Last week’s Content Marketing Webinar on Lessons Learned from 90,000 Orders was a smash hit. Here is some feedback I received and published with permission from the authors. Thanks! –Byron White
Hello Byron,
I just wanted to quickly give you my feedback on the webinar today. It was the first webinar I’ve experienced.
First, I can tell that a lot of work was put into it. In the past it’s been my job to put together PowerPoint presentations, so I know firsthand how tedious a job it is.
I’m sure a webinar presentation has its own quirks and minefields. So thanks to you and I guess Aaron’s all-nighter. 🙂
I was struck by how much effort you have put into educating clients regarding the monetary value of various writing orders. I appreciate that you are trying to be a pioneer in ensuring that clients can arrive at fair prices in a practical, rather than a subjective, “guessing” manner.
It is also evident that you have developed powerful software in WordVision. I did feel that near the end of the allotted hour, the presentation felt a bit rushed, maybe so you could save time for questions. Perhaps in the future you might consider a dedicated WordVision instructional webinar for clients. The software certainly deserves it. I sensed that there was a lot of unmined material that there just wasn’t time to go over.
Lastly, thank you for being such a committed supporter of writers who wish to create quality content.
Cordially,
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Hi, Byron –
The Webinar last Thursday was fun, and I’ve been meaning to respond to your request for feedback for the last few days. Now I finally have a few minute to write to you.
Your platform probably shows all this, but I’m a new writer with WA, just completing my 9th article tonight. I’m starting off at Level 4.
So, in no particular order, here are some thoughts I had about your ideas:
First, in general, the Webinar made me feel better about WA. I mean, I felt pretty good about it going in, but hearing the sound of your voice made me realize how isolating it can be to earn a living at home. (Of course, living alone in the woods on an island totally off the grid can also contribute to a sense of isolation!) It’s reassuring to clients, too, I imagine, because to hear the sound of your voice and know that the person in charge of the whole company is actually sane and functional and focused on the business.
It may seem like hoping for mere sanity is setting the bar pretty low, but conducting business remotely is like walking into a public square in Morocco or somewhere. People start coming at you from all directions, and it’s not that easy to figure out who’s real and who’s a thief and who’s a lunatic. A year ago I was teaching ESL through a site called “English Café,” which was elaborate and well-trafficked and graphically very sleek. One morning out of the blue the site simply announced that it was closing. At that time, I had over $900 in my account, payable to me. A nerve-wracking experience. The teachers did end up getting paid before the whole thing vaporized, but not before we had all had our isolated little meltdowns, all over the world.
Speaking of online work, though, be sure you continue to be welcoming and hospitable to clients who are NOT aspiring to more and more intricate techie tools. Some clients will no doubt be enthusiastic about keyword trend reports and category maps and all the rest of it, but another group is going to break out in a rash when they hear terms like that. You’re always going to have a certain number of clients who just want a few easy-to-use fields where they can write down the stuff they want a writer to do for them. The elaboration of metrics and analytics and all of it is exactly what certain clients DON’T want, so I hope there will continue to be a simple short way for them to place and collect assignments.
I’m in the process of tearing down and rebuilding my own WordPress.org website, and if I were a client, the prospect of having an article posted straight to WordPress would give me hives. It’s all I can do to deal with WordPress’s whole networked universe; copying and pasting takes two seconds and is safe.
I felt grateful for your articulate defense of writers’ privacy, in terms of having online calls or IM consultations. One of the perks we get when working for modest wages and no benefits is control of our own time. Being available live for clients would definitely change the comfort level of this work, and a valuable freedom would be lost.
I liked hearing that you have new ideas for the future of WA, and that you’re out drumming up new high-paid business. It’s reassuring to feel that someone is looking out for my interests as a writer, and that we have a shared investment in WA’s prosperity. I had previously been planning to just keep on applying to new writer sites like Scripted, or Demand Media, or whichever one seems to dangle the next higher pay rate. After the Webinar, I began to think it just might be possible to keep all my content-writing eggs in this one WA basket. We’ll see how that goes.
I think that’s all I had to say. I’ve been wordy enough saying it, but it’s kind of fun to write without a set limit!
I really really liked the window into how WA works, and what’s being planned for the future. I’ll attend the Webinars regularly if I can. (Listening to old ones is less interesting to me, because part of the fun is the fact of it being live.)
Thanks again —
Betsy S
