We put together a Spreadsheet of  local directories where lawyers can list their practice for the Avvo conference today. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Be 100% consistant across all directories with your Business Name, Address, and Local Phone Number. Google creates a cluster of information about your business that they find in these directories. If the data is inconsistant, Google has less trust in your business. Here is the example I used in the presentation.

Richard Harris Law Firm
801 S 4th St
Las Vegas, NV 89101
(702) 444-4444

2. Fill out the whole profile. These sites are used by people finding businesses. If your listing looks sloppy then you look sloppy. Take the time to make each profile complete with pictures, descriptions, payment options and any additional information that you can add.

3. Don’t use a personal email to create the directory listings. Use an email/password that can be used by people on your team or consultants if necessary.

4. Check to see if you are currently listed before adding a new listing. Sometimes you can create more than one listing for your business on a given site. All that does is confuse people (including yourself) for future updates.

5. Don’t Spam. Make the listing real. Don’t stuff your business name with keywords like “chicago injury lawyer” or other things I see a lot in directories. Fill it out for Users first, Search Engines second.

Here’s the list. Enjoy.

http://bit.ly/lawlistings

After you have filled out all your listings correctly then come back here and enjoy a round of applause from us at Nifty.

(hat tip to Nyago at NGS Marketing for sending more legal directories)

So I bought a new camera recently and wanted to test it out during some of the sessions I was in at Pubcon Nola. No, I didn’t just get the camera for a business write off.  I am going to keep adding to this page. Feel free to use the photos however you would like I just ask that you mention were they came from. Thanks!

Ya, it didn’t surprise me in the least.  “G+: the wave of the future” (or something), is being sandbagged in certain markets. Deep in the books of Google Lore – employees are being paid to make Google Plus successful by being hyper active in certain markets that Google has offices in. Their year end bonus is tied to Google+ performance! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

OK. Seriously though. It was an interesting find here at Nifty.  The data I managed to scrounge up is even more interesting. I’d like to unravel a few things that may be helpful to our local search community and internet marketers in general. Beginning with the end in mind – here’s why I wanted to share this with everyone: Google+ and G+ local are growing in importance and as such we should know who has influence on the platform to make it successful or make it suck.

First off – let me explain how I stumbled upon this blog post idea:

One day, as the Niftys and I were having a pow-wow in our old office space (rest in peace) we were exploring some new ideas on how to do local outreach. We were considering different ways to find authorities in local markets and it just so happened we were exploring the San Francisco G+ Local scene. An odd thing kept popping up as we were looking for “Top Reviewers” in the market to connect with. We kept finding Google employee after Google employee that was considered a “Top Reviewer”.  Well this happened over and over and over again. Really, we thought it was an anomaly. Eventually, chirping crickets followed our amazement and we knew we were sitting on a GOLD mine of conspiracy and outright scandal.

Andy, I totally agree.

I told myself that if I’m alive, after completing this research, come February/March – I’m going to write an exposé and unravel the Google Plus Top Reviewers Conspiracy. After several assassination attempts here I am and it’s going down!

It should be noted that I selected the cities that Google has operated in for the longest period of time, hoping these cities would have the highest concentration of Google employees.  If I found someone that had a “techie” job title but no company I’d do some ninja scrubbing by checking LinkedIn and finding their employment information.  Creepy? Maybe. I was able to uncover several undercover employees this way…I am learned in G+ stalking – that’s for sure. Did you know that you can keep notes on people you don’t have in Circles? Below is Brian Downing’s G+ About page (in the footer area) – he happens to be an in-house Google lawyer. I have dubbed this the  ”creepster” section of a G+ profile. …Google enables creepiness – just sayin’.

