Content marketing tools and training.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the main theme of a business book gain such huge traction – before the book is even released – than The Long Tail by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson.
In case you’ve not caught this hugely prevalent meme, I’ll let Chris explain it himself:
Senores y Senoras, nosotros tenemos mas influencia con sus hijos que tu tiene… pero los queremos.
Translation: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have more influence over your children than you do… but we love them.”
I always thought this introduction to the Jane’s Addiction song Stop on 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual was poignant. It’s an interesting way to open an album, but the message is also important.
The sign says it all – “Kids Eat Free Every Monday and Tuesday.” It’s out in front of a Mexican food restaurant on my way home.
That’s called an offer. It’s not the restaurant’s main offering (which is trading Mexican food for money). As far as that goes, this is probably the third best (out of four) Mexican food joints in my hometown.
But every Monday and Tuesday night, the place is packed. They’ve made an appealing offer that caused people to take action.
One of the most repeated rules of compelling copy is to stress benefits, not features. In other words, identify the underlying benefit that each feature of a product or service provides to the prospect, because that’s what will prompt the purchase.
ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse chimes in with an excellent, balanced addition to the growing debate over traditional SEO as applied to blogs. This is the topic that I commented on with SEO Copywriting is Dead, which built upon a couple of posts by Nick Wilson of Performancing and was pushed further along by Steve Pavlina.
Darren is always a diplomat, but here his even-handedness is especially welcome. While demonstrating both sides of the story, I think he actually makes a stronger case for writing for humans first.
“Pimpin’ ain’t easy but it’s necessary.” – Ice Cube
Chris Garrett at Performancing writes today about “blogging for hire,” meaning a new corporate job description, or maybe a consulting gig, as a company blogger. Think Microsoft’s Robert Scoble, but at firms of all sizes and across all industries.
In fact, Chris inspired this post title when he mentioned Hugh Macleod “pimping wine and bespoke suits.” Chris isn’t being derogatory at all, but if you’re offended, blame him. 
