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7-Figure Small with Brian Clark
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The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
Youpreneur with Chris Ducker
Zero to Book
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
hosted by Darrell Vesterfelt and Tim Stoddart

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email Approach

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Previous Episode:The 'Obligatory' Structure of Effective Content More Episodes Next Episode:A New Book to Make Content Marketing Easier

All Episodes:

March 30, 2020

The Advantage of Email Marketing, Featuring Nathan Barry of ConvertKit

March 15, 2020

How to Write Content That Resonates

March 9, 2020

How to Conquer Your Fear of Selling, with Leah Neaderthal

March 2, 2020

How to Build Remarkable Products to Grow Your Business, with Ramit Sethi

February 17, 2020

What You Should Talk about on Your Podcast, with Tara McMullin

February 9, 2020

How to Win at Search in 2020

February 3, 2020

How to Turn Pro as a Freelance Writer

January 27, 2020

Marketing Segmentation and Personalization with Brennan Dunn of RightMessage

January 20, 2020

Podcasting Still Matters, with Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income

January 13, 2020

The New Look Copyblogger in 2020

January 8, 2020

New Year, New Copyblogger

October 23, 2019

The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur with John Jantsch

October 2, 2019

Consistency Will Take You Further

September 25, 2019

The Past, Present, and Future of Online Learning

September 16, 2019

How to Get More of the Right Things Done

September 9, 2019

Why the Future Is Still Email

September 3, 2019

What’s Next for
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August 26, 2019

How Smart, Nimble Companies Are Using Webinars Today

August 19, 2019

The Clarity Method: A Conversation with Tim Brownson

August 12, 2019

Digital Business Trends and the Latest on the Rainmaker Platform

August 5, 2019

4 ‘Naive’ Business Principles for Enduring Success

July 8, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 3: Polishing and Promotion

July 1, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 2: Getting It Written

June 24, 2019

How to Write an Epic Blog Post, Part 1: Thinking and Research

June 17, 2019

3 Almost Magical Headline Ingredients for More Traffic, Engagement, and Shares

June 10, 2019

Lessons Any Business Can Learn from an Impressive Influencer Marketing Fail

June 3, 2019

13 Ways of Looking at a Headline

May 27, 2019

The 7 ‘Bad’ Habits of Incredibly Successful People

May 20, 2019

Writers: How to Move from Making a Living to Driving Revenue

May 13, 2019

Choose the Right Frame to Boost the Power of Your Content

May 6, 2019

How Copywriting Teacher Belinda Weaver Reenergized Her Email List for Massive Engagement

April 29, 2019

3 Reasons Why Really Good Writers Sometimes Can’t Find Great Clients

April 22, 2019

3 Slightly Embarrassing Emotions that Drive Effective Copywriting

April 15, 2019

Get 10 Content Marketing Boosters in 20 Minutes

April 8, 2019

Becoming the ‘Chief Empathy Officer’ of Your Copy and Content

April 1, 2019

One of the Most Important Marketing Decisions You’ll Ever Make

March 18, 2019

What Nobody Wants to Hear about Content Marketing

March 11, 2019

Getting Your Big, Scary Projects Finished: A Conversation about Growing Gills

March 4, 2019

When Is It Time to Bring in a Professional Copywriter?

February 25, 2019

Using Content to Systematically Move Prospects Toward a Purchase

February 18, 2019

Understanding the Lifecycles of Your Website, with Pamela Wilson

February 11, 2019

5 Ways to Manage a Stress-Induced Creative Slump

February 4, 2019

3 Ways Strategic Content Can Drive Measurable Business Outcomes

January 28, 2019

The Social Media Platform Every Content Creator Should Be Using in 2019 (Nope, It’s Not Facebook)

January 21, 2019

Real Talk about Generating High-Quality Content

January 14, 2019

A Conversation with Paul Jarvis about Staying a ‘Company of One’

October 29, 2018

The 3 Plus 1 Foundational Elements of Effective Persuasion

October 22, 2018

5 Essential Copywriting Techniques from Copyblogger

October 15, 2018

5 Ways to Recover Your Professional and Creative Confidence

October 8, 2018

5 Stinky Sardine Secrets to Make Your Content More Fascinating

September 24, 2018

The Mindset ‘Hack’ that Frees Your Creativity and Makes You Happier

September 18, 2018

How to Kill Your Sales and Mess up Your Business: Lessons from a Used Car Salesman

September 4, 2018

The 7 Things Writers Need to Make a (Good) Living

August 27, 2018

Are You Making These Social Media Marketing Mistakes?

