Archive for the ‘Submit 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!

Use Article Marketing Automation Plus Blogs and Social Media to Build Your Online Business

Friday, June 4th, 2010

It’s important, as an internet marketer, to have many irons in the fire to build your business. Relying on one tactic only limits the exposure you can gain for your business. Efficient marketers employ article distribution with article marketing automation, blogs, and social media to build their ventures.

Article Distribution with Article Marketing Automation

Widespread distribution of your writing is essential to building tons of backlinks. You want people with an affinity for your products linking back to your website. If you have no website, you want people linking back to the websites of affiliate programs you promote.

You need two things to facilitate this backlinking. The first is content of excellent quality that speaks to the needs of readers.

The second is premium distribution from a quality content distribution service. These two work in tandem to produce significant traffic for you.

Your articles must engage your readers with thoughtful insight that address subjects your niche finds interesting. Fluff content that offers nothing new to readers is not a characteristic of quality content writing. Therefore, it behooves you to do the necessary research to create information-rich content.

Next, you have to get your work to the most popular publishers on the Web. A top-notch article submission service does this cost-effectively for you.

They utilize their extensive distribution list to do this. This list contains the best publishers across numerous categories.

They also provide article marketing automation so you can schedule all your distribution ahead of time. This helps you manage your time better as an internet marketer. Quality writing and far reaching autopilot distribution are that one-two punch for article marketing success.

Blogs

Blogs are “right now” writing. They let you get the message out fast about your online business and products you offer.

If you don’t have a blog you could go to a provider this minute. In fact, in a few minutes you could have one up and running.

That means you could be engaging in a new promotional effort today for your business. It’s that new iron in the fire.

It can work in concert with your articles. If you write a new piece and it publishes, you can let your blog readers know about it immediately.

This is important because you drive traffic from your blog to your informative content. Your blog readers experience your quality content writing published by someone else. They then perceive you as an authoritative voice in your niche.

From your blog and your articles they link to your website. They have an interest in your articles and posts and decide to find out more about you. That’s the pre-sold traffic you need that converts to customers on your website.

Blogs are also great places to present quick product reviews and in-depth product reports. Imbedded in each of these types of posts are links to your website or affiliate program website. In addition, you can update your blog several times a week to keep your readers up-to-date on promotions and new products you’re offering.

Social Media

Diverse social media portals are extremely popular these days. You probably don’t have the time to use them all or even most of them. However, it does help your promotional efforts to use some of them on a regular basis.

Again, you can promote your writing through your social media accounts. An example is the content you submitted to a quality content distribution service.

Once they distribute your articles you can promote them through your social networking accounts. You do this via the user-friendly links from your author account that you have with the service.

As you engage in good discussions on social media sites, you can promote your business and articles. Only do this as a way to offer good advice and resources to others. Your goal is to help them secure the quality information they desire.

There’s nothing wrong with attaching your website or article link in a discussion. This is as an addendum to the quality comments you already put forth.

If you expound like a blatant commercial on a social media site you get the “spammer” label. It’s a signal to others to avoid you.

Be respectful, helpful, and full of useful information on social media sites. Engage in intelligent conversation with the needs of others in mind. It’s the way to build a good reputation and credibility as an online marketer.

Use article distribution with article marketing automation, blogs, and social media to grow your business faster. This multi-pronged approach, along with other strategies garners traffic for your website. Once that pre-sold traffic arrives, you can further the selling process and grow your income accordingly.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His service provides quality reviews for article marketing automation programs. Read review of Content Crooner.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Why Content Producers Need Article Marketing Automation and Other Features of a Good Service

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Writing content for widespread distribution on the Internet demands a plan for your writing. Knowing the needs of your target market ensures you create articles they crave.

Article distribution for securing significant backlinks demands a plan as well. That plan should include article marketing automation and other features a good service offers.

