Tweet

Article Marketing For Small Business Owners: Promote Your Brand

Written by: Julie Weishaar

Article Overview: Article writing is a very effective marketing tool that can help small business owners reach their target market.

Article Marketing For Small Business Owners: Promote Your Brand

Today's economic climate and competitive market make it more difficult for small business owners to prevail. Marketing efforts need to be finely tuned and precisely targeted for maximum benefit. The Internet allows the "little guys" to play in the same playgrounds as their larger counterparts. These playgrounds are in the form of social networking sites, forums, article sites, and various other business networking platforms. The amount of ground the Internet covers is immense and can be intimidating. But if the small business owner is able to narrow down and fine-tune their target niche, they can focus their time and energies on only the most relevant and valuable sites for their specific target audience. Article writing is a very effective marketing tool that can help small business owners reach their target market. Because of the competitive markets and the change in consumer profiles, business owners have to be more proactive, communicative and engaging. Gone are the days where consumers will believe something about your company because you say it is so. They don't want to hear you stand on a soapbox and tell them how wonderful your brand is. They want to see for themselves that you are an expert in your industry and what better way to prove your expertise than to write articles?

If the content of your article is valuable to the prospective consumer, and if the article is submitted to where the potential consumer is ‘hanging out", the business owner will gain credibility. However it is very important for the small business owner to understand that he or she has to prove that he or she is an industry-expert by sharing helpful knowledge. Don't write an article just for the sake of promoting your company. If you have nothing worthwhile to contribute, you will lose credibility no matter how many links you have to your site.

If you can't think of what you can write about, try thinking about why your product or service will benefit the potential customer. What information might they need to be able to make an educated decision on which company to buy from? Naturally you will want them to buy from your company so prove your expertise, provide background information that supports your brand and guide your customers to your door or website. Tell them something they don't already know or something that they will find helpful and useful. Check out your competitors and what they might be writing. Is there an opportunity for you to elaborate on something your competitor has already written about? Is there a gap in information ripe for you to step in and fill?

Once you have written your articles, what do you do with them? There are many free article submission sites that the small business owner can use to post his/her articles and then link to them on relevant industry posts or forums. Don't submit your articles to too many sites so as not to be identified by Google as spam. Be selective in where you decide to have your articles posted.

Have you started writing yet?

Related Articles
  More Benefits of Article Marketing for Small Business Owners
  Do Bean Counters Understand Brand Value?
  T is for Time to do Marketing
  5 marketing activities a day keeps the feast or famine away
  W is for Why is my marketing not working?

Article Tags: article marketing, marketing tool, small business owners



Related Forum Posts
New Small Business Topic - Hello everyone, I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section? Here's a list of what we currently have: Angel Investors Branding Bank Loans Business Coaching Business Plan Franchises (New) Insurance Legal Marketing Public Relations Sales Small Biz Loans Venture Capital
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Let’s talk about the ways of marketing your products, servic - I agree with some of the others who responded it depends on what your selling... but to answer your questions here are some of the methods I use. Forum Marketing Yahoo Answers (I need to use more of) SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Bum Marketing or Article marketing P-P-C (Pay Per Click) Marketing Online Directories Hope this helps.
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Hi, Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few, great looking site btw Jeff, take care, Carol
A ton of Great Women - You might want to profile Teresa Cascioli of LakePort Brewery. She has an amazing story! I met her at at the celebratory luncheon for the Profit/Chatelaine Top 100 Women Business Owners. The Top 100 list is also a great resource for inspirational stories of Women Entrepreneurs.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Starting a Business with Bad Personal Credit

Paint A Word Picture - Excite Your Customer

Ten Twitter Tips For Work-at-Home Moms

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.