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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

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

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Previous Episode:The 3 Kinds of Writing That Builds a Business More Episodes Next Episode:7 Ways to Create an Email Marketing "Snowball Effect"

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

November 4, 2011

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

I have a few things in common with Gene Hackman’s character in Enemy of The State.

If you want to build a loyal following and make more sales in the next ten years, so should you.

Get your tin foil hats on and pull the battery out of your cell phone, today we’re talking privacy-as-marketing.

Hey, who’s that behind you?

Also, Sonia exercises monumental self-control and allows me to live for one more week.

In this episode Sonia Simone and I discuss:

  • Tin Foil Hat Marketing and the rise of the “good guy”
  • Why turning down freelance work can boost your bottom line
  • Should you worry about new mobile privacy guidelines?
  • The 80/20 rule of slow copywriting
  • Why aren’t you specializing?!
  • How to write a remarkably simple business plan

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Warning: If You're Not a Privacy Nut, You're Losing SalesRobert Bruce
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The Transcript

Please note that this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and grammar …

Robert Bruce: You, my friends have found Internet Marketing for Smart People radio. I’m Robert Bruce and I’m joined by the unforgettably pink Chief Marketing Officer of Copyblogger Media, Sonia Simone. Sonia, where in the world are you this week?

Sonia Simone: Well, I think since the last time we talked I have been to Melbourne, Australia and the Sierras in California. But I am now home again for all of a day before I fly off to Los Angeles, so home base for now.

Robert: So you’re traveling like a mad woman, you’re launching the 2011 version of Teaching Sells, you’re writing monster posts on Copyblogger, and I was thinking, we’re into November and you deserve to unwind just a bit. I’m thinking that maybe you should join up with NaNoWriMo, the national novel writing month. I think it’s the perfect time for you to be writing a novel.

Sonia: See, now I don’t curse in these podcasts or else I would be cursing at you right now.

Robert: Look, you’re only one day behind too, so it’s just kicking back tonight and leisurely cranking out like what, 3,334 words. That’s no problem for you.

Sonia: That’s chill. I’ll do that in the bath, how does that sound?

Robert: I’ll be looking for that novel at the end of the month.

Sonia: You just keep looking for that.

Should you worry about new mobile privacy guidelines?

Robert: We found a few good links out there that I wanted to run by you, see what you think, and let’s get it going with an announcement two weeks ago that the mobile marketing association had laid down some privacy guidelines for the mobile industry. Among these guidelines were basic ideas of how consumer information is to be used and shared, as well as opt in and opt out standards for mobile developers and company doing business on mobile platforms.

Now, this is all obviously a very good thing, but it’s nothing new and it’s interesting to me that the mobile industry is codifying this stuff just now. We’ve been talking about this privacy stuff for a long time, right, and not just us of course, but respecting a customer or subscriber’s privacy thankfully has become a common mantra among the ethical leaders in our business.

Sonia: Yeah, essentially this is the “Quit being a dirty, rotten spammer” guideline. Which we shouldn’t have needed, but of course some people out there do need. The kind of marketing that we talk about on Copyblogger is based on someone who’s actually interested in what you have to say.

So you don’t send people messages that are totally irrelevant to their interests. You don’t send people messages that have nothing to do with what they’re doing right now. And the whole spam industry, and this goes whether you’re talking about people who are smiling and dialing from boiler rooms or people who are sending you e-mail or whatever it might be — it’s based on trying to find vulnerable, foolish people who are going to fall for a real hard sales pitch. And it’s a scummy industry and it’s a scummy practice. Now, there are non scummy people who do this stuff because they see somebody else do it and they think that’s the right way. It’s really not. So yeah, absolutely, people need to be able to opt in and opt out.

You need to respect people’s privacy, especially with a mobile device that tells you where somebody physically is. That’s just basic anti stalker, creep 101. But also, as soon as you start sending somebody a lot of irrelevant garbage they just tune it out anyway. It doesn’t work. It used to work; doesn’t work again, except on the most vulnerable segment of the population that’s really susceptible to the kind of Glengarry Glen Ross sales operation. So if that’s you, you should probably just go away. I don’t want to talk to you. And if it’s not you, you’re not good enough to sell these people anyway so quit bugging people who don’t want to hear from you.

Robert: This is a really simple thing on the face of it, but incredibly important and it really boils down to what Seth Godin coined years ago; “permission marketing”.

Sonia: Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did actually. He wrote a book called Permission Marketing and that book was a

real eye opener for me and I know it was a real eye opener for Brian Clark. And it’s still extremely opt where instead of the old TV advertising model, radio advertising model where you just annoy the living heck out of somebody …

Robert: You’re doing well today!

