1575: AI Visibility and Empathic Marketing for Better Rankings with Mike Caldwell

Robert Plank 0:00 Mike Caldwell is here. He is a return guest after 10 years, I believe. And he is known as the Marketing Medic and the creator of empathic marketing. And he's the author of the Amazon best selling book of that same name, empathic marketing. And last time, all those years ago, Mike shared how businesses can create marketing that resonates by deeply understanding their audience. We're talking about good old copywriting, persuasion, marketing, all those sorts of things, and he's back after so many years, a whole lifetime later, to connect that idea to what he's doing now today with AI visibility, explaining why empathy, clarity and trust are no longer just good marketing principles. They are becoming the key to getting recommended by AI. So lots to talk about, lots of exciting developments and AI and the Internet and SEO and everything else. So how we've been after all these years? Mr. Mike, well, know

Speaker 1 0:56 if you remember, but I live off the grid, 160 acres with four to five dogs, three horses. So kind of just busy with living my life outside,

Robert Plank 1:07 nice, but you're living the life many dream of, right? And you have your cake and eat it too. You can have your privacy and your own space, but also, because of wireless internet, solar panels, satellite, et cetera, you can still reach out to the world, but you can also shut it all down if you want to. So many of us are jealous of that.

Speaker 1 1:26 Yeah, yeah. It's funny, because we have house sitters come when we go on vacation or whatever, and the House leaders have the same mentality, oh, this is the dream. But for some reason, they never returned for a second house sit.

Robert Plank 1:38 Oh, no. Maybe it's just too much to handle, or, who knows,

Speaker 1 1:42 it's more work than than the average person is accustomed to. Yes,

Robert Plank 1:46 okay, so it's like going back in time a little bit, and it's like

Speaker 1 1:50 Amish. We're a little bit

Robert Plank 1:52 like, I want to have my toilet back that that flushes right? Want to have my my Netflix and my Uber, etc, and but you know, we still have to pay the bills right, even when you're living remotely, still have to have a business make money, help others, and I understand that you are now an AI expert, right, especially when it comes to getting ranked and recommended.

Speaker 1 2:14 Self proclaimed, yes,

Robert Plank 2:17 okay, and so what's that all about? Because we know that, like, the, you know, SEO, and the way it's been for so many years was based on keywords, and like, how you fit in the Google search, but now things have changed so much, where AI is in everything, right? There's the apps, or even when you, even if you don't want to use AI, and you do a search that says, hey, you know, I know that you put in this keyword, and here are these websites, but even here's this block of questions and answers, and hey, we used AI to try to answer it for you. So it's like it seems like to try to still compete where your web pages rank. You're competing against the ads and the results, the AI and the results. So it seems a lot more logical to join AI instead of fighting it.

Speaker 1 3:00 Yeah. And so a good example for what you're talking about there is, I was at a networking event a couple weeks back, and I was telling a guy, I'm an AI visibility specialist, like, Oh, so you're good at SEO? I said, No, I suck at SEO. Because, like, you say, SEO is about, like, tweaking the algorithm, making the algorithm work for you, whereas AI visibility or geo, or AI EO, or whatever you want to call it, that's more about the personal side of it. Anyway. So I've got, I've got a few of my own businesses that we run out of the arc here, and one of them is a trail race series. And I there's, there's three of us talking. I told the other guy to pull up his phone and the AI tool of his choice, I think he I think it was chat GBT. I said, Okay, ask what the best trail race series in Ottawa is. And he pulled it up. He's like, Oh, the matt Trapper shows up, number one, number four and number five. I said, yeah, that's my race series. And so the guy I'm speaking with is like, Well, yeah, well, you're good at SEO. I said, No, I'm not good at SEO. So I told the guy, go, go to Google, go to Google and ask, you know what the best trail race series is, and I guarantee I won't show up in SEO. So the guy opens up, and he opens up, he says, The Mad Trapper trail and snowshoe series is, you know, highly rated as the number one. Like, whoa. I didn't. I didn't, I don't do SEO. I don't know how I did that. I'm like, give me your phone, let me see. And what he was reading was the Gemini summary at the top of the page, the Gemini AI, which comes up first and foremost. It's Gemini that comes up first, then the ads, and then the regular blue links. And so I actually did show up at number four on the blue links, but not for my races, but for a race directory that I plugged into my site for that SEO juice. But, yeah, but so what you're saying is like, is bang on, because AI is now out ranking SEO and even the ads when you when you pull up a search.

