Summary: 2014 was a pivotal year for Copyblogger Media. We: Launched a Pilot program for our Rainmaker Platform using a podcast Evolved the platform to version 2.0 during the Pilot phase Arrived at the 8-figure level for annual revenue, up 34% For an added twist, we tried things, observed, learned, and made changes on the fly throughout the year - from content, to format, to development. Which, lets be frank, may have made us look like we didnt know what we were doing. Welcome to the real world. When you play in real time with a real audience, you figure out everything you need to know. But you cant be afraid to adapt based on what they tell you just because it differs from the plan. In this 32-minute episode Robert Bruce and I discuss: Why 2014 was such a strange year around here The big project were working on for 2015 The biggest Rainmaker.FM episode of 2014 I (finally) reveal my new curation project The future of the Rainmaker Platform The content trend you need to focus on in 2015 Listen to Rainmaker.FM Episode No. 23 below ... [player] Download AudioSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Image by Bjorn Simon The New Rainmaker training course The most popular Rainmaker.FM episode of 2014 My new project: Further Further on Facebook | Further on Twitter 16 Stats That Explain Why Adaptive Content Matters Right Now *Rainmaker.FM is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and Internet entrepreneurs. The Transcript Behind the Scenes: 2014 in Review and the Road Ahead This episode of Rainmaker.FM is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, which we will be talking about a little bit later — but you can see more of right now at RainmakerPlatform.com. Robert Bruce: Happy New Year Brian. Brian Clark: Happy New Year to you too. Robert Bruce: Thank you. Its 2015, for those of you who are still in a fog rolling into the days of January here. Brian Clark: That would be me. So, thanks. Robert Bruce: Well you get a lot done, it seems. Some of which we are going to be talking about a little bit today but we have laid out a nice little plan for this episode. Another behind the scenes episode of Rainmaker.FM. The first half of the show we are going to take a look back at 2014 and the second half of the show we will be looking ahead at 2015. We were talking the other day that folks in and around the Copyblogger audience, if you are watching closely, you may have noticed some interesting things going on, you may have even questioned some of the decisions we have made over this last year, wondering why we are doing what we are doing. So we will talk about a few of those things and obviously, what we learned from them. Then will go onto 2015 in the second half of the show and whats coming next for us, which hopefully will be informative and useful to all of you. Why 2014 Was Such a Strange Year Around Here Robert Bruce: Yeah Brian, what do you think about 2014, generally first? Some of these things, turns, decisions we made. Brian Clark: It was a big year. It seemed like a crazy year. We tried a lot of things, we learned a lot of things and we figured out a lot of things, and yet we did it all on purpose as a demonstration. When we launched this podcast at the beginning of 2014 we had a general plan for what we are trying to accomplish but we were really learning as we went, figuring things out, taking in feedback and seeing what worked and what didnt. And of course, that early effort turned into the New Rainmaker training course, which shows that Im still not a jaded old fart. But in our LinkedIn discussion group when they were talking about the best of 2014 from Copyblogger, several people chimed in and said it was the New Rainmaker training course that was their favorite thing from the year.
