Ep 036 - Developing your brand as an authority, scaling content marketing strategies & the power of podcasts, with Jerod Morris of Rainmaker Digital

Jerod tells us how Rainmaker Digital practices “Brute Force Authority” to develop a strong reputation in their industry, how the company is changing content marketing priorities as they scale & the power of podcasts in a content marketing strategy.

Today’s guest, Jerod Morris, is VP of Marketing at Rainmaker Digital, which provides tools and training for content marketers and digital entrepreneurs. Rainmaker Digital is the company behind Copyblogger, StudioPress, Synthesis, Rainmaker FM, and the Rainmaker Platform.

In his role as VP of Marketing for Rainmaker Digital, Jerod creates educational content and digital products that help people develop and grow rewarding, profitable online businesses. The content Jerod creates includes The Showrunner Podcast (with Jonny Nastor) and The Digital Entrepreneur podcast (with Brian Clark). The products he has developed and marketed include the Rainmaker Platform, The Showrunner Podcasting Course, and Digital Commerce Academy. He is also the host of The Assembly Call, Podcast on the Brink, and Primility Primer. He strives to keep his pride and humility in balance.

Jerod has also been a featured speaker at conferences across the country about leadership, content strategy, and podcasting.

We’re going to learn how the experts at Rainmaker Digital create and market their own content; how to attract a committed audience and turn them into your own “unfair advantage” over competitors; and how podcasts fit into the modern content marketing strategy.

“It’s important to empathize with your audience and put yourself in their shoes when they’re connecting with your content, not just for what they need to hear but also how they need to hear it.” (click to tweet)

In this episode, you’ll learn from Jerod:

How Rainmaker Platform gives entrepreneurs the tools to create and market content, and Digital Commerce Institute teaches those users how to use Rainmaker’s tools
The difference between media and marketing
How Copyblogger, premium WordPress themes, Premise, and Scribe became the Rainmaker Platform
How Rainmaker Digital is shifting their growth strategy as they scale: they are not adding any new products this year, instead focusing on growing current products and integrating new revenue streams, such as paid advertisement
Why Brian Clark, CEO of Rainmaker Digital, considers their audience the company’s “unfair advantage”
When you have an audience, and you have listened intently to both their words and actions, you can create products that they will appreciate (and that they will buy)
Rainmaker Digital practices “Brute Force Authority:” meticulously developing a strong reputation in the industry, so that when they release a new product it is trusted and they can convert existing customers
After receiving $12 million in revenue in 2015, Rainmaker has enough authority and confidence in their products to proactively reach out to new customers with paid advertisements
To build trust from your audience, focus on creating high quality content over a lot of content
Quality is increasingly important because there is increasingly more competition for your audience’s time
Rainmaker Digital focuses on the fundamentals of content marketing, shying away from hyperbole and bandwagons – Jerod would rather be the tortoise than the hare
Rainmaker FM was launched partly as a live demo of the Rainmaker Platform’s podcasting tools
Rainmaker FM is extremely successful at teaching their audience what they need to know to do business with Rainmaker, “which is what content marketing is all about.”
There are two great strengths of podcasting:
- Podcasts allows for content consumption while you’re doing other things. “There’s so many different opportunities to listen to podcasts, when you can’t really consume other content.”
- Podcasts create a connection and a sense of companionship between the host(s) and the audience
Because people are often doing other things while listening to your podcast, you need to repeat your call to action a lot – to the point that you’re almost tired of saying it
“It’s important to empathize with your audience and put yourself in their shoes when they’re connecting with your content, not just for what they need to hear but also how they need to hear it.”
When it comes to brand management, you need to have a hierarchy of goals, and you need to know how those goals fit together to encourage user conversion and revenue

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

Answers to Quickfire Q&A:

If you could chat with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
1. My grandpa Bill and my grandma Jackie
Name a tool, app, or website that you can’t live without and why.
1. The Pact App – Create a pact to live healthier, put up a couple dollars as collateral, and track your progress with the app. If you fulfill your pact, you make money. If you don’t fulfill your pact, you lose the money (and pay for the people who do fulfill it).
2. My Fitness Pal – A calorie counting app that works well with The Pact App
Tell us something unique and interesting about you that not many may know.
1. Jerod started a sports blog for fun, and wrote a post endeavoring to prove a particular baseball player (on his fantasy league) was not using steroids – but his statistical analysis was inconclusive. The player, Raúl Ibáñez, then gave an interview on ESPN criticizing the article, and Jerod got to go on “Outside the Lines.” It was a watershed moment for bloggers, and it was an important lesson on the power of a headline to frame the perception of an article. The article was titled, “The Curious Case of Raúl Ibáñez: Steroid Speculation Perhaps Unfair, But Great Start in 2009 Raising Eyebrows.”
What is your favorite business book and why?
1. “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles” by Steven Pressfield – “Obviously learning tactics and learning business strategies and all that is so important, but more so than anything is the mindset you bring to it.”
What is the top characteristic or trait that you look for in people you work with?
1. “I think it’s the ability to balance your pride and your humility.”
What is something you believe, but few others agree with you?
1. “I believe that sports fans can, in fact, affect the outcome of games through our collective, cosmic commitment to the cause.”

How to contact Jerod:

Jerod urges listeners to go to Rainmaker.FM. There’s a show for everybody! Go there, find your niche, and get to know a member of the Rainmaker Digital team. In the process, you’ll learn more about Rainmaker Digital and their products.

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