Smart Article Marketing Strategy

Article marketing is a great way to build your online business but having an article marketing strategy makes it even better. You can focus your articles to give the results you desire and increase their effectiveness.

Some of the benefits of a good article marketing strategy:

• Article marketing is a good way to increase online visibility
• Articles boost your credibility
• It integrates well with other web real estate
• It is flexible (you can write on many topics or write many articles on focused topics)
• It can boost online earnings potential significantly

Below you will find some of the key steps to developing a good article marketing strategy.

Before you begin writing articles, it's important to know what are your overall business marketing goals, and marketing goals can only be understood when you understand how your business makes money.

Do you want to sell affiliate products or your own products? Are you selling services? Will you sell directly from your website or blog, or from your list? Will you have your own affiliates?

How do you plan to make money?

When you know how you will make money, you can develop your style. Some people market directly to the sale--their marketing is about getting people to buy and they are expert at getting people to take action. Other people inform and educate and establish their reputation as an expert. When they sell, it is more like advising than selling. Others love to entertain. Their big personality sells because they are so charismatic.

Put these 2 pieces together--your money source and your business style--and you will find your marketing goals.

• If you want to be an expert, your marketing must showcase how much you know. Your articles will be informative and substantive.
  
• If you are edgy and entertaining, your articles will be showy. You might suggest unusual solutions or bring up controversial issues.
  

Your marketing goals must support your business and your article marketing strategy is part of your overall marketing goals.

You've got your marketing goals. You know how article marketing will fit into your business.

Now you need to get more specific.

Write it down!

I'm sure you've heard people advise that you write your marketing strategy down. They weren't joking. I'm a strong advocate of writing down all my marketing plans. Writing my plan helps me make it concrete, helps me see its weaknesses, and gives me a plan to refer back to. With so many distractions in running a business, it's easy to lose your way. My advice: Write your article marketing strategy down!

What are some common goals for article marketing?

• Sell affiliate products
• Sell your own products & services
  
• Inform and educate
• Entertain
• Funnel leads onto your list
• Backlinks for your website or blog

Many times an article will fulfill 2 or more goals, however I caution you about getting too complicated. For example, if you want to sell products and collect leads on your list, you have 2 different calls to action in the same article and that requires skill to be effective. Instead, consider separate articles, each with its own goal and its own call to action.

When you finish writing your article, reread it specifically asking yourself if it meets your goal. If you can't decide, have someone else read it and see what they think.

Writing articles automatically benefits your business, but with a smart article marketing strategy, the benefits are even greater. Use your strategy to develop a specific goal for each article.

Here are some clear steps to creating solid articles for your article marketing strategy.

1. Start with your smart marketing plan. Review your plan before writing and create an outline for your article that meets your marketing goals.
   
2. Keyword research. Research keywords to find profitable keywords for your article.
3. Make sure your "money sources" are properly set up. If you are using a blog to sell from, it should be complete. If you are gathering names for your list, have your opt-in boxes tested and operational.
4. Start writing! Write strong articles using reliable "white hat" techniques. Ignore this step at your own peril. Most people use poor article writing techniques or 'spinning' -- it is very important to take the time and do it right.
   

Does this sound like a lot of work for each article?

Unique Article Wizard (UAW) is a great tool to take a good, well written article and multiply its effectiveness on the internet. UAW is one of the very few article distribution services that actually uses good solid 'white hat' techniques.

It should be the part of any article marketing strategy. Your Smart Marketing Toolkit should include Unique Article Wizard.

Resources to help you with your article marketing:

• Unique Article Wizard - This tool multiplies your writing efforts by building article variation and effectively distributing it all over the internet. They use a very unique approach to article distribution which means that more of your articles get accepted and published. More articles published means more online exposure, more backlinks, and more traffic.
  
  
• Oprius - This tool integrates your opt-in box, and email campaigns with a customer relationship manager. One tool with multiple uses. An all-in-one tool for improving sales to people that visit your website or blog.
  
  
• Blue Host -This hosting service is the very reliable, easy to use and you won't find better customer service. Use this to host your blog.

Top quality resources means success. Choose your tools wisely when you implement your marketing plan.