For my purposes I wanted to examine how concentrated the 50 businesses were with Google employees in a given city and also how many were Top Reviewers. Here’s how I pulled the default top reviewers for the first 50 businesses in New York (and other cities) is as follows:

1. Search G+ Local by adding the city you want to find Top Reviewers in:

2. Type in “top reviewers” here:

3. Now select Click top reviewers here:

4. Now erase top reviewers from here and you’ll have the default 50 businesses that I used to compile this research.

So at this point I selected the first 50 businesses and counted how many times each person (see below) happened to be a Top Reviewer. Once I knew who the Top Reviewers were for each city I only evaluated the 1^st occurrence where the Reviewer showed up for a particular business as a Top Reviewer and evaluated that businesses reviewers.

Here’s the Original Top Reviewers and Businesses being evaluated for each city using the above process:

The overall scope of this research is to measure how concentrated Google employees are in a given market and then make all sorts of accusations on how they are loading the dice and making small biz owners’ lives difficult.

I set off on my carpal tunnel journey with a mere hope – that it would be glaringly obvious that Google is using their own forces to make G+ successful in certain markets. Will the data support that assumption? Or will I be humbled? Dun dun DUNNNNNNNNN!!!!

Here’s the scope of the research:

Cities examined:

• San Francisco
• Pittsburgh
• Seattle
• New York City

I did basic research on 3 different levels of G+:

1. Google+ Local Places Aggregate Level
2. Google+ Local Business Page Level – Reviews 1-6
3. Google+ Local Business Page Level – Review 7-16

I’ve outlined each of the above levels with a series of questions that I wanted to find out before researching. They precede the data. I also summed up some key take aways from each section as well.

Side Note: Here’s another fun tool to get some additional insight – http://findpeopleonplus.com/

I discovered this tool as I was doing ninja recon work – it’s AWESOME. Wish I had this earlier in the process because they have a cool metric “PlusClout” – now, I don’t know what makes the PlusClout calculation but they do give a pretty good snapshot of the number of Google+’ers (G+’ers) for each city.

Let’s jump into some of the research and see what aces are up Google’s sleeve…

1. Places Level (Find the Top Reviewers for first 50 businesses)

Top Reviewers:

• Who were the “Top Reviewers” for each city?
  • How many reviews did they have under their belt?
  • Were they a Google Employee?
  • How many times were they a “Top Reviewer” in the city’s first 50 default businesses?

Below is the original set of Top Reviewers I used to conduct the analysis, whether they were Google employees, the number of times they showed up in the top 50 businesses I pulled up, and the number of reviews they each had.

Yes – that is correct – 8 of the 10 people who were listed as Top Reviewers for San Francisco businesses were Google Employees. Of those 8 – they dominated all but 10 spots in the Top 50 default businesses I reviewed. I’ll delve into this data more below. Furthermore, each city has at least 1-2 dominant reviewers but they aren’t always Google Employees! Awe shucks. That’s really the least interesting thing though as this study really looks at things as they correlate in the aggregate.

Key Take Aways – Crunchin’ Numbers So You Don’t Have To

Think about it – there are ~38,585 people in San Francisco using G+ (thanks findpeopleonplus.com) and 80% of the “Top Reviewers” are Google employees! Even if you average these numbers out (39%) it’s still a staggering number.

I wanted to just show the PlusClout score and compare myself to a G+ Top Reviewer and an A-list celebrity: Britney Spears (leave her alone!), and Brian Downing, a decorated Top Reviewer on G+ in San Francisco and Google employee. If only you could get a review from Britney Spears (good luck, I searched her profile and her peeps don’t leave ‘em). However, let’s say you network with Top Reviewers: you can imagine how powerful it’d be to have Brian (or any Top Reviewer) going to bat for your business – memorize his face…and make sure he get’s his coffee the way he wants it! Your business may rest in his hands.