Many article submission sites exist on the Web. It’s your responsibility to choose the best service for your business. A premium service has certain features which give internet marketers good ROI for their investment.

Here are those features:

Article Marketing Automation

This is a mechanism to get your work out to your target market in a regular orderly fashion. You input your content set once; you then schedule when you want those pieces to go out to publishers. You schedule distribution for up to a year in advance.

This feature frees time up for other activities, including some R&R time away from your PC. There’s often much to do when it comes to online marketing. Anything that simplifies your operations so you’re not always working is something that’s beneficial.

Mobile Capabilities

A quality content distribution service only requires you having a password to get into their members area. Therefore, wherever you are, you can access their service via the Internet.

A good service doesn’t require you downloading and installing software. You can only engage in article submission from your home PC if they require you to download software.

Being able to submit your work from anywhere at any time is convenient. It’s a desirable option for busy internet marketers and writers who are always on the go. Any campaign your running doesn’t have to be on hold just because you’re traveling.

A Comprehensive Distribution List

When it comes to submitting, you want abundant choice in publishers. You create content on a host of topics suited to the different affiliate products you promote. You need publishers suited to each topic.

Having a limited list to submit too means some of your articles won’t be a good match for publishers. Certain articles you write may be highly specialized.

They only fit niche specialty publications with a select readership. A service with a significant publishers list will have these types of publications in their stable.

Unlimited Submission of Content for One Fee

This is an attractive feature, especially if you’re a prolific writer. A quality content distribution service charges writers’ one fee, once, for a subscription. They offer monthly, yearly, or lifetime subscription packages for an affordable one-time fee.

Paying per submission is a quick route to inflating your promotions budget. So is aligning yourself with a service that charges additional fees for going beyond their stipulated submission level.

These days, budgeting wisely for marketing is essential to surviving as a business. Unlimited submission means creating and submitting to your heart’s content without paying anything extra.

Quality Review Process

Your writing will only be better when another set of eyes gives it a look. A good service provides expert editors who understand what constitutes quality work.

They know what publishers require and what causes rejection of content. Knowing what not to do in writing is as important as knowing what to do.

An experienced editor offers advice and tips on the tone of your writing. They caution writers to avoid creating blatantly promotional pieces.

They know readers don’t want to read content that sounds like a late-night hyperactive TV commercial. People want useful information presented objectively and an editor shows writers how to achieve this goal.

Keeps Attuned to New Publishers

A good content distributor always knows “who’s who” in the online publishing world. They look for new players on the scene. When these players arrive, the service gets your previously submitted work to them.

That’s a service working behind-the-scenes for you while you engage in other activities. Your older content continues to reach new readers, without you having to do anything.

That’s distribution done right. It’s something that builds links back to your website consistently each month.

It takes the headache away of having to search out new publishers yourself. Remember, any time saved in performing distribution is time you have to do something else. Of course, that something else should always include more content production for future campaigns.

Utilize article distribution with article marketing automation and other features that a service offers. They facilitate the exposure you desire for your writing and your website links. This exposure leads to pre-sold traffic that is essential to building an online business with staying power.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His service provides quality reviews for article marketing automation programs. Read review of Content Crooner.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

How Article Marketing Automation and Other Initiatives Grow Your Cyber Venture

Friday, May 21st, 2010

In internet marketing, the riches go to those who engage in consistent effort to grow their businesses. The get-rich-quick schemes are exactly what they purport to be, schemes.

Building your cyber venture, promoting affiliate or other products, means hard work on different initiatives. Working on article distribution with article marketing automation, and other web initiatives, does pay dividends.

Autopilot Distribution of Your Content While You Sleep

That sounds good doesn’t it? It’s not a pipe dream, in fact, it’s something serious internet marketers engage in all the time. Why do they? They do so because they understand there are only so many hours weekly for accomplishing marketing goals.

The best online entrepreneurs perform multiple marketing duties. They don’t rely on just one avenue for promoting their products and services. They write for blogs, websites, and for their email campaigns.

