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Down Times Are the Best Time for Business Innovation

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Down times are the best times to grow and innovate business because innovation is an immediate source of increased revenue and builds customer loyalty. Consequently, the best innovation comes from your current loyal customers.

Down Times Are the Best Time for Business Innovation

Down times are the best times to grow and innovate business because innovation is an immediate source of increased revenue and builds customer loyalty. Consequently, the best innovation comes from your current loyal customers.

Recently, three enterprising entrepreneurs, through Twitter, created a challenge to write 100 articles in 100 days and submit them to one shared article directly site. This collaboration validated how the best innovation comes from loyal customers. The owner of the site, Chris Knight, decided to sweeten the challenge by offering a free EzineArticles mug through one of the ongoing blogs at this site.

Chris understands innovation and his company, EzineArticles, benefits from such collaboration among customers. Every article displayed on his Internet business website offers Google Adwords. By increasing the number of articles, he increases revenues. Understanding the affect of the long tail, he is building future revenue down stream.

Even if the free mug costs him $7.50 on average including shipping, he knows that only a small percentage of his 160,000 plus customers will take the challenge given that less 2% have more than 100 articles. He also knows how much revenue on average he generates from each article from the banner advertisements to click through ads. This challenge becomes a win-win-win-win for the article marketers, the readers, the advertisers and lastly Chris Knight’s bottom line.

When the challenge was only 30 days old, the results from this challenge have been incredible. Thie blog for this challenge now exceeded in comments all the other 1,300 plus blog posts during the last 4 plus years. Due to the increase in article submissions from the less than 1,000 authors who accepted the challenge, Chris hired some new editors so that his company does not limit innovation.

As a side note, article marketing is a tactic infused within an education based marketing plan. Articles are written on subjects specific to areas of expertise such as coaching, customer service, sales, strategic planning or time management and then submitted to one, or more, on-line article directories.

From these directories, the articles are picked up and redistributed throughout the Internet as well as to printed newsletters and magazines.. The best part of this marketing tactic is that it is 100% free except for the time to write and submit the articles. Through embedded links within the articles, traffic is directed back to the business owners’ websites, Internet traffic increases and this leads to increases in conversions specific to list signups and sales.

Take Action Sales Coaching Tip: Now, not later, is the time for you to grow and innovate. Look to your loyal customers. Ask them what you can do to help them grow their businesses? Discuss how your current products or services could better serve their needs and wants. Take the time to stop talking and engage your active listening skills. Be one of the few to change, to experience business success instead of one of the many who continue to do what has always been done and continue to receive the same results.

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Article Tags: advertisers, article marketing, article submissions, banner advertisements, bottom line, chris knight, collaboration, customer loyalty, enterprising entrepreneurs, free mug, google, internet business website, limit innovation, loyal customers, marketers, marketing plan, nbsp, plan articles, rsquo, tactic



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