After the first dot-com bust, “content is king” was the rallying cry of any competent Web worker. Back then this revelation was novel online. Soon after, this mantra became a cliché. As it often goes with clichés, they start out as something true and meaningful. Eventually, the words become common, outlive their value, and are so overused that they’re easily ignored.

Saying content is king is the equivalent of saying money is valuable; it’s true but obvious. Tell that to the even the most mentally challenged Web marketer today, and you’ll likely get a, “Duh, where have you been?” in return.

Nobody needs to be told content is of value. But how valuable is it?

Because there isn’t a $1, $5, or $10 denomination stamped on the front of Web content, it’s often difficult to know exactly how valuable content is to your company. Also, knowing content’s value isn’t the same as knowing how to create it, market it or even how to use it.

What Is Content?

This is a critical question that often goes underexplored. If you ask most marketers, they’ll answer that it’s the copy on a Web site. While this answer is certainly true, it’s inadequate. Content is more than copy.

We can debate the nuance of the possible answers to this question. But a good starting place is to think of Web content as the public conversation that happens between you and the visitor, whether the conversation is one-way (from you to the visitor), two-way (between the visitor and you), or conversation among visitors.

Content includes but is not limited to:

• The copy on your Web site
• Blogs and reader comments
• Content widgets
• Product/service reviews
• Forums
• Videos, demos, and animations
• Tweets
• Facebook/MySpace fan pages and groups
• E-mail newsletters
• Articles and other intellectual property or knowledge sharing
• Whitepapers, case studies, Webinars

The more this content causes, persuades, or woos visitors to take a profitable action on our behalf, the more valuable it is. If it doesn’t do this, it’s more like bad entertainment.

Content Now Worth More Than Ever

The economic forecast remains challenging for at least the near future. It’s easy to make a case for leveraging existing content for all it’s worth. I would also encourage you to determine the costs of content creation strategies (if you have in the past, revisit them now). You’ll likely find that content creation is becoming more affordable. Many of our clients are easily making room in their budgets to try at least a few content-centered marketing tactics.

Using content as a marketing tool is obvious for those with compelling intellectual property, but it isn’t just for those types any more. Almost any company or service can find a content-marketing strategy that will work for it.

A former employee of mine has been looking for a home in a new area, and was impressed to find a few Realtors tweeting. He followed them. He was able to meet with one, walk through a property, and find he was from the same area as the real estate agent. Since he didn’t yet have a Realtor, whom do you think he is going to choose?

Getting Started With Content Marketing

• You don’t have to start from scratch. If you have content already, look to your analytics to identify popular content and find other uses for it. Rewrite it, update it, and send it as a newsletter. Even tweet it as an oldie but a goodie. Or have it formatted for mobile browsers.
• Crowdsource. Sometimes your customers will create better content than you can buy from a content creation firm. Why not use specific reviews or forum posts as landing places for campaigns or even as ads?
• Find the passion. Somebody in the company interested or fluent in a particular social media, or has been itching to write a company blog? Now is the time to let him loose. Let his passion be a lighthouse for potential customers. While it may not be polished or on message, it is likely not going to be sterile and flat like most polished, on-message marketing efforts. To get a sense of what this evangelist might do for you, check out my interview with Betsy Weber, chief evangelist of TechSmith:part one and part two.
• Let content come from your company’s strength. We had a client where almost everybody in the company participates in the forum. Every employee is knowledgeable about the service offered, and they all become part of the marketing vehicle, giving tips and comments and escalating customer issues. Not only is it transparent, it’s content marketing at its most organic.
• Content marketing should ultimately be a two-way conversation between you and your customers. While an e-mail newsletter or a static Web page with persuasive copy is technically one-way, it shouldn’t sound like it is. Talk more about them and what they get than talking about yourself. Those who do nothing but talk about themselves just end up “wewe-ing” all over themselves.
• Don’t be pressured to reinvent the wheel. If you don’t already have one, start a simple e-mail newsletter or blog. Don’t feel forced to pick something new and shiny like Twitter or the latest social media frenzy.
• Content that isn’t relevant to at least one profitable segment of potential customers isn’t content, it’s spam. Spam is boring. Creating relevant content often requires planning.

