Archive for the ‘Publishing Articles’ Category

Go Offline to Get More Business Online

Monday, July 12th, 2010

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There certainly is an excellent variety of online marketing tools that can effectively drive traffic to your website and generate impressive sales. However, the offline world of marketing has almost been completely forgotten about by some companies. Even companies that conduct 100 percent of their business online can still greatly profit from incorporating offline methods in their business marketing campaign. Remember when we told you how putting more marketing lines in the water will help you catch a whale of a client? Employing the power of both offline and online marketing methods will sweeten your arsenal, giving you the fire power you need to blow the competition out of the water.

Build a Sales-boosting Bunker

Combining offline and online marketing will establish a lucrative symbiosis within your marketing—where all your marketing pieces strengthen each other (as opposed to marketing parasitism where one marketing piece simply feeds off the results created by your other marketing pieces).

You will create the most solid marketing campaign if you continuously execute a campaign that ties all of your marketing together. For example, if you’ve created a landing page for a specific product promotion, you can complement this by sending out mailers to your target audience, directing them to visit the landing page online. This combination of marketing can actually be really fun as it adopts the aura of a chess game, putting multiple elements into play through strategic maneuvers.

Sales-generating Seminars

Go public for increased exposure: Informational seminars put another marketing line in the water to attract big fish to your online efforts. Offer a free seminar that will help prospects build their businesses, live healthier lives, have more fun—the possibilities are endless. Just make sure to maintain an information-based approach and keep the sales speak out of it. Presenting a helpful seminar is sure to set you up as an authority!

This is also one of the best ways to simultaneously generate a large group of leads. Presenting a free seminar will make it obvious that your business is the real deal, so you won’t even have to actively pitch your actual business here. Make it very clear as to how they can get more information about your product or service (post your website URL everywhere throughout the room), and then let them come to you. And even if they don’t contact you, you now have their contact information from the seminar and can start email marketing to them or put them into your drip campaign. An easy way to get their contact information is to explain that you need it in order to send them the details about the seminar, such as time and place. Multiply the number in attendance by offering a free gift to anyone who brings 10 friends with them. (Use a simple three-step form: 1) Name, 2) e-mail and 3) Referred By.)

As if these reasons weren’t solid enough, you may also consider hosting a seminar in a vacation destination and writing it off as business expense…did we just write that?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Your Marketing

While it’s always a good idea to be as efficient as possible with your budget, reusing your marketing pieces in the wrong places could end up doing more harm than good. For example, many companies are unfamiliar with the issue of duplicate content on the Web (also referred to as dupe content by extra cool Web techies). Repeatedly posting the same content within your website or across platforms such as on your blogs could end up penalizing you in the search engines. Search engines pick this up as either a form of keyword stuffing or a fraudulent business plagiarizing other people’s content. (Use a professional article distribution service to submit mass articles in a search-engine-friendly manner.)

The good news is that you can reuse your current online articles as much as you would like offline. For example, you can print your online articles and send them out in direct response mailers to your leads. Providing helpful information in your mailers adds a great deal of value and helps establish why your business is the clear choice. Plus, adding an information-based piece in any marketing you do helps soften your sales approach, making it much more attractive than a standalone promotion. Due to a daily bombardment of advertising, people are naturally skeptical about these standalone promotions. When you provide something for free that people can use to make their lives better they’re much likelier to let their guard down and actively consider your offer.

To your success,
Andrew Rossillo

Andrew Rossillo is Content Crooner’s Marketing Blogger and Staff Writer. He’s ready to put his years of copywriting and online marketing experience to work for your business—he’ll help you get noticed!

How to Make Viral Marketing Work for Your Business

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Creative Commons License photo credit: llamnudds

One of the most potent forms of marketing today is viral marketing. Viral marketing is the build up of potential energy through one or more channels which then converts into kinetic energy. Once that conversion takes place your marketing uses that energy to spread rampantly throughout the Web. How do you promote that potential energy? Create interest!