August 20, 2018

Fix These 7 About Page Mistakes for More Traffic and (Possibly) Better SEO

August 13, 2018

7 Ways to Boost Your Creativity

August 6, 2018

A 10-Step ‘Checklist’ for Your Content Marketing Site

July 30, 2018

The 3 Keys to Publishing Strong Content … Even If You Aren’t a ‘Great’ Writer (Yet)

July 23, 2018

Fix These 3 Points of Failure to Get Better Results for Your Content

July 16, 2018

Big Changes at ConvertKit: A Discussion with Founder Nathan Barry

July 9, 2018

3 Skills to Master to Become a Marketing Badass this Year

June 18, 2018

The Quiet Power of Conversational Copy

June 11, 2018

5 Rules of Thumb to Relieve SEO-Induced Stress

June 4, 2018

How to Use the GDPR to Make Your Business Stronger than Ever

May 14, 2018

‘Good Karma’ Selling that Works: A Conversation with Tim Paige

April 30, 2018

How to Get More Comfortable (and Effective) at Selling

April 23, 2018

Privacy and Permission in the Wake of Cambridge Analytica

April 16, 2018

Seth Godin and How to Create Change

April 9, 2018

Email? Chatbots? Social? How Are We Supposed to Reach People?

March 26, 2018

The Double-Edged Sword that Can Make (or Break) Your Content

March 19, 2018

Make More Progress by Getting (Gently) Out of Your Comfort Zone

March 12, 2018

Are You Doing Content Marketing Wrong?

March 5, 2018

Storytelling for Modern Content Marketing (Part 2 of 2)

February 26, 2018

Storytelling for Modern Content Marketing (Part 1 of 2)

February 19, 2018

10 Quality Factors Search Engines Need to See on Your Site

February 12, 2018

A Simple Content Strategy to Make Your Site Massively More Useful

February 5, 2018

How to Avoid a Heartbreaking Business Failure

January 29, 2018

Hey Writers: Let’s Get You Paid What You’re Worth

January 15, 2018

5 Keys to Making Your Content More Shareable

December 18, 2017

3 Observations on Trends (but not Predictions) for 2018

December 11, 2017

3 Tips Now to Build a Strong Foundation in 2018

December 4, 2017

The 3 Success Factors that Help Writers Earn a Great Living

November 27, 2017

How to Recognize a Great Content Idea

November 20, 2017

How to Cultivate a More Meaningful Gratitude Practice

November 13, 2017

Advice for Poets, Advice for Killers

October 30, 2017

Face Your Business Fears on Halloween Week

October 23, 2017

How to Make Smarter Decisions about Your Website

October 2, 2017

A Series of Unfortunate Content Events

September 18, 2017

The Evolution of a Successful Copywriter

August 28, 2017

7 Ways to Improve Your Marketing by Harnessing the Power of Evil

August 14, 2017

Smart Questions from our Brilliant Audience

August 7, 2017

Does the Web Have Enough Patience for Your In-Depth Content?

July 31, 2017

How to Write (Much Better) Blog Comments

July 17, 2017

Which Works Better: Positive or Negative Content?

July 10, 2017

How to Attract the Exact Customers You Want

July 3, 2017

How to Create Stability and Success as an Artist

June 19, 2017

Two Powerful Resources for Life-Changing Growth

June 12, 2017

How to Turn All that Marketing Advice into Action

June 5, 2017

How to Develop a Compelling Marketing Idea in 4 Steps

May 30, 2017

Getting Over the Fear of Selling

May 22, 2017

Talking Community and Digital Business with Tara Gentile

May 15, 2017

Plagiarism, Self-Deception, Bad Sandwiches, and Other Interesting Disasters

May 1, 2017

Professional Writers: Find Out How to Get Certified by Copyblogger

April 17, 2017

The Painful Core Lesson Taught by 3 Astonishing Big-Brand Fails

April 3, 2017

5 Mindset Habits that Actually Work

March 27, 2017

On Grammar, Usage, and Not Being a Great Big Jerk

March 20, 2017

Creative Strategies for Content Writers

March 13, 2017

A New Ultra-Easy Resource for Creating Excellent WordPress Sites

February 20, 2017

Thriving Freelancers and Clients from Hell

February 13, 2017

Politics, Content Marketing, and the 2017 Super Bowl Ads

February 6, 2017

Copyblogger Book Club: Winning the Story Wars

January 23, 2017

3 Content Marketing Strategy Fails (and How to Fix Them)

January 9, 2017

The 2017 Content Excellence Challenge: Your January Assignments

December 19, 2016

Bad Writing Advice: The ‘Post Truth’ Episode

December 12, 2016

Get Ready Now for a Creative and Productive 2017

December 5, 2016

The 4 Pillars Every Online Business Is Built On

November 28, 2016

Orbit Media’s Latest Survey of 1000 Bloggers

November 14, 2016

Have You Already Missed the Podcasting Gold Rush?

