Article Marketing for Fat Checks and Customers

Article marketing when done correctly can be highly profitable. All online businesses need two elements to be successful. They are profits and customers. Effective article marketing can piece the two together. This explains why article marketing is such a powerful marketing technique.

The power of article marketing lies in building credibility and preselling to your readers who are also your potential customers. Attracting readers to your articles is as important as writing one in order for article marketing to work. We will look at some critical elements or ingredients that go into effective article writing and article promotion.

1. Content Research

Writing an article requires proper planning and research. Some authors simply rattle off their thoughts and create tons of incoherent content which only martians would understand. Readers cannot understand the article, let alone be pre-sold.

Effective article marketing means that you got to write a topic narrowed down to your target niche. Places like forums and blogs are places where you can observe the people. Read those posts and you probably would find out more about what these folks are searching for. Uncover the problems they face and compile them. Write your articles to address the problem and you would have faithful readers. Remember credibility is important. Your readers are happy that they found answers and they are now more ready to be pre-sold.

2. Article Title

Article title plays a pivotal role in article marketing. Your visitors are likely to come from the search engines or the article directories. The first contact they have with you is your article title. Even if your article enjoys search engine love and ranks high for your keyword, if your title stinks, no one would read it. It is thus important to create interesting articles that would pull readers like a magnet.

Article titles with words like review, guide, tips or hot tips and how to are excellent attention-grabbers. Add a little bit of creativity to create suspense and curiosity. Suggest the benefits they would have if they read your articles. For example, Article Marketing Hot Tips for Instant Profits.

3. Article Content

Article marketings objective is to presell and build a relationship with your readers but you do not want to hurry the process. I have seen too many sales pitch style of writing. This is the surest way to drive traffic not to your website but away. Give your readers good and honest informational content that would help them and be consistent in the quality of your articles. Article marketing is a long-term strategy and would prove to be your most powerful traffic-building technique.

4. Article Promotion through Resource Box

Article marketing allows for direct promotion of products or services in the resource box. The resource box is where you introduce yourself as the author and your website. A lot of people do not know if they should promote their products in the article body or resource box. Most article directories restrict the number of links and most do not allow links in the article body. Since you are not doing your sales pitch in your article body, do so in the resource box which is permitted by almost all article directories. Do not post more than 2 links.

Remember one more tip, that is, to promote a relevant product.

5. Article Distribution

This is the final step of article marketing article distribution which is also the most critical one. You need to gain maximum exposure for your articles by distributing to as many free article directories as possible. However, manual article submission can be a real pain. You can be spending the whole day starting from morning to sunset to submit to 100 over article directories. Alternatively, you can always invest in article submission tools that automate the whole dreadful task for you.

Article marketing can be a huge traffic dynamo that would boost your website traffic and sales to incredible levels. Discover at my blog how many article marketers like myself are making great income using article marketing.

Davion is a successful webmaster and author. Discover more about effective article marketing and read reviews of top article submission software and find out how these tools can drive instant and continuous traffic to your website at http://Article-Submission-Software.blogspot.com.

Article Marketing - The Power Of Article Marketing For High Search Engine Rankings

Article marketing is a highly effective method for dominating the search engines. I know, because I personally use it and some of sites have received some pretty outrageous rankings that bring me a nice passive income stream.

The reason why article marketing is great for search engine marketing is because of the sites articles are often posted on. Article directories like EzineArticles are generally considered as authority sites by Google and Yahoo. Submitting your articles to these article directories gives you the potential to gain high quality backlinks.

What you'd want to do to gain these high quality links is to include your anchor text link in your author's resource box. Some article directories allow multiple links so you can use those too.

Another way to get into the search engine rankings is via the articles themselves. If you write a keyword-optimized article, you can get your article itself ranked highly in the search engines. Have your main keyword phrase in your title at least once (include it twice for a more powerful effect) and have it sprinkled in your article in a few times. Don't overdo it as the search engine spiders will think of it as keyword spamming and penalize your article. It has also been tested and proven that having the keyword phrase at least once or twice in the opening paragraph increases the chance of the article ranking well for that keyword in the search engines.

There you go..now you know how to get high search engine rankings from article marketing. All that's left to do is to act now and start marketing your articles.

Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of the popular 51-page Report:

"Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!"

Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before it's gone!

How To Do Ezine Marketing

Ezine marketing does not require any money to get started. It is not complicated, but it does require work. The basic process is:

1. Find a product that has an affiliate program
2. Do a "long tail" keyword search.
3. Write an article, using the keywords, to be put in an Ezine.
4. Put links in the article that link to the product you are affiliated with. (Be sure to follow the website guide lines for submission.)
5. Submit the article to article web sites.
6. Repeat.

Do not let the simplicity fool you. There are many people making a full time income doing this process. It does take time and persistence. You will need submit many articles and keep submitting them to keep the income flowing.

Additional steps are to put up your own website and start collecting opt-ins. You can populate your website with the articles you have already written and/or create eBooks to sell.

