Copyblogger Weekly Wrap: Week of February 7, 2011

I’ve been hard at work this week on Profitable Idealism, my new venture with Pace Smith, who coincidentally wrote Thursday’s post below. It’s all about combining altruistic, selfless motives with business aims, and so naturally it got me thinking about how I can help the Copyblogger community while making tons of money doing so.

So maybe you’ll end up with a Ferrari, and I’ll get an all red billiard room with a giant stuffed camel and a disco room with my own disco dancers. I’m giddy just thinking about it… this must be what Santa feels like!

Before you go check that out, here’s what happened this week on Copyblogger:

Monday:

Is Your Low Social IQ Dooming Your Blog?

This post poses two alternate questions. The first one is the question we bloggers tend to ask when things aren’t working: “My work is brilliant. Is the problem that everyone else is an idiot?” And the second question is about what the problem actually might be: “Are you, dear blogger, more socially inept than a 40-year-old, basement-dwelling, sci-fi fanatic momma’s boy?” But snark aside, you’d better pay attention. Your social and personal skills might just be what could turn your content from misunderstood genius into popular brain candy.

Read the full post here.

Tuesday:

Want More Copywriting Clients? Here’s a Surprising Way to Find Them

This post disappointed me. Not because of the content, which is a really good explanation of a prospecting method that nobody ever thinks of anymore, but because the title had me expecting something truly shocking. Like finding clients underneath your porch, or locating them by randomly kicking people in the crotch until someone hires you. I’d be way more surprised to get work either of those two ways.

Read the full post here.

Wednesday:

The Guaranteed Way to Radically Improve Your Copywriting

I figure I can reveal the fact that this post is about split testing here, in this teaser, if I don’t reveal how exactly you’re supposed to go about it. Which is good because that opens me up to the wide spectrum of split-related jokes, including doing the splits (and subsequent groin injuries), banana splits (not sure how that’s funny; I’d have to work at it), and the way Schwarzenegger sliced “Buzzsaw” up the middle in The Running Man and said, “He had to split.” Oh, and you can also improve your copywriting somehow here. I don’t know; read the post.

Read the full post here.

Thursday:

How to Legally Steal Copy That Converts Like Crazy

This aforementioned post by the aforementioned Pace Smith is all about getting your customers to help you do your copywriting, and we’re using it for our aforementioned new course. But really, it got me wondering whether any copy can truly hope to convert like crazy. Crazy flat-out works. I remember a time I was on the Philadelphia subway and this guy wearing a toilet seat around his neck said, “Ham beats the president, I’ll tell you what,” and I was like, “Dude, I am absolutely signing up for your newsletter.”

Read the full post here.

Friday:

Why Everyone Hopes You’ll Be the Hero

This post is a cool little bit of Friday inspiration about how even if you think the world is against you, people are really rooting for you. Side note: For some reason, at first I thought the faux Post-It note accompanying this post said, “I am a fan of the morons.” I’m not even making that up to try to be funny.

Read the full post here.

This week’s cool links:

• How Many “Potential Buyers” Are You Driving To Your Website? Amen. All types of visitors to your site are not the same, and if you’re in business to make money, you really need to pay attention to what type you’re attracting.
• How should you treat your best customers?: Interesting. As is true Seth fashion, I don’t know that this post so much answers the question as makes you wonder about it, but this isn’t a way I’d thought about it before.
• The ABCs of Pricing: You should check this one out not just because it’s a good post on pricing, but also because it’s the big new Inc. magazine debut of our own Charlie Gilkey!
• A Question of Money-back Guarantees and Marketing Your Online Products: I’m not really a fan of guarantees, but I understand why they’re usually necessary. If you’re on the fence about offering your own, read this.

About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is one of the creators of Profitable Idealism, a course about how to increase profits by adding idealism to your business, and how to supercharge idealism by adding a focus on profit. Profitable Idealism opens for pre-registration next week, but you can pre-pre-sign up for it now.