November 7, 2016

Getting More Traffic, Links, and Shares to Your Content

October 31, 2016

5 Quick Wins for Content Marketers

October 24, 2016

Announcing: An Intriguing New Tool for Collaborative Content

October 17, 2016

A New Book to Make Content Marketing Easier

October 10, 2016

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email Approach

October 3, 2016

The ‘Obligatory’ Structure of Effective Content

September 26, 2016

7 Powerful Content Strategies Borrowed from Advertising Masters

September 15, 2016

How to Handle Demographic and Psychographic Segmentation (without Looking Like an Idiot)

September 8, 2016

Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

September 1, 2016

3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative Professionals

August 25, 2016

How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part Two

August 18, 2016

How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part One

August 11, 2016

Are You Leaving Money on the Table with Weak Headlines?

August 4, 2016

Content Marketing for Nonprofits

July 28, 2016

The One-Two Punch that Creates the Most Successful Copywriters

July 21, 2016

Pokémon Go: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

July 14, 2016

5 Suggestions When You’re Writing About Controversy

July 7, 2016

Announcing: A Breakthrough Educational Collaboration between Copyblogger and U.C. Davis

June 30, 2016

How to Break Past the #1 Conversion Killer

June 23, 2016

The New Age of Marketing Automation: Powerful, Simple, Cost-Effective

June 16, 2016

How to Make a (Really Good) Living as a Freelance Writer

June 9, 2016

Self-Publishing, Side Hustles, and Doing It All: A Conversation with Linda Formichelli

June 2, 2016

A Process for Content Marketing Success

May 26, 2016

Content Marketing Best Practices: Getting Email Opt-Ins

May 19, 2016

Behind the Scenes: Adventures in Advertising

May 12, 2016

Trump, Apple, and Facebook Advertising: Content Marketing News for May, 2016

May 5, 2016

Sally Hogshead and the Art of Fascination

April 28, 2016

Behind the Scenes at the Rainmaker Digital Company Meeting!

April 14, 2016

Social Media News, Social Media Constants

April 7, 2016

Strategies for B2B Podcasting, with Clark Buckner

March 31, 2016

Content Marketing Success Stories: Fitness Powerhouse Examine.com

March 24, 2016

Behind the Scenes: An Inside Look at the Rainmaker FM Redesign

March 17, 2016

Our Latest Advice and Resources for Digital Business Owners

March 10, 2016

Should Content Publishers Adopt Google’s New AMP?

March 3, 2016

7 Ways to Get Smarter with Social Media Listening

February 25, 2016

Content Marketing Shout-Out: Orbit Media and Andy Crestodina

February 18, 2016

The Tactic You Should Steal from Copyblogger

February 11, 2016

Content Marketing News for February, 2016

February 4, 2016

Email Marketing: The Misunderstood Powerhouse

January 28, 2016

The Secret Weapon Behind Great Websites: The Role of the Content Editor

January 21, 2016

Behind the Scenes: The Relaunch and Re-Imagining of Copyblogger.com

January 14, 2016

Trends and Predictions for Digital Commerce: A Conversation with Brian Clark

January 7, 2016

2016 Content Marketing Resolutions

December 28, 2015

The End of The Lede, The Beginning of Copyblogger FM

November 10, 2015

Constraints Can Be Blessings (Plus 2 Other Essential Lessons Jerod Re-Learned This Week)

November 3, 2015

Long or Short? The Content Length Question Answered, Once and For All

October 27, 2015

The Simple Publishing Hack That Gives Old Content New Life (Plus 3 More Tips)

October 20, 2015

The Surprising Truth about Earning a Profit from Your Content

October 13, 2015

How to Move Your Audience From Infatuation to Love

October 6, 2015

3 Things Your Audience Wants You to Know about Useful Content

September 29, 2015

Revisiting Authenticity: What It Is, What It’s Not, and Why It Matters

September 22, 2015

Publishing Lessons from Dave Pell, the Most Fascinating Email Newsletter Writer in the Business

September 15, 2015

Why Content Creators Should Kiss Their Programmers

September 8, 2015

Finally — A Podcast about the Superiority of Written Content

September 1, 2015

Hot Seat: Grilling Jerod on Using Audio Content to Seed a Content Arsenal

August 25, 2015

How to Optimize Your Headlines for Content Discovery with Vinegar (Before You Die of Cholera)

August 18, 2015

5 Stories That Explain Jerod Morris (Plus One Massive Marketing Lesson)

August 11, 2015

Lede Potpourri: A Big Idea, Talking About Demian Behind His Back, and Lessons from #PM15

August 4, 2015

How to Attend an Industry Conference Like a Boss

July 28, 2015

Getting the Most Out of a Conference When You’re There to Promote, Part 1

July 21, 2015

How Much Does the Modern Content Marketer Need to Know About SEO?

July 14, 2015

Are Podcasters Digitally Sharecropping Without Realizing It?