Creating buzz about your product, service or industry will boost your business. Business article marketing provides topics of interest that will cause people to talk about your business—one reader tells their friend, their friend tells a few people…and you’ve turned one article into a perpetual-motion marketing machine.

Although this type of marketing may not sound healthy, it’s actually one of the best things that can happen to your business. Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is one of the most common types of viral marketing and is a bootstrapped-budget’s best friend—today’s social media tools deliver an online version of WOM marketing. And you have the opportunity to create a super virus by combining multiple marketing techniques. Bolster your WOM marketing with regular article submissions. Whereas WOM may tend to rally around exaggerations or inflated retellings, articles act as the wiser older brother and anchor these excited claims. Articles can be forwarded on, linked back to, or directly copied and pasted to friends and associates while fully maintaining the potency of their original message.

Your business will enjoy mass exposure by providing valuable content through articles. Give people a reason to share your material with others—it’s got to be interesting and full of value! Give people plenty of reasons to pass on your articles and you will create a self-replicating viral process. Build brand awareness and increase sales through the same process.

It’s got to be entertaining! We’re not suggesting that your piece should have your audience rolling with laughter or excitedly clapping their hands at its conclusion. However, it does need to worded in a manner that encourages readers to talk to others about it (You know, just as you’ll do with this article…hint, hint, wink, wink.). For example, let’s compare articles A and B. Assume both articles cover the same exact points. However, article A reads like someone got their VCR instructions mixed up with their article submission, and article B creates a structured story that has you eager to progress from one paragraph to the next. Which one are you more inclined to talk about with your friends and associates? Article B wins every time here.

An important caveat to note is that there is a careful balance of entertainment and information to be attained. As many benefits as an entertaining article has, if you fail to include enough useful information your piece will seem fluffier than your neighbor’s cat. Professional article writing will help you avoid this potential pitfall and get the most out of your marketing efforts. Never take your readers’ intelligence for granted! Treat them like a simpleton who’s unable to recognize pure fluff and your business will suffer from negative viral marketing—the cousin of business death.

As part of your viral marketing plan you must also pair your articles with the power of social media. Social media is built on the premise of networking, making this a completely natural environment for people to share your useful and interesting articles. Your goal is to target audiences with high social networking potential (SNP) to achieve the highest probability of article sharing. Plug-ins such as “Tweet This Article” buttons for Twitter make it incredibly convenient for people to share your articles.

Check back often for more blogs on making the most of social media and you will monetize this relatively untamed beast.

To your success,

Andrew Rossillo

Andrew Rossillo is Content Crooner’s Marketing Blogger and Staff Writer. He’s ready to put his years of copywriting and online marketing experience to work for your business—he’ll help you get noticed!

Promote Your Business with Articles and Social Networking

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Promoting your business online is easier today than it has ever been. Create quality content that potential buyers are already reading and submit articles to a distribution company. Publishing articles is the most cost effective way to advertise online, hands down.

Social media networking sites let you tell the world about your business quickly, easily, and effectively. These sites are everywhere and they are free to use. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are three of the most-used social networks.

The startup phase of business is agreeably the most difficult. You’re continually finding ways to get customers to your website and marketing is always near the top of you to-do list. Platforms known as web 2.0 include a wide range of online communities that can help you promote your startup business.

All you have to do is become a part of these free online communities. Social networking sites work to connect people all over the world any time of day or night, 365 days a year. Your marketing campaign will quite literally run itself when you take advantage of some of the article marketing automation techniques available today.

Marketing Your Business with Articles

Writing and publishing articles through a variety of different websites is much simpler than it sounds. You provide the content and submit articles to a distribution company. Let them handle the publishers. Distribution sites are highly cost effective when you consider the hours it could take to submit to a thousand publishers.

Simply write about what you know. Share all the information you have gathered through experience about your business. After your articles are published, you can easily share the links with people you know on social networking websites.

Article Marketing Automation

Automation services are available to help ease the burden of everything a start-up business entails. Perhaps you would like to focus more on the look, feel, and manageability of your site. An array of distribution services is available to receive your articles and distribute them for you.

