On today’s episode of the Engaging Marketeer, I’m joined by Kate Toon. Kate is a copywriting and SEO expert that now dedicates her time to teaching these things, along with other areas of digital marketing, in a range of online courses.
I’m speaking to Kate about her beginnings in the industry, the transition from working to teaching, the methods that she uses as a teacher, as well digging deep into what drives her in her career and life.
Check out the interview in its entirety over on our YouTube, and find some particular highlights below.
Kate on breaking into the digital marketing industry…
Darren: How did you get into what is, let’s face it, still a very male-dominated industry?
Kate: I worked in the advertising industry for a while, in the early years of SEO, when Google Analytics and Adwords were just starting out. Then I moved back to Australia, where this stuff was kind of uncharted territory, nobody was really doing any of this stuff. I was doing some work in agencies, then I went freelance, and I used the skills I learnt (as a copywriter) to rank myself number one for about 300 keywords – there was nothing you could type into Google relating to copywriting that I wasn’t number one for, and people started to get annoyed. In those days, I was one of the only women around in the industry, which was both an advantage and a disadvantage, obviously.
…on sexism within the industry…
Darren: I’m getting quite deep quite early here. I’ve been to quite a few conferences over the years but kind of stopped going to so many to focus on my agency. I didn’t think there was a sexism or a predatory nature that existed in digital marketing anymore – I discovered earlier this year that this is not the case. Is this something that you’ve experienced yourself, or something that you’re aware of?
Kate: There’s a couple of things that I’ve experienced. Going to conferences and everybody on the stage being a middle aged white man and so not seeing myself represented. I was also asked to speak at a SEO conference in Sydney and I was a bit nervous, to be honest, because I knew I’d be the only women, and the guy running the event said “well, I’m only asking you because I wanted to have a woman on the stage”. In terms of sexism and lecturing, we see it pretty much everywhere we go these days, so of course it’s no surprise that we see it at conferences as well.
…on the personal joys of SEO…
Darren: I kind of got into SEO because I have this need for attention – I just loved the whole idea of people finding me or websites that I’ve done online.
Kate: It’s thrilling isn’t it? When I say I was ranking top for about 300 words relating to copywriting in my area, Sydney, I mean I was above Wikipedia for a time. Obviously, there’s a real sense of achievement there because we know the steps that it takes to get to that point. Now, I’ve got hundreds of students that outrank me for the term, so I can get pleasure out of other people getting good results.
…on struggles as a copywriter…
Darren: What’s the most boring thing you’ve written about?
Kate: I don’t have anything boring.
Darren: Okay then. What’s the most boring thing you’ve made interesting?
Kate: I know that trading and stocks are great and can make me a millionaire, but it’s just so dull. I found that one a real struggle, but again, I think that a good copywriter is curious and can find anything fascinating. It’s all about the client at the end of the day, you need to be able to have some banter with them. If not, you’ll likely struggle.
Darren: So there are no boring subjects, only boring clients
Kate: That’s it. Beautifully put.
…on the switch from copywriting to teaching…
Darren: So you obviously went from copywriting, to teaching people how to do that. What sparked that switch, what made you do it?
Kate: I’d been a copywriter for a while, and I was doing well, but I chose to kind of escape the agency model that I existed within, including scaling up to have my own agency. I didn’t really want to have employees, which really limited what I was able to do. I couldn’t really charge any more for my work, so I wanted to do the “passive income”, make-money-while-you-sleep stuff. I ended up selling my copy deck template for about $10, which sold about 8,000 times, so it no longer became $10. From there, I made more templates, then I set up a membership, then I set up a course. Now that course has probably made me about $3,000,000.
Darren: So did you have to answer all the ‘I don’t know how to log in’ questions yourself?
Kate: No, no, I had to do thing in the end, I had to hire people. I started off initially with subcontractors, so I wasn’t responsible and it was only limited hours, but now I do have some employees. I was doing that stuff for a while, but it really just wasn’t tenable.
…on the resources needed to start a course…
Darren: If somebody wanted to do a course like that now, what sort of technical knowledge do they need and what sort of platform would you suggest they go for?
Kate: When it comes to teaching, it’s the way you approach teaching that matters, nothing else. Everything I teach can be found on the internet, but when you have a teacher that can guide you through, that can listen to your concerns and answer your questions, that’s what really makes the difference. Technically, you don’t need much. I use WordPress, I use WooCommerce memberships to gatekeep content, I don’t use a learning management system. I literally just have content and videos hosted on Vimeo and they’re just pulled through into my site. It’s not really about the method, it’s about how you break the topic down.
If you want to reach Kate or are interested in any of her helpful programs, she hopes that Googling ‘Kate Toon’ still works to have her website ranking first on Google, or else she says she’d be pretty rubbish at her job. For now, Kate is focused on improving her current work that allows her to live her life away from the ‘SEO bubble’ that she’s found great success in.
Thanks for watching (or reading) this edition of the Engaging Marketeer podcast. Please subscribe to us on our YouTube channel as well as wherever you listen to your podcasts, we’d love to have you back for all of our episodes.