July 7, 2015

Celebrating Our 101st Episode (with a Special Guest Interviewer)

June 30, 2015

Why The Phrase ‘Leaders Are Readers’ Should Die

June 23, 2015

Why You Should Think Outside the Box About Online Courses

June 16, 2015

The Proper (and Safe) Way to Republish Old Articles

June 9, 2015

How to Grow an Audience on LinkedIn by Repurposing Content

June 2, 2015

Key Takeaways from Three-and-a-Half Hours with Henry Rollins

May 27, 2015

Rapid-Fire Takeaways from Authority Rainmaker

May 19, 2015

The Proper Way to Grow an Audience on Medium

May 12, 2015

The Introvert’s Guide to Launching a Successful Podcast

May 5, 2015

The One Quality All Popular Podcasts Share

April 28, 2015

Proof That Grit Is the Only Way to Reach Your Potential

April 21, 2015

Do We Celebrate Failure Too Much?

April 14, 2015

Choose Yourself Part 2: James Altucher Fights Back

April 7, 2015

Should We Fear Content Shock? (Or Could It Actually Be a Good Thing?)

March 31, 2015

Should You Really ‘Walk in the Direction of Your Fear’?

March 24, 2015

Is ‘Choose Yourself’ Good Advice … or New-Age Phooey?

March 17, 2015

Is Authority Earned or Bestowed?

March 3, 2015

Dan Pink on How to Succeed in the New Era of Selling

February 24, 2015

Here’s How to Answer the Most Important Question in Life (and Make a Living from It)

February 17, 2015

Sally Hogshead on How You Can Unlock Your Natural Ability to Fascinate

February 10, 2015

How to Learn from Your Successes

January 27, 2015

How to Learn From Your Mistakes

January 13, 2015

Lessons Learned from Conducting Two Monster Audience Surveys

December 16, 2014

Adaptive Content: A Trend to Pay Attention to in 2015

December 2, 2014

The Most Important Lessons You Should Have Learned in 2014

November 18, 2014

How We Built Our Careers Online (And What You Can Learn From It)

November 4, 2014

Interview with Brian Clark: How Customer Experience Maps Help You Develop a Smarter Content Strategy

October 21, 2014

How Empathy Maps Help You Speak Directly to the Hearts of Your Audience

October 7, 2014

How to Ignite a Feeling in Your Audience

September 23, 2014

Are You Overlooking This Cornerstone of a Smart Content Strategy?

June 26, 2014

How to Curate Knowledge, Turn it Into Wisdom, and Build Your Audience

June 19, 2014

How Successful Writers Curate Ideas

June 13, 2014

The 5 W’s of Link Curation

June 6, 2014

Why You Should Curate Content (And How to Do It Right)

May 30, 2014

How Freaks and Misfits Can Succeed in Business: A Conversation with Chris Brogan

May 23, 2014

The 2 Reasons People Don’t Click on Your Buttons … And How to Overcome Them

May 16, 2014

Chase Customers, Not Clicks

May 9, 2014

How to Be Authentic

May 2, 2014

How to Close With Style

April 25, 2014

The Best of Seth Godin on Copyblogger

April 17, 2014

How to Choose Arresting Images for Your Blog Posts (And Why You Should)

April 11, 2014

Removing Blog Comments: The View So Far

April 4, 2014

How to Use Internal Cliffhangers

March 28, 2014

Hangout Hot Seat with Brian Clark

March 21, 2014

How to Tell a Seductive Story

March 14, 2014

How to Create Exquisite Subheads

March 7, 2014

How to Write Killer Bullet Points

February 28, 2014

How to Write Damn Good Sentences

February 21, 2014

How to Use Persuasive Words

February 14, 2014

Michael Stelzner on Capturing Emails and Committing to Quality

February 7, 2014

How to Nail Your Opening

January 24, 2014

How to Write a Magnetic Headline (in Under 15 Minutes)

May 18, 2012

Seth Godin on When You Should Start Marketing Your Product, Service, or Idea

May 11, 2012

How to Attract an Audience by Integrating Content, Social, and Search

March 30, 2012

Why You Should Build an Audience Before You Build a Business

March 16, 2012

How Chris Brogan Built His Content Platform

March 9, 2012

Jay Baer on How to Turn Interested Prospects into Lifelong Customers

March 2, 2012

A 30-Minute Copywriting Course from a Master of the Craft

February 24, 2012

The Path to a Legendary Copywriting Career

February 17, 2012

5 Tips for Affiliate Marketing Beginners

February 10, 2012

Why Not Sell Physical Stuff With Digital Media?

February 3, 2012

Whether You Call it Blogging or Not, Online Content Still Rules

January 27, 2012

Answers to the 3 Biggest Email Marketing Questions We Get

January 20, 2012

How to Newsjack Your Way to Free Media Exposure with David Meerman Scott

January 13, 2012

Steven Pressfield and the War of Work

November 18, 2011

The Strategy Behind the Copyblogger Redesign

November 11, 2011

7 Ways to Create an Email Marketing "Snowball Effect"

November 4, 2011

Warning: If You're Not a Privacy Nut, You're Losing Sales

October 28, 2011

The 3 Kinds of Writing That Builds a Business

October 21, 2011

The Art of Seductive Writing: A Conversation with Robert Greene

October 7, 2011

Why Content Marketing Doesn't Suck

September 30, 2011

Are You Weird Enough to Succeed at Content Marketing?