They write advertisements and engage in submitting their links to directories. They also make videos and contribute to social forums. Therefore, they can’t spend all their time distributing articles to different publishers.

Through the article marketing automation tool from a quality content distribution service, they save time. They schedule distribution of their quality content upfront.

While they sleep, or do other work, their articles go out to Web publishers like clockwork. It’s automatic, and set to build their income even when they’re not actually working.

Unique Banner Creation and Ad Writing

Whether you promote your own products or products from affiliate programs, you want to be unique. This ensures you stand out from your business competition.

Banner creation programs exist whereby you create banners suited to your particular business. Your banners don’t have to look like the other affiliate banners a host of affiliates use.

In addition, writing your own ads accomplishes the same goal. Focus your ad writing using your own voice and style. Match this to your blog and website content.

In this way, you project a unified voice and message to your niche. This presents you as a professional with a clear message to your intended audience.

Create an Informative Monthly Newsletter

You’re already a quality content producer and distribute your articles to your niche. Why not write a monthly newsletter to distribute to them as well.

It doesn’t have to be the size of a Shakespearean play. In fact, a couple of pages are sufficient.

Send out this newsletter and include links to your website or affiliate sites. Don’t make the newsletter one giant commercial, though.

Make your newsletter writing as informative as your article writing. You still have to offer useful information to your readers, no matter the platform you’re using.

Your newsletter can include detailed specs on an affiliate product along with product comparison reviews. It can include updates on product upgrades.

It’s good to have a few short pieces promoting nothing. These are informational pieces on topics related to your products but not actively promoting them.

Blog Commentary

Let people know about your cyber venture through making comments on blogs. Browse blog directories to find blogs of your niche. Check these blogs out by reading the various posts that reside on them.

After perusing and reading, comment on some posts. Be respectful and offer top-notch advice, tips, and resources. Include an affiliate or other link in your post.

Give insightful, informative comments that truly seek to contribute intelligently to the blog conversation. When people believe you are trying to help them they often link back to you.

Who knows, you may glean some useful information yourself from someone’s blog. It may be information that you can apply to your online business. Therefore, blog surfing can work for you in two ways.

Devote Some Time to Your Downline

Your cyber venture may include being a leader of other affiliate marketers. Set aside time each month to help them build their incomes. You contribute to your own success when you do this consistently.

You enjoy when others offer helpful advice. Maybe an editor at an article submission service helped you become a better content producer. Their tips paid off and you are benefitting from the increased pre-sold traffic heading your way.

You can offer helpful advice to your downline. This builds your reputation with them so they work harder for themselves and by extension you. Together, you both grow your incomes and develop a relationship of mutual respect as you do.

Make consistent effort in the above initiatives part of your monthly online business routine. Using article distribution with article marketing automation, in tandem with other tools, helps build traffic and income. It’s a way to get your cyber venture on a solid foundation for continued growth.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His service provides quality reviews for article marketing automation programs. Read review of Content Crooner.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Marketing Automation and Other Tactics to Build Your Ecommerce Business

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Today, running an Ecommerce business involves employing excellent tactics for gaining exposure. Whether you market products or services, you need to let others know you’re doing so. In the competitive cyber landscape, article distribution with article marketing automation and other tactics builds Ecommerce businesses.

Writing articles on topics related to products and services you offer is a quick route to website exposure. In addition, it’s a great way to build credibility as an online businessperson. People tend to buy products and services from those they trust. Your content is a tool for building trust.

Informative pieces that address your niche market’s concerns go a long way to branding you as reputable. Your readers don’t view you as someone just hankering to “make the sale.” They view you as someone truly trying to help them and who is an authority in their field.

The fact that you have quality products and services along with this information is an added bonus. However, they won’t even begin to look at these until they know they can trust you and your recommendations. That’s why excellence as a content producer is of prime importance.