Final Say

Ultimately, content marketing is about optimizing the dialogue between a company and it customers. The better, more interesting the conversation is, the more attention it attracts and the more your customers are compelled to talk and buy.

How is the conversation going with your customers?

It is the best of times and the worst of times for some businesses. Many look at the world and see the opportunities of being data rich, customer centric, and nimble while others imagine they can bring their old school thinking to the new media, always-on connected customer. They sit cross-fingered hoping that putting lipstick on their pig will improve their results. Let’s explore two publishers making news recently and learn how one is failing while the other has become quite successful.

We will learn from this comparison no matter what type of business we are in.

I love to consume and share content on my iPad. Ask any of the nearly 20-plus million people who have one and I am pretty sure they’ll respond the same way. So you figure when a publishing powerhouse invests an initial $30 million dollars and another $500,000 an issue into an iPad-only publication, how could it go wrong? Well, not all the numbers for The Daily have been revealed (for that you would have to speak to Rupert Murdoch or his Daily staff), but based on recent data and calculations, the results are not very promising. It has been estimated that the app had been downloaded 500,000 times and that 75,000 people have become “regular users” of the app, at least during the extended free trial period. Nevertheless, the tweets per day from the app are on the decline.

If I had to explain to Mr. Murdoch and his team why their paid subscriber to application download conversion rate is so low, I would tell them that while their content is beautiful, the experience of consuming it was painful and slow. People want speed, freshness, and variety. It’s painful to watch all these little boxes on screen while my issue was being delivered and to watch my beard grow as thumbnails of pages loaded. Mr. Murdoch, your publication is obese and crippled.

What has been your experience with The Daily? How would you fix it at this point?

By now I am sure you have heard about the acquisition of The Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million and all the change that has followed that acquisition. The Huffington Post’s news, analysis, and lifestyle website was founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors and boasts an affluent, influential audience that is growing at a rate of 22 percent.

You may have heard how The Huffington Post uses  real-time testing to write better headlines. Or maybe you heard The Huffington Post’s CTO Paul Berry speak about its Google Analytics deployment and how it uses it:

When the HuffPost publishes a front-page Quick Read or other feature story, Berry and his team can use Analytics to quickly gauge traffic spikes and update the content in minutes to drive the publication’s editorial direction. The editorial calendar stored on Google Calendar is then updated accordingly, giving staff easy access to any changes even if they are on the road. “Overnight, we can shape our feature stories or Quick Read columns and share any changes with everyone on staff to create more targeted, relevant content and attract more viewers.” says Berry.

As important as these data-driven pieces are to the formula, it was only recently when I heard The Huffington Post’s CFO Eric Ashman deliver the Web Analytics Association Gala Awards dinner keynote that I realized how hard-core, data-centric, real-time-enabling, and customer-focused their business was as he spoke about the primary drivers of The Huffington Post business model.

He spoke about the critical importance of having the right reporting structure in place with web analytics data including real-time stats as they relate to the “product” and marketing stats as they impact sales and marketing flowing directly to the office of the CFO and the board of directors. My brother and I have been advocating that for a reporting system to be meaningful, every piece of data must flow into the financial statements since 2001. Eric, as I do, believes “traffic analytics are as core to strategic planning, decision making and building shareholder value as financial statements.”

Several other critical success factors he shared included:

• Getting the technology team support and the importance of being nimble.
• Getting real-time data in the hands of people who can react quickly.
• Starting simple and building from there.

Mr. Murdoch, I truly wish you could have been there to learn.

Do you agree that we can learn from these two very different publishers?

Create relevant and delightful experiences people want to share. Speed up your site, speed up your corporate metabolism, enable everyone to make decisions based on data, and execute rapidly; that is going to be a winning formula for the next several years. Will you be able to keep up?

Are you selling your white papers short with poor merchandising?

Many sites offering “free” white papers, case studies, or resources in exchange for some visitor information utterly fail to merchandise their downloads. Yet if your website doesn’t treat your white paper as containing valuable information, your visitors won’t either.

