looking at, you know at her different options and kind of got her pricing for a couple of different opportunities. But then I was like we could run commercials to your targeted audience. So we only hit people who speak Portuguese, or only hit people who speak Spanish On television. On television, and these are blue collar workers that speak these languages. Okay, so we had a commercial in Portuguese. We had a commercial in Spanish workers that speak these languages. So we had a commercial in Portuguese. We had a commercial in Spanish. And every dollar spent was reaching that audience while they were streaming content on their televisions at home. And I was able to get that at a ridiculously attractive rate, where she was paying like less than $25 for every 1000 times this commercial was running. Wow, so that was very impactful. So I showed you know what we want to identify.
37:04
There was it's called brand lift, right, yeah, so three months before we started running the campaign, her business was, her firm, was searched by name a total of 90 times. Right In the three months after we ran that campaign, her search volume went up to 1900 times. Wonderful. And what she saw directly? Because what we didn't see, we didn't see direct phone calls coming from the well, nothing that turned into a client from direct phone calls, from the phone number that we're running, the unique phone number we're running on the commercial spots. But you know, in the 12 months before our campaign launched she had a total of like 13 referrals. So a past client that recommended her firm that she signed for business Understood. In the three months that we are following our campaign her referrals were 14. Wow, in three months, in three months, and the only thing different she did was add this digital commercial activation that we launched for. That's great. That's a great story, yeah.
Josh Fertel
38:04
Congratulations, thank you. One last question Sure, if I had a magic wand.
Alexis Guillen
38:09
Okay.
Josh Fertel
38:09
And I gave it to you and said Alexis, do whatever you want with this to help your business, to help digital marketing in general.
Alexis Guillen
38:15
What would you do with it. Understand Google's algorithm, that's not bad.
Josh Fertel
38:22
You just got to find the right person.
Alexis Guillen
38:23
No that is to talk about something that's constant flux, you know like it's always changing. So you know I would love to be able to game it, because who doesn't want a shortcut? Right? But you know, without you know, not having the shortcut means putting in the work and developing quality content, unique content that is going to be beneficial for your audience Awesome.
Josh Fertel
38:44
I really appreciate you coming in here. I knew it was going to be a great conversation. I was talking to something that we hadn't touched on previously and I'm hoping that you'll come back after you figure out the algorithm and we'll go from there.
Alexis Guillen
38:57
Awesome. Well, thanks for having me?
Josh Fertel
38:59
Oh, of course. Thanks, Alexis. Thank you for listening today. Please follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn, and you can check us out at theangrybiller.com.