Everything people ask before they get in touch, answered directly.
Written to be read by a person and to be quoted accurately by a machine. Every answer is a direct answer rather than a paragraph that circles one, and every price on this page matches the pricing page exactly.
About the studio
What does Powell Content Studio do?
Powell Content Studio is a content, marketing, and AI infrastructure studio in Powell, Ohio. It builds four things: lead generation campaigns, the follow up systems that catch what those campaigns produce, AI systems that take repetitive work off a team, and the websites and content that make the rest of it credible.
Who owns Powell Content Studio?
Shawn Nardella owns Powell Content Studio outright and leads the studio. He is the founder and CEO, and he is the person clients deal with directly, from the first call onward.
Where is Powell Content Studio located?
Powell Content Studio is based in Powell, Ohio, in the Columbus metropolitan area. Its phone number is (740) 325-8997.
What areas does Powell Content Studio serve?
Most clients are in Central Ohio, including Powell, Columbus, Dublin, Delaware, Westerville, Lewis Center, New Albany and Worthington. Work that does not require someone on site is delivered remotely, and PCS runs campaigns for clients in other states.
What industries does Powell Content Studio work with?
Real estate teams and brokerages, mortgage professionals and lenders, title and settlement agencies, and local service businesses including home services and trades, medical and dental practices, and professional services firms.
Is Powell Content Studio an AI agency or a marketing agency?
Both, and the combination is the point. Marketing creates opportunities and AI systems catch and process them. Buying those two things from separate firms is why they so often fail to connect.
Working together
How do I start working with Powell Content Studio?
Book a twenty minute call. The first conversation is diagnosis rather than a pitch: what is going wrong, what it is costing, and which of the services actually addresses it. If none of them do, you will be told that.
Who actually does the work?
Powell Content Studio does. Shawn owns the strategy, the campaign and content direction, and the client relationship, and the studio builds the heavier engineering with a long standing technical partner. You deal with Shawn throughout, so nothing is lost in a handoff.
Do you work with businesses outside Ohio?
Yes. On site process mapping is easier within driving distance of Columbus, so builds that depend on it are usually local. Campaigns, content, AI receptionists and AI search work are delivered remotely anywhere in the United States.
What does Powell Content Studio not do?
It does not take on work where the honest answer is that a cheaper or different firm would serve you better, and it does not compete on price against the cheapest automation on the market. Where a CRM is part of the work, what is being sold is the setup, the pipeline and the follow up built around how the business actually runs, not a login and a manual.
Do you offer a free trial?
No, but the bottleneck finder on this site is free and requires no email address, and the AI visibility check that starts a Found by AI engagement is free as well.
Money
How much does Powell Content Studio charge?
An AI Efficiency Audit starts at $3,500. An AI Operations System is $5,900 as a one time build. An AI Workforce seat is from $4,900 to set up plus from $1,500 a month. An AI Receptionist is $485 to set up and $397 a month. Found by AI is $500 once and $99 a month. A CRM and follow up build is $395 to set up and $75 a month per seat. Lead generation and content engagements are quoted per engagement.
Do you take a percentage of advertising spend?
No. Advertising spend is paid directly to the advertising platform by the client and Powell Content Studio takes none of it.
Does the audit fee count toward a build?
Yes, if the build is commissioned within 30 days of the audit being delivered.
Are there setup costs I should expect beyond the published price?
Message, telephony and third party usage costs are passed through where they apply, and United States text messaging requires a one time carrier registration. Every one of those is shown to you before anything is switched on rather than appearing on an invoice later.
AI services
What is an AI Efficiency Audit?
A paid engagement that maps how work actually moves through a business, identifies where repetitive manual work and slow handoffs cost time and money, and delivers a prioritized roadmap of what to automate first. It starts at $3,500 and produces a document and a walkthrough, not software.
What is an AI Receptionist and what does it cost?
An AI Receptionist is a voice agent that answers a business phone line, talks to the caller, asks the qualifying questions the owner defined, books an appointment into the live calendar, and texts the owner a summary. It costs $485 to set up and $397 a month including monitoring.
What is an AI Employee?
A build that performs the repetitive portion of one defined job role, named for the role it runs, such as an AI Intake Coordinator. Setup starts at $4,900 and the monthly fee is set at roughly 40 percent of what that role costs the business loaded.
Will AI replace my staff?
That is not how these are sold or how they are built. An AI Employee handles the repetitive majority of a role and a person still owns exceptions, judgment and relationships. In practice the person moves to higher value work.
Is my data safe?
Client data is only connected to systems the client approves, and every integration is listed in the specification before it is built. Nothing is connected quietly.
AI search and being found
What is Found by AI?
A service that restructures a business website so AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Google's AI answers, and Perplexity can read it, understand what the business does and where, and cite it when someone asks for a recommendation. It costs $500 once and $99 a month.
Can you guarantee my business will be recommended by ChatGPT?
No. No one can, and any agency claiming otherwise is selling something it cannot deliver. Results vary by platform, location, wording and timing. What Found by AI does is make a business readable, eligible and monitored.
How is AI search optimization different from SEO?
Traditional search optimization competes for a rank on a page of links. AI search competes to be one of the two or three names an assistant gives when asked for a recommendation. The signals overlap, but the content shape that wins is different: direct answers to specific questions, written so a machine can lift a self contained chunk out of the page and repeat it.
Does my website need rebuilding for this?
Often not. The work can usually be applied to an existing site, either with edit access or by handing code to your developer. A rebuild is only recommended when the current site structurally cannot carry it, and that gets established before any quote.
Campaigns and reporting
How does Powell Content Studio report on campaigns?
Monthly, showing what ran, what it produced, what changed and why, and an explicit statement of what cannot be seen from the agency side. Every report carries a standing question asking which leads became appointments, deals in progress, or closings.
Why do you ask what closed instead of just showing cost per lead?
Because cost per lead is the only number visible from the agency side and it is a proxy, not the outcome. Four expensive leads that close are worth more than forty cheap ones that do not, and a report that reads only cost will confidently recommend switching off the more profitable campaign.
Are your lead forms set for volume or for quality?
Quality. Every form is set to higher intent with verification switched on, which produces fewer inquiries from people who meant it. The volume setting is available on request, with a clear explanation of the trade.
How fast do leads get a response?
Automated sequences fire within the first few minutes of a lead arriving, by text and email. How fast a human follows up depends on the business, which is the reason the AI Receptionist is so often bought alongside campaign work.
Question that is not on this page?
Ask it directly. You will get a straight answer, including when the answer is that PCS cannot help with it.