Sonia: I know. The filter is on. You know, where you annoy somebody to death and then eventually you get them to get up and take an action. This is more about enticing someone to be interested in what you’ve got and getting them to take action to say, “Hey, I want to know more about this. I’d like to learn more about this thing that you have to sell. Why don’t you talk to me about it” and creating more of a dialogue.

It’s not just nice, it’s not just for people who are afraid to sell, it’s not just for people who are big weenie hippies like I am. It’s good business. Ethical behavior is more effective, it gets you better results, it gets you higher quality of customer, it gets you better customer relationships, and it gets you better share of customers. So it’s not just about being nicey nice, it’s really about being a smart business person.

Tin Foil Hat Marketing and the rise of the “good guy”

Robert: Yeah. I just read a great little article, it’s over at silicon.com; I’ll link to it in the notes. But it’s by a gentleman named Nick Heath and he quotes Foreign Secretary William Hague as saying online crime is “growing exponentially”. It may seem like another obvious fact, but that cyber crime was ranked in the top five highest priority risks of the government’s national security strategy.

This is scary in general and scary for us, but this is actually very good news for good, ethical business owners in this environment of so many are being ripped off, identity theft, on and on down the line. What does that mean for a good business owner who is practicing good privacy and permission strategies and guidelines?

Sonia: Yeah, I think it’s actually very good for the ethical business owner and the ethical content marketer because it the more scary the outside environment is, the more appealing it becomes for somebody to be able to come in out of the cold, to come in out of the noise into what you’ve got signed up for your e-mail list.

It makes very attractive options for things like private forums or e-mail lists or just private customer areas where people can go and get away from the bad guys. And so yeah, the more security you can give your customers, the better as the online environment gets less and less secure. And it’s always been sort of wild west, but it’s only going to get more so as the reach gets wider and as people from all over the world are just actively trying to tunnel their way into your data and rip off your credit card information.

Robert: Yeah, if you’re doing things right you’re going to stand out in stark relief against those kinds of practices and everything else that’s going on out there. So it really is marketing. I think I might have coined something, I’d have to look, I haven’t done any research but I’m thinking about this term “tin foil hat marketing”. Like if we all just put on our tin foil hats and we all become privacy freaks; privacy nuts. The bottom line can get better all the way around.

Sonia: Yeah, absolutely because if you can bring people into a safer environment, and let’s just say a really simple way to do that would be to sign up for your e-mail list, you cut out 99% of the advertising clutter that’s getting in the way of them hearing what you have to say. So yeah, it’s great for you. I kind of like that, tinfoilhattribe.com.

The Slow Copywriting movement

Robert: Alright, we’ll work in it a little bit. This is a little curveball here, but I wanted to touch on a great post by Lorraine Thompson over at marketcopywriterblog.com. She calls it In Praise of Slow Copywriting and I like this because it’s a little bit different from what we normally read about productivity and creativity. Lorraine is basically asking if copywriters everywhere shouldn’t join the slow movement, for instance slow food, etcetera that has over the last decade just kind of taken over again in the face of speed and technology. A lot of people are going back to slow living.

And it’s a really interesting thing to think about because as a copywriter, particularly freelance copywriters, you’re hustling. You’re always working, you’re always looking for either clients or ideas or paychecks. And a couple of points that she gets down to of how to think about this and maybe even how to do it kind of align with what we talk about a lot. What do you think of this slow copywriting thing?

Sonia: Yeah, I thought that this post had a lot going for it and one of the things that she’s really pointing to that’s a big issue for copywriters, and it’s a big problem for copywriters, is the number of businesses that are hitting up the big freelance websites, and elance.com or something along those lines. Spurred many in part from things like Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week which talked about outsourcing a lot of your business practices to assistance in other places, India was sort of prominent on that list.

The place of choice tends to move around, but I think that there’s a fallacy that the bottom dollar, superfast copywriter you can get on a big, anonymous freelance site where people are just racing to the bottom of the bids is going to be the same as an experienced, capable copywriter who has a good client list and who has client results that she can point to and who may have done quite a lot of research into your topic or the area of your business.

So there are a lot of people out there paying for fast food copy and they’re getting fast food results.

Robert: So you’re looking at this as a potential positioning idea.

Sonia: Yeah, I look at it in terms of listeners. I think you can look at it a couple of ways. For the copywriters out there, you need to differentiate yourself strongly against this kind of fast food copy. It’s very important, and also just in terms of things like search engine optimization; you’re competing with a lot of fast food copy and you have to do the work to make your copy more memorable, more shareable, but also I think that we have a lot of listeners who are managing writers or who are managing marketing endeavors, content marketing programs, and the temptation is to shave a little off the budget by going with the cheapest copywriter you can find and somebody who turns your webpage content around in three hours.