Most distribution services allow you to work and submit articles on your own time. Write 100 articles in the months leading up to the launch of your website. Submit the articles to the distribution service and schedule them for distribution to publishers at a later date. Some distributors allow you to schedule article publication for up to 5 years in advance.

Publishing articles isn’t entirely up to you. Publishers use articles as they deem appropriate at the time. The distribution service focuses on dispersing articles in a timely fashion to sites that are popular and will help you win business. That’s one less worry for you.

Elements in a Successful Article

Successful articles consist of information pertaining to your business, directed toward your target audience. You must take the time to teach your readers about the quality of the products your business promotes. Utilize your experience to gain the trust of potential customers.

Each written piece should contain valuable information about products your target readers are already searching on search engines. You must take the time to tell people why they need your product and why you can provide them with the best deal possible.

Articles are the best way to earn business. They’re more personal and give the reader a feeling of a one on one consult with a professional. They’re interactive and give the consumer a sense of personalization and satisfaction that they’re informed.

Consumers never buy things on a whim any more. Every person looking to buy something is looking for the best information and the best deal available. Write and submit articles that promote your products and services. When publishers begin publishing articles for you, your website will gain popularity and you will see increased profits.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

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Not Your Grandmother’s Marketing Strategy

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

An article marketing strategy that takes advantage of today’s incredible technologies is quite simply as easy as 1, 2, 3. Write and submit articles to be published up to 3 years in advance. Publishers are continually on the lookout for quality and publishing articles that meet their criteria.

Article marketing is a fresh way to get exposure of your business. People read often. Some read more than they watch television. When they read about a new and exciting service or product, they are likely to buy it if the article is easily read and appealing.

High Quality Content Creates Qualified Traffic

A sure fire way to attract attention while ensuring that you will have a well written and professional article is to have an article writing service on your side. A service like this has professional writers that research every article and then write about the topic.

You can make any requests that you feel necessary. You and the writing service you choose will work together to be sure that your business gets attention and gains credibility as a result of the articles which will be published.

Easy as 1, 2, 3

Create an article marketing strategy that allows room for growth and modification along the way. Publishing articles is very time consuming and may be simplified by hiring the services of a distribution service. Distribution services work with publishers to ensure that your articles are published in a timely manner.

1. Write Articles: Original content that is rich with information catches the attention of search engines as well as consumers. Consumers today do not make blind purchases. They search for information on the Internet and educate themselves on purchases they plan to make.

Quality articles published on your behalf show readers that they can trust you and the products you sell. You become well known as an expert in your field. People purchase products and services from businesses or individuals they feel they can trust.

2. Submit Articles: Write articles any time you have free time. Submit articles when you have time to submit several at a time. Schedule those articles to be distributed to publishers at a later date if necessary to ensure articles are continually being submitted for you.

Some distribution services allow you to schedule publishing from a year to five years in advance. Take the stress out of marketing for the holidays by creating several holiday marketing articles throughout the year and scheduling them to be published during the holidays. Article marketing automation allows you to take your marketing schedule into your own hands.

3. Market Articles: Many people believe their article marketing strategy is complete after they include distribution. Distribution is actually only the second step. After articles are distributed, they must be properly marketed.

Market your articles by sharing them on social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. You must share links to your articles to get them into the public eye. Good articles will spread and gain popularity similar to word of mouth advertising, only better.

The term “qualified traffic” refers to people who have searched for your article, read it and visited your website. People who are actively searching for information about the products or services you offer are much more likely to make a purchase from your website.

Submit articles to directories and ezines that receive a lot of organic traffic when possible. Publishers are continually publishing articles that they feel benefit their website as a whole. Make your articles informative enough and well-written so they gain the most exposure possible.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

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How to Advertise Your Small Business with Article Marketing

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Online marketing is not much different from traditional advertising. Publishing articles through a distribution company is one of the most misunderstood types of online marketing. The process includes three basic steps: write original content, submit articles, and distribute them.