The problem starts by thinking of these downloads as free. You’re asking for something extremely valuable to both you and the visitor, their contact information. To get this valuable information, you need to show the visitor the value of what they’re downloading. So when they fill out the lead form, they feel they’re making a good exchange: valuable information for valuable information.

1. Your white paper needs an interesting title: Would you rather read a white paper titled “Mobile Analytics” or “Why 90% of Your Mobile Visitors Aren’t Being Tracked and What You Can Do About It?” The same technique that works for selling books, getting people to read blog posts, and even to attend webinars can significantly increase your white paper downloads. But don’t go for such an interesting name that no one knows what the paper is about. For borderline cases, a strong subtitle can bridge between interesting and descriptive.
2. Every white paper needs a cover: Instead of just giving the white paper a title alone, merchandise it the way you would a book. No plain vanilla covers; make it engaging. Keep in mind, many people prefer to download and print white papers before they read them. Which is more likely to catch someone’s attention on a busy, cluttered desk: a white paper with no cover or one with an engaging cover design?
   
3. Make it easy to digest: How often have you downloaded a white paper for it only to be pages after pages of block text? No headlines, sub-headline, or bullet points. No graphics, charts, or screenshots. People are busy. It’s fine to make a long white paper if the topic deserves it, but make it reader-friendly.
4. Tell them what they are going to get: Write persuasive copy that not only informs people what they’ll learn from the download, but also what they can do with the information. Make sure this copy is crisp, simple to read, and formatted for online readers. You may want to offer key takeaways, a table of contents, or even an example chart to show them how valuable the paper is going to be.
5. Give them download details: Let them know how many pages it is, how big the file is, what format the paper is in (PDF, DOC), etc.
6. Give them an excerpt: Very few people like reading poorly written, monotonous sounding, corporate gobbledygook. By providing an excerpt, you can help prove how well-written, easy to understand, and valuable your white paper is.
7. Prove other people like it: Like endorsements on a book cover, “credible testimonials” on the download page of your white paper can help sell the value of the content and improve conversion.
8. Don’t ask for too much information: Make sure your forms are optimized to ask only what you really need. And please don’t ask people to “submit to you.”
9. Let them know what will happen with their personal information: Provide them with point of action assurances around their privacy.
10. Make it easy for people to share: Give people an easy mechanism for them to share your white paper via social media, e-mail, or pass along. Do it on the offer/landing page as well as on the thank you page. Visitors are most engaged when they are already downloading the white paper, so a suggestion for them to share it often helps. Don’t forget to add shareable links within the white paper itself.
11. Have a follow-up program: Let’s face it, you created your white paper and offered it for download in order to get leads. That means the white paper has to generate a response or conversation. Making your white paper interesting, actionable, and readable will help, but you’ll be far more successful getting responses if you initiate the post-download interactions and follow-up conversations through a well-planned lead nurturing campaign.
12. Offer contact information: Some people actually prefer to contact you immediately upon finding the white paper, so make sure your contact information is on the download page. Others prefer to contact you as they are reading the white paper, so make sure your contact information is found there as well. I like adding simple contact information in the footer of my white papers. Others just feel a sense of confidence knowing you are providing your full contact information and not trying to remain anonymous while asking for their personal information. In simple terms, make it easy for them to find your contact information everywhere.

What other techniques have you tried to increase leads from white paper requests?

If we could spend only a few minutes working together to optimize your website, we’d still get results starting with a process. When evaluating and improving any type of content or copy, there is a quick 10-step process you can use.

1. Headlines. Why are headlines first? They are the critical attention-getters that allow your visitor to determine if the page is relevant to her needs in just a few seconds. Readers of your pages scan the headlines and sub-headlines (headers and sub-headers) to grok the content on a page and decide if they want to read more of your copy. Headlines aid in the visual task of scanning and skimming, which helps your visitors organize the information you present. Worded appropriately, they encourage your visitors to go deeper into your persuasive copy. David Ogilvy would say, “If you haven’t done some selling in your headline, you have wasted 80 percent of your client’s money.”

2. First mental image. This is usually a combination of your headline and how it ties into your first few sentences of copy along with your first picture (if you have one in the paragraph). I’ve written several posts that illustrate the power of a good first mental image.

A strong mental image is achieved by choosing the best copy perspective for your message.

