Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You ByWP Engine

Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.

Start getting more from your site today!

Rainmaker.FM

The Digital Commerce and Content Marketing Podcast Network

  • Home
  • Shows
  • Hosts
  • About
  • Home
  • Shows
  • Hosts
  • About
  • Member Area
  • Log In
Menu
  • Log In
  • Free Training
7-Figure Small with Brian Clark
Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
Get More Clients With Smarter Email Marketing
Hack the Entrepreneur
Members Only
Rainmaker.FM Elsewhere
Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites
StudioPress FM
Technology Translated
The Digital Entrepreneur
The Missing Link
The Showrunner
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

3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative Professionals

  • Social:
  • Link:
  • Embed:
https://rainmaker.fm/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/copyblogger-036.mp3
Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes
Previous Episode:How to Give and Get Exceptional Testimonials, Part Two More Episodes Next Episode:Ethics, Professionalism, and Good Manners for Content Marketers

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
Copyblogger Media?

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

September 1, 2016

3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative Professionals

Sonia’s back on the podcast this week with suggestions on how to address three challenges that pop up often in our communities.

When we’re talking with creative professionals, and content marketers in particular, we’ve noticed certain challenges that come up again and again.

In this 22-minute episode, Sonia Simone is back on Copyblogger FM to talk about:

  • The “cobbler’s children have no shoes” syndrome, and finding the time to work on your own site
  • How to know when it’s time to raise your rates
  • Why it can be tough to get onto your own professional calendar
  • The often-overlooked social media marketing technique that gets new sites off the ground
  • The simplest (but not easiest) way to differentiate yourself in a crowded market
  • The content framework that supports success for any kind of project

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

3 Questions that Can Haunt Creative ProfessionalsSonia Simone
  • Social:
  • Link:
  • Embed:
https://rainmaker.fm/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/copyblogger-036.mp3
Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes

The Show Notes

  • Sean Platt wrote a terrific post for us a few years back, asking, Are You Burning Your Most Important Writing Client?
  • Here’s where you can learn more about Authority and be notified when we re-open
  • Get access to our comprehensive content marketing library, including in-depth content strategy ebooks written by Brian Clark, at MyCopyblogger (free with registration)
  • I’m always happy to see your questions or your thoughts on Twitter @soniasimone!

The Transcript

Sonia Simone: So glad to see you again, and welcome back to CopybloggerFM, the content marketing podcast.

CopybloggerFM 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, and I hang out with the folks doing the real work over on the Copyblogger blog.

Note: See the show notes for all the links!

So nice to be back on the podcast! Big thanks to Pamela Wilson for filling in while I was moving continents — for the next 11 months or so, I’ll be in the Central European Time Zone. Brits and Europeans who want to invite me to speak, drop me a line. 🙂

I will, of course, be flying back to the states in mid-October for our live event, Digital Commerce Summit. I know some of you will be there — if you’re planning on it, leave me a note at Copyblogger.FM! I’d love to say hello. 🙂

Today I want to get into some of the questions we see over and over again in our Authority community, and also in our Q&A sessions that we conduct for our Certified Content Marketers.

As you probably know from your own life, you can have your act very together from the public-facing point of view, and still struggle with things behind the scenes. That’s just reality.

“Professionalism” involves a certain amount of sucking it up and figuring out your probems without involving someone else. That can be good, it can foster independence and make you stronger, it can also foster paralysis and make you neurotic and terrified. A little is good, a lot is not good.

I want you to know that I’m happy to answer questions like these, so if you have one you’d like me to address, please do go ahead and drop a comment at Copyblogger.FM. Helping people get through the stuck spots is one of the most enjoyable parts of what I do, so if I can help you see a solution or a new approach, I would love to do that.

We get so many interesting questions within the community that I thought I’d touch on some of the themes that come up again and again.

#1: The cobbler’s children have no shoes

This one is so, so common — content professionals, it could be a writer, it could be a design professional, aren’t giving their best work to their own sites.

You get so busy with client work, doing your best for the folks who are paying you, that you completely neglect your own site. It’s understandable, but you need to address it.