Another interesting post would be researching these businesses and seeing how they rank and if these Top Reviewers have any influence or indication of increasing ranking which is outside the scope of this post. But here is one thing that IS super useful in analyzing Top Reviewers for link outreach opportunities in specific niches. Let’s take a stroll down Brian Downing’s G+ profile and see what we can glean…

1. Go to the About page

When researching a G+ member for outreach opportunities it’s important to learn about them as much as humanly possible. You want to connect, see what’s interesting to them, and overall take note on what they have their hands in. You’ll learn amazing things! Here’s a little snapshot of Brian Downing’s G+ About page. Notice the Links section:

2. Be Observant

I love the “Contributor to” section above – it gives some really interesting details into what he is passionate about and blogs or websites he is connected to. At this point – I didn’t even know Downing was an in-house lawyer at Google. I just knew he worked for them.

3. Investigate – things aren’t always, as they seem…

Aha! After navigating to the site, I see that he is a lawyer, an in-house lawyer for…Google. Huh – I feel funny – but not in a “ha-ha” kind of way.

Let’s say I have a lawyer client and I’m interested in developing outreaching and/or finding new links. Enter Mr. Downing. His blog in the “Contributor to” section is called “That Is News To Me”. It happens to have rather low posting activity BUT I’ve found a lawyer! and possibly some new ideas for outreach opportunities.

4. Don’t be lazy…remember 3.

So the blog looks dead – who cares. Look a little further into the details, read what it’s about, what is interesting to the person.  Upon first glance, I thought this was a useless site because it’s rarely updated and rarely talks about “law”. But let’s check out his link profile:

Now look at the external links pointing to That is News To Me:

The first 60 or so links pointing to the site are almost all like this.  Extremely high page authority and domain authority – and by golly – a fair amount of them are from other legal websites! Boom.  Great starting places for outreach and linking opportunities.

I digress.

Remember this when analyzing G+ Top Reviewers; some markets won’t have them .   But for the areas that do it’s interesting to note the number of reviews it takes to become trusted Google Top Reviewer.

The correlations with this data are pretty telling.

1. When finding the correlation between the average number of reviews for a given market and the total number of Plussers in a city – there is a high positive correlation.
2. When comparing the total number of known Google employees in a given market and the number of Google employees as Top Reviewers the findings are nearly the same with high positive correlation.

Some insight:

1. The more subscribers there are in a given market the more reviews a person would need to be a potential Top Reviewer. If you’re developing your clients’ profile or even your own – you should be actively participating in the market and interacting with other businesses. A good example of this is The Corcoran Group in NYC.
2. Likewise – with each given market there is a high correlation associated with number of Google employees and the # of Google employees that are actually Top Reviewers. The data set is small but it is still interesting and proves a pretty interesting point: Google employees are more likely to be Top Reviewers if there are more Google Employees in a city.

And on to the next!

2. Google+ Business Page Level (Top 6 Reviews)

Reviews 1-6

• How many Googlers are in the Top 6 Reviews for each market?
  • How many of the Original Top Reviewers in each market were included as well?
  • How many “Top Reviewers” were obviously Google Employees?
    • How many were “hidden”?

I wanted to see how many of these Top 6 reviews would have Google employees and original reviewers driving the review results for any given business in each city – here are the results!

As you can see – a fair amount of Googlers and Original top reviewers are included in the first 6 reviews. On average 16% of the results in each market had Google Employees as a contributor and an additional 9% of those were other Top Reviewers from the original group evaluated in the previous section.

Here’s the funny thing –  not all Googlers were easy to find. I had to cross reference LinkedIn to uncover some of these undercover agents perpetuating this conspiracy. Many had under optimized Google+ accounts and it made my life really difficult:

That was a hard fought number – but alas it is a number nonetheless! Approximately 5% of the Top 6 Reviewers in a Places page are Google employees in the markets I looked at. Obviously, there is a margin of error but there is no way I’m going to attempt to calculate it.

3. Reviews 7-16

Reviews 7-16

• How many of these additional 10 reviewers were Google employees?
• What is the average number of reviews a normal person had to be featured here?
• What is the average number of reviews a Google employee had to be featured here?

