Utilizing Article Marketing

Article marketing is a form of advertising that uses short articles and informational writings related to a business' industry. Typically, these articles will be attached by a prominent text or picture box giving the business' name and contact information. Article marketing is a great way of keeping your business relevant to other companies and clients while also providing information that is helpful. Article marketing's main goal is to advertise and keep a business' name relevant so when a client or other business needs their services, the name is available.

How to utilize Article Marketing for your business

1. Identify your products, services, and clients

The first step before you can begin article marketing is to identify what your business produces, what services you provide, and who your client base is. Understanding all of these factors will help you determine what type of articles you should write and at what technical level your article needs to be. If your business works primarily with other business professionals or other highly educated clients, your articles will need to be much more in depth in order to keep their attention. If your client base is the general public, your articles will need to be kept at a more simple level in order to keep their attention.

2. Consider your budget

Article marketing will require both financial and time commitment in order to correctly use it. Articles that will be sent through traditional mail or given to clients in hard copy require funds to have published and printed in a professional manner. If your budget does not allow it or it does not make sense to use traditional mail, you can always use electronic mail to send your articles, however you run the risk of having them easily deleted from email.

3. Develop your Article Marketing plan

After having determined who your articles will be sent to, how you will send them, and within what budget you must work, you can start to develop your plan for article marketing. You must plan on how you will get your articles. You have the choice of purchasing articles from professional sources, however this may be a very expensive option.

Having yourself or an employee who is familiar with your business can be the best option for writing the articles that will be used. However, you must ensure that you or your employee has the time and ability to write interesting and professional articles. Your articles should be written either focusing on your business or your industry. You can write about updates to your business, new clients you have obtained, or new products and services that you can provide. Likewise, you can write about interesting stories about your industry and exciting new technology.

4. Putting your Article Marketing into effect

Finally, once you have your plan in place, the money allocated for it, and your delivery method chosen, you now have to execute. You will need to obtain all of the necessary hardware and software if you are writing the articles yourself and using the internet as your delivery. Word processing programs, such as Microsoft Word or Word Perfect are essential for writing professional articles. Newsletter software is also available, which will help put your articles into a readable form and send it out to clients. “SendBlaster” is one such brand of online newsletter software and many other options are available.

Legal Issues

You must be careful that you meet all regulatory requirements for writing business articles and newsletters. One of the most important regulations that may apply to your company is that you have to identify if you are sending this as an advertisement or as a legitimate informative newsletter that customers subscribe. Contact a legal professional with experience helping businesses develop their marketing plans while complying with all applicable laws and regulations.

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