September 23, 2011

What Works With SEO Right Now and Why No One Does What You Want

September 16, 2011

Are You Flushing Your Marketing Down the Social Media Toilet?

September 11, 2011

Seth Godin on Blogging, Business Books, and Creating Content that Matters

September 2, 2011

The Return of Copyblogger Radio …

June 10, 2011

Answered: Your Most Burning Content Marketing Questions

June 3, 2011

How to Get All the Clients and Customers You Can Handle

May 20, 2011

Is Content Marketing Worth the Work?

May 13, 2011

How to Write Nearly Undeletable Emails

May 6, 2011

Is the Online Gold Rush Over?

April 22, 2011

The Art of Enchanting Online Marketing with Guy Kawasaki

April 15, 2011

The Market for Something to Believe in is Infinite: An Interview with Hugh MacLeod

April 8, 2011

How to Constantly Create Compelling Content

March 25, 2011

The Content Marketing Question You Need to Answer … Now

March 18, 2011

Good SEO is Simple. Really.

March 4, 2011

Did Social Media Kill the Marketing Star?

February 25, 2011

How to Write (and Execute) a Simple but Powerful Business Plan

February 17, 2011

How to Kick Groupon to the Curb and Become a Local Hero

February 3, 2011

Convert … Or Die

January 27, 2011

Attention: Is Your Headline Getting Any?

January 20, 2011

How to Craft Landing Pages that Work

January 13, 2011

Why Every Smart Business is in the Media Business

January 5, 2011

2011 Content Marketing Predictions

December 15, 2010

Tim Ferriss on How to Reinvent Yourself with Blog Marketing

December 8, 2010

The 6 Elements of an Influential Web Experience

December 1, 2010

Your Staggeringly Unfair Marketing Advantage

November 17, 2010

How to Get Some Action

November 10, 2010

The Foundation of All Marketing that Works

November 3, 2010

Introducing Copyblogger Radio

October 10, 2016

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email Approach

Here’s a great problem to have: Producing so much high-quality content that your audience gets overwhelmed. But the thing is … it’s still a problem.

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Today, Sonia Simone and Pamela Wilson take you behind the scenes to look at the development of our new weekly email roundup — Copyblogger Weekly. We’re putting this new approach into place to help our beloved audience get more out of the (we admit it) firehose of content we publish.

In this 22-minute episode, Sonia and Pamela talk about:

  • The audience problem that sparked this new approach
  • Some content trends you can keep an eye on for your own projects
  • What we hope you’ll get out of this cleaner, simpler way of getting your Copyblogger content

And once you’ve had a chance to take a look, we definitely want to know how it’s working for you! Drop us a note, either here in the comments or on one of the Copyblogger Weekly posts.

Listen to Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing below ...

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email ApproachSonia Simone
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The Show Notes

  • You can check out the very first Copyblogger Weekly Digest on the blog: Email, Belonging, and Compelling “New” Element of Persuasion”
  • Want more thoughts on effective email? Check out Brian Clark’s new series, Get More Clients with Smarter Email Marketing (it’s free)
  • We’ve also got a strategy ebook for you on email marketing, and that one is free (with registration) as well. It’s called Email Marketing: How to Push Send and Grow Your Business
  • I’m always happy to see your questions or your thoughts on Twitter @soniasimone (or of course you can drop a question right here in the comments!)

The Transcript

Behind the Scenes at Copyblogger: Our New Email Approach

Voiceover: Rainmaker.FM.

Sonia Simone: This episode of Copyblogger FM is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. I’ll tell you a little bit more about this complete solution for digital marketing and sales later, but you can check it out and take a free spin for yourself at Rainmaker.FM/Platform.

Hey there, it is so good to see you again. Welcome back to Copyblogger FM, the content marketing podcast. Copyblogger FM is about emerging content marketing trends, interesting disasters, and enduring best practices, along with the occasional rant.

My name is Sonia Simone. I’m the chief content officer for Rainmaker Digital. I also like to hang out with the folks who do the heavy lifting over on the Copyblogger blog. Remember that you can always get show notes for every episode. Those typically will include links. They often include free extra resources at Copyblogger.FM, and that’s also where you can get the complete show archive.

I am here today with Pamela Wilson. She is our EVP of educational content. She is my co-lead in the Authority community and our Certified Content Marketer group. And she’s also instrumental in helping us get big, content-focused projects out the door. So Pamela, good talking with you today.