Perhaps the most interesting of all the research was what happened when you click the “More” button at the end of the 6^th review…

Once I saw the conspiracy unfolding in the first 6 reviews on a Google + business page – I then was extra curious to see if that was a fluke or if there was a theme for Reviews 7-16. Here’s what I found:

San Francisco is always the anomaly – 55% of the people in the next 10 reviews were all Google employees! It’s still interesting that Google that nearly 5.6% of the reviews across all the different cities were Google Undercover Agents – how dare them under optimize their Google Plus account!

So does a Google employee have to have more or less reviews than a “average Joe” to be in the these 10 reviews? Truth is the statistical calculation is way beyond me when taking into account outliers, duplicate reviewers in the data set, etc. But there wasn’t anything sexy about this number just doing the hard math:

This tells us one of two things – either the Googlers are super hyped about their own product and love it enough that they just have more reviews, or they are incentivized to make it awesome and Google+ is driven in these markets by their own employees.

One last graph to drive it home:

This chart shows the total aggregate percentage of Googlers in all cities examined.  On average ~25% of the reviews you’ll read on G+ local are from your friendly neighborhood Googleman!

Using Thanksgiving Turkey as a Metaphor for Creating a Quality Unique Selling Proposition.

I had Thanksgiving dinner over this last weekend (I know it was early, but hey, more room for pie on the big day). All of my family was here and so we decided to throw together a quick version of this American holiday. I spent hours crafting Pecan, Pumpkin, Coconut pies, kneading 10 dozen rolls, peeling 8 pounds of Yams, and basting a 36 pound turkey over the course of 4 hours with butter and rosemary and ginger and kosher salt and allspice and sage and sugar and utter deliciousness (I don’t just make fruit smoothies…). As we cut into the juicy bird, it struck me: I had spent the entire day building on what I know makes quality content; I had combined different tastes and techniques to create something I knew my audience would enjoy.

And thus was this crazy idea that Thanksgiving turkey is the perfect example of what it takes to make a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that will excite your visitor’s taste buds, so to speak.

The turkey is the backbone of Thanksgiving dinner. And just like your USP, the turkey must undergo extensive work to become something that will make mouths water.

Step 1: Buy the Turkey

You must have something to work your magic on. Defining your USP is the single most important item in creating quality content. Why? Because it is what makes you, you. It’s unique. (Hence the name…). And, like a good turkey, you want your USP to be fresh. Sure you could steal a USP from any number of larger companies, but that would be tantamount to buying a 75-pound turkey when your family only needs a 20 pounder. Nope it’s best to get your own raw, fresh USP to create the centerpiece of your campaign.

We recently decided to try a completely different tactic with one of our personal injury attorneys. Now, this space is known for extremely “unique” selling propositions. Just drive down the freeway and you’ll see at least 5 different USPs for Personal Injury. My favorite is one located on the freeway to Salt Lake, which states, “I’d call me.” (I laugh a lot when I’m driving on the freeway). So I knew I needed to come up with something different. I finally came up with “We’re different because we care”. It definitely needed some work. That’s where step two came in.

Step 2: Brine the Turkey.

Once you’ve decided on a USP, it needs some love to become a thing of beauty. And while this step is completely optional (just like brining), it imparts so much flavor and depth that I don’t suggest skipping it. Take your USP out and let it soak in a mixture of revisions, edits, stewing, fretting, adding a dash of criticism to really refine its flavor.

I let our personal injury attorney’s USP soak in my own mix of harsh revisions and edits. I spent hours trying different versions, different words, and different thoughts. What came out of that mix was “Here’s How We’re Different:”. I like it for a couple of reasons (the main one being it’s not corny or gimmicky): 1. It invites customers to read more. 2. I can use it on any page and adapt it to my needs. But it still gets across the point, “We’re different”.

I know we, as content marketers, don’t have a huge amount of time to devote to each word; however, this stage is where your USP really comes alive. As brining a turkey imparts notes of sweet and savory, develops a body of flavor, and transforms the bird from plain old turkey to Thanksgiving Feast, so will soaking your USP in a brine of revisions.

