A person may not be aware of it the challenge of marketing permeates every facet of life from going to the supermarket to driving your car to surfing on the Internet. The fact that people are changing means the method of reaching will change as well. That is what makes it fun. These are my insights for what they are worth.

Note: Content in process of being created. Make sure to check back. 

While I create content I wanted to share some articles on "article" marketing which I think is an underutilized weapon in the Marketer's toolbox.

Article Marketing: A Great Strategy to Promote Your Business
Share your Expertise - Write articles
Behold! the Top 7 Benefits of Ariticle Marketing
Top 10 Reasons to Write and Submit Articles



Article Marketing: A Great Strategy To Promote Your Business
Copyright (c) 2009 Enzo F. Cesario    BrandSplat    http://www.Brandsplat.com/

Promotion is an important part of any business; you need to let potential customers know about you and your product. Article marketing is a strategy that will increase your exposure to the people who will want to buy your product or service. Articles written about your industry will help to establish you, the author, as an expert in your field, and can be published in print media and online.

Customers have a preference for doing business with someone they are familiar with, and article marketing is an ideal way of getting your name out there. The content of your articles needs to be useful and relevant to your target market. Articles that are informative, interesting and provide solutions to your readers are tremendously helpful.

If writing is your thing, then do your own articles. If not, there are several sites online where you can connect with writers, eager for work. Choose someone who uses good grammar and spelling skills, and who can write in an informal and conversational style that is easy to read. Your name will appear as the author on these outsourced articles, promoting you as the expert.

These articles are meant to inform and add value to you and your product; they are not blatant sales letters. Online publishing sites wouldn't publish sales letters anyway, and print media would avoid them as well. To establish your credibility, you need to give something to your readers, not blast them with sales talk. Don't ever forget, the reason they are reading your articles is for the information.

Web and ezine writing is very different than writing for other off-line publications. Brief is better. Be concise and write in short paragraphs. Your main purpose is to capture their attention and to get them to visit your website. If your article is long with every piece of information, they won't see the value in clicking the link to your site.

You should always check for spelling and grammatical errors before submitting your articles to directories. These kinds of errors will reflect badly on your reputation and credibility as a quality information provider. Try to avoid technical language,
but provide an explanation of terms if they need to be included.

Put the major benefit to the reader in your title. The title will determine whether or not the reader will click to read the article and possibly click to visit your site. If they aren't
compelled to read the article, they will never get to see your link, or see your website.

Article directories are the sites where you submit articles for online publication. They check your articles to make sure they comply with their guidelines before they publish them. And though we won't go into it here, print media, like newspapers and magazines, are also always looking for fresh copy, so you can also submit your interesting articles to them for publication.

Make good use of the resource box under the article; this is where you can promote your product and supply contact information. What you include here should encourage readers to click to your website. The best resource box describes your website or yourself in a short sentence and includes at least one link that points back to your website or blog. When the reader clicks on the link to your site, your website visibility will increase.

Remember, a brilliant article with a bad resource box is a waste of time and money. Carefully review the rules for resource box information for each directory you submit to and try to get in as much information about yourself as you can.

If you can, place links to other articles you've written in a new article you're writing. Sometimes, if the advice is helpful, the ezines will let you do this. This cross-referencing will get you more bang for your buck. Before publishing them elsewhere, you should always add your articles to your website or your newsletter. This helps to identify you as the source of the information and is another good way to get your name out there to build relationships with potential customers.

Articles for online publication need to be written with search engines in mind. You need to use the most popular keywords that online users type into their search engine when looking for information about your topic. Use the keywords in your article, but do not saturate it with them. This ruins the readability of the article and will not add to your credibility at all.

Set up a blog to keep in contact with customers and interested contacts. You can upload your articles to your blog to give your readers a continual supply of interesting, informative articles about your area of expertise. Add new content frequently to keep the search engines interested in your articles. Use your blog as another means of promoting your product and yourself as trustworthy and interested in your customers.