Of course, you have to make sure your writing reaches a significant portion of your target market. You accomplish this through utilizing the resources of a quality content distribution service. The best service offers autopilot distribution through article marketing automation.

First, you input your content once. This is that article set, chock full of information on topics your target market enjoys. You set up when you want these to go out everywhere, to the Web’s top publishers. You set up distribution for weeks, months, and even up to one year in advance.

Your job is complete, at least as it applies to distribution for this campaign. You move on to something else. The quality content distribution service moves on to getting your work “down the road” to publishers with significant readerships. The result is relevant, highly targeted traffic linking back from your pieces to your website.

That’s your distribution tactic in full swing. Here are a few other tactics you can try to build your Ecommerce business:

Write a Detailed Report on a Hot Topic Related to Your Products and Services

Consumers crave rich information on topics that currently hold their interest. Do some market research to find out what your target market is talking about regularly. You can check various social sites to see what the latest buzz is in your niche.

Next, do some research on one of these topics. Dig down deep to secure information that’s not run-of-the-mill. You want to present new information, rich with advice, tips, instruction and more. Organize the research you have collected and get writing.

Offer the finished report free to those who visit your blog or website. Include your links in this report as well, so readers can swing back your way. You build your credibility as an Ecommerce businessperson with useful reports.

Try Video Articles

Why not create visual representations of your best content. It’s a fresh way to gain exposure for your work. Today, people are constantly visiting video sites online, looking for good information. Be part of this trend so you don’t miss new opportunities to build your audience.

Make sure your video content is of good quality. Check out different programs for creating videos. You want clarity of color, excellent contrast, and good audio if your video includes sound. Remember to include that all-important link back to your website in your videos.

Run an Email Campaign

Are you beginning to build a good-sized list of emails from visitors who opted-in to your report? Why not get email campaigns going utilizing that list. It pays to keep in constant communication with those who have an interest in your business.

First, take the time to create quality content that suits the email format. Write an intriguing subject line that encourages opening the email. Provide good information, offers, and more in your email text.

Don’t forget to include one or more “calls to action.” Encourage readers to download something, link to something, request more information or order something. Send out emails regularly, without overdoing it, to keep your business name in their minds.

Utilize article distribution with article marketing automation, as well as the other tactics mentioned above. Plan your marketing program so you devote sufficient time to each tactic.

Make a monthly “to do” list so you stay on track to get these things done efficiently. It’s the way to build your Ecommerce business for sustained growth.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His service provides quality reviews for article marketing automation programs. Read review of Content Crooner.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Distribution Using Article Marketing Automation

Friday, May 7th, 2010

It’s a competitive online business environment out there. Being an affiliate marketer, you need to use the quality resources available to build income streams.

Article distribution using article marketing automation is one of several resources for building your business. Used in tandem with other resources, it can help you grow your income faster.

The following are five ways to help you promote your affiliate products and affiliate programs. Set aside time each week to engage in at least one of these activities. Try them and develop processes suited to your working style so you benefit from these initiatives.

Here they are:

Article Marketing

This involves you being a consistent content producer. You write articles loaded with useful advice, tips, instruction, and plain old good information for your audience.

You use a quality content distribution service to get your work to market. They distribute your writing throughout cyberspace.

An excellent service provides article marketing automation. What is this exactly? This is you scheduling the distribution of your writing ahead of time. You submit your writing once and schedule when they go out, up to a year in advance.

Then you go your merry way onto other affiliate marketing work. Distribution happens automatically, on autopilot, when you’re not even thinking about it. This simplifies marketing and is a perfect example of excellent time management.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a way to build your affiliate income. It involves using existing social and other platforms to get the message out about your business.

Therefore, your links spread around the Internet. This is akin to getting extensive link exposure when you distribute your articles.

Viral marketing can involve sending out your eBook, brandable software, video clips, images, text messages, emails and such. The viral aspect comes from the spreading of your information. This can happen fast.