Robert Plank 5:00 Search, and it's It blows my mind now, and it blew my mind many years ago, when you notice that the the average person, or someone who's not really much of a marketer, or like someone who doesn't have a business or website, the average person searching, they don't even notice that a search result is an ad or AI, right? They don't even care if they're scrolling Facebook, and they'll say, Hey, look at this post. And I'm like, you know, it's has fine print there that says it's an atom like, they don't know. They don't care. So it's like it, but it can be to our benefit, right? If we say, hey, well, that's our way to buy away in the rankings. And for you and me, we notice it's an ad. We notice it's AI, but the average person, they have no idea and, and so, you know, I've had a few AI SEO type people on the show, and they talk about things like, you know, getting accounts to all the AI services. And like, you know, doing searches over time, and you do a search in January, and then see what you can do, and have the AI tell you how to rank better. And it all seems like a long to do list that sounds good, but I never quite get around to checking that. Maybe, maybe I don't have enough vanity for that. But what's your take on this? If you demonstrate to someone and you say, hey, you know, look at how how me or my clients, rank really highly with AI, and someone says, Okay, I want that. What do you suggest about some steps moving forward?

Speaker 1 6:23 So I've crafted what I call my AI visibility stack, and because I like alliteration, there's four M's, okay. So it comes down to your message, your mechanics, your mentions and your match the 4m from Mike the marketing medic. How

Robert Plank 6:44 many ms a box of m&ms,

Speaker 1 6:47 exactly. And so just going back. So the reason that AI visibility has worked for me organically is because of what we talked about. I'm sure you remember that exact conversation 12 years ago, the 4d of transformation, your difficulties, your desires, your dreads and your dreams. And this is what's motivating people to make buying decisions. My tablet just made it sound anyway. And so I've always built my websites built on those four d4 D's, right? And the thing is, is when you go into an AI to search for something, it's because you have a difficulty or you have a desire. So the way I build websites is exactly using the formatting that AI resonates with. And so that just happened organically, because I've always done it right. And then what's cool about that is, like for my mad Trapper race series, we're a small, grassroots, you know, organization here, we have a few, a couple of races a year, and, you know, 100 to 150 racers. But when you search for me in AI, I turn off number one, and the number two race organization is called grit and grind, and it's put on by Ottawa. Sorry, run Ottawa, and they host the largest race series in probably Canada. So their their website is getting literally, like hundreds of hits a day, as opposed to my website, that gets dozens of hits a week, but I still outrank them, because the messaging on my site beats the messaging on their site. So the most important thing is the messaging. So that's the first thing, and then the second is the mechanics, and so that and I just got lucky there. But there are things you can do. There's something called a schema that is background code that just adds clarity, because quite often the message on your on your front facing site is quite long, but the schema just breaks it all down, gives crystal clear clarity to the AI to know exactly what you're talking about. The third is mentions, and that is more on the SEO world. Okay, that is, that's your off site credibility. Okay, that's the reviews. That's if you're on Reddit, LinkedIn, all those other YouTube we've got videos there, all those other platforms, especially the authority platforms, that point back to your website. And then fourth is the match, and that is just making sure that everything you say is consistent from platform to platform to platform. I've been I've worked with two companies in the last week, and they have tweaked their business name just a little bit over the years. And so AI has a problem identifying if you know premier Eavesdropping is the same as like eight one eavesdropping, or it was actually close to that if there's just a very small change, but you need to have that consistency as well to make sure that AI knows that that the thing is reading about on this platform is the same as it's reading about on that platform.

Robert Plank 9:52 Very nice, very helpful. So this AI visibility stack you have, it's message mechanics, mentions and. And match, and it's, it's like overwhelming in a good way, because you figure that a lot of business owners, a lot of people, just aren't even looking at it through this lens, right? They're they barely have a web page, they're barely posting, but then they think about all these factors that go into play, right? Like, do you look like a serious business owner, are you there on the social graph? And then some of these concepts that you mentioned, they feel like the older SEO concepts, but like modernized and dressed up, right? Like, remember when everyone was so concerned about duplicate content? And this idea that, well, all of your SEO efforts would be split, and you have some over here and some over here and some over there, and it's like that whole idea of the duplicate entities, it seems similar, right? If you're Mike Caldwell, the marketing medic, and then you go and you change the name, then it's a split. So you're saying that there are things to do to like update the AI with the schema, and say, hey, well, our company name was this, and now it's this, so do your best to merge those or update those. That way there's not multiple copies of you and so in all of your fun and adventures with AI, because it changes so much, right? And no one's really an expert. As soon as they figure it out, then Claude comes up with five new products. Or who knows, what is there anything that surprised you in this journey of like figuring out SEO, Geo, AI and the rest and any surprises

Speaker 1 11:29 yesterday?