It’s dog eat dog in today’s business world. One day you’re in, the next day you’re out. However, there’s currently a growing means of taking your business to the top and staying there. If your starting your business online, you need to know how important it is to get linked into today’s current marketing techniques.

Current Marketing Techniques

Y ou must do two things in order to do business online. The first is obviously to get a website up and running. The second is to figure out how to drive traffic steadily to your website. Traffic is the term used to indicate a website’s visitors.

Article Marketing coupled with online distribution utilizing article marketing automation is a leading way to earn business and keep it. The article marketing process includes writing quality content that your potential customers need to read. Publishing articles is a snap when you employ the services of a distribution company.

How To Drive Business to Your Website

Through your own personal business knowledge you provide first hand wisdom to readers who are already looking for what you have to offer. This wisdom, when distributed correctly, leads people to your business by providing your content in online ezines they’re already reading.

You write about your business and submit articles to a distribution company that sends the articles to various publishers. Publishers are already publishing articles written by your competition. Put your business website on the virtual map by kick starting your article marketing strategy.

Social networking sites are a Web 2.0 technology that people use to connect to one another and learn about each other on a more personal level. If you write about your business and submit articles you provide potential customers something more than a traditional advertisement provides. You give them someone they can trust and the confidence to make a purchase.

The Not So Traditional Way to Advertise

Every social networking website you visit whether it be a forum, a social site or information site like wiki, has ads. Why not use what these sites are about to advertise your business? A traditional ad may be seen once then rotated to another ad upon reloading the page.

Banner advertising usually gives readers one opportunity to click your link. Refreshing the page or visiting again later often shows readers a different ad. Make your content the main attraction of the page with a well written article.

Online communities are all about sharing. Article distribution allows you to gain the faith of consumers when they see various writings about your site. Publishing articles is what publishers do best. After your content is published, share those links with everyone on your friends and followers lists on each social networking website you choose to use.

Web 2.0 Technology, What is it and How Can You Use it?

Two of the most popular web 2.0 sites are MySpace and Facebook. Odds are you’re already connected through one or both and most of the people you know are on there too. You can leverage the power of sites like this to improve the conversion rate of your online business website.

Create information about your online business on these sites in the form of a fan page or advertisement and build your reputation further. Once you create a fan page on Facebook for example and customers become “fans” of your product you can write all about your business and publish it to these sites.

The potential to drive traffic to your business is endless; you simply write informed articles about your product or service and share them with others. Write and submit articles to your choice of distribution companies. Sit back and watch as publishers begin publishing articles to their own websites, blogs and newsletters.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

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“Crooner Rocks”

Find Out How Publishing Articles Helps Increase Profits

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

Publishing articles is the most cost efficient ways to promote your business online. That’s quite a bold statement. How can it help to simply submit articles to a publisher? Keep reading and find out.

No business can survive without a marketing strategy. This is true even for online businesses. One of the most successful ways to promote a business online is via article distribution. Done right, businesses can see a major increase in interest and potential sales when they employ a good article marketing strategy.

What is Article Marketing and Distribution?

Article marketing refers to the process of writing short articles that contain relevant keywords related to the business being promoted online. These are then posted on article directories where they can be used for others. Some popular directories for publishing articles are:

Ezinearticles.com
Buzzle.com
Goarticles.com
Ideamarketers.com
Bluegrasssolutions.info

Well-written and relevant articles will be reached by a large readership. One promotion benefit of this is that other sites may well link to what you have written. This happens in many ways, for example, a graphic designer may have written about making captions and pictures on a website SEO friendly. A link to this article may be used by a blogger for an SEO company.

Tips on Promoting Online via Article Distribution

To succeed at article marketing and distribution there are some things that must be kept in mind. These include:

Original Content: Write useful pieces, but try to target a particular niche. These pieces should ideally be about the same thing, but more importantly they should provide information. Make sure to include keywords relevant to your business.