Consider an email, video, or text message you send with your link. Many people you send it to may forward it on to others. These people can then forward it on as well. That can add up to significant link distribution.

Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla marketing is a non-traditional way of promoting yourself. It involves creative marketing and requires an investment of time, energy, and imagination. Again, it’s the same as your quality content writing, which requires the same effort.

Guerilla marketing could involve you doing something as drastic as standing on a street corner in a “guerilla suit.” You have, in your hands, a host of product samples you’re giving out.

You’re attracting attention to yourself and your affiliate products. The point is, you’re engaging in an unconventional form of product promotion.

You can do guerilla marketing digitally as well. You send out unique, even wacky advertisements, ads, videos and such that startle.

The shock value provokes a reaction from your potential customers. Just go about it in a dignified, un-crass way so you don’t alienate your target market.

In Person Marketing

Talking, in person, to someone is still a great way to build your business. Take every opportunity to talk up your business, when and where appropriate. Someone you meet may need exactly what you’re promoting. They won’t know about it unless you tell them.

Consider numerous business events in your city or town. Your local business association may have various networking events throughout the year. Check a few out and talk about your business.

Meet up with others who work to promote various affiliate programs. Share tips and experiences. Let them know what you promote and you may secure a new downline member.

Blog Writing

Blog writing is a great way to keep your niche market current on your business. Blogs allow you to post information quickly. You can do this daily, even multiple times in a day. Provide useful information, of the quality you submit to an article submission service, and you build a following.

When you post on your blog, provide links to your affiliate parent’s site. Provide links back to your own website, where you can engage your readers further. You can offer product suggestions on your blog, as well as reviews.

You can then elaborate more on your website once people link back to it. You can offer product suggestions or additional helpful resources to your readers.

Explore the options available to you for building your affiliate business. Get writing and get that content ready for running multiple campaigns.

In addition, try other methods for building your business, in concert with article distribution using article marketing automation. Together, they generate that relevant traffic to your website that converts to customers.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His service provides quality reviews for article marketing automation programs. Read review of Content Crooner.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Article Marketing Automation and 6 Other Features of a Quality Content Distribution Service

Friday, April 30th, 2010

As an affiliate marketer engaged in various affiliate programs, getting exposure for your business is crucial. A host of marketing initiatives exists that you can undertake to build your business. Article marketing is one of them. It’s an affordable way to gain link exposure, with article distribution using article marketing automation a major element.

Of course, other major elements make up this kind of marketing as well. All together, they work to ensure you receive maximum exposure for your writing. That leads to relevant backlinks to your website where you promote affiliate products.

The following are seven features of a good service:

1. Have a Huge List of Quality Publishers

A quality content distribution service works to secure and maintain a large list of good publishers. They align themselves with publishers across all disciplines. In this way, they present choice to you.

As a content producer, you write on a variety of topics. Each topic relates to a specific affiliate product you promote. Therefore, you need the availability of many publishers of diverse niches. You submit your work on a regular basis and get useful information to readers of those publications. This builds your reputation as someone knowledgeable in a certain field.

2. Offer Writing Resources

Whether you’re new to content producing, or experienced, it’s nice to have resources that help your writing. A good article submission site offers a best practices guide to their membership. This guide sets forth the style, format and other requirements of the Web’s top publishers. Following the tips in this guide expedites the publishing of your work.

A quality service also provides live editors who go over your pieces. Experienced in the article marketing discipline, they give expert advice on how to make your writing better.

3. Charge One Upfront Fee, Once, in a Subscription Period

A premier service doesn’t charge you per submission. They have a monthly, yearly, or lifetime membership plan. They tell you upfront exactly what they charge you for each. They don’t tack on additional fees; they don’t surprise you with other ‘administration’ fees and the like. You pay once and then don’t pay again until it’s time to renew.