Robert Plank 11:30 Ooh,

Speaker 1 11:31 so yesterday, I was contacted by a client, and they've got 17 years in the business. They've got tons of Google reviews, positive, five star reviews. They've won an award in Ottawa. They're They're awesome, but if you look for them in AI, I couldn't find them. And so I was like, What is going on? Like, why? Why is AI ignoring, like, one of the top companies in this in this industry, and and then when I looked at the code, they're using their websites on WordPress, and they're using a plugin called WP Rocket. And what WP Rocket does is it's an SEO tool, so when the website pops up, it only loads what you see above the fold. So it only loads that, and then it loads the rest of the website once you move the mouse. And so that is killer for SEO, because your website, it's only uploading one screen, so it uploads at a fraction of a sec second, and SEO loves that. But here's the thing, when AI goes to crawl your site, what happens it opens. All it sees is that thing above the above the fold, and because AI doesn't have a mouse to wiggle. The rest of that site is invisible, so 95% that was the other thing I forgot to mention. The content on this website was great. It was super comprehensive and answered a lot of questions. It was like, I don't know how I can help these guys, because they're doing the message them. They're doing it all well. They weren't doing the mechanics. They didn't have a schema, but still, it's like, I don't know why, why these guys are doing so poorly. And then I found this SEO plugin that totally broke everything for AI,

Robert Plank 13:10 nice. And that's just, it goes to show how useful it is to have an egghead tech guy like you to jump in there, right? Because it's like, some people like, there's different, like, levels of awareness to use marketing terms, right? There's someone that doesn't even know they don't rank, someone that maybe they don't know they don't rank, but they have no idea. And without someone like you, they might spend months, years, or just give up not knowing that. Oh, it's this WP Rocket plug, and they're only loads above the fold, and then someone like you to tinker. And there even might be someone that maybe they know that's the problem, but they don't have the experience or patience, or they haven't. They don't not. They're not in this on a daily basis. They don't know to change that setting or change up that plugin, and again, they just give up in different ways. I'm like, there was, you know, like, there, you know, you're on podcast, and I have a podcast. And the other day, someone pointed out that iTunes was not adding the episodes. It stopped like last year. So there was like, you know, 50, 100 episodes just not showing. And I was like, What the heck? And it turned out the culprit was that my DNS was just slow or not working. So I moved just my DNS to Cloud Flare, and then it cleared up the issue, and then iTunes showed the rest. But for some people, we threw all these words, like, I've never even heard some of I never heard WP Rocket or cloud player or DNS, but it's like, it's, these are all like, you know, the AI, it's, it's changing our lives, but it's also adding to all the tiny little problems that just come up, right? And that's why, and we you can ask AI for help, but you need to know the right questions, and so you might need the right person to ask the right question, get the right answer, and then go and implement it. And it's like no one person can do it. And so you, you figured out some of these secrets when it comes to AI visibility, and what's that turned into for you? Is this a service or, like, if someone says, Okay, I'm aware of the problem now, I know Mike has the solution. How do we take some additional steps on this?

Speaker 1 15:10 Yeah, so for me, personally, it's helped add, like, a concreteness to what I've been talking about, because I've been talking about messaging forever, and I've been talking about understanding your audience, and that is really kind of philosophical. And the thing is, is it's so important, it's just, it's, it's the it's the foundation of everything, but it's just not concrete enough for most people to really grasp and understand. And now, when I can say that, when you apply an empathic marketing strategy to your website so that AI recognizes you, and we can see that the tangible results appear. That's just been great for for how I can present what I do. I haven't changed. I haven't changed what i've what I do like I have not changed at all. I'm just I'm just implementing it in a unique way,

