Debbie Weil is a corporate blogging and social media expert, online marketing consultant, speaker and author of The Corporate Blogging Book (Portfolio). She consults with large companies, CEOs and senior executives on how to create blogs that connect with customers and attract media attention.

That’s the subtext of the WordBiz Blogging Seminar in Washington DC on June 30, 2004. Think blogs are a fad? That they have to be “cool”? Think again… Join me at a half-day seminar and I’ll convince you otherwise. A blog may be the perfect communications tool to add to an association, non-profit or content-driven Web site. It can complement an e-newsletter, enable anyone on your staff or team to publish instantly to the Web… AND drive more traffic to your site.

Interested? Learn more and register for this $249 event. Limited to 30 participants. Last year’s WordBiz Seminar on E-newsletters was a sell-out. So don’t wait if you’re interested…

That’s Bill Myers’ Tip of the Week. He writes, “… if a customer is going to make a purchase, they decide to do so early on in the sales presentation. After that, they are just looking for reasons not to buy.”

And yet… tests show that looong Web page sales letters are effective. My gut instinct is to side with Bill on this one. Trouble is, that’s my gut. It may not be my customer’s. Read his article here. Waddya think?

In your HTML e-newsletter, that is. That’s the subject of a mini column I wrote for today’s issue of BtoB E-mail Marketer Insight. Sounds counter intuitive but it’s really not. By limiting the number of hypertext links, you narrow down your readers’ choices. Make ‘em click where you want them to click.

Google yourself… That’s today’s pithy two-word tip from personal branding guru William Arruda. As he puts it: “Being Googled reveals how visible you are on the Web, and visibility (at least among your target audience) is critical to successful personal branding. Your Google results also become useful data points for those who are looking to make decisions about you.”

So… I googled him. 24,700 results for Arruda. #1 points to his site.

Then I googled yours truly. 77,900 results. #1 is this blog. Which proves that search engines love blogs. debbie’s blog is less than one year old. Whereas my site, www.WordBiz.com, has been up since 1995.

Here are a few more: Seth Godin: 136,000 results. Ralph F. Wilson: 637,000 results. Martin Luther King: 2,480,000 results. Seamus Heaney (my favorite poet): 76,800.

OK, sounds trivial. But there’s an art to including all the right info in order to comply with CAN-Spam AND to make your newsletter as reader-friendly as possible. Great Ezine-Tips article today by Christopher Knight on How to properly format your ezine footer.

MarketingSherpa is running a contest for best blog on the topics of marketing, advertising, PR or small business. Fun idea. Five sensible criteria: 1. personality; 2. usefulness; 3. writing style; 4. usability & design; 5. would you revisit? Vote here.

Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen offers a great suggestion in a recent issue of his AlertBox.

B2B sites ARE different from consumer sites because they must support a longer, more complex buying process.

He suggests: create an “Advocacy Kit” to help your information-seeking site visitor convince the Big Boss that yours is the solution.

Specifically, give your visitor the tools he or she needs to create a persuasive internal memo or presentation. For example:

- short white papers laid out on a Web page (instead of in PDF format) so they can be cut & pasted into a Word doc

- downloadable tables in Word

- downloadable PowerPoints with a neutral background so they can be imported into the presenter’s corporate template

Nielsen’s April 26, 2004 Alertbox B2B: Help Your Fans Convince Their Bosses

It’s a jungle out there if you’re in the market for an email vendor to deliver your e-newsletter or email promotions. Ralph F. Wilson of WilsonWeb fame has surveyed his readers and published a useful list of affordable vendors. Includes links to vendors sites as well as a fun pie chart.

Sat in on Bob Bly’s excellent presentation on “Best-kept Copywriting Secrets” at yesterday’s Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW) annual conference here in D.C. His key takeaway?

Before developing a sales letter, direct mail piece, Web landing page, etc. - write out your product’s RFB… Reason for Being. Force yourself (or your copywriter) to fill in the following blanks:

My product is the only one that does what? __________

for whom? __________ how? ___________ . Try it; not easy. But it will force you to articulate your, er, USP (unique selling proposition

Get blogging tips from Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

Robert Scoble (works for Microsoft) writes The Scobleizer and has penned a 20-point Corporate Weblog Manifesto.

Tim Bray just published Sun Policy on Public Discourse for Sun Microsystems.

Thanks to Rick Bruner for these links.