3. WIIFM. Everybody’s favorite radio station – what’s in it for me? Are you speaking to the reader about what matters to them? And are you speaking their language? Different personality preferences have different ways of engaging with your content and making decisions. This is where (and why) usingpersonas to decide your content strategy can be so valuable in improving your conversion rate.

4. Check for “we-we.” If you use your own name or “we” too many times in your copy you’ll end up sounding self-centered rather than customer-focused. Face it: you’re not Denny Crane. So use the “we-we” or customer focus calculator I developed to see how self-centered vs. customer-focused your copy is. You can also read this post to better understand how to measure your “we-we.” I’ve had many people tell me that they boosted their conversion rate by improving their “we-we” score and creating more customer-focused copy.

5. Remove the black words. Eliminate the black words. Avoid words that do not contribute toward a more vivid or colorful mental image.

6. Reformatting for readability. Your online copy must be formatted to make it easy to digest online. You want to maximize skimming and scanning to an important R from “The 5 Rs of Search Engine Marketing.”

7. Improve your verbs. Your copy can always be improved by pumping up your verbs and writing inactive not passive voice. You can change a couple of settings in Microsoft Word to check for passive voice.

8. Wording in links and calls to action. Usability guru Jakob Nielsen recently wrote about his research about the importance of keywords in your hyperlinks. Read here to learn how to write more persuasive hyperlinks and calls to action so you don’t sound like a “more-on.”

9. Words exist in other places than just your copy. Don’t forget to evaluate and test the wording in your images, Flash, video, and audio content. One former client changed the words on the Flash banner on his home page and reduced abandonment by more than 28 percent. In fact, I am seeing a trend where people are spending less time on product pages and are looking for videos that summarize all the details on the page instead.

10. When all else fails – use the “sucking wind” checklist:

1. Do you offer a clear and valuable message?
2. Have you established trust and credibility?
3. Have you answered all the main objectives?
4. Have you addressed the emotional “ownership” of the sale?
5. Have you substantiated your claims?
6. Have you made the next steps clear?
7. Could you have said the same thing in one-third of the words?

Improving your copywriting is just one of the many efforts you need to continually improve to keep your goals on target.

Enjoy this presentation on the 10 Steps to Optimize Copy & Content (it will take less than 20 minutes to watch) that I recorded for MarketMotive!

(If you are having problems displaying the video in your browser

click here to Play Now.)

P.S. If you liked this then don’t miss the Persuasive online copywriting workshop in Austin on March 30-31st.

We came up with 5Rs of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to demystify the process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This 7 1/2 minute video interview with Dr. Ralph Wilson from Web Marketing Today covers how content on your site must be (1) Relevant, (2) build your Reputation, (3) Remarkable, (4) Readable, and (5) of sufficient Reach.

No one knows exactly when the first advertisement was published on a printing press. We do know: In 1609, a British newspaper published an ad for migration opportunities to America. For hundreds of years, ads and print went hand and hand. Then came the Internet. AT&T was the first to pay HotWired to display the first ever online ad; a 468 x 60 banner that came to life on October 25, 1994.

Do you remember the days of explosive CPMs? Many people long for those times – before rates for traditional banner ad plummeted just as the market crashed from 2000 through 2002. These banner ads couldn’t support those rates because low click-through rates (CTR) and conversions didn’t justify the spend. To find ways to make online ads justify premium prices, publishers have had to experiment with all kinds of formats, including all intrusive full-page overlays to the content the reader is after. This still wasn’t the answer any one was hoping for.

There have even been attempts at changing the nature of print ads. Everything from CBS embedding a video screen into an “Entertainment Weekly” magazine to creating ads that you place your iPhone over to make the rest of the ad “come to life” like this example from AXA.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then along came Steve Jobs (I wish him a quick return to health), and the introduction of the iPad.Nearly 15 million iPads sold this past year. This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) seemed to be a lot about iPad accessories or iPad “killers” and the nature of consuming content is changing dramatically. And as part of that change, it seems that advertisements have changed as well.