Pamela Wilson: It is so good to be here.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, it’s fun. We’ve got a couple of things to talk about this month, which is fun. For those who don’t know my company, pretty much everybody in our company has an interesting workweek. Everybody’s got interesting projects on the boil all the time.

But you have been tasked with addressing an audience problem that has been an issue for a while now, and something that we have been thinking about, what’s the best way to help people out with this. Do you want to just start by talking about what is that problem that we’re trying to solve with the topic of the call today?

The Audience Problem That Sparked This New Approach

Pamela Wilson: The mystery problem, right? The thing that we have been trying to work out is how to best serve our audience with our email marketing. What we have been doing over the years is what most people do who have content-based websites, which is they send out their content as it’s published.

In the case of Copyblogger, that ends up being quite a bit of content, because we produce a lot of content. And that’s what I want to talk about as we go forward. But what I have found is email marketing continues to be very effective. It’s very personal, it’s very direct.

But what has happened over the years is that there’s just a lot more of it now in our inboxes. So we’ve become aware that we’re kind of sharing that inbox base with a lot of other content, and we wanted to see what we could do to better serve our audience with an email that would be more useful.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, exactly. And not everyone — this is a problem that in some ways is an unusual one because of the volume of content that we produce. Although, certainly, there are organizations that just do produce lots and lots of content. We do publish a lot — we publish a lot of text content, we publish a lot of audio content. And, of course, then we have business things that are going on, opportunities to pick up offers and things like that. So, yeah, that ‘audience overwhelmed’ thing.

Well, let’s talk people through what we’ve planned to help make this a little bit more manageable, and what they can expect from their email coming from our company.

Pamela Wilson: What we were trying to come up with was something that would serve the audience and just be kind of a central location, where they could find all of our content. What we’ve developed is this one high-value email, kind of like a digest email, that we’ll send out every week on Thursdays, is the day we have planned right now.

So it will go out on Thursday, and it’s going to gather together all of our written and audio content in one place. One thing I want to talk about is that, especially when we started doing our podcast, there was suddenly this dramatic increase in the quantity of content that we were producing. And I talked to a lot of people who were like, “I just can’t keep up, there’s so much. There’s so much coming out.”

I think there was a change that happened that we never verbalized. But the change in our attitude toward our content was sort of like, “We’re going to put out a lot of different content.” It’s not all for everyone. So I think what we’re hoping is that people see our content, both our audio and our written content, more like a menu of things that they can choose from. It’s guidance that they can choose from. It’s not all going to be for everyone, every single week.

So the idea is, depending on the project you’re working on, depending on where you are in your business, or what your current challenges are, you’re going to listen to specific podcasts, you’re going to read certain articles to help you, right where you are at that moment.

The idea behind this email is to gather all of those resources in one place and deliver them in a format that’s very easy.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, and I know you and I have talked about — Copyblogger has become kind of like a magazine. And normally we don’t get a magazine, and then open it up, and then read all the way through, you know? We just kind of pick out — my attention is grabbed by this article, that’s really relevant to me. And then I’m going to skip over and read another one. And then maybe later this week, I’m going to read that one that was intriguing but I didn’t have time for.

So, it’s not like you just sit down the way maybe we do with a book, and just start at the beginning and go through to the end. It’s much more — you bounce around, you follow your interests. And I think Copyblogger has been more of a magazine for a while. But I think you’re right: I don’t know if we expressly articulated that.

Pamela Wilson: Right, and we have a big audience who has been following our work for many years, and for many years they could literally read everything that we produced. It was no problem. We were publishing, at one point, I think we were publishing three posts a week. So it was like, “Well, I’m going to read whatever Copyblogger puts out.” But then suddenly it kind of ramped up.

So our approach was to basically offer the broad expertise that we have within our company, so that everyone in our company who has something to offer has a way to offer that expertise to our audience. But it’s not all going to be pertinent at the same time to all the same people. So those people who were trying to consume everything we put out there, suddenly it was like, “Oh, I’ve got a lot more to consume now.”

I did want to talk about that on the podcast, that the intention is always, we are offering you lots of guidance and lots of information. But the idea is that you pick out what works for you now. And we are here for you every step of the way. So if you’re just starting out, we’ll have information for you. If you are laying the foundation for your online business or you’re content marketing, we definitely have information for you. And if you have more advanced challenges, we have information for you. We can help you every step of the way.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I’ve said before about Copyblogger is it’s long been this way. It’s a little bit of a watering hole. All kinds of critters come to Copyblogger. There are some sites that are super niched down, and they have a very tightly defined audience.

We’ve always had a varied audience. People at different levels, people who do different things for a living, people who have different kinds of focus. And I think that’s more true than ever. Especially when we went to so much audio content. We have the audio people, we have the text people. And when you have a diverse audience like that, you have to help everybody find what works for them, and what’s going to be relevant to them, and help them have a more awesome day and more awesome results.

