Is Article Marketing Hard To Do? Part 2

In case you missed Part 1, the checklist and mind map are here

Step 3—After you’ve decided what purpose the article will serve, you need to look at your “action information."  Those are your keywords, resource box and article length. 

Determine:

-Which keywords am I promoting?

-How long should the article be? —No less than 400 for most newsletters

-What should I put in my resource box—your name and company name; website address; and blog address; the call to action that relates to the purpose of this article. So if it’s lead generation for a specific product, you need to have the call to action say something like—

"Email us today to get a discount coupon for our new line of audio speakers"

Step 4—What type of article will serve my purpose best?  Five common ones are: Tip lists; Question and answer format; Problem and solution; Industry trend; Research article

Step 5. —Submit your article

Use an article submission company so you spend the time writing and working on your business. 

And don't forget!

Repurpose the content you alredy have:

-Create a mind map outlining the content on your website and see which topics lend themselves to articles

-Take your white papers and rewrite them as a consumer article

-Take the questions your customers ask you and turn them into an article

-Take the questions you find in forums and use them in an article

-Poll your customers and ask them what business problem they struggle with and use that

-Start to blog and use a blog post as a jumping off point for an article

Technorati tags: article+writing article+marketing internet+marketing articles search+engine+optimization web+traffic

Comments

[Daniel Mcgonagle]

It isn't that hard if you actually know how to. You must obtain a good list of article submission sites with high PR for starters. And you're right about that part, outsource, have someone else do the work for you. :)

[Submit Article]

Hi Stephanie

You've got some great tips here.

I've also found you can recycle press releases as articles (and vice versa) without too much rewriting.

The more you can reuse content in this way with some minor rewriting, the better.

Steve

[Michael Stelzner]

Hi Stephanie;

Your comment about turning white papers into articles is a compelling one. It is one of the big value propositions I talk about with clients when discussing white papers. The fact that much of the self promotional elements common in a white paper can be stripped out and the content can be contributed to a trade publication as a contributed article.

Mike