Using Articles in Marketing For Small Business
Using Articles in Marketing For Small Business
People are generally pulled to you and your business because you are an expert in an area they are having a problem with, and something you have said has resonated with them. They call you, rather than you call them.
There are loads of ways you can attract clients to you that don’t involve cold calling, stuffing their fax with campaigns or knocking on doors. Just one of them is through the use of articles.
Articles are a great way to share your expertise with people. By writing articles, you help provide answers and solutions to problems or issues people may be having. There are two schools of thought with sharing your expertise – leave them hanging for more (coming from a lack mentality) and giving full and deep answers (coming from an abundance approach).
Personally, I believe in sharing as much information as you can. By being generous with your information and time, you build a genuine and deep relationship with your clients and will retain them as clients (and often as friends) for many years.
Once you have written your article – what can you do with it? I am a closet Greenie – I love recycling things and finding lots of new uses for old things. A few years ago, a friend of mine suggested that articles could also be recycled. I was intrigued … how can you recycle an article?
Articles can be shared with your clients through on-line newsletters such as this one. There have been some interesting studies lately from the USA that indicates print copy newsletters – once a month or so, to supplement an on-line newsletter can really boost your business.
You can share your articles with other businesses in your network – if you have a complementary business. One approach I have seen working very effectively is to gather a group of like-minded people together and get each person to write an article on a theme. Each person gets to include their signature block or by-line on their article. These articles are collated into either an e-book that everyone can give away on their websites, or converted to a hard copy book.
You can do the same with your own articles – collate them at the end of the year into a book. By writing your book that way, you take all of the pain out of writing.
You can submit your article to on-line article repository websites. People are hungry for information to feed their websites and they look to article repositories to find articles for their websites. There are stacks of sites you can manually submit your article to (if you have the time …).
I prefer to automate things as much as possible so I use a company called Article Marketer. This is not a computer-generated service (which will generally get your articles bumped). With this service, first a computer checks your article for common mistakes, then a human checks your content to make sure it has the best possible chance of success before then submitting your articles on your behalf. Each article you submit has your signature block at the base – your website and email for contact. This is a great way to generate traffic to your website, boost your web ranking (and spam to your in-box!) My best tip is to have a separate article only email account and a fabulous spam program to deal with the flood.
Here’s a few more quick uses for your article:
* Once you have your article, look at whether it can be turned into a press release with minor tweaking.
* Can you become a regular author to your local paper?
* What about submitting your article to a magazine?
* Attach a relevant article when you contact potential clients.
* Include them on your own website as a resource for people.
But, what if you can’t write? You are your best expert in your business … but sometimes writing your expertise down in a way that is powerful and interesting can be a challenge.
This is where you can hire a “ghost-writer” or copywriter to write or edit your thoughts into a coherent article, newsletter or book for you. For example, I have written about topics as diverse as holidays in Fiji, search engine optimisation, alternative therapy, guitars, pest control, furniture, business continuity planning for an oil refinery, property investment, insurance, furniture rental, real estate and a whole stack more.
The most important thing is to get writing. It is a quick and easy way to grow your business.
Using Articles in Marketing For Small Business - To learn more about this author, visit Ingrid Cliff's Website.
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Here’s a quick business-marketing lesson. In business you spend a lot of time building your brand to let people know you exist and to attract clients to you. This is done via “push strategies” where you are pushing your brand into their awareness – such as advertising/direct mail/yellow pages and “pull strategies”. Pull strategies are gentler. It’s where you attract people to you ... because they want something they know you have or you can offer them.
People are generally pulled to you and your business because you are an expert in an area they are having a problem with, and something you have said has resonated with them. They call you, rather than you call them.
There are loads of ways you can attract clients to you that don’t involve cold calling, stuffing their fax with campaigns or knocking on doors. Just one of them is through the use of articles.
Articles are a great way to share your expertise with people. By writing articles, you help provide answers and solutions to problems or issues people may be having. There are two schools of thought with sharing your expertise – leave them hanging for more (coming from a lack mentality) and giving full and deep answers (coming from an abundance approach).
Personally, I believe in sharing as much information as you can. By being generous with your information and time, you build a genuine and deep relationship with your clients and will retain them as clients (and often as friends) for many years.
Once you have written your article – what can you do with it? I am a closet Greenie – I love recycling things and finding lots of new uses for old things. A few years ago, a friend of mine suggested that articles could also be recycled. I was intrigued … how can you recycle an article?
Articles can be shared with your clients through on-line newsletters such as this one. There have been some interesting studies lately from the USA that indicates print copy newsletters – once a month or so, to supplement an on-line newsletter can really boost your business.
You can share your articles with other businesses in your network – if you have a complementary business. One approach I have seen working very effectively is to gather a group of like-minded people together and get each person to write an article on a theme. Each person gets to include their signature block or by-line on their article. These articles are collated into either an e-book that everyone can give away on their websites, or converted to a hard copy book.
You can do the same with your own articles – collate them at the end of the year into a book. By writing your book that way, you take all of the pain out of writing.
You can submit your article to on-line article repository websites. People are hungry for information to feed their websites and they look to article repositories to find articles for their websites. There are stacks of sites you can manually submit your article to (if you have the time …).
I prefer to automate things as much as possible so I use a company called Article Marketer. This is not a computer-generated service (which will generally get your articles bumped). With this service, first a computer checks your article for common mistakes, then a human checks your content to make sure it has the best possible chance of success before then submitting your articles on your behalf. Each article you submit has your signature block at the base – your website and email for contact. This is a great way to generate traffic to your website, boost your web ranking (and spam to your in-box!) My best tip is to have a separate article only email account and a fabulous spam program to deal with the flood.
Here’s a few more quick uses for your article:
* Once you have your article, look at whether it can be turned into a press release with minor tweaking.
* Can you become a regular author to your local paper?
* What about submitting your article to a magazine?
* Attach a relevant article when you contact potential clients.
* Include them on your own website as a resource for people.
But, what if you can’t write? You are your best expert in your business … but sometimes writing your expertise down in a way that is powerful and interesting can be a challenge.
This is where you can hire a “ghost-writer” or copywriter to write or edit your thoughts into a coherent article, newsletter or book for you. For example, I have written about topics as diverse as holidays in Fiji, search engine optimisation, alternative therapy, guitars, pest control, furniture, business continuity planning for an oil refinery, property investment, insurance, furniture rental, real estate and a whole stack more.
The most important thing is to get writing. It is a quick and easy way to grow your business.
Using Articles in Marketing For Small Business - To learn more about this author, visit Ingrid Cliff's Website.
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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