Pamela Wilson: Right. This new email, we decided to give it a title, and we have some big plans for it. So the title is Copyblogger Weekly, and the tagline is “your portable guide to building online authority with content marketing.” We’re kind of gathering all the information under those titles. And we’re starting out — I’m very excited about this part — we’re starting out at the top of the email. It’s not just a digest, like, “OK, here’s all our content. Here’s your menu. Pick out what you’re going to consume.”

We’re starting out with an encouraging message from you, and we’re literally calling it From the Desk of Sonia Simone. So it’s really just a personal message from you to our readers. I think people are going to love that personal touch.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, well, I definitely hope so. I mean, I think in a way it’s kind of self-curating our content. Just a funny thing. Normally, a curated piece, you go out and find a mass of material around the web and corral it and focus it. We’re actually doing that with our own material, because we have so much.

I’m going to pause for just a moment. We’re going to take a quick break, just for a moment or so. And when we come back, we’ll just get a little more into the specifics about the new piece, about what you can expect, and about some of the lessons that we have learned along the way.

This episode of Copyblogger FM is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform. So, I have to tell you, I have owned a digital business in one form or another for a long time. And when I started out, I have to say, building a reasonably complex, functioning website was just hard. It was expensive. It took a lot longer than you wanted it to. And it didn’t necessarily work exactly the way that you hoped it would work when you rolled it out.

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You can get started at Rainmaker.FM/Platform. And right now you can get 14 days free to try it out and get a taste of how quickly you can get up and running with a truly powerful website for your business. You can get that rolling at Rainmaker.FM/Platform.

Thanks for coming back. Good to see you again. I am here with Pamela Wilson, and we are talking about the new Copyblogger Weekly, which is our new email strategy for the Copyblogger blog. What can you tell us about what to expect, about what to look for, about what you’ve learned in the process?

Pamela Wilson: Well, as I said before, it’s called Copyblogger Weekly. It’s going to open with a note from you, kind of a personal message, which I’m excited about, because I think it takes it beyond just being a listing of our content. It’s a chance for them to hear from you, and hear about what you’re thinking about. And get maybe — like, no pressure Sonia — but just to get an encouraging message, something to kind of set the tone for the week. I’m excited about that. I think that’s going to differentiate it from the typical kind of curated content email that is sent out, because it will have that personal message.

Then, after that, it’s going to be our written content and our audio content. And people will be able to, with one click, basically go to the piece of content that they want to consume. The one thing, I don’t think we’ve made this clear so far in this podcast, but the big change is that we are going from sending out pretty much a daily email or an email every time we publish, which right now is Monday through Thursday, but it has been as often as Monday through Friday.

We were emailing people our new content every day. We’re going from that to one email a week. So, it’s a pretty big change. And what we’re hoping is that people will see these emails as so valuable, and they’ll follow up on the content, and then go in and consume what is most useful for them.

I think one of the advantages of sending it out on Thursday is people get it just ahead of the weekend, which is when they may have time to actually follow some of those links or listen to some of those podcasts. So it’s a chance for them to kind of line up the content that they’re going to be consuming over the next couple of days. That was a very intentional decision as well.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. I mean, I’m a big fan of you don’t prepare for Monday on Monday, if you want to have a great Monday.

Pamela Wilson: Right.

Sonia Simone: It’s great to prepare for Monday on Sunday, or Thursday or Friday. So we’ll try and help you get your ducks in a row to do what you want to do with your business or your career, or what have you, and your content. And get everything aligned so that you know what’s coming up and what you can start working on. I think it’s going to be a good format. I think it will take some getting used to.

Some of us have been hitting, just doing that Copyblogger.com, which of course we can still do. You are still welcome to do that. But some of us have become so used to the daily rhythm of it, and our email subscribers are going to have a little bit different rhythm. It’s going to be interesting to see how it works for people. But I think once people are used to it, I think they’re really going to get a good benefit from it.

Some Content Trends You Can Keep an Eye on for Your Own Projects

Pamela Wilson: I think so. And like you said, it’s a matter of developing new routines and new habits. But I think one of the most important takeaways from this whole thing — this is kind of the meta lesson that we could communicate to our listeners — is that it’s important to pay attention to how things are changing in the industry you’re operating within.

So, for example, I don’t know if you remember, online video, when it first became a thing that you could do, videos were, a lot of them were 15 or 20 minutes long. Some of them were 30 minutes long. Nowadays, people want you to keep them well below five minutes, and they usually say, “Don’t make them longer than three minutes.” Some of the most effective ones I’ve seen have been two minutes or a minute and a half.

Video content has gotten shorter and shorter, and I think people have responded to that by changing the way that they’re delivering their information when it’s delivered on video. The other thing that has changed is podcast audio quality. Do you remember the days when people used to make podcasts by calling in on a phone and recording the phone call?