While many magazine publishers are still struggling at grabbing subscription revenue from their iPad digital magazines, a recently completed study by Alex Wang, Ph.D., on behalf of Adobe is showing the effectiveness of ads placed in these digital magazines. Participants in the study who saw the interactive ads had stronger engagement, message involvement, and attitude than participants who viewed the same static ad in a print magazine. Participants who engaged with the interactive ads also perceived stronger interactivity than the participants who saw the static ad. It is easy to speculate that higher ad interactivity could generate higher brand awareness.

All this interactivity combines the best elements of consuming printed content with the Web’s full interactivity. Best of all, the tracking of metrics is built right in. Now publishers and advertisers can find out how people really are engaging with their ads and content. This is why a software company like Adobe acquired Web analytics company Omniture; it saw where publishing was headed and how all this fit into Adobe’s Publishing Suite. Next step, Adobe just acquired audience optimization firm DemDex.

Matt Langie, an Adobe senior director, told PaidContent: “Audience optimization, which we define as putting all of the data that a publisher collects and matching it to an advertiser looking to reach a specific segment of those users, is the key driver of online advertising’s growth.”

It won’t be long until advertisements in digital magazines will be personalized based on a reader’s past participation with content and ads, location, time of day, etc. Might this also be where book publishing’s future is headed? Perhaps there will soon be interactive books that are free but supported through targeted advertisements or additional embedded content? The future is always interesting.

Newsletters continue to serve as an effective way for businesses, from retailers to B2B services, to stay in touch with their customers. In my last column, I shared the simple but powerful technique of using point-of-action assurances to convert more visitors into taking the actions you want them to take – such as using the words “we value your privacy” anywhere you want someone to provide you with their e-mail address. Here are some other tips you can use to increase and retain newsletter subscribers:

1. Provide a sample: Add a link that opens up a sample newsletter like CafePress.com. It’s a great way of setting expectations of what your subscribers will receive.
   
2. Acquire subscribers at seducible moments: One of the best times to capture that newsletter opt-in is immediately after your visitor has taken an action they found valuable. Too few retailers use their “Thank You for Ordering” page to acquire subscribers. Instead, many retailers add it as an option in the shopping cart; that adds friction and one more decision in the checkout process that can give visitors pause. By the way, ensure you test variations of this call to action.
3. Offer a bribe: Don’t just ask them to subscribe; give them a valuable reason why. Offer them a free white paper, a super coupon, an exclusive invitation, etc. Make sure you establish the value of this offer as well. Notice how my friend Larry Chase offers you his Social Media Marketing Guide and established a $29.95 value for it.



4. Remember, segmentation and relationships are key: One newsletter rarely fits all. Your visitors have different interests, different threshold requirements for taking action, and different moments in their buying process. You probably shouldn’t send your previous customers the same newsletter you send people who have never bought from you. You must nurture relationships and provide key content and offers at the right times in the visitor life cycle. One easy segmentation for existing customers is to use RFM analysis to send out different offers. You can also offer different newsletters related to different product categories or business roles. You can see how ClickZ offers several different options here. Although, for your business you may want to test capturing the e-mail address first and then offer them the segmentation to a separate newsletter on the next step.
5. Ensure your e-mail preview is engaging: If you want to retain your visitors, you must ensure they open and read your newsletters. An easy approach is to make sure your e-mail template is formatted well for preview in the various e-mail clients. If your e-mail looks like a bunch of empty boxes with red Xs, fewer people will open it and read it. In the one to two seconds that a person scans an e-mail, if she can’t figure out the value she’ll delete it. Compare the two e-mails from my inbox below and decide which one you are more likely to allow the download of images.



6. It’s not all about offers; it’s about great content: Want the secret to keeping thousands of subscribers for years on end? Look for those that have successful mailings. You must think like a publisher, whether you are a retailer or a B2B (define) service or a technology provider. Newsletters like ClickZ, Ralph Wilson’s Web Digest for Marketers, or Larry Chase’s WDFM are newsletters that I’ve maintained my subscriptions to since the mid to late ’90s. Why? Since they focus on providing excellent relevant content, they have changed formats over time and they allow me to get the content in the way I want to get it. I don’t need to remind you of the expression that “content is king.” But keep in mind: If you provide me content related to a topic I am interested in, I am more likely to open your newsletter on a regular basis than if you only send me offers that I will open only when I am in the market for your product.
7. If a subscriber opts out, offer to change frequency: There will come a time when your subscriber has had enough of your mailings. Make it easy for her to unsubscribe, but when she arrives at your unsubscribe page offer her the ability to change the frequency from a weekly mailing to a monthly mailing. Offer her to opt in to a more “select” or segmented newsletter. Give one last chance to stay engaged.