Utilize your op ins, emailing them AT LEAST two times a week. You don't send them a pitch every time. You write to them about their problems and how you can help. Give them links to Youtube videos, articles and resources that they can enjoy and use.

Ezine marketing is the basis from which you can build into other profit making ventures. You can then do the one time offers, the large back-end offers, producing your own products if you wish, joint ventures, thank you pages, video etc. Any one of those can greatly increase your profits.

You will know from the success of the articles, which niches are most profitable. Now that you have hard solid numbers to work with, you can do those other things you have been hearing about. You will be able to do PPC, Banners, Joint ventures, etc. All of these HINGE on having a profitable model in the first place. Ezine marketing will give you the foundation to be a success at these other ventures.

Paul Steuart is a computer professional and internet marketer. Want find a help with internet marketing? See Make Make Money Online

Article Writing or Article Marketing - Do Both

Article authors are interesting creatures if you study the way that they operate on online article submission websites. Some say that there are two-types; those who write for the sake of writing and those who write to sell something online. Article Writers and Article Marketers, so which one are you?

If we separate the categories of types of writers in this venue into only two categories, even though there are many, we still get some interesting comparisons. I very much like this thought and examination between to distinct types of article authors that participate here. In considering only these two types of article authors, I have a thought.

What if an Article Marketer is only concerned with one thing - traffic. Then often they will resort to key words which are in and around mass media appeal, thus they end up blending to what is, rather than what could be. This means current public perception of each domain and subject is being re-enforced to the point of nausea.

Not good or bad, and I certainly make no judgment, as I see many article authors who write some of both types of articles often enough, if a writer also understands article marketing, they stand to impact a lot more people getting them to their works in the first place. Perhaps more online video education is needed for the authors here?

Since there are two distinct types of authors in this comparison, what if we blend them together - instead of one or the other allow them to be both? A hybrid article author might be best for all concerned?

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

Affiliate Marketing Business - Avoid These Three Things

Many times you see titles for articles that talk about the best of something. This is always a good idea because people like to be associated with the best. When it comes to starting an affiliate marketing business most people fail to do so because they do not pick the right products to sell.

In this article we will look at 3 mistakes you can make when it comes to working with your affiliate marketing business. Not so much specific businesses, but more general ideas to avoid when you first get started.

1. Starting a portal website is not the best way to get started in affiliate marketing. A portal website sells many different types of products as opposed to specializing in just one. Cars would be an example of a broad theme and a narrow theme would be car parts. And even more narrow theme would be Cadillac car parts.

The mistake that people make is they try to sell to many different things, as opposed to specializing when they first start out in their affiliate marketing business.

2. Another mistake people make is they do not choose a market that can be profitable for them. The best way to make money with affiliate marketing is to identify a problem, determine that people are seeking ways to solve that problem, and then help them do it.

An example of that would be how to stop sweating. This is a problem that many people face, and you could sell an information product that helps them deal with that. Clickbank offers e-books that you can sell and earn commissions on. You could find a stop sweating ebook to sell from them.

3. One of the most common affiliate marketing business mistakes is using the replicated website that comes from the merchant. Many times this is bad for you because the sales copy of the affiliate website is poor. Another reason you do not want to do that is you are not differentiating yourself from the thousands of other affiliates using the exact same website.

One way to sell more products in affiliate marketing is to try and be different. Creating your own website and putting your personal testimonial on it is a much better way to make money selling their products.

These are three of the worst mistakes you can make with your affiliate marketing business. If you want to be successful you must create a narrow theme website, solve people's problems, and do it with your own website. Only then will you have a chance to make money selling other people's products.

William Hutchinson invites you to visit his affiliate internet marketing business website for the top affiliate marketing programs. If you need help starting your own business at home or help to grow your current business please visit his website here now:===> http://www.hutchesaffiliatemarketing.com

Jewelery Marketing Plan - Business Growth Strategies Part 2

In a recent article we talked about "buying customers" as the definition of marketing.

Yes, you can measure specifically and precisely - virtually to the penny - what you pay to acquire the typical new customer. And you should, because it will help you make better decisions about how you invest your marketing dollars, and give you a position of power when negotiating with media and other marketing channels.

The same formula can be employed when calculating what it costs you to re-acquire a customer you have already once bought.

Mr. Miller's car dealership pays more than a salesman's commission in marketing dollars to send that car out the door. There's an allocation for national advertising, an allocation for the regional dealer group that advertises jointly, and an allocation for the dealer's local advertising budget. All tolled the marketing budget for a single car runs into the hundreds of dollars.

But it could be a lot less, if Mr. Miller allocated by CUSTOMER, rather than by car.

Focusing on Your Existing Customers

Consider this. Mr. Miller spends - oh, let's hypothetically say, $360.00 - on the advertising required to sell a car. Or better yet, let's say to bring in one buyer. If he follows the lead of the typical dealer and past practices, he'll continue to do the same kind of media advertising week after week, and year after year, and hope that when it's time to buy another car, the customer who bought the first one will come to him again.

