ARTICLE MARKETING

Remember the article you read online about that great newly released sports car or a review of a high-end vacation getaway? Or maybe you scrolled through the blog post about a new diet that promised to melt away fat if you just followed it exactly. All of these articles were likely part of a larger campaign known as article marketing. (See also Web Marketing)

ARTICLE MARKETING

Article marketing is one of the oldest strategies used by online marketers to acquire new visitors and increase sales on their websites. The practice typically involves writers and publishers as primary participants, with article marketing services working as intermediaries that help match writers with interested publishers.

Article marketers are often entrepreneurs who contract their services to online news sources, other independent writers and online publishers, bloggers, industry trade magazines, or other topic-specific journals. In most cases, article marketers and writers belong to a number of online marketing services that specialize in matching article writers with publishers for a fee.

Article marketing is highly customizable, allowing it to meet the needs of a wide array of prospective customer bases. These days, most consumers conduct research online, which provides direct, low-cost access to millions of potential customers. By providing relevant, timely content about a topic or subject, any company selling any type of service or product can reach their target market and develop new sales opportunities with the right content.

Article marketing campaigns are based on content relevancy. The goal is to attract the highest quality, organic backlinks to other popular (and related) websites to help boost traffic. Organic links and natural search results provide approximately six times the amount of traffic that paid search advertising does. Therefore, a properly executed article marketing campaign can potentially attract millions of new visitors at virtually no cost. (See also Search Marketing)

Writers use dedicated bylines, a link to their content, and a few description lines to easily show readers and potential publishing partners what their article is about. Promoting their articles helps writers gain increased exposure by making their content easily reproducible by a multitude of other parties online. The increased exposure helps generate new links to their sites that boost search engine results further and lead to future writing opportunities.

Marketing and social media managers work with executive-level officers to create, promote, and execute programs such as online collaboration tools, membership materials, and thought-leadership content. In this role, managers often are responsible for directing guest post article submission and publication processes, as well as scheduling and executing publicity campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

Copywriters and content developers create web-based content which include website copy, blog posts, press releases, articles, email newsletters, and more. Projects come in all shapes and sizes, but all are intended to help business owners accurately measure and track their advertising and marketing strategies and generate more leads and sales from their website.

Operating as part of the branding team, a social media strategist is responsible for monitoring social media conversations and interaction, including publishing and distribution of contributed articles.

Marketing professionals are expected to understand modern marketing techniques and technologies. Without this basic knowledge, individuals may struggle with implementing a successful article marketing campaign. A marketing degree provides a structured learning environment to help future marketing professionals better understand the relationship between Internet technologies and marketing principles.

In marketing education programs, students learn the basics of business communication, consumer behavior, and market research analysis, among other topics. Through hands-on projects and extensive research, students gain an in-depth understanding of how to analyze data of existing marketing campaigns and use consumer behavior profiles to adapt marketing efforts for maximum value.

Marketing degree programs also offer a highly creative, innovative environment, giving students all the skills they need to craft effective messages that reach their target audiences. Marketing students are encouraged to explore creative ways to deliver their message for the greatest impact and return on the investment of marketing dollars. They learn to identify new content distribution channels and to adapt the tone and tenor of a campaign to be more relevant to a target audience.

These skills are transferrable to the business world and are essential to launching or managing a successful article marketing campaign. Marketers must be able to quickly analyze campaign performance and either modify the content or the overall strategy on the fly to deliver better returns. (See also Marketing Data Analyst)

Understanding how and why consumers seek out specific content allows article and social media professionals to focus on sourcing content specifically relevant to those needs. By identifying specific market segments and their desired content, marketing professionals can compile trusted sources of content for each vertical niche. This allows marketers to develop a delivery schedule to provide consumers with timely, relevant content that keeps the business moving forward.

With our Article Marketing tips, you can increase the visibility of your targeted keywords, attract more inbound links, optimize traffic for long-tail keywords, make your site more searchable, increase awareness, generate leads, and conversions. According to Aberdeen conversion rates are nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (2.9% vs 0.5%).

While it sounds pretty smooth and straightforward to make articles available to your audience, the reality is the opposite. On the inside, the process requires a lot of hard work, management, and preparation before it goes viral.

1. Identify your market niche. Your niche will determine the type of articles you write since all articles you publish as part of your marketing strategy should testify to your experience and inspire Internet users interested in your particular product, service, or topic to visit your site. For example, if your website is a cryptocurrency blog, all your articles should be relevant to this topic.

2. Choose article titles. The headlines you use are extremely important when it comes to attracting viewers and improving your search engine optimization (SEO), so you should exercise caution when choosing them. There are several factors that go into creating strong SEO-optimized headlines:

3. Write quality articles. Your article marketing will be as effective as the articles themselves because low-quality articles are less likely to grab attention and lead visitors to your site:

5. Submit articles to article directories. Search online article directories to find sites that will accept and publish your articles. Include both niche and general terms in your searches to find many suitable sites to submit.

6. Write guest posts for blogs. Find blogs relevant to your niche and ask them whether they accept guest posts. When you find blogs that want to introduce you as a guest writer, submit high-quality articles with your bio and link.

Content marketing is in its infancy compared to television and film, but some of the best writers and publications in our industry have already crafted articles that we revere as the Friends or Forrest Gump of the space.

Marketing as it was originally intended, in its fullest, truest, and greatest form, is more important today than ever before. The world is awash in innovative products, services, technologies, solutions, business models, etc. today. These new offerings must be brought to market and commercialized in order to generate revenue and profit. Innovation alone cannot sustain a company; it must be paired with marketing.

The marketing function can and should overcome such challenges. Marketing involves considering and addressing the entire customer experience, it provides the right context for people to understand the innovation, and it helps identify new partners and channels necessary to engage with customers at the right place, time, and manner.

I am a professor at Hult Business School & CEO of the neuro-marketing bootcamp company PopNeuro.com. I am also the author of the neuromarketing book Blindsight. Previously, I've has held dual roles as the U.S. Director of Consumer Marketing and Global Director of B2B Marketing for OFX, a publicly-traded FinTech company handling over $100B in international payments.

To Pumpco, marketing means selling things and collecting money; to Gluco, marketing means building relationships with its customers. The way the two companies handled two simple customer requests reflects the questions that customers increasingly ask in interactions with all kinds of businesses, from airlines to software makers: Which company is competent, responsive, and well organized? Which company do I trust to get it right? Which company would I rather do business with?

In a world of mass manufacturing, the counterpart was mass marketing. In a world of flexible manufacturing, the counterpart is flexible marketing. The technology comes first, the ability to market follows. The technology embodies adaptability, programmability, and customizability; now comes marketing that delivers on those qualities. 041b061a72