Use these seven simple tips to increase your newsletter subscribers, keep producing valuable content, and find ways to engage people where they are in their buying process and building long-term relationships instead of focusing on your sales and one-off offers. You’ll build a newsletter list to rival your competitors. Remember, the money is always in the list!

In the space of a few weeks I’ve had my material “ripped off” twice. One instance was OK by me, but one instance was not. The differences open up important questions at the forefront of the new rules involving content, sharing, social media, and copyrights.

Today, ideas spread quickly. Volumes of great information are shared through Webinars, e-books, and social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and SlideShare. Tracing an idea, insight, or fact back to its original source can be challenging. This is an even bigger issue when these exchanges are occurring among marketing professionals, especially because creating and sharing content has become practically the go-to strategy for driving business and lead generations for many companies. Take creative professionals who make their living from their ideas and content, give them an incentive to share that content openly, and you have a near perfect environment for undue influence and sticky copyright issues.

Like me, I’m sure you have your sphere of influencers. I’ve been fortunate to surround myself with people much smarter than me to nourish my brain. Being influenced by others is a good thing and it’s the reason my peers and I have been sharing our thoughts through (in my case) 300+ columns like these, presentations, and countless conversations. So far, the benefits have far outweighed any dangers or concerns. But as I mentioned, recent events have got me pondering the best ways to manage my future content sharing strategies.

The first instance happened when a student of mine asked me what I thought of their brainstorming session for banner ad ideas. When I saw the list, I asked my student if they were aware of where these ideas came from – or what influenced their ideas. As soon as I asked, they were embarrassed because it was a collection of disjointed ideas grabbed from past and future presentations and concepts I had written about in past columns and had shared with them in conversations we’d had together.

My students felt as though they’d ripped me off and I assured them that they hadn’t. What they had done is something our brains do naturally as we take in, process, and assimilate ideas. I shared with them this fabulous video of Derren Brown and his use of “Subliminal Advertising” to influence the kind of logo and branding advertising execs would come up with for a business he was starting. By manipulating barely conscious cues he provided ad execs, he predicted precisely the kind of logo they came up with. As soon as my students watched the video, they understood how their assembly of my ideas was unconsciously done and felt better about the situation. In turn, I explained how flattered I was, as my goal for the last decade has been to inspire others by sharing my ideas.

Influence Gone Bad

The next instance was not as comfortable for either me or a friend who I “influenced.” Here’s what occurred: This friend shared a presentation on March 1 titled, “15 Secrets of High Converting Websites.” (Follow along and you’ll see why the presentation has since been removed.)

When I saw this presentation, I immediately asked my Twitter and Facebook friends: “What would you do if someone you thought was a friend ripped off one of your presentations without asking or attribution? http://ow.ly/1cOgi”

Here’s the backstory: In just two weeks, I’ll be presenting my “21 Secrets to Top Converting Websites” at SES New York. It’s a presentation that took me the better part of a decade to put together. The presentation had received rave reviews as a keynote speech at SES London, including this tweet from @Liz_Gray: “#seskey Unbelievable keynote this morning from @thegrok! Action-oriented, clear and concise. Everyone with a website – test something today.”

I first delivered this presentation in December 2009 at SES Chicago and then recorded it in January as a Webinar for my conversion optimization students. This is where my friend was “influenced” by my presentation. No other copies of these slides were shared anywhere.

I have shared presentations in the past, but since I am now focused on being a professional marketing speaker, these slides are a good part of my livelihood, and my paying clients don’t want them shared all over the Internet. So when I reviewed this person’s newest Webinar presentation, it was a shock to find that “his” slide titles and content, including many of the images, were essentially the same as mine. That’s when I tweeted the question.