Frequent Friendly Communication

On the other hand, what if Mr. Miller adopted the practice of sending a greeting card to that buyer once a month, and did so each and every month. Sometimes the card would simply be a greeting. Happy birthday or anniversary; Happy Holidays or Happy New Year. Other times, Mr. Miller might make offers to the customer. It might be for service work, or to actually consider another car purchase. On occasion, he might simply recommend other products and services in the area that might bring added value to the lives of his customers.

If it actually cost him two full dollars to print and mail each one of these greeting cards - a very high price indeed - Mr. Miller could send the cards for 180 consecutive months. That's 15 YEARS worth of contact and customer relationship building before it would have cost him his full allocation, to get that customer to come back and buy again.

How To Secure Customer Relationships

Now, we know that the typical buyer is in the market to buy another car every two to three years. By following the "re-acquisition" approach we are recommending, Mr. Miller no longer leaves to chance whether he'll get that customer back again. He virtually GUARANTEES it, because he has built a relationship, rather than merely advertised.

The most important thing to remember in this scenario is the dramatically reduced cost of re-acquisition, compared to the original cost to buy the customer. If it takes him a full three years to get this buyer back, at his $2.00 a month investment, he will have spend just $72.00. What happens to the other $288.00? Why that's profit for Mr. Miller.

This is what we call "re-buying" your existing customers at "wholesale" rather than "retail" rates.

Most everybody knows it's far easier and less expensive to keep your existing customers than it is to buy new ones. It's far easier and cheaper, and more profitable to get your existing customers to return than it is to constantly have to buy new ones.

Still, few businesses have "frequency of purchase" marketing programs, specifically designed to get customers to come back in. They allocate few, if any dollars to this specific purpose, and they leave their existing customer promotions to the "afterthought" category.

What an incredible, inexcusable blunder!

Why would Mr. Miller - or you, for that matter - want to spend $360.00 to get a customer back in the door, when he could do it easier, for $72 or less?

Re-acquisition of existing customers is so much less expensive and so much more profitable, that at some point, if you really concentrate on it, you can all but eliminate that expensive, full retail-priced new customer acquisition stuff, and strictly go for re-buying those wholesale-priced customers.

Here's What You Do...

Specifically, here are our recommendations for you and Mr. Miller...

• Make frequency of purchase marketing programs the number one priorities on your list of marketing initiatives.Once you acquire new customers, do whatever it takes to convert them into "clients" with whom you have an on-going relationship. You want them to see you as "their car dealer", "their plumber", "their podiatrist", or "their jeweler." Contact your existing customer base at least six times a year, preferably monthly. It doesn't have to be a solicitation every time, but it should be most of the time. Remember, if you fail to ask your customers to buy, they'll fail to continue to be your customers.
• Allocate up to 50% of your marketing budget to your existing customer base, if you're an existing business that sells a consumable product. And we do consider automobiles a consumable. (We've worked with a company that sells bird feeders through a franchise operation. They put a lifetime guarantee on their feeders. It may only be a $20 to $50 item, but it's not a consumable, because customers never have to buy another. Of course, the seed they sell is consumable. Cars, on the other hand are about shot after three or four years, despite their sky high price tags, so they are consumables.)
• Have private sales.
• Use bounce back offers.
• Use frequent buyer cards or clubs.

Don't be afraid to sink this much of your marketing budget into your existing customer base. This is such a profitable thing to do, you'll still be able to do all the new customer marketing you want, using the surplus profits you rake in from shifting your marketing emphasis to this re-acquisition strategy.

Consider using up to 25% of your budget to solicit new customers from the existing customer bases of other non-competing businesses who have your same kind of customers, and to whom you would pay a small commission only when one of their customers also becomes one of yours.

Finally, the value of an existing customer is so great, make sure all employees understand it, and empower them to make existing customers happy. And make sure you have a system in place to re-activate dormant customers.

Obviously, those starting out in business, or who simply don't have enough existing customers or a consumable product line, must concentrate on buying new customers. But as soon as you get those new ones, you must have a program in place to get them back and get them back more often, for a longer period of time.

Derek Viveiros is a Certified Marketing Coach who teaches the principles of marketing to small-medium sized business owners. He has helped business owners dramatically increase revenues with his unique one-on-one coaching style. Keep your mind on marketing your business everyday with the Daily 30 Second marketing tip. Click here for your free registration.

http://www.moremoneymoreoften.com/

Jim Ackerman is President of Ascend Marketing, Inc. of Salt Lake City. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and developer of the Principle-Centered Marketing CoachingTM Program. 2006, Jim Ackerman. All rights reserved

Building an Extraordinary Team

Have you ever participated in a team or led a team that delivered less than stellar results? If you've had this experience-and most of us have- then your team was likely missing one or more of the characteristics of high functioning teams. A high functioning team can accomplish things a group of independently functioning individuals can never accomplish. This is hardly earth shattering news. So if highly functioning teams are so important, why do so few teams deliver results?

As the Total Quality Management movement gained momentum in the United States in the 1980's, there was a heightened focus on teams. Teams were often used as a forum for surfacing ideas on process improvements that would help manufacturing become more efficient, and when