Robert Plank 16:00 and that is helpful for me, because I think I've gone through similar frustrations where it's just, it's when it because there's art and science to copywriting and messaging, for sure, but when it's too much art, not enough science, I'm just like, there's, there's no concreteness, right? And there's all these fluffy terms, and it's just so frustrating because it's like, I don't know what's good copywriting, messaging, SEO, versus if you say, hey, well, here's, here's why people aren't reading past the fold. Cool. That makes sense to me. Or when they say, Well, your your keyword targeting is off. You run all this content through chat GPT, and we say, hey, what's the ideal buyer? What's the ideal keywords? I'm like, okay, that's, that's a little bit more connected in reality. And it's like, that's, I don't know about you, but that's what's been so helpful with me, with AI, is when things are too fluffy, wuffy, and I don't really know how it compares to my competitors, or I don't know if whatever ranking factor is right. I'm like, Hey, quantify some of this for me, and then I can go back and kind of alternate back and forth, right? There's there's the words, there's the art, you run through AI, and there's a science, and you go back to the humanness, the art, like, that's kind of strengthen the messaging for me, I don't know about you,

Speaker 1 17:17 yeah, and that's why you need AI and human interaction, because I've seen so many of the prompts that you know, all the prompt sharing guys that you know write something like an a list, copywriter, right? You put that prompt in, and then you read the thing, and you're like, Oh my God. Like, what is that saying? And so, like, one of the quotes I fall back on now is clarity beats cleverness. Like you don't need flowerly flowery, flowery copywriting. You need direct you need clear copywriting. That's what your audience is going to respond to, and that is also what AI is going to understand as well. So,

Robert Plank 17:55 oh, yeah,

Speaker 1 17:56 so it's great to use, yeah, I use AI for all my copywriting, but I never use the first results? Never. It's usually like the eighth to the 12th, like we have to. It's, we're a team. We work together, right and and that's, that's where some of the breakdowns happen with people who don't understand copywriting and don't understand persuasion, they're just like, oh, that sounds really flowery and nice and fancy. Let's use that, and then your your viewers. Like, I don't know what this guy's saying. He's trying too hard to sell me.

Robert Plank 18:28 Yeah, you have the judgment skills that come with time. And it's like how we were saying that. Like some someone doesn't even recognize when it's an ad and a search result or a post. And like, I had a client once that she made a WordPress site, and she was like, Oh my gosh, my blog's so popular. Look at all the comments and all the comments. I was like, these are all spam bots. But she didn't know, because she, like, hadn't just, you know, hadn't been tough enough by the cruel world. And similarly, when you tell AI to write something and it has all the cliches that you and I have seen right when they say, like, the room fell silent and everyone was aghast, and all these things that, if you just scroll it, it's it looks good, but when you're like, wait a second, like it that didn't say anything, or it said, you know, it's not a, it's B, and it's like, I've seen these cliches, and it's like, a good starting point that maybe you clean up, or you Say, Hey, I don't like, like, you know, I did the bucket brigade, and I go through and hey, here's where the bucket brigade failed. Fix this up, because you just delved into nonsense. So fix it up. And so it's like, again, we need that human factor, the human in the loop, such as yourself, to know what's good and what's bad, and then fix it up, beef it up. And so we've been jumping around and talking about all kinds of fascinating subjects, but you're the star of the show here, Mr. Mike. And so in our final minutes of our conversation, what do you think might be the missing question that I should be asking you? I just don't know to ask you.

Speaker 1 19:57 Let's see. I think that. For what's I think we kind of covered it, but I think it's so important needs to be asked again, like, what is the most important thing for AI visibility? And I just said it a couple a minute ago, was that clarity beats cleverness. And when you're creating your your thing, and that's something else that a lot of web copywriters or web builders do is the answer is in there, but you have to find it, and you shouldn't have to look. And so a lot of my websites now are built with question sub headlines, like h2 h3 sub headline, and then the paragraph that answers that specific question, because that provides the clarity one for you. You know, you know, what's the best shingle for a roof in western Quebec? That's a great question if you're a roofer, right?

Robert Plank 20:52 Yeah, and

Speaker 1 20:52 that's what people are typing in to AI and but what the roofers doing, that's building the website, is they're not putting that h2 question up. First, they're just putting a list of asphalt shingles versus, you know, metal roof versus whatever, right? And so they just have versus rollout shingles. So the list is all there. But because the question isn't asked, then AI has to figure out, well, is he saying that tin is better than than shingles? Or, I don't know what he's saying. What he's saying. And so you need that. You need that clarity,