4. Allow You Endless Submissions in a Subscription Period

A quality content distribution service encourages productivity. They charge the aforementioned one time fee for a subscription period and allow unlimited submissions. They don’t cap how many pieces you can submit.

Unlimited submissions are conducive to running multiple campaigns. That truly is a way to garner exposure for your business. Unlimited submissions are also conducive to staying within your affiliate marketing budget. The more you write and submit, the less it costs per submission to get your links coursing around the Web.

5. Helps You Utilize Social Media

The new social media sites are all the rage today. Love them or hate them, you probably need to use some of them to promote your business. Upon distribution of your writing, a quality service allows you to promote it through your social networking accounts.

They facilitate this via the user-friendly links they provide from your author account. Therefore, you instantly update others that you have a new piece published on a certain topic. That drives traffic to your article and subsequently from it to your website.

6. Offer Detailed Distribution and Exposure Reports

You need to know if your writing is paying off for you. Distribution and exposure reports let you know who is publishing what, concerning your work. You soon learn what’s resonating with publishers and readers.

Knowing what topics publishers and readers like helps you focus your efforts for your next campaign. Unpopular article topics mean focusing in another direction for your next efforts. These reports help you fine-tune your writing for success.

7. Offer Automation for “Always Happening” Distribution

A quality content distribution service encourages affiliate marketers to streamline their businesses. They enable them to go on autopilot through scheduling distribution of their work ahead of time. A writer can schedule distribution for up to one year in advance.

This makes running a business more efficient. Not having to schedule time each week for distribution activities means more time for other marketing. Time to engage in a variety of marketing activities means more chances to build multiple streams of affiliate income.

Explore what article marketing can do for you as a promoter of affiliate programs. Look for a service that offers article distribution using article marketing automation. Make sure they offer the other features as well. Then get to work using those features to build good income streams for years to come.

To your success,

Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson is a freelance consultant to internet marketers. His service provides quality reviews for article marketing automation programs. Read review of Content Crooner.

Follow Us on Twitter: ContentCrooner

“Crooner Rocks”

Mass Article Submissions: Matches to Gasoline

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Whether you’re a first-time small-business owner or a seasoned business builder, the first phase of your company going live can be excruciatingly slow. It’s also the period when most businesses fail because they fail to even get off the ground.

Unfortunately, your website isn’t a magic wand and it won’t automatically pull people in from the Web. Fortunately, mass article submissions ignite your marketing, garnering mass exposure for your business like matches to gasoline.

The Long Forgotten Press Release

It seems as though all the wonderful new widgets online have caused people to forget about how powerful a simple press release is. There are plenty of free or highly cost-effective press release submission services that make it easy to introduce your new business to the masses with a press-release blast.

  • Be sure to write a press release for each new product or service or innovation relating to your company.
    • “We were alarmed when we learned about the quantity of pesticides in food, so we developed a new all-organic…”
    • “We decided that it just wasn’t enough to donate to green-practices organizations, so we now use completely biodegradable packaging peanuts…”
  • Your press release must focus on how you can help others or discuss useful or interesting information. Strictly pitch your business and you’ll fail to get your press release published.

Writing a press release will also help you garner some local exposure. Especially in a down market, newspapers are extra excited to include news of local growth. You stand a great chance of getting your press release published in a local paper as they’ll want to show positive trends in the community.

  • Even if you’re strictly an online company people still take interest in success stories that originate from their local area.

Give People a Reason to Talk about Your Business

Unless you’ve discovered a way to teach your cat how to clean your house or a legal way to never do taxes again, you’re going to need to provide people with solid reasons to get excited about your product or service. Although your website provides an excellent starting point for generating this interesting material, your site visitors will soon feel like rats in a maze trying to sift through the seemingly endless material you’ve provided there. Keep your website clean, simple, and easily navigable. Write a series of articles to spread out your interest points, preventing any type of overwhelm for your audience.

