When I began my corporate career in the late 70s, corporations spent huge amounts of time and money perfecting their “mission statements,” which they proudly posted on placards in the lobby.

Multi-channel marketing guru Don Libey thinks most mission statements are for the most part banal and of limited value.

His advice: “Get rid of the silly framed parchment proclamations and teach everyone the following: ‘Sell more stuff to more people any way we can!'”

Do you agree that Libey’s version gets right to the point.

Isn’t the idea to sell more stuff and make customers happy and increase revenues and profits?

Or do you prefer the thoughtful, conceptual, idealistic, warm and fuzzy mission statements that companies throughout America have spent so much effort to dream up and display?

Source: Libey Economic Outlook, 7/08, p. 1.

Gurus like David Meerman Scott say that giving consumers lots of useful content is the key to marketing success — at least in the 21st century.

But something Tim Sanders says in his book “The Likeability Factor” (Crown Publishers, 2005) seems to contradict that belief.

Says Sanders:

?There?s too much information in today?s world, and our defense mechanism to sort through it all is to vote with our gut, to vote what we feel. We look for shortcuts, and those shortcuts are called brands. The reason you buy Tide detergent at the grocery store is that you don?t want to read fifty labels. You trust Tide because you already know it works.?

We’ve heard this comment before, of course.

It basically boils down to: the consumer is time pressured, overloaded with information, and too busy to read — which seems on the surface to be an accurate description of the harried pace of modern life.

But if it’s true, then how can content-based marketing work?

If people are too busy to read, then won’t they throw your white paper in the trash … or click away from your content-rich site long before they can dig into all the great information you posted there?

Who is right? Sanders, who says we don’t want more content to make decisions? Or Scott, who says we do?

Critics often accuse direct marketing copywriters of hype and puffery, but I think the real B.S. artists in marketing today are wine and beer writers.

Listen to this description of Route Des Epices beer from the Beer of the Month Club newsletter (vol. 14, no. 12):

“On the nose, you can’t miss the influence of black and green peppercorns. Behind the peppercorn is a mild citrusy character with a caramel backbone, a touch of spruce and almonds, and some floral hop tones. Look for an emergence of tequila-like notes amidst a subtle floral character, notes of coriander, subtle apricot tones, and a woody spruce-like component.”

In the same issue, another beer, Rosee D’Hibiscus,” is said to have “notes of under ripened peaches, coriander, and pomegranate.”

Talk about piling it on high and deep. I drank a bottle of each, and they both tasted like beer.

Why do people rabidly attack direct marketing as hype-filled and sleazy, but ooh and ah and nod their heads in wonder at the writer’s sophistication when they read B.S. like the above beer reviews?

A radio spot for Web site developer American Eagle tells how the company created a successful Web site for a “business entrepreneur.”

Business entrepeneur? As opposed to all those entrepreneurs who have nothing to do with business?

Obviously, “business entrepreneur” is redundant — given that the Oxford English dictionary defines an “entrepreneur” as “a person who sets up a business.”

Is using the term “business entrepreneur” a bad thing?

Admittedly, it’s not a huge sin.

But it bothers me — especially in a commercial for a company in the communications business.

The problem with redudancy is twofold. First, it wastes words. Second, it demonstrates suboptimal language skills.

I might trust American Eagle to design my Web site … but not to write the copy for it.

Your thoughts?

MF has written a nonfiction business book and wants to know whether I think it’s better to self-publish or look for a traditional publisher.

Here’s what I told MF….

If you want to establish your reputation as a though leader in your field, gain visibility, and build credibility, getting your book published by a mainstream publisher like McGraw-Hill or John Wiley is the best way to accomplish those goals. It is the most prestigious form of publishing, the one most likely to impress others.

If you want to maximize your revenues from sale of your book, I’d go with publishing it as an e-book. You can charge more than for a regular book, and your profit margin is much higher than with a printed book.

If you are a frequent speaker and need to get a book out on your topic quickly — to sell at your talks or to send to meeting planners to convince them to book you — a self-published printed book is the way to go.

A famous self-publishing guru once said in a speech that self-published books are no less prestigious than traditionally published books. “People don’t shop for a McGraw-Hill or a John Wiley book. They don’t care who the publisher is.”

True, but many people (not all) look down on self-publishing. Every self-publisher I know save one (the guru mentioned above) has confided in me that the moment they reveal their book is self published, they feel somehow embarrassed or apologetic.

Mainstream publisher for prestige … e-book for profit … traditional book for back of the room sales or a give-away to potential clients. That’s what I told MF. Do you agree with my assessment of her book publishing options?

A radio commercial I heard this morning from IQ offers a free CD that promises to “boost your reading speed 1,000%.”

The commercials explains: “you’ll be able to read 10 book in the time it used to take you to read one book” — a tenfold improvement in reading speed.

The only problem is that reading 10X faster is a 900% improvement, not a 1,000% improvement.

It’s a small error. But for a company called “IQ,” I think it damages their credibility a bit.

Do you agree, or once again, am I being too nitpiky?

A friend, AF, wants to make money in his spare-time on the Internet.

He asked me about making money with a blog. I told him: “Forget it.”

Instead, I recommended to AF that he do what I do: sell how-to information products online.

(The method I used is explained on my site www.theinternetmarketingretirementplan.com.)

It has certainly worked out well for me.

I earn a six-figure income online “working” only a few hours a week.

But now that I think about it, maybe I didn’t give AF the right advice.

It’s my feeling that other than the occasional blogger who gets a lucky break — e.g., a book deal, a huge following, or makes money speaking and consulting — most bloggers make little or no money from their blogs.

Am I wrong?

If I am … and you are a blogger who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in your spare time blogging … can you let me (and AF) know what you did and how you did it?

After all, he could use the extra income (who couldn’t?) and I would hate for him to miss out on an opportunity for blogging profits because of my advice.

Can bloggers get rich online from blogging? What say you?

One possible future for magazines is to make them more like the Web — in particular, like social media and other Web 2.0 sites.

For example, according to an article in Circulation Management (6/08, p. 12), Erik Torkells, editor of Budget Travel magazine, published a June issue in which nearly 100% of the content was generated by the publication’s readers.

The magazine received approximately 2,800 pitches from readers resulting in 324 contributors to the issue.

“In the future, love it or hate it, an editor’s role will be to lead a conversation, not deliver a monologue.”

Is quality a problem when peers rather than professional writers provide the content?

Yes, says Torkells, who said the June issue required an “extraordinary amount” of editing, without which it “would have been a mess.”

“Editing non-professional writers is never easy,” he notes.