Robert Plank 21:26 yeah, 100% and in your speaking to two different audiences, right? You're satisfying the AI, but also satisfying the humans. And it's like, and when I, you know, have these podcast guests, I have over 1500 interviews by now, and like, sometimes we'll have someone who is like you and they're smart, but they'll just, they'll overload me with cutesy phrases and sayings and like, a few are good, right? Like talking about the forums, it's like, okay, that's simple enough. But then when it's like, okay, I have to remember like this, this three word phrase and this two word phrase, and how they connect. Like, it becomes like fun for you to invent all that, but it gets past the point of no return when it's like, well, I have to do computations in my own mind to simplify it. Imagine what the AI is doing. And we all know how AI can get wrong, so why not make it easy for the AI and go for that clarity instead of cleverness? And so you've given us quite an education here and got us excited to look into what we need to do, as far as the getting listed on the AI driven recommendations and so forth. And we know you have a book and a website and some next steps. So if someone says, I'm fascinated by about Mike Caldwell's take on the AI ranking and recommendations, what are some next steps here? How should someone contact you and check out book, website, etc?

Speaker 1 22:46 Yeah, everything is available on my website. Oh, that's another thing. If we got like, one extra minute, yes, I don't know when you and I first met. Russell Brunson was the emergency emerging guru, right right back then. And what did he say? He said websites are dead. He planted his flag. Said websites are dead. Funnels are are the future, right? Well, I believe that has come around, and websites are now the anchor, because this is my own, you know, conspiracy theory, belief. But I don't think people are going to be looking at websites in the next couple years or funnels, they're going to be asking the AI. AI is going to synthesize everything and give the answer that they're looking for and give the, you know, the button to push to go to what they want, right? So I think AI is going to bypass the website. But this is why websites are so important, because just because people aren't viewing the websites, the AI is, and so that's why you have to have such a complete, complete platform. So I've been putting more effort into my website lately, and it is the marketing medic.ca

Robert Plank 23:54 so the the marketing medic.ca and that's fascinating to think about, right? Like that. The AI is building this layer of abstraction, so to speak, right? And you say, like, what's the best Chinese restaurant in Ottawa? It'll tell you, and then you won't go to the website. Well, what's on the menu? And it'll tell you, you won't go to the website. Well, let me place a reservation, and the AI might go and interface with your API, on your reservation system, on your website, but the AI will be the one visiting, not the human. And so it's like it on the surface, it sounds defeatist, but you're saying, Well, no, you still need to have the website to receive the AI. And so it's it's like all the more reason to make sure that everything is dialed in. And you know, as perfect as it can be, because maybe if a human would give you some more grace about if they can't find that tab or can't find that answer, Well, hey, the AI will just pass along and recommend someone else to you. So to get future proofed and to get idea about what we need to do, as far as getting empathic marketing for better. Better visibility and conversion. Go to themarketingmedic.ca, it's Mike Caldwell, marketing strategist, author and speaker. He helps businesses get clear on who they help, what they need to say, and how to deliver that message, so they can attract better leads, better trust and convert more of the right people. So if you want to book that AI visibility audit and get the audience message and delivery figured out, go to themarketin medic.ca, and have that conversation with Mr. Mike Caldwell. And who knows, in the future, the AI might just read in the transcript of the words we're saying. Now recommend, Mike, there'll be a button right in the AI to schedule that call. But in the meantime, we do have to do things the old fashioned way and go to those websites ourselves. So the marketing medic.ca, is the website to go to. And before I let you go, Mr. Mike, it's time for the scary part of the podcast where I try to stump you. I try to put you on the spot by asking about a fun or interesting quote or lesson that has served you. So what comes to mind as far as a fun or interesting quote or lesson,

Speaker 1 26:06 all right? Can I get all biblical on you right now?

Robert Plank 26:09 Let's do it serious time

Speaker 1 26:12 I say that cheek. So I've always lived my life by doing it others as they would do unto you, the golden rule, right?

Robert Plank 26:19 Yeah,

Speaker 1 26:20 but I've tweaked that for marketing, and that is sell unto others, as you would have them sell on to you. It's like, just think about that. If you're going to buy something, how do you like to be sold to and then if you're selling something, sell to them in that same manner.

Robert Plank 26:37 That's wonderful. I love it. And for me, that means solve my problem. Be direct, be clear. Don't make me guess. Don't confuse me. And so it's like, whatever your own filter criteria is, sell unto others as they would sell unto you. And we'll think about that as we're going to themarketingmedic.ca, and thanks for coming back after a decade, Mr. Mike, and helping us out with not just our copywriting or funnels or websites now, but also AI visibility. So thanks for doing that.

Speaker 1 27:05 Thank you, Robert. I hope to be back in another 10 years.

Robert Plank 27:08 All right. Well.