It seems that a lot of people are questioning whether article marketing as a lead generation tool is dying because of video. Here’s real proof that article marketing is alive and kicking:
- Key Organization Founder Denise Landers became a key contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine’s website. Entrepreneur.com receives more than 4 million hits per month! Can you imagine the amount of business she receives by getting her articles published on the site?
- Technology expert Dan Kaplan had his best year in 29 years of business. Dan’s referrals dried up to the point where he thought about shutting down his business and entering early retirement. Now, because of articles, he is known as the distribution technology expert and he is now one of IBM’s top resellers!
- Mark Hyman added article marketing and article submission to his marketing mix – and hit the #2 spot on the New York Times bestseller list
- With just 4 months of article marketing coaching, organizational leadership consultant Skip Weisman received a new $25,000 consulting contract!
- By following the strategies in my online article marketing course, Jason Dove published his book, Crystal Reports Formulas Explained, and sent it from selling zero copies to being number one in its specialist chart on Amazon. He secured a 95,000 euro contract and it allowed him to launch an info product to share his expertise with others and generate a modest passive income.
Now I will admit that video is playing a huge role in internet marketing today. YouTube has become one of the fastest growing sites on the web. And, people are slapping videos on sales pages instead of making prospects read a 10- to 12-page sales letter. But video marketing and article marketing should go hand-in-hand. In fact, for every informative article you write, you should be turning it into video and vice versa. Remember article marketing is about getting the right messages to as many targeted prospects as possible in as many ways as possible.
So I think it’s quite bizarre that people think article marketing is dying. Newspapers still publish articles. All the big news sites are still delivering news. The blogosphere is still growing and ezines are still one of the best marketing tools. I bring in leads every single day from my articles on top websites like About.com and SiteProNews.com. And, because I’m posting articles on my LinkedIn group, I’ve seen my website traffic increase by an additional 18% last month.
So where is the slow death?
I figure it’s because people equate article marketing with distributing to ezinearticles.com, isnare.com, articledashboard.com, etc. With everyone jumping on the bandwagon and many talking about Google slapping duplicate content, the competition on the article directories has become fierce.
For me, article marketing is not dead because I’ve never limited it to that. Article marketing is using articles on your own site, contacting BIG and targeted website/newsletter publishers directly and REALLY getting your content out there, instead of just passively submitting to directories.
Use your articles to your advantage by re-using them in different and unique ways.
7 Ways to Use Your Articles
- Turn your articles into press releases
- You should be blogging every day. And, these blog posts should be automatically posted on your Facebook fanpages, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter account.
- Develop an e-course. You can write a series of articles that you can distribute as an e-course. An e-course, or course by email, is typically a brief lesson sent over several days or weeks. This type of course a very simple way to give away some of what you know so that people get a taste of what it would be like to work with you. You can sell your e-course. Or give it away for free as a marketing promotional tool.
- Create an online publication like HealthyWealthynWise.com, SmallBusinessCEOMagazine.com and InternetMarketingTNT.com!
- For every article you write, create a video and podcast. Now, submit your articles, videos and podcasts to the top websites, ezines, video and podcast directories.
- Create your own Facebook fan page and LinkedIn group. Every article I write for my blog and for article submission, I link to it in my article marketing group and fanpage. As of this writing, my Google Analytics shows an 18% increase in website traffic due to my LinkedIn group and a 5% increase in website traffic due to my Facebook efforts.
- Dominate your niche with your very own resource and article directory. With this directory, you can promote your products, affiliate products or both! You can use your content and ask others to submit their content. You can even make it a reviews site and have others rate products, services and your articles. Make sure you put Adsense on every page. And, do not forget to sell advertising space.
Article Marketing Is Not What It Used to Be
No longer can you submit an article to thousands of article directories and expect the traffic to come pouring in! Whether you're just starting out in article marketing, or you already run an article marketing campaign, you have to learn how it should be done in today's world if you want it to succeed. Over the last couple of years, article marketing and article submission has evolved into a tactical marketing strategy that must be executed properly in order to realize it's full potential.
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Article marketing expert Eric Gruber creates online marketplace opportunities for authors, internet marketers and small business owners who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now you can get started with article marketing fast with Eric’s free instant article writing templates that will help you write articles in 30 minutes or less.