Step 3: Cook the Turkey.

There are as many ways to cook a turkey as there are ways to write a sentence. So, which do you choose? You choose the way best suited for your audience. What is going to make them drool when they sit down to the table? What is going to make them moan with pleasure when they eat your turkey? What is going to make them demand seconds? That is the way you cook your turkey.
So, if you find that your audience prefers lots of examples and pictures, implement your USP with lots of examples and pictures. If your audience seems to share and comment more on videos, put your USP in video format. Look at what has been done well in the past and make that the focus of your content.

So how did we cook the USP for our personal injury attorney? In a nice base of client stories. We realized that his most visited page was his success stories page. Over 30% of his form fills were coming from that page. So we changed his home page to feature more client stories, and every page on his website will have a client story on it (we’re still in the middle of rewriting all his content). The effect? A 77% increase in conversions. Not bad for just cooking a turkey.

Where do you go from here? Put these steps into action for your USP and see if you can improve it. Then check out my series of content lessons or my much longer blog post on Unique Selling Propositions.

Share this post on twitter with the hashtag #content for a 17% boost in Niftiness.

I want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving from us here at Nifty Marketing. And I hope, while you’re eating your delicious turkey, that your USP isn’t too far from your mind.

Learn more about Lance Pincock

That seems a little far-fetched. Seriously? The “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday” movie actually taught you something?

No.

It taught me 11 somethings.

As I sat down and watched The Princess Bride with my 3-year-old son (I like to ingrain quirkiness early in my children), I realized that I was drawing parallels between what was happening in the movie and what I was dealing with at work. So I got out my moleskin (light brown, pliable is my preferred) and started writing down everything I was noticing. I couldn’t write fast enough; the lessons just kept coming and coming until finally I decided to only write down the ones that really struck a cord with me.

After 98 very enjoyable minutes, I ended up with this:

This is just the syllabus. A Sneak-peak of things to come…
(Subject to change. I may be updating this post as I find more pearls of wisdom in this classic movie).

Lesson 1: Find Some Common Ground

The main story of The Princess Bride is a little hard to believe. Pirates, to-the-death mind battles, a machine that sucks your life away, we need to suspend our belief long enough to discount the improbable nature of its plot (that includes the ROUSs). So how do they get us sucked into the story? By using a scenario we all are familiar with: being sick in bed. The movie opens with an experience we can all relate to. We all know what it’s like to lie in bed and feel crappy. And when we feel that way, we want distractions, we want to escape, and reading a fairy tale is just such an escape.

So when you’re creating content for your website, start with something familiar, something that connects you, in a very personal way, to your readers. I’d like to use Nifty Marketing as an example here. We open our website with a nerdy guy introducing himself. Which of us can’t relate to that image? I suppose there are a few good-looking, high school class presidents that don’t know what it’s like to be awkward and nervous when introducing themselves, but for most of us it’s a familiar emotion. It’s an experience that we can bond over. And it’s the perfect common ground to introduce the idea that Local Search is a necessary part of an online presence.

Lesson 2: Its not what you say…

Westley loves Buttercup. He loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her. And every time he talks to her he says the same thing, “As You Wish”. Come to find out, what he was really saying was “I love you”. Which begs the question, how could he be telling her he loved her, if he never actually said the words? The Answer? It was in the way he said, “As you wish”. So even when she pushes him down the ravine, hoping he dies, those three words make her throw herself down after him.

So how does this apply to content? Crafting your Unique Selling Proposition is all about how you say it, not what you say. Why? Because, unless you invented your market, there are hundreds just like you offering the same service. You need to set yourself apart from them. Again, I’d like to use Nifty as my case (seeing as I have intimate knowledge of the how and why it was written the way it was). Our USP is “We make Local sexy”. It’s saying the same thing as everyone else, we do Local search marketing, but it makes us unique. No other Local SEO company states that they can make Local sexy. It’s appeals to the reader, it makes them feel that their Local presence would be better, cooler, sexier then if they went with someone else. It sets us apart from the rest while still letting them know what it is that we do. In other words, it’s not the words we use, but the emotion we evoke.

