According to a new study by B2B Magazine and Junta42 Match, about a third of marketer’s budgets are spent on custom content creation.

Among that portion of the budget, half is spent on white papers.

Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 said, “Business marketers continue to invest more in their own content marketing, but knowledge of the industry or the practice doesn’t seem to have budged. Clearly there is a need to educate marketers looking to deliver relevant and compelling content to their customer and prospect base.”

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If you market your business, you need to check out this video.

It shows how to generate mass interest in your business.

• Prospects literally line up, ready to purchase after experiencing this.

• Following the strategy, businesses are becoming the thought leaders of their industries.

• Once set in motion, the strategy keeps generating quality leads literally for years.

Watch the video now.

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Dearly beloved… We gather here today to honor a once critical communication conduit that has passed away…

Is email dead???

I rely on email to communicate with my peers, let folks know when new posts go up on this blog and of course receive updates from the many newsletters I receive.

However, I have a big concern. Read the rest of this article »

Ok folks…

Take a look at the picture here.

Your task: Create a killer caption for this image.

I would like to reward the person who comes up with the best caption by giving him or her a free copy of my book Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged in e-book format.

Contest winner announced Fri. May 2nd.

Is fear of the competition preventing you from releasing a masterful white paper?

Are you certain your ideas will be embraced by prospects, but are scared the competition will simply copy you?

These are big questions—and surprisingly common concerns.

Indeed, I recently received an email from Julie on this very topic. Let me address this directly here. Read the rest of this article »

Ok folks. It seems ALL of my friends and peers are on Twitter.com

So out of the blue, I decided to sign up.

Check me out here.

Now what? I am new to this.

We had a class today on conducting expert interviews with author Larry Grobel.

A number of questions came up and I want to address them here:

Toby asks, “What are some of the strategies you use to develop a string of questions that keeps the interview moving right along?”

Toby, here is my recommendation: Read the rest of this article »

I know many of you craft a LOT of white papers.

So here’s my question for you: How do you decide on a topic?

Do you just randomly pick something? Do you survey people?

Would love to hear from you.

Coming up with great content is half the battle in completing a white paper.

You can search for hours on the Internet in hopes of striking gold (as your eyes blur from fatigue…).

Or you can simply pick up the phone and talk to an expert.

I know, I know… You’d rather burn the midnight oil interacting with Google than talk with a real live person.

Here are five reasons people resist interviewing experts:

o We hate asking for directions
o We think we know it all
o We don’t want to look bad
o We don’t know who to ask
o We don’t know what to ask

Now here are the facts. Interviewing experts: Read the rest of this article »

One of the reason that I became a self employed freelance writer was that I wanted to work for myself. In other words, I didn’t want a boss. It’s worked out ok. In fact, I’m a tougher boss than any of my former bosses or current clients, and I get results every time.

As writers, we provide a service for our clients, and like other service providers we say that the customer is always right, but it’s not true. Read the rest of this article »