Month: November 2016

Making Your Content as Tasty as Pie

Hey there — welcome back to the Copyblogger Weekly!
It’s Thanksgiving week in the U.S., and we want to celebrate by stuffing ourselves until we’re unable to speak or move.
No, wait, we want to celebrate by helping you make your content delicious.
On Monday, Stefanie Flaxman showed us how to weave structure and intrigue together for irresistible results. On The Showrunner, Jerod Morris and Jonny Nastor explore how to cook up an appealing brand for your podcast.
And on Tuesday, Beth Hayden shared a crucial copywriting element that every persuasive page needs. Hint: it’s what’s in the pudding.
If you’re in the U.S., enjoy your holiday! And if you aren’t, you can catch your American friends on social media, where we’ll all be hiding out from our extended families and pretending we didn’t eat that third piece of pie.
Happy holiday to those who celebrate it, and I’ll catch you next week!
— Sonia Simone
Chief Content Officer, Rainmaker Digital

Catch up on this week’s content

2 Key Factors that Distinguish Satisfying Content from Forgettable Ideas
by Stefanie Flaxman

Prove It! 6 Persuasive Techniques for Making the Sale
by Beth Hayden

How to Stay Creative in a Distracted World
by Brian Gardner & Lauren Mancke

The Right Way to Approach Branding Your Podcast
by Jerod Morris & Jon Nastor

How Becoming a Digital Entrepreneur Helped Jarmar Dupas Get His Life Right
by Brian Clark & Jerod Morris

How #1 Hit Podcast ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ Co-Creator Jeffrey Cranor Writes: Part One
by Kelton Reid

Gary Vaynerchuk on Playing the Long Game
by Brian

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Gary Vaynerchuk on Playing the Long Game

Back in 2006, Gary Vaynerchuk started a daily video show that turned wine criticism on its head. More importantly, it took his family wine business from $3 million-a-year to a $60 million-a-year ecommerce juggernaut.
From there, Gary did something that surprised a lot of people, including me. He started a digital marketing agency called VaynerMedia.
Wait … what? Why would someone who could move that level of product want to build a service business? Isn’t that going backwards?
Not so fast. As you’ll hear in this candid interview, Gary’s plan involves what has now become familiar to Unemployable listeners — doing this thing now in order to set the stage for bigger and better things down the road.
In other words, true entrepreneurs are always playing the long game. Listen in for amazing insights from one of the most outspoken advocates for the unemployable.
Listen to this Episode Now
The post Gary Vaynerchuk on Playing the Long Game appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Sample Videographer Job Description and Posting for Marketing Departments

If you’ve been paying any attention to our content on The Sales Lion over the past year, you’re quite aware of our focus on helping companies become “media” companies– a shift that is needed as we all roll forward into the digital age. This being said, more and more companies are hiring in-house videographers in…
The post Sample Videographer Job Description and Posting for Marketing Departments appeared first on The Sales Lion by Marcus Sheridan.

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Survey Says? 735 Copywriters Share How Much Money They Earn

… and the results may surprise you.
But before we get to the results, a little context is needed.
On October 30, 2014, we launched the Copy Hackers Copywriting Survey (using our fave survey product, Typeform) and collected responses until January 16, 2015.
No monetary (or equivalent) incentive was offered for people to complete the survey.
So why, when the survey closed in January 2015, has it taken us 22 months for us to share the data?
Let’s just say we had some data analysis issues.
We hired 2 people to help us pull the data

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Prove It! 6 Persuasive Techniques for Making the Sale

A few months ago, I was struggling with writing a sales page for an upcoming program launch, so I showed my draft to my copywriting mentor and asked his advice.
He scanned the page for about 20 seconds, then said:
“You need more proof. This page should be full of stories and case studies about how your approach works. You need to show the real results people get from using this product.”
I argued that adding more case studies would take up a lot of room on the page. He laughed.
“When I write my own sales pages, highlighting the proof is the most important part,” he said. “If I can show people I can get results, the rest of the copy is almost superfluous.”
I know his advice was a bit of an oversimplification — other elements of copywriting still matter, of course — but now I see better conversions on my sales pages because I implement my mentor’s advice on a regular basis.
In today’s post, I’ll share six persuasive techniques for showing proof the next time you need to convince a prospect that you can get results.
1. Case studies
Case studies (also known as customer success stories) tell a brief story about a customer or client who has gotten great results from your product or service.
For example, you might write, “Alexander Manuel used my system and saw a 50 percent increase in email sign ups within one month.”

When you use case studies in sales copy, it’s

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How Becoming a Digital Entrepreneur Helped Jarmar Dupas Get His Life Right

This week’s guest aspires to help you get your money right. He wants to assist others in taking back their purchasing power. He is Jarmar Dupas, and he is a Digital Entrepreneur.
In this 35-minute episode, Jarmar walks you through his journey as a digital entrepreneur:

The moment that got his ears “buzzing,” which got him interested in entrepreneurship
The simplicity of his proudest moment … and what you can learn from it
How being a digital entrepreneur has been conducive to creating his desired lifestyle
Why Jarmar sometimes gets in his own way and how he’s trying to overcome it
The element of entrepreneurship that gives him the most satisfaction and how it inspires him to keep moving forward

And more.
Plus, Jarmar answers my rapid-fire questions at the end in which he retells a famous Stephen Covey story that has impacted his ability to get more meaningful work done.
Listen to this Episode Now
The post How Becoming a Digital Entrepreneur Helped Jarmar Dupas Get His Life Right appeared first on Copyblogger.

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The Problem with Using Scripts in Your Video Marketing

  If you’ve been engaging your employees to produce in-house video content, there is a good chance you’ve dealt with a specific question: Should we be using scripts to dictate our videos? Well, with regards to this question, consider these thoughts: When someone is using a script, their mind is often more worried about saying…
The post The Problem with Using Scripts in Your Video Marketing appeared first on The Sales Lion by Marcus Sheridan.

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2 Key Factors that Distinguish Satisfying Content from Forgettable Ideas

Have you ever read a blog post, listened to a podcast episode, or watched a video and thought:

“I kind of get what this person is saying — and I think I agree — but it’s difficult to follow their main points. The content feels incomplete.”
When content consumers have reactions like that, it delays them from sharing your content and subscribing to get more — ultimately increasing the chances that the content will be forgettable.
Conversely, when your content resonates with your target audience, your platform becomes a resource those individuals will remember and return to.
If you want your reader, listener, or viewer to share and subscribe, rather than hesitate and move on, incorporate the following two elements into your content creation process:

Structure
Intrigue

Below, I’ll cover what they are, why they complement each other, and how you can put both of them to work in your own content marketing.
The roles Structure and Intrigue play in your content
Here are my definitions of Structure and Intrigue, for the purpose of this article.
Structure: The intentional order in which you present the message of your content and its supporting points. It’s an outline that ensures your content is complete, without logical fallacies or misleading phrases that cause confusion.
Intrigue: The fascinating details that make your content unique. These are the characteristics that make people say, “I love that website” or “I hate that website,” rather than “I don’t remember that website.”
Why they complement each other
Structure isn’t always the most exciting

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