Lesson 3: No matter how insane a problem may seem, there is always a way to tackle it.

The Cliffs of Insanity. Just the name makes me smile. There are so many classic moments in the movie from this scene. But the lesson to be learned comes from Westley. I doubt climbing that tall of cliff by rope was an easy task (I had problems climbing the rope in gym class), climbing it without a rope seems impossible. The book sheds some light here, telling us that he was punching the cliff to create footholds, but even knowing how he did it doesn’t help me believe a normal person could accomplish the same goal.

Case study time: We were killing it for one of our clients. They had a 9% conversion rate on their site and they were happy. Very happy. Sadly, I wasn’t. I have so much fun with this client because they let me do what I want; I needed that number to triple. It seemed impossible. We had run conversion test after conversion test to try and get it up (and they had worked), but we weren’t seeing the numbers we (ok, I) wanted to see. So I said, “Let’s do one more conversion test”. Here’s the test:

I realize that a 27% conversion rate is crazy. It’s insane to think that number could ever happen. And we still haven’t hit it. But you know what? Last week we hit a 24% conversion rate. Let me state that one more time: we hit a 24% conversion rate. Insane? Yes. Totally awesome? Heck yeah.

Lesson 4: Be yourself.

Fezzick says very little in the movie. But what he does say is priceless: “People in masks are not to be trusted”. This line is by-far the best one-liner from Fezzick. And it makes sense, if someone can’t show you who they are, why would you trust them?

It’s the same with your content. If your personality, your unique view of the world isn’t expressed in your writing, no one is going to trust it, let alone buy from you. Take Nifty Marketing for example. This site sounds like us. Its like we wrote down our conversations here at work and posted it on the website. You get a sense of who we are, what our sense of humor is like, and whether or not we would be a good fit for what you are looking for. Now, we could have said, “We do Local Search” or left out the bit about Freelance Ninjas and Smoothie Makers. And while we may lose some clients because of our attitude, at least we’re honest with who we are.

One of my pet peeves when it comes to content is when someone wants to be someone else. I deal with it on a daily basis and I just want to scream, “That’s not you!” but no one listens. The name of the game here is to be unique and you are the only you in the universe. Your content needs to match you.

Lesson 5: Leave some mystery in your writing.

I have to insert the video of this fight. It’s just too good…

It’s so tempting to put everything up front and say “Have at it”. But this scene is the perfect example of the lesson I learned. And yes, I agree with you, this is the corniest part of the movie (but that’s why I love it). The moment Inigo says “I am not left-handed”, I keel over with laughter every time. Here’s a man who is such an amazing swordfighter that he can fight with either his left or his right hand. He goes through the entire fight letting Westley think that he is stronger, faster, better and then reveals his secret.

The same holds true for content. If you reveal everything at the beginning, nobody will read past the first sentence. You have to draw them in with a sense of mystery, let them think that they could leave at any time, and then blow their minds.

The fact that Westley does the same thing back to Inigo is just icing on the cake.

Lesson 6: Know when to focus on the group and when to focus on the one.

Fezzik is a great fighter. Before his little foray in kidnapping he was one of the most famous fighters in the world, able to take on 10 men and win. So how did Westley get the best of him? He knew which tactics to employ. The problem for Fezzik was that he hadn’t fought just one man in such a long time that he was unable to change his tactics.

The same thing happens in our content. I’m guilty of it. Sometimes I focus on the group, wanting to please everyone with a single piece of content instead of creating highly targeted landing pages that would address their needs better. And, much like Fezzik, when we give up the one in favor of the group, we lose.

Lesson 7: Let them think they’re in control.

Westley knows when he puts the poison in the cup that Vizzini is going to die. He knows that no matter what Vizzini does, the battle of wits will end with his death. So why does Westley let Vizzini think he’s winning? To not let on that he knows the real outcome of the battle. And it was nice of him to let Vizzini die laughing.