Contributing regular article submissions grants you countless opportunities to pique your audience’s interest. Since your product probably doesn’t involve a house-cleaning cat you may need to address secondary issues that relate to your offer to generate genuine excitement. For example, let’s say you sell toasters…yaaaawn. However, you can manufacture some interest by discussing topics such as the invention of the first toaster, how heating coils work, how efficient toasters can actually reduce your utility bills and so on.

  • Create a spider diagram to help you get started. Place your product in the middle bubble and then draw lines outward from that bubble, drawing up possible points of interest that directly or indirectly relate to your product or service.

Get ‘em Gossiping

Complement your article submissions with the use of social media tools such as Twitter and Google Buzz. People love off-topic and zany conversations, and you can easily get people to talk about your product when you provide a unique backdrop. Transplant your offer into an unusual setting and you’ll get people tweeting and buzzing in no time. The best part is that they won’t even realize they’re helping to promote your product through viral marketing.

  • “What’s the weirdest use you’ve ever heard of for a toaster?”
  • “Has anyone ever heard of a toaster robot?”
  • “Favorite toaster recipes?”

While the third topic isn’t as zany, it still involves something that 99.9% of the world can relate to, the love of food, and therefore encourages interaction. The point is to step outside the ring of conversation that usually envelopes your product or service to stir up online communication.

The Missing Link

When possible, make sure all of your marketing pieces link back to your website!

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!

Are you failing to convert confused prospects to clear-minded clients?

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Classic sales tips dictate that a confused mind never buys. Prospects require a mind clear of doubt before they’ll reach for their wallet. Why purchase a product or service if you have any residual reservations about it?

With the sheer quantity of services and products readily available on the Web there’s no reason why people should buy from you if they’re confused about your offer. Sales come through the path of least resistance!

Write informative article submissions regarding your product or service to wipe away doubt and clear people’s minds for a smooth purchasing process.

Understand your audience

The first thing you need to do is comprehensively identify your target audience. Every successful marketing plan is founded on thorough market research. Carefully consider exactly who you’re trying to appeal to and adapt your tone accordingly. Studying key demographics will help you do this. The most common demographic factors include sex, race, age, income, disabilities, employment, education level, mobility (vehicle ownership), home ownership, and geographical location. Add extra strength to your marketing approach by studying behavioral variables such as usage rate and loyalty.

“Firmographics” may sound like a big word, but it’s just about studying businesses instead of people. If you’re selling to other companies, understanding firmographic variables such as industry, seniority and functionals area relating to the characteristics of an organization create even more poignancy for your marketing plan. Firmographic factors include industry, employee size, revenue size, number of locations and geographic location of headquarters.

Once you’ve identified your key demographics and firmographics, take it a step further and develop your key psychographic values. This is just another big-sounding word that is just about knowing what makes people tick – things related to attitudes, personality, values, lifestyles and interests.

See the other point of view

Complement this approach by adopting your prospect’s perspective. What issues do they want to resolve?  Explain to your audience how your product will benefit them. What questions need answering? Use an automated article system to give them a continuous stream of useful content to provide those answers. What are their dreams? Share your service’s ability to help them excel. Their biggest fears? Let them know that your business provides a constant support network.

Fail to extend your thoughts beyond the immediate features of your product or service and you‘ll leave your prospects confused as to how your offer will directly help them. Address their most important issues and you’ll efface doubts and confusion, giving them the go-ahead to buy from you.

And you may be thinking that your complex product or service requires complex terms and explanations—not true! When in doubt, apply the K.I.S.S. rule (keep it simple and stupid). Use straightforward language and you’ll eliminate points of confusion about your offer.

Avoid the urge to discuss all of your product or service’s features and benefits at one time. The best approach is to break your offer down into manageable chunks. These chunks of information and value are easier to process and will not overwhelm your prospects. Article writing grants you the opportunity to introduce new value points in controlled stages. You will gradually build value while insuring that your prospect has mastered a feature/chunk before you move on to the next point.

