Is article marketing not working for you? If it’s not, then ask yourself whether it’s really part of your overall strategy? Have you set a clear intention for your article marketing? Is it an extension of your expertise? Does it lead fluidly to your web site? This video is the 2nd in the series I put together on article marketing and explores why article marketing might not be working for you and how to remedy that.
Not having much luck with your article marketing? In this video I share a few reasons why your article marketing might not be working for you. One of the primary reasons for poor article marketing results is that you’re not writing enough articles. Another reason is that you haven’t keyword optimized your articles. Be sure to do your keyword research and include your keyword phrase in your title, in your summary and somewhere in the body of your article.
This video is the first in a multi-part series on achieving better results from article marketing. Be sure to get a free writer account at IdeaMarketers.com if you don’t already have one.
If you’re trying to court the media, you may find her to be elusive, difficult and fickle.
But, even if your media attempts have been less than desirable, don’t despair, there are several proven ways to catch the media’s eye and undivided attention.
Here are seven concepts that the media will always love:
1) Newsworthy Stories. The media is always looking for fresh, interesting and news-worthy stories. So stay away from boring, stale stories that only you (or your mother) care about.
2) Sex, Health and Money. This famous trio will always create interest and curiosity. If you can connect your small business story to sex, health or money, you’ll have the media eating out of the palm of your hand.
If you’re looking for a way to launch a public relations campaign, look no further than the Online Media Kit.
Creating an online media kit allows both prospects and the media a chance to discover “behind-the-scenes” information about you and your small business.
In addition, media kits make it virtually painless for journalists, event hosts, radio show producers and bloggers to contact you in order to highlight you and your small business. Plus, it showcases the fact that you are media-friendly, and even more importantly, media-savvy.
Your media kit should be kept on its own separate page on your website. Many small business owners call the page Media, Press or Media Kit. In addition, choose file formats that work on multiple platforms, browsers and computers (i.e. PDF files). There are generally six main components of a well-crafted media kit: 1. Company Overview. Provide important information about your company including when your company was founded, a concise description of your company, your mission statement, guiding principles and contact information.
When you write a press release it’s important that you submit a factual, professional and newsworthy story. If you decide to “bend the rules,” press release distribution services have the right to refuse to accept and run your press release.
Here are ten common reasons why your press release won’t be accepted and distributed:
1) SHOUTING AT YOUR READERS. Avoid using ALL CAPS or exclamation points anywhere in your press release (including the headline)!!! Capitalizing all of your letters or using exclamation points is unprofessional and literally shouts at your reader. (And, by the way, no one likes to be shouted at.)
2) Blatant Advertisements. Press releases are intended to deliver newsworthy stories to their audiences in an objective and non-biased manner. If you’re begging your readers to buy your products or services because they are “the best in the world,” you need to throw your release into the recycle bin and start again.
Active commenting is one of the first signs that a blog has some real life—with it comes more readers, so put in the work it takes to grow this important tool.
Small business owners can easily take advantage of this tool now that so many people know what it is and know how to interact, but…you can do a few things to stimulate this interaction and draw more conversation.
1) Ask for comments. Sometimes just creating a post and inviting your readers to add comments can be just what you need to get them flowing. Commenting is a habit that you need to help build in your readership.
2) Ask questions and seek opinions. From time to time, ask your readers what they think of something or what they have done that works or how they have addressed a particularly challenging situation. You don’t need to have all the answers.
Writing and distributing articles is an extremely effective way of generating leads and building your business. Article marketing is a term that means that you write articles on topics that your target market is interested in and submit them online to search engines.
When people search for advice or information online regarding your topic, a link to your article will pop up. If you are already writing articles for your ezine, you can easily leverage your work by submitting your articles online.
Here’s how it works:
Write an article on a topic your target market commonly has questions about. Submit your article online through an article submission resource such as SubmitYOURArticle.com
Writing valuable content-rich articles for your target market and submitting them to article directories and other publishers is one of the best ways to market your business, become known as an expert in your field, and add subscribers to your list.
For example, if you regularly write an article for your ezine, you can get a lot more mileage out of it if you submit it to article directories and other online publishing services. And making every piece you write work more than once for you is one way to work smarter and not harder. That’s called leverage.
Congratulations to Marnie Pehrson, creator of IdeaMarketers.com, for ten wonderful years serving article writers! You can read more about the IdeaMarketers history on Marnie’s blog. Drop by and offer Marnie your congratulations!
IdeaMarketers is one of the biggest, and one of my favorite, article posting sites, providing great visibility for authors and their articles online. Marnie is also one of my favorite people online — knowledgeable, generous, and with six kids and a dozen online businesses, she’s an inspiration!
IdeaMarketers.com also has a special Expert program that offers additional features including events posting, several topic-specific blogs, monthly training and mastermind calls. For more information, visit the IdeaMarketers Expert Program description page.
I was asked a question recently about re-using your articles…
Are you using the articles you write in your ezine and posting the article on your blog? It’s been recommended to do this, but I’m a little torn.
My response to this -Â a resounding ‘Absolutely!’. This is exactly what I do; in fact I use my article whenever and wherever I can as many times as I need to. Just so that my subscribers don’t feel cheated, the very first time I publish a brand-new article is to my ezine list, so they get to read it first! Thereafter it goes on my blog, I link to it from my website, I submit it to various article directories etc. etc.