She had good quote actually,

Along came Burger King, jumbo jets, and Elance. Today we still want the same tasty food, leisurely travel, and quality copywriting but in a fraction of the time. But here’s the rub — they’re not the same. A Whopper isn’t beef stew, a 747 isn’t a horse and carriage, and generic content isn’t quality copywriting.

It’s just a really good point and I would love for the writers in the crowd, because I know you’re out there, I would love to talk about a couple of the things that she talks about, about ways to take more time to write an article. Not just for the sake of taking more time, because we’re all very good at that. But for the sake of making it better.

Why aren’t you specializing?!

Robert: Yeah, the first thing she talks about is something that you have gone over again and again, which is to specialize.

Sonia: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something that — so she says, “Clients seem to understand that writing about, say, industrial cheese equipment, biologic drugs, or cigars — yes, I’ve written for all of these markets – requires a little extra time.”

So yeah, if you take some time to really research and understand a particular corner of the market and there was a great Copyblogger post about using trade journals to find copywriting work, so if you’re going to market to the industrial manufacturing segment, really understand what industrial manufacturing’s about and the language they use and the concepts and really get it.

Again, that takes time. Research takes time. Research is one of the keys to quality writing and it eats up a lot of time when there are no words appearing on the screen. But the result is so much better and the result becomes something, if you’re a writer, it becomes something that you can command a better price for because it’s better. It’s just better.

So that’s a slow down suggestion that will take you longer to get to the finish line, but when you get there you’re going to have a much better result.

Turning down freelance work and the 80/20 rule

Robert: Alright, let’s do one more on her list of suggestions of how to slow down — turn down work.

Sonia: Yes, absolutely, which pairs with her focus on rejuvenation. If you find yourself too frazzled as a copywriter to produce the kind of work that you know you should produce, the smartest thing to do is to raise your prices and shrink your client list.

It’s kind of shocking, but the fact is that the more time and thinking space you give a project, the better end result you’re going to get. And this actually goes for anybody who’s creating content, so maybe you’re the person who writes content for your blog or you handle your e-mail list or you’re in charge of communicating with your customers.

Whatever it is, you need to give yourself some time off to refill the well or you’re just going to be cranking out gibberish. And so it’s very tough to do if you’re working with a company; it’s really tough to cut your workload. But as much as you can, think about focusing on the good old 80/20 rule.

You want to focus on the 20% of your projects that give you 80% of your results.

And cut out projects, either they’re bad clients, clients who don’t pay promptly, or they’re clients who are just not good to work with or they’re clients you can’t do your best work for because you don’t really get into their topic. Focus on the work that really gets you the results, whether it’s the blog posts, the e-mails, the articles, whatever it might be.

Robert: You know what else people should be focusing on, Sonia?

Sonia: What’s that?

The importance of a remarkably simple business plan

Robert: They should be focusing on the Internet Marketing for Smart People course.

This show is sponsored by IMFSP, the premiere online marketing course delivered straight to your e-mail inbox.

And Sonia, let’s go ahead and take a quick look inside this course for a moment, at one of the actual lessons, which by the way will also serve as our tip of the week for this week, for those listening.

And it’s number 12, a Remarkably Simple Business Plan. Now, business plans are one of those things that can cripple folks right out of the gate and sometimes keep them from actually getting going. Give us a few ideas from lesson number 12, will you, about writing and executing a simple and effective business plan.

Sonia: Yeah, absolutely. And the idea behind lesson 12 is a cut and paste kind of an operation. So you can literally just copy it into a Word document or a text document and then answer the questions, and when you’ve answered all the questions you have a business plan.

And I created this because when I was getting started, in fact with a copywriting business, I was reading about stuff like how to get a line of credit and how to get a business license and what kind of things I should think about when I was negotiating office space. It’s like, “Okay, none of that has any relevance to me.”

Robert: You wrote a couple 50, 100 page business plans, didn’t you, in your past?

Sonia: Well, I came out of a much more traditional corporate world where you had to go get things like business loans and the bank has a certain kind of thing they like to look at that they call a business plan. I don’t find that super useful for an actual entrepreneurial business, so I came up with something called the Remarkably Simple Business Plan and it just gets you to answer some questions that might be hard to answer, but unless you know the answers you’re going to have a world of hurt.

The first one and I’ll just go through the first one to give you an idea of what we’re talking about here. Who’s the right customer? So who is the customer for what you’re selling? Who is this person, what do they look like, where do they shop, how did they hear about you, what do they care about, what’s their favorite color, how many kids do they have, what kind of car do they drive, just go on and on and on and figure out who the customer is for what you’re selling because, and we’ve talked about this before, if your answer is anyone with skin, which is the answer to that question for one of the multilevel marketing people, you have a problem.