Are you excited about your product or service? Great! Just make sure you’re not too excited. This can cause you to get swept away and relate the details of your offer in a very confusing and whirlwind manner. Excitement can be a great catalyst for writing your business articles if you harness it. And remember: always take a step back from your article after you’ve written it and revisit it later to see if you need to tone it down in spots.

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!

Excited Prospects Buy Every Time — Learn How to Create that Excitement

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Make your prospects more likely to buy with the power of excitement. It’s a simple formula — the more excited someone is about a product or service, the fewer doubts they’ll have and the likelier they’ll be to spend money with you. Article marketing provides an ideal platform for creating comprehensive excitement — traditional sales pitches are dead!

One of the most powerful aspects of creating excitement is that you develop a wedge between your prospects and your competitors. You could have the same exact product or service as another company (extremely likely in today’s saturated online marketplace), but the right degree of excitement is all it takes to differentiate your business from the others. Generating interest and excitement will make you an orange when all your competitors simply seem like lemons — you’ll get picked every time.

Generate authentic excitement

Your writing needs to create excitement without sounding cheap. The last thing you want to do is sound like an infomercial — it creates doubt and skepticism. Articles create the right type of excitement by demonstrating solid value. Provide people with useful information in an interesting fashion and you set up the perfect mindset for buying.

You need to achieve an optimal balance of excitement and reality — be careful to avoid exaggerated claims. Assume you’re addressing an intelligent audience with the ability to discern realistic claims from miracle cures. Assume that because it’s true!

Take a look at these examples:

“Never suffer from a headache again!” Ridiculous.

“Our business offers a variety of services.” Okay.

“Our business offers a variety of services to help you with your needs.” Better.

“Our budget tools and friendly attitude help you achieve financial freedom.” Best!

Article marketing gives you the opportunity to generate interest and excitement about your offer by providing real-life applications. That’s why the fourth option is best. Don’t just tell people—tell them why and how. This relates to the classic feature and benefit combination. Never leave a feature hanging by itself. Explain what’s in it for your readers.

Quality article writing pairs a feature with a benefit to cement its application. Your prospects want specific questions answered, information that they can use right away, and realistic solutions. Your prospects are guaranteed to get excited by learning about simple solutions they can apply to their daily lives.

Hit your audience’s hot buttons

Your best bet is to forget about all the money you can make and always keep in mind how your products can help others. This will help you maintain the prospect’s perspective, which gives you the keys to their hot buttons. Figure out your target audience’s most frequent problems and worries as well as their aspirations and you’ll set your sales on fire.

Another highly effective way to generate excitement is to make your prospects feel like pioneers. There’s great excitement in feeling like you’re among the first to try something new. Promote the impression, without exaggeration or deception, that they will be part of a new wave of technology, cutting-edge business practices, innovative techniques, breakthrough daily living practices and so on. Make it novel! Make them proud to be early adopters. People want to feel like leaders and you can give that to them.

You can also fall back on the time-tested technique of creating urgency. Creating urgency promotes excitement and catalyzes people into action. Some classic examples would be providing limited-time offers, first-come-first-served offers, and letting them know that supplies are limited. You do need to take some caution with this approach though. For example, if you claim it’s a limited-time offer make sure it is indeed limited! You’re guaranteed to breed skepticism if you continue to extend a limited-time offer.

However, if you haven’t hit a required sales quota and must extend your offer then you need to provide a believable explanation: “We’ve received many messages of heartfelt thanks for our sale price, so we’ve decided to extend our special offer.” Or, simply try hard-line honesty: “We have some more widgets remaining at this low price, so we’ve decided to offer this special offer for an additional week.”

The excitement you create will not only encourage prospects to buy from you every time, it also sets you up for viral marketing. People are always more likely to talk about or refer your business when they’re excited about it!

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!