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Article Marketing 101:
Why Article Marketing?

For want of a better definition, article marketing involves creating and distributing short, informative written content, usually 400-700 words in length. The articles are designed to address the needs of a prospective customer and should ideally leave them smarter than before they read them.

Once you’ve written them, articles can be posted onto your own site, submitted to article directories, published offline or used in any one of another dozen ways. Article marketing is not, however, the same as sending out a press release or writing a sales brochure – principally because the articles are not about you, they are about your customers or prospective customers.

So if they’re not about you, then why should you invest your time and resources into article marketing?

Five Reasons Small Businesses
Should Invest in Article Marketing

It’s great for SEO and links.

If you are interested in attracting people to your website then written content is always going to be an important aspect of your strategy. However you look at it, for great SEO you need plenty of keyword rich content but there’s only so much text you can place on your homepage. Articles offer a solution.

Creating keyword rich, problem solving articles drives traffic to your site via search engines like Google. Let’s say you run a hotel in Timbuktu. Prospective customers might search for the phrase, ‘things to do in Timbuktu’, if your research said that was the case, you could write a simple article called, “10 things to do in Timbuktu”. These kinds of articles are exactly the kinds of results the search engines want to deliver – informative and useful to their end users.

Articles also help create inbound links from other sites. Inbound links not only raise your search engine rankings but also create more inroads into your website for people to find and follow. You can create links by having informative content on your site that other people link to. You can also create links by having your content posted in full on other people’s sites. Great written content, like articles, can do both.

It’s flexible, articles can be reused and repurposed.

All sorts of media need good content. A single article can be used on your site, cut up into a series of blog posts, form the basis of a instructional video or be submitted to your local paper or industry trade magazine.

Great written content also works well as an incentive. If you’re looking for ways to increase subscriber rates or improve the response from your advertising or direct mail efforts, then good written content in the form of articles, tip sheets and white papers can all be used effectively. Try using a free report as the focus of your next ad. All of a sudden, you’re not selling you’re helping.

In other words, one good article can be the basis of any number of marketing efforts.

Article marketing demonstrates your expertise and raises your profile.

People generally aren’t experts in what they buy, so they like to buy from people who are – especially if what your selling is your expertise. Providing consistently high-quality content can position you as a trusted resource – which, in turn, is a short step from being a trusted supplier.

On an even simpler point, if you distribute them effectively, articles help with brand recognition and profile.

It’s an ideal marketing strategy for limited budgets.

If you haven’t got a lot of money to spend then investing time in your marketing will often be preferrable to investing cash. Even if you choose to outsource your article marketing or hire a freelance journalist to get involved, a month’s worth of great articles would cost around the same as a single ad in the local paper.

What’s more, article marketing is something that builds over time – every article you publish adds to your profile and will continue to deliver traffic and inquiries. Compare this with traditional advertising – or even it’s younger cousin PPC advertising. Once you stop paying for your ads, the benefit gained by people seeing it stops. Once you’ve written and distributed an article, the benefits continue.

Article marketing gives the customer exactly what they want.

Remember the old adage, ‘people don’t buy drills, they buy holes in the wall’ (badly paraphrased). Whether they’re Googling for plumbers or trawling the Yellow Pages for bookkeeping services, prospective customers are all in search of solutions. Clearly, what they want to know is how best to solve their problem. What they do not want are sales pitches.

Articles provide you with the perfective opportunity to both answer their problems (meaning people search out your marketing, not avoid it) and demonstrate your ability to solve similar problems (leading to increased profile, reputation and actual customers).

Four BONUS reasons

1. Articles can be the starting point of conversation – the fuel for social media efforts.
2. Articles can help you clarify what you offer and how you think.
3. Articles can lead to other marketing opportunities – like public speaking or being featured as an expert in the media.
4. Articles make your website ’stickier’ and give people a reason to hang around – and come back.

People read the paper for the articles, not for the ads. People search for content online – not for the pop ups and display ads. So, if people want content – and want to avoid advertising – then why as businesses do we continue to force advertising down their throats?

Article marketing is a simple to understand, easy to implement and genuinely effective way to promote your small business – and should be part of every company’s marketing strategy. After all – this is an article you’re reading right now.

What next?

1. You’ve read the Why now read the How of article marketing.
2. Learn more about our article marketing services.
3. Consider subscribing for free to Really Practical Marketing by RSS or email.

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