Sonia Simone: Oh yeah.

Pamela Wilson: I mean, we would never get away with that nowadays, because I think people expect a higher level of quality. And when you think about written posts, written content marketing nowadays is formatted quite differently than how it was when we first started reading content online.

People have realized that when people read on screens, they just read differently. They tend to format it differently, they break up their paragraphs, make them shorter, add lots of bulleted lists, add in subheads. They use more images. All of that, written online content has also evolved. And this is our way of evolving email.

This is how we are evolving the way we stay in contact with our audience. So again, I think the lesson is to watch what’s going on. And don’t be afraid to pivot a little bit, or iterate what you’re doing to respond to how people are consuming the information in the type of media that you’re using.

Sonia Simone: Well, yeah. And Copyblogger has always been a big company for experimentation. Really, right from the beginning, we’ve always done lots of experiments and see how they work. Nothing’s written in stone.

I do think that this strategy reflects a pretty important, larger trend that we’ve got to get real about, which is information overwhelm. There was the article about content shock, and what are we going to do when there’s just more content created than a human race can consume. Which seems like such a crazy problem, but it kind of is a thing. You have to realize the volume of noise and clutter, and then think about, “Well, how am I going to stand above the noise and clutter? How am I going to differentiate?”

The number-one thing that we always recommend is actually put the time in on your material. We’re seeing a lot of sites move away from publishing quite so often to publishing less often, but going big when they go out. A lot of the people reading, this, listening to this — I’m such a writer. A lot of people listening to this, we get asked all the time, “Well, how often should I blog? How often should I podcast?” I’d rather see you have a regular, predictable thing you can stick to but maybe communicate less often, but then really communicate with high, high quality.

Pamela Wilson: Right.

Sonia Simone: I think this is very aligned with that kind of trend.

What We Hope You’ll Get Out of This Cleaner, Simpler Way of Getting Your Copyblogger Content

Pamela Wilson: Absolutely. I know we wanted to talk to people about what they need to do so they can get the digest email. Because people after they’ve heard this might be kind of excited to get the digest email, hopefully. They don’t have to do anything.

If you are on our email list, you will just begin getting a digest email. You will stop getting the daily emails, and you’ll see this new format in your inbox on Thursdays. Thursday morning it will come out, so I would love to hear what people think about it, and maybe people could leave comments on this episode.

Sonia Simone: Yeah, do let us know. Again, if you’re picking this up on iTunes or somewhere else, you can swing by Copyblogger.FM, and that auto-magically whisks you to the feed for this podcast, Copyblogger FM podcast. And let us know.

I know some of you are going to be like, “Thank you.” Because we have been sending you quite a bit of email. But let us know what you think of it. Let us know what you think about — especially when you’ve had a chance to look at an episode or two. I am going to try and help give some context and give some connection to the whole thing. Give you my take on how what we’ve published for the week is reflecting, maybe either the zeitgeist or what’s going on in the company, or what’s going on in the larger culture. Just try and bring some context to it and add a little bit of personal connection.

And you guys know, I always love to hear from you. So let me know in the comments how this strikes you. Some of you may have some trepidations, and that’s to be expected. But it would be awesome if you could try it out, and then let us know how it strikes you.

Pamela Wilson: Right. Give it a couple of weeks, maybe. But I am trying to decide, are we going to hear from more people who say, “Thank you for condensing your content into one weekly email,” or are we going to hear from more people who say, “I miss hearing from Copyblogger every day”? We’ll see. We’ll have to place some bets and see what happens.

Sonia Simone: Yeah. Well, and because of the nature of the human brain. I mean, we’ll hear more from people who liked it better the old way, because we communicate more about things that are not working for us.

Pamela Wilson: Right.

Sonia Simone: We do want to know, and we want to know kind of what’s working, or if there’s a way we could frame it better. We’re very interested in — how is this striking you guys? Is it doing what we want it to do? Which is to help manage your crazy inbox, and get the relevant good things to you, in a way that’s a lot easier for you to consume.

We’re very curious to know how it strikes you. And do swing by and let us know what you think. Maybe if there’s something that you’d like to see expanded, or just curious to see how it strikes you.

Pamela Wilson: Absolutely. This is our iteration number one of this email, so we would love to hear any ideas that people have or suggestions.

Sonia Simone: Good stuff. All right. Well, we’re at the 20-minute mark. So I think I’m going to wrap us up here, and let people know if you’re not subscribed to Copyblogger yet, there are all kinds of cool benefits and advantages to making that happen.

Just go to Copyblogger.com. Very easy to get signed up. You will get our reader-friendly weekly digest of content. So you can pick and choose exactly what’s relevant to you, and prepare for a week of awesomeness ahead of you. And Pamela, thank you so much. It’s always good talking with you.

Pamela Wilson: It was great to be here. Thanks, Sonia.

Sonia Simone: All right. Take care.

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