You can’t market to everyone with skin; you can’t pay for advertising to everyone with skin.

You have to be talking to one well defined person you can visualize like you were having a cup of coffee. If you can’t picture this person sitting across from you, having a cup of coffee and talking about your business and how it helps them out, you need to get to work.

So, I put that one first because I think it’s the most important. I think if you get that right you can kind of screw up a lot of other stuff and you’ll still have okay results. And if you get it wrong, you’ll just be dead in the water.

So things like how is this person going to find me; I’m going to go through a few of the other elements of the business plan. What is this project – so your service, your site, whatever it is — what is the project going to look like when it’s done? What problem does it solve for the customer? What tools or materials am I going to need to get this built? These are the kinds of questions we’re going to have you answer.

It takes a little time, it might be the kind of thing where you would go to a coffee shop and sit down for maybe a couple of hours and do a little brainstorming and think about it. But it’s not going to take you like a month. It’s going to be an afternoon’s work and once you’ve done it you’re going to have clarity about the shape of your business that’s going to inform everything you do from that point. So it’s a very important exercise. If you’re in business you need to know the answers to these questions.

Robert: I’m going to link up lesson number 12 in the post for this podcast so you can go there, check it out for yourself, get to it, get to using it right away. And be sure at the bottom of that page, be sure to click the link to sign up for the Internet Marketing for Smart People course; the entire 20 part course.

It’s totally free and it really is the best of Copyblogger, systematically structured and delivered to your digital doorstep, so to speak. It’s about once a week, you’re going to get one of these lessons and like I said, you’ll see this one. But to get on the bus go over to imfsp.com and drop your e-mail address into the little box you’ll see there and we’ll take care of the rest.

Alright Sonia, unless you have anything else for these good people, let’s get out of here. What do you say?

Sonia: I think that sounds good. Thanks, everybody.

Robert: Yeah, thanks for listening one and all. If you think Sonia should keep her hair pink or that we should keep going, please do get over to iTunes and leave a comment or a rating for us. You’ve all been very kind and generous with your ratings and we’re grateful for it.

Ms. Simone, your words today have been as good as a 30 year single malt scotch. Thank you.

Sonia: Thanks, take care.

Other listening options:

  • Click here to download the mp3 | 30.8 MB | 21:23
  • Click here to subscribe via iTunes
  • Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
  • Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

  • Free Internet Marketing for Smart People Course
  • Mobile Marketing Association Sets Privacy Guidelines
  • In Praise of Slow Copywriting
  • Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
  • Online Crime is Growing Exponentially
  • A Remarkably Simple Business Plan
  • We left the building with Girl Talk …

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s Chief Copywriter and Resident Recluse.

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Comments

  1. Joe says

    November 4, 2011 at 7:59 AM

    Keep the pink and keep talking.

    I look forward to your radio messages. In terms of market segments, I guess I lean towards the pre-Boomer Traditionalists rather than the twittering hoard of Gen-Ys.

    Reply
  2. Shane Arthur says

    November 4, 2011 at 8:36 AM

    Robert, I LOUDLY second your motion for Sonia to write more fiction.
    Anybody that writes like this ( http://www.creativecopychallenge.com/creative-copy-challenge-2/#comment-42 ) should do so more often. 😉

    Shane

    Reply
  3. veehcirra says

    November 4, 2011 at 9:33 AM

    Surely, how can turning down freelance work boost my bottom line? hmmmm am very intrigued to find out more on this!

    Reply
  4. Martyn Chamberlin says

    November 4, 2011 at 4:26 PM

    Sonia, in your keynote this morning you said people should include transcriptions with their podcasts for SEO juice. Just curious … does this mean Copyblogger will start to include one?

    Great job. 😉

    Reply
    • Robert Bruce says

      November 4, 2011 at 5:08 PM

      Got em man. We’re a couple behind, but you’ll find a link to them in the “Other listening options” of each episode:

      https://www.copyblogger.com/category/radio/

      Reply
      • Martyn Chamberlin says

        November 5, 2011 at 12:00 AM

        Nice, Robert! I’m impressed.

        We were talking about you. I was really hoping to see you, you know.

        Reply
  5. Henry Louis says

    November 10, 2011 at 1:14 AM

    Oh! I came to know some important information by listening to this audio. Thank you. Please keep updating the new concepts.

    Reply
  6. Michael Carroll says

    November 10, 2011 at 8:15 PM

    I loved this podcast!

    Reply

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