Article marketing is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways of driving targeted traffic to your website and boosting your exposure on the Internet. These guidelines will help you get started in article marketing. Use them to promote your product or service and to establish yourself as an expert in your field, then watch your sales increase.

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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat  ( http://www.Brandsplat.com/), the only online marketing and  advertising company employing Brandcasting, the most effective  way to brand your company on the web. Brandcasting uses  informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution  and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of  traffic to your website. The approach is simple, highly effective and affordable. Learn more at: http://www.Brandsplat.com/  and http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

Share Your Expertise - Write Articles by Jody Gambourie

Writing articles was one of the first marketing strategies I used and I still use today. This has worked really well for me - I've written over 100 articles and had them published in a couple print publications and numerous online ezines and websites.

I enjoy writing and can do it fairly quickly and easily (at least some days!). But even if you feel you're not that great of a writer you can always do up a draft and get help with the copywriting and editing.

I believe that writing articles is such a powerful and useful way to market for several reasons:

- with your name in print, you can call yourself an author

- which does wonders for how you are perceived

- build your credibility

- build your status as an expert

- you can repurpose articles: blog posts, compile a book, create a product, offer as a bonus, post on your website, use it in your ezine

- hone your writing skills

- sharpen your grasp of your subject matter

- build connection with your prospects and clients

- showcase your knowledge

- get people onto your list

When you write your articles, the expectation is not that you'll get paid. How you achieve value is by writing a great author resource "box" - basically a paragraph that tells who you are, how to contact you and gives them a call to action, such as going to your website to get a free-giveaway.

When people reprint your articles they have to include the author resource box and in that way, your name gets put in front of the readers and those that are interested know how
to connect with you.

There are so many places that you can submit your article:

- free and low-cost article submission sites such as Ezine Articles and SubmitYourArticle

- online ezines

- association and industry newsletters

- local daily and community newspaper

- alumni newsletter

- other people's websites

- internet publications

- article directory sites

There are thousands and thousands of online and offline places where you can submit your articles for publication.  People need content - whether it's a feature article or a filler.

Just remember, the content of your articles need to bevaluable and relevant to the readers. And the places that you submit your articles to needs to have readers that are a fit with your target audience. You don't want to waste your time and the readers' time if the content of your articles isn't something they want to learn about!

I encourage you to start writing articles as part of your ongoing marketing strategies and if you're already writing,
I challenge you to increase the number of articles that you consistently put out. This is one marketing tactic that will pay off for you!

About the Author:

Jody Gabourie, The Small Business Marketing Coach, teaches small business owners and entrepreneurs how to take action with their marketing in order to get more results and more profits. To learn all about her unique "done-for-you" ebooks called Ready Made Marketing Plans™ and to sign up for her FREE special report, ezine and articles, visit her site at http://www.JodyGabourieMarketingCoach.com



Behold! The Top 7 Benefits of Article Marketing by Lani and Allen Voivod

Behold! The Top 7 Benefits of Article Marketing Know a few things about your niche? Looking for a cost-effective way to get your name, business, products, and services out to fresh prospects and a wider (yet more targeted) audience?

Consider the humble article.

Articles are everywhere, yet annoy no one. They're promotional, yet don't reek of in-your-face advertising. The best ones are easy to read, deliver valuable information, and entertain as well as inform.

Marketing experts hail articles as one of the prime lead generation tools for small business owners limited by time, budgets, and resources.

This workhorse of a content vehicle:

1. BUILDS YOUR EXPERT REPUTATION. People see you as important because you're out there. You're viewed as the go-to guru in your field. And you've got a leg up on the non-published competition because of it.

2. INVITES TARGETED TRAFFIC. Your article isn't a cold call or a sales pitch. It's a low-risk, low-cost portal for those who read your articles to visit your site, learn more about your offerings, and ultimately, do business with you.

3. INCREASES INCOMING LINKS. Article marketing gives publishers and professionals in your industry an easy way to recommend you as a resource to their audience and clients. (More exposure, leads, and opportunities!)