Choose Topics Wisely: Use topics that make readers want to read what you have to say. Catchy, interesting headlines are important in the promotion process; after all, it is the first thing potential clients will see.

Keep it Short and Sweet: Online readers have limited time so do not write long, hard to read pieces. Use bullets points and short sentences for maximum effect.

Blog: Create a blog that is connected to your website and post your blog entries there, or place articles on your own website. Quality content attracts readers, readers become customers.

Publish often: The more quality articles you have published online the better. This will increase the amount of traffic your website will get and the likelihood that you will be found by search engines.

Reputation: Build your reputation in the industry or area where your offer your services. One great way to do so is to write an eBook on the topic. This can be as simple as using your already published pieces.

Bylines and Author Resource: Make sure to use bylines where allowed when posting or commenting in forums. Place your URL in the author’s box on distribution sites.

Employing a great marketing strategy will help promote any business online, not just Internet-based entities. In addition, it doesn’t matter the size of the business, it can benefit from this type of promotion. Promoting a business online takes time to get it done right and achieve results, but it is worth it to achieve success.

Submit Articles

Make a plan that includes what you want to achieve and how you intend to do it. Once you have that done, start writing and submit articles to publishers. Publishing articles is what a publisher does best. It takes time to start seeing results from your article marketing strategy, but do not give up, success will happen in time.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

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Can I Promote My Startup Business Online with Articles?

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Knowing when and where to submit articles online is quite possibly the most important part of article marketing. Publishing articles with a variety of ezines and article directories is paramount to achieving success in your article marketing strategy.

The best way to launch a startup business online is to find a marketing strategy for promoting your product. The internet has opened many virtual doors, windows and streets for advertising online. If you learn how to utilize the promotion of your business correctly you can maneuver through these openings easily. An article marketing strategy is a tool that no online business should ever overlook.

What is Article Marketing?

Simply put, article marketing is a type of advertising that allows business owners to write and submit articles about their industry. Publishing articles about your product or service creates backlinks to your website and creates a relationship of trust with your readers. Building a reader base is quite easy when you publish quality articles.

The articles contain information about the author immediately following the content. The author area is often called the “author resource box” or “author biography.” Content must express to potential customers specific details about your business. The content is then published by ezines and directories to be released throughout the world wide web.

More Specifics to Know About Marketing Articles

Professionals have used article marketing for as long as the written word has been available through printed form. For example, before tax season an accountant may write an article related to filing taxes such as “How to Itemize Deductions.”

Prior to the Internet, the information was printed by newspapers or magazines. The article would go on to reach potential customers searching for an authority on taxes earning potential business for the accounting company who produced the article. The Internet allows reach to a much wider reader base.

Article marketing coupled with social media is advantageous in many ways. It is extremely helpful to startups or those on a limited marketing budget. The exposure it creates helps you reach your target audience and prove your business is the leading authority for your product.

Distributors submit articles for a small fee, continuously to various social media outlets. Article marketing is a very cost effective advertising campaign. Submit articles to a distribution company that makes publishing articles their number one goal.

Social Media

The new generation of business done on the internet has the power to use Web 2.0 to promote their business online. Web 2.0 is various social networking sites such as Wikis, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

A good marketing strategy uses these free sites. Writing high-quality, relevant promotional material for your start-up business will give you a leg up on the competition who ignore the popularity of Web 2.0. The tools for your success are out there, you just have to use them.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the order that a web page is ranked when keywords relating to the that page are typed in search engines. The better the page is ranked the greater the likelihood that that page will generate a larger portion of visits. Article marketing and distribution is the most useful tool to promote your business online and effectively drive traffic to your site, thus increasing the potential for sales.

Utilize These Tools

Compose high-quality content and submit articles to a reputable distribution company. Publishers are publishing articles every single day about other products and services people search the search engines for; get your information where it belongs. Write what you know. Increase your SEO through Web 2.0. Over time you will reach your business goals through increased online traffic.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His Professional Writing Service provides quality content for article marketing automation programs.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”