If you genuinely have so many clients right now that you can’t keep up with the work, the first thing I recommend is creating a waiting list to work with you. If you’re booked solid, your revenue should be in good shape. If it isn’t, you have to take a hard look at your client list. It’s time to raise your rates, and it’s time to prune clients who waste your time or who are getting you at below-bargain-basement rates.

If you’re busy, you need to be making a lot of money. If you’re busy and you’re not making a lot of money, you need to look at that structural problem and get it corrected … or you’ll go bust when the client work gets lighter. And it will always get lighter. Ebb and flow is just part of the natural flow of things.

The other thing, and this one is tricky psychologically, but you can do it, is you need to put your own project onto your professional calendar. In other words, you’re your own client.

You’ve probably identified your most productive hours, and you probably block those off for your client work. You need to do the same for your own site.

It can be really tricky to be objective about our own business — which is why I really recommend looking around and finding some people to form a small group together. You can call it a “mastermind,” or just a business group.

Some of the nicest business owners find it easy to stay accountable to clients and really hard to stay accountable to themselves. Those are the folks who are an especially good fit for a group.

You can find likely members in private professional groups like the Authority community. If you’re not a member of a group like that, see if you can make some connections on Twitter or LinkedIn — or even someplace like the comments of the RainmakerFM podcasts or on the Copyblogger blog.

#2: How do I know my audience when the site is still tiny?

We teach a specific process that includes empathy mapping and building out a buyer’s journey — but those are for businesses that already have customers and possibly an audience.

When you’re first starting out, you don’t have lots of existing customers you can interview yet. But you have a wonderful tool at your disposal — the social media platforms where your potential customers hang out. It could be Pinterest or LinkedIn or Facebook or Snapchat. The specific platform will depend on who you serve. But the principle remains the same.

A lot of what’s talked about with social media marketing is various ways to talk — to spread your message, to get your content more social shares, social advertising, all of that good stuff. And that’s all great.

But social media listening is often undervalued — in other words, good old-fashioned lurking.

The social platforms are wonderful places to find conversations about businesses and what they do. It doesn’t matter what that is — it might be copywriting, or web design, or you might be a fitness trainer, or a French tutor, or, I don’t know, a private butler. It could be anything.

Find the conversations about what you’re doing. In particular, find the complaints and frustrations. These will give you a rich collection of ways you can shape your offering, your business, and your communication to serve unmet needs.

Which leads us to the next question I see a lot:

#3: How do I stand out from the crowd?

There’s a great quote from the bank robber Willie Sutton, who, when asked why he robbed banks, said,

That’s where the money is.

That quote is actually apocryphal, a reporter made it up, but let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The point is — some topics are super crowded because there’s a lot of money there.

Why do so many content marketers specialize in finance and healthcare? Lots of clients, lots of content to create, and plenty of budget to pay for the work that’s needed.

Why are there so many fitness businesses on Facebook? Because there are so many fitness customers on Facebook.

But yes, it can be quite tricky to stand out when you have a crowded field like that.

The first tip might seem snarky, but I’m dead serious — stand out by knowing what you’re talking about. There’s something called “Sturgeon’s Law” — that 90% of everything is crap. If you look around, this Sturgeon guy was onto something.

Most copywriters aren’t great about meeting their deadlines. Most fitness professionals have a dim understanding at best of the science of fitness. Most home remodeling contractors under-communicate to the point where we have to use the word lie.

Again, your social media listening is ultra useful here. Listen in on what people gripe about. If you shape your business practices to address head-on the things that people hate about that kind of business, you’ll do well.

It’s smart to take some time to put processes in place to proactively address these problems — which tend to exist for very good reasons. It won’t just happen because you want it to. But you can tackle the issues in your business type and you can win — even if you win by clearly setting expectations.

For example, copywriters who aren’t making their deadlines are often trying to juggle last-minute scope changes and issues that weren’t covered in the original project. If you don’t have a process in place to manage scope and re-negotiate deadlines when clients throw curve balls, you won’t meet your deadlines.