4. PRE-QUALIFIES YOUR PROSPECTS. This is a great way to educate your audience. If readers connect with what you're saying - your style, opinions, voice, vision, philosophies, knowledge, etc. - they're more likely to want to work with you when they're ready to move forward.

5. DELIVERS DIGNITY-RICH VALUE. Instead of feeling like they're being sold to, your audience gets what they want to know when they want to know it. They're grateful to you for sharing your niche information. They get to know, like, and trust you.

6. LEVERAGES YOUR TIME, KNOW-HOW, AND EXPERTISE. One online
article can reach hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of prospects. And since it's online, it can attract new readers year after year. What's more, you can use these articles in your other marketing efforts – in emails to inquirers and current clients, on postcards, and as printouts at networking and speaking events, for example.

7. BOOSTS YOUR BUSINESS AND BOTTOM LINE! Online articles with exceptional resource boxes are organic, keyword-loaded traffic magnets that win the hearts of prospects and search engines alike!

Next time you have an hour or so to work on your business, why not give article marketing a whirl?

Jot down a few bullet points around a process. Answer a frequently-asked question in your area of expertise. Provide a how-to, share a case study, or launch a myth-busting rant.

Then submit your article to a online distribution service, industry publications, relevant media outlets, or all of the above. Post it on your website, send it to your current clients, and put it in your marketing arsenal for unlimited use.

That's the humble article, at your service. This could be the beginning of a beautiful, profitable friendship!

About the Author:

(c) 2007 Epiphanies, Inc. As the "Content Lovers" of Epiphanies Inc., Lani & Allen Voivod help budding entrepreneurs and small biz dynamos "A-Ha Themselves" in fun and profitable ways. For FREE articles, marketing tips, and content strategies designed to fire up your passion and profit-ize your niche, sign up for their "Inciter" ezine at http://www.EpiphaniesInc.com !

Top 10 Reasons to Write and Submit Articles by Cindy Dykstra

As a website designer, developer and marketer, I get many requests for low-cost web site promotion techniques. Promoting a web site by writing and submitting articles is my number 1 answer. Here's why:

1.It's FREE!

All it takes is your time to write the articles, and once you get accounts set up at the popular article directories, it only takes a few clicks to submit an article.

2.Writing articles is fairly painless.

How to write articles is beyond the scope of this article, but just one hint: take the next conversation you have with a customer, make notes after you talk, and turn it into an
article.

3.Incoming Links

You will instantly gain incoming links to your web site from a relevant source. An article on dog care with a link to a web site on dogs and dog care is highly regarded by the search engines.

4.Gives you expert status

Giving your opinion and views, especially when backed up by facts and figures set you up as an expert in your field.

5.Fresh content for your website

Each article you write and submit should also be listed on your web site, giving you fresh, quality content.

6.Broaden your market

By creating, posting and submitting a podcast of your article, you can get your influence out to a broader market segment. You can use the content in an article to create email newsletters too, where appropriate. You can even combine articles into an e-book to publish, give away or sell.

7.Long shelf life

Your articles in article directories have quite a long shelf life. Directories, good ones, will be around for a while with every article they've ever published. Your two-year-old article on housebreaking a puppy will still be driving traffic to your website today.

8.Allow others to promote your web site

Articles actually allow others to promote you and your web site by using your article, including the link to your site, on their web site, blog, ezine or newsletter. Comments and discussion of your article, ideas and opinions will further your exposure.

9.Gives you or your business a personality

It gives you or your business a "personality" by showing a little of yourself through your writing style in each article you write. People will get to know you through your writing. Any relationship you can build with an on-line customer or client is a qualified, targeted lead.

10.It's FREE!

How many times does it need to be said? You may not have an English degree, but you don't have a massive marketing budget either. Writing and submitting articles is a technique anyone can use to get free web site promotion.

About the Author:

Cindy Dykstra is a web designer and developer and owns Article-DirectorySite.com an article directory providing you with free content to use on your web site, blog, ezine or newsletter. Free article submission and RSS feeds too! Visit http://www.article-directorysite.com today!