The tweet led to quite a firestorm on Twitter and Facebook as people responded. My friend RSS Ray, a.k.a., Brian Offenberger, who had committed this act, was inundated with e-mails and comments on Facebook. You can read some of the discussions on Facebook here. Two of my MarketMotive students who really studied my presentation shared these comments on Twitter:

Gene Gerwin wrote: “Judging from the slides, it’s such a direct lift that I wonder if mere attribution would have been sufficient…”

And Noran El-Shinnawy wrote: “Hey, @rssray here’s my comment on your blog since you won’t approve it (@TheGrok ) http://tweetphoto.com/12949589.” In a follow up tweet, Noran added: “INCREDIBLY UNPROFESSIONAL: @rssray rips off @TheGrok ‘s 21 Secrets presentation and passes it off as his own http://ow.ly/1cOgi.”

The next morning, Brian pulled the slides he shared from his Web site, posted an apology on his blog, and explained how items from my presentation unintentionally ended up in his. We subsequently spoke on the phone.

I asked him to share with me a list of what he learned from the experience. “I had the importance of checking and re-checking work re-taught to me in the most painful of ways,” Brian wrote.

The Future of Sharing

Some people suggested I sue for damages. I’m not an attorney, but from past legal advice I know that you cannot collect damages for material that is yours unless you have filed for the copyright with the Library of Congress. You can have them remove the duplication just by placing the copyright notice on your material and you can prove it was yours first.

These two situations have left me with more questions than answers:

• Do I feel comfortable sharing my slides any more? I have shared many presentations in the past. Do you?
• How do we prevent ourselves from being overly influenced by others?
• Let’s say someone shares a presentation online through sites like SlideShare and copies a slide or two from others. During the presentation, the speaker gives verbal attribution to the original source of information, but written attribution is not placed on the slide. Is that ok?
• What would you do if you were accused of “copying” someone’s slides? I think Brian handled it as well as anyone.
• How will copyright laws evolve with the times?
• How would you have handled this situation?

At several conferences that last few months and in several emails, there is one question that keeps popping up, what is the critical skill for marketers to have today.

Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist recently said that the “…sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians…The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it.” I agree with Mr. Varian completely. However, I’d like to add the other sexy job of the next decade, the copywriter. Being data centric and being able to use that data to communicate to your customers effectively and in a human way is what will differentiate companies in the decades to come.

It’s all about creating engaging and effective content. It doesn’t matter if it is words on a page, a script for a video, a status update or an ebook or whitepaper. The challenge will be how you communicate your message effectively in a world where our attention is constantly slammed, while continuously shrinking.

Copywriters in the 1960′s used to say that copy needed to be like a lady’s skirt: long enough to cover the essentials and short enough to be interesting. My brother Jeffrey Eisenberg recently observed, “The skirt just seems to be getting shorter and shorter.”

AdWords, Twitter (microblogging), social media, text messaging, Google’s seeming preference for pages 500 words or shorter and the continual assault of data on our senses is raising the bar. What do you think copywriters in the 2010′s will say copy is like?

What other skills do you think will be necessary in the decade to come?

P.S. Want to improve your copywriting skills? Be sure to subscribe to my friend Jeff Sexton’s blog.

This week marks the 15th anniversary of my good friend Dr. Ralph Wilson’s newsletter, Web Marketing Today. Dr. Wilson’s newsletter was among the first newsletters I subscribed to in the mid nineties that got me started on my path to understanding what was happening on the internet. To this day I still open and read almost every newsletter I get from WilsonWeb.com.

Dr. Wilson’s first business venture back in 1995 was designing and building websites for small and medium businesses, but he soon found that these entrepreneurs needed help to market their businesses online. At that time web marketing was unknown territory.

Web Marketing Today features practical, how-to articles written by subject experts with hands-on experience. The site contains more than 100 video interviews with expert speakers at major Internet marketing conferences. The content of the site focuses on what people are actually adopting online and how a small business can implement and profit from these ideas and tools. The goal is to give readers practical, how-to advice they can put into use immediately.

If you are not subscribed to it, I highly suggest you should. See what Ralph’s been doing for the past 15 years to accumulate more than 101,000 subscribers and such a loyal readership.