I’ve mentioned this site before but David’s Tea is the perfect example of this lesson. I think I’m in control. I choose to click the bookmark. I choose which tea I want to see next. I am in control. Or so I think. But in reality the content is so good, so compelling that I often find my Friday night consumed with browsing that website (luckily, my wife enjoys the content as well). So am I really in control? Nope. And that’s the kind of content needed on the internet. The kind of content that says, “Hey, come hang out for a while”; 15 hours and a few hundred dollars later, you have no idea why you bought that peacock teapot other then the content said you needed it.

Lesson 8: Write what’s true for you.

Westley has the best lines in the movie. Seriously, “Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.” is my favorite quote from the show. Why? Because it rings true. When Westley says this line to Buttercup, we can feel his pain. Here is a man who has defied death, overcome legends, climbs insane cliffs, and saved the life of the women he loves. All of this while thinking that she moved on after his death in less than a hour. So when he says life is pain, there is no doubt he knows what he is talking about.

Your content needs that “truthiness” (credit goes to the great Content Marketer Stephen Colbert for that word). When people read what you write on your website, on your facebook page, even those few words on twitter, they need to ring true. Let me give you an example from my own life: Writing Nifty’s content was an experiment in self-discovery for me. While I had to remain true to who we are as a company, I also was trying to be myself. There are lines (freelance ninjas and smoothie-makers) that scream “This was written by Lance!”. And whenever I ask people why they contacted us, what caused them to call or fill out our form, the answer almost always has something to do with the personality of our content. What I wrote rings true to who we are (I mean, just check out our About Us page…). You don’t have to be funny. You don’t have to be flippant. Be yourself and you’ll get business.

Lesson 9: Just because no one has, doesn’t mean you can’t.

Prince Humperdinck has Buttercup and Westley surrounded. Their only hope is the Fire Swamp where no one has come out alive. Faced with this choice, Westley decides to enter the Fire Swamp. Why? His logic is genius: “Nonsense! You’re only saying that because no one ever has.”. Just because nobody has done it, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

This is the pure meaning of Content Marketing. To create something that nobody has. To stand in front of the mocking and doubting crowds and say, “Nonsense!”. It takes courage. It takes a slightly crazy mind. It takes ingenuity. And that is why, when someone does it right, amazing things happen. Westley and Buttercup survived the Fire Swamp because Westley wasn’t afraid to try. Yes, they failed a few times (sinking into the lightning sand had to be scary), but in the end they triumphed. Don’t be afraid to try something never done before with your content.

Lesson 10: Don’t use a big word, unless you’re going for the emotional sell.

I have to put in the video of this scene. It’s genius.

I love the development of this scene. They use small words, garage, slime, filth, and then, Putrescence. It’s great. Especially the way the lady says it, ‘The Queen of Pu-tres-cence”. Wow.

And it works. Why? Because they gave enough contextual clues that even an 8 year old who doesn’t know how to spell the word knows it’s not a good thing. We feel bad for Buttercup. This lady is demeaning her in front a huge crowd. But it’s not until we hear that big word, the word that we don’t know the exact meaning of, that we really feel sorry for her.

So use big words in your content. They are a great way to express specific ideas. But make sure that you give enough contextual clues that people will know what they mean, without having to go to dictionary.com.

Lesson 11: Don’t be afraid to target a specific customer type.

How could I not include this clip? I mean seriously.

I love Inigo. The book provides more insight into his character, gives us an overview of his quest for revenge on Count Rugen. How he studied the sword for years, training under different masters, so when he found the six fingered man he would be ready. He would look at him and say, “Hello. My Name is Inigo Montaya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die.” That’s my second favorite poem.

What does that have to do with content? Know who you want to go after, target them, do all that you can to slay them (and by that I mean get them to convert).

That’s the syllabus for the Princess Bride Content Course. Check back in the coming weeks for Lesson 1. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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