So, weird as it may seem, executing really well on the fundamentals actually is a good differentiator a lot of the time. But you probably don’t want to market exclusively with that.

When you’re thinking about standing out, about making yourself the answer to that potential customer or client, in the face of all of their other options, you really want to think about your strategy.

It’s not just about having a particular positioning, or delivering a particular message with advertising. It’s about understanding how potential customers find you, and then how they get to trust you over time, so that when they’re ready to make a decision — and that can take five minutes or it can take five years, depending on the specifics — you’re the logical answer.

That’s where our friend Content Strategy comes in. We have some free ebooks that cover this in a lot more depth — go to Copyblogger.com and choose FREE MY COPYBLOGGER on the Education tab to get access to those. But essentially, it boils down to this:

Obviously, first you have to capture people’s attention. That’s why we put the best headlines we can onto posts. That’s why we use compelling images in content. It’s why businesses pay for advertising. If you can’t capture that spark of attention, obviously you can’t continue to deliver your message.

Then you have to fan that spark — you have to nurture that attention, helping people to understand who you are and how you can help within the context of your business topic.

Part of this is about your process or methodology, and part of it is about your values. If you talk about Peace, Love, and Understanding, you’ll attract a different audience than you will with with a message about Lawyers, Guns, and Money.

The nitty gritty of this — the specific hows and whys — are the topics we write about on Copyblogger, as well as our other venues like the Authority community and the podcast network here at Rainmaker.FM.

As I said, you can get pretty nearly instant access to an extensive content marketing that spells all of this out in more detail, over at MyCopyblogger. It’s a good resource, you should get it.

And the final phase, after all of this nurturing and trust-building, is the conversion of interest to a transaction. You caught their interest, you sustained that attention and let them know why you’re such a great choice — now you make it easy for them to act on that interest and move forward.

That’s where you get into things like landing pages, sales copy, and calls to action. That’s another big topic we cover on Copyblogger, as well as more detailed sessions inside Authority.

Speaking of Authority …

By the way, I mentioned Authority a few times — that’s our private community of content marketers. That’s the venue where we can dive really deep into issues — things like SEO, content strategy, improving the quality of your writing, how to identify and market to your perfect customer.

All of the pieces that work together to form a powerful content strategy, instead of “our blog posts aren’t working, let’s write twice as many and see if that helps.”

If you pick up the content library I mentioned, we’ll let you know when Authority re-opens. I think that’s planned for early September, so it’s coming up. We’re going to do that with a nice price break, and then after a short time we will be raising the price for the community. At this point we have more than 300 hours of reference content, as well as brand-new material almost every week of the year to keep you learning and growing.

You can also swing by Copyblogger dot FM to get a direct link to the interest list, or just to leave a question or a comment. I always enjoy hearing from you!

See you next week! 


Never Miss New Shows and Episodes on Rainmaker.FM

Get the best of the Rainmaker.FM network in a single weekly email, along with two weeks
of free training that will change the way you think about online marketing ...

Free Registration

You might also like...

Editor-in-Chief

A Seemingly Minor Fact-Checking Tip that Yields Top-Notch Customer Service

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

Digital Business Trends and the Latest on the Rainmaker Platform

Listen to episode
7-Figure Small with Brian Clark

Content Curation in an Age of Fake News, with Dave Pell

Listen to episode
The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

5 Things Only Serious Writers Do: Part Two

Listen to episode
The Showrunner

No. 078 Should You Still Start a Podcast? (Ask Yourself These 3 Questions)

Listen to episode
The Missing Link

How to Use Linkedin as Part of Your Overall SEO Strategy

Listen to episode

Comments

  1. Christine Laureano says

    September 4, 2016 at 11:42 AM

    Great podcast, my favorite takeaway is making sure you have project scoe! Thanks for being such a great mentor and look info to saying hi at DCI.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You ByWP Engine

Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting.

Start getting more from your site today!

Copyright © 2021 Rainmaker Digital, LLC. Powered by the Rainmaker Platform.

Privacy Policy  Â·  Refund Policy  Â·  Cookie Policy  Â·  Terms of Service  Â·  Contact