Don’t mistake content-mill slop for genuine content.

Do you receive impressive email newsletters with links to articles bylined by local professionals?

Would you be as impressed if you knew the articles were not written by these individuals but actually purchased from a content wholesaler?

This is a shameful marketing practice that appears to be growing more popular as enabling technology advances.

Here’s how these schemes work:

• A content mill sells content to anyone who pays its fees. The most advanced of these mills amass canned commentaries on a range of topics so broad that its clientele can include many different types of advice-oriented professionals.

• Professional services companies buy this content and label the various articles with bylines of their top people, giving the impression that these individuals actually wrote the pieces.

• Excerpts of these articles are packaged in a slick email, with links readers can click to access the full pieces. The technology that enables this packaging, as well as the back-end management of email lists, is also supplied by the content mill. So is the server space to host the full articles online.

• Clients and friends of the company are led to believe that its leaders are prolific bloggers who send them several articles over the course of a typical year.

In our view, this wouldn’t be a problem if such content were presented in a general fashion as a service sponsored by a professional firm, with the external authorship fully disclosed.

But it’s outright dishonest to present generic, bought material as if it were advice written by specific, named individuals.  Such deception is exceptionally egregious when it involves professionals in an advisory business, where high levels of trust and ethics are implied.

Slop in Youngstown, incognito

Not long ago, I got the latest edition of an e-newsletter from a local company (that I won’t name). I clicked on one of the links and was transported to an article that was not on the local company’s website but on the site of a leading content mill (but with the name of the “author” from the local firm).

Then I copied and pasted the opening sentence of that article into Google, clicked Enter, and found the following:

• The exact same article (without the local guy’s byline) on the website of a Connecticut company in a similar business (published in 2007!).

• The exact same article published by a Nevada company in a similar business.

• The exact same article promoted as a “sample” on the content mill’s own website.

These content outfits hawk their wares as an easy way to create and send content. And it is very easy indeed to review a list of canned articles, click the ones you like, supply your leaders’ names, click OK, pay a fee and send a slick newsletter.

Looking for genuine local content? These feature real content from local experts. Anything from external sources is clearly indicated:

• The Solutions Letter, by Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell, links to commentary authored by local lawyers and posted on the HHM website. It also includes news about the firm. Sign up here.

• Ankle & Foot Care Update, by Ankle & Foot Care Centers, spotlights the area’s leading podiatry practice and its doctors. It also chronicles the recoveries of real patients. Sign up here.

• The Nimble Communicator, by Pecchia Comm, links to blog pieces (like this) by our PR and marketing pros. It also covers work our clients do with us. Sign up here.

It’s considerably more challenging (and more expensive) to actually develop a valuable point of view, express it professionally, then work with professional communicators to edit, package and distribute it.

But cheaper isn’t always better.  Nor is it ever appropriate when there’s deception involved, especially in situations involving advisory professionals.

Some genuine advice

The next time you get an email with links to articles, click one of the links and check your browser bar to see where that article resides. Then try the Google trick described above.

If that leads you to other “authors” of the same content, it’s probably a good time to hit the unsubscribe button.

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Dan Pecchia is a Youngstown public relations consultant and president of Pecchia Communications.