I’ve been helping business owners and marketers build websites and a more complete online presence for years now.

I pushed clients into blogging as far back as 2004. I urged people to get serious about email lead capture – even as others claimed email was dead. I’ve shown clients the power of landing pages for every possible initiative and I’ve practically been a raving zealot for all things WordPress.

Many of the tools and integrations required technical expertise or at least the patience and curiosity to learn, but they were and are that important.

So, that’s why I’m thoroughly behind the launch today of a new tool called Rainmaker.

Rainmaker is the genius and proven test work of one of the most trusted marketers online today – Brian Clark and the Copyblogger team – and it brings together many of the parts and pieces that I’ve held at the center of the Duct Tape Marketing Point of View.

Rainmaker is so powerful we plan to integrate it as the primary website tool we recommend and use with clients. Copyblogger and Duct Tape Marketing are a bit like the Peanut Butter and Jelly of the small business world in my opinion – they just go better together!

Think of Rainmaker as a completely re-engineered WordPress core that also includes the entire Studio Press theme library built on the Genesis framework, SEO tools, landing page creation tools, forum, a podcast module, A/B split testing, and a membership module all locked down with bullet proof WordPress hosting.

With Rainmaker, you can:

• Create powerful content-driven websites on your own domains.
• Build membership sites and online training courses.
• Sell digital products like software, ebooks, and more.
• Perform sophisticated online lead generation.
• Optimize your content for search engines and social networks.
• Absorb cutting-edge tactics and strategy with included training.
• Avoid a patchwork of plugins, themes, and complicated code.
• Forget about upgrades, maintenance, security, and hosting headaches.
• Take your site and content elsewhere at any time if you so choose.

Oh, and did I mention Rainmaker comes with access to the entire totally awesome Copyblogger Authority training that includes ebooks, tutorials, and live webinars and Q and A sessions.

Rainmaker is jumping in and filling the void for businesses that want and need a high-end, full featured marketing site at a fraction of the cost it would take to build on their own.

In addition, Rainmaker removes the need for set-up, updates, plugins and add-ons that constantly require attention.

Duct Tape Marketing and Copyblogger are forging a significant strategic alliance in an effort to take the Rainmaker toolset and marry it to our practical marketing system. This truly is, in my view, a perfect partnership and I can’t wait to start bringing this piece of the puzzle to the world of small and mid-size business.

You can get a small sample of the power of Rainmaker by taking a look at the first site we built on the platform for our own efforts. Ducttapemarketingconsultant.com is the home of the Duct Tape Marketing Network. This site acts as our marketing and recruiting tool, but, thanks to Rainmaker, it also houses all of the tools, training and resources we make available to members of the network.

Members of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network are also currently receiving special training, perks and integration tools as it is our intention to act as a major value added reseller of the Rainmaker Platform.

While Rainmaker is, even in its early launch stages, a powerful tool, Copyblogger is far from being done. Future, planned iterations include marketing automation tools, email, learning management tools and affiliate tools.

Rainmaker is sold on a monthly fee basis and during the initial launch customers can lock in a promotional price that won’t increase as new feature sets are added.

I believe this is the future of the web for small and mid-sized business and it’s the direction I’m urging my readers and customers to explore and embrace.

Check out the Rainmaker platform and take it for a test drive starting today! – Introducing: The Rainmaker Platform by Copyblogger Media

As a Rainmaker partner we’ll be offering services to help Rainmaker users get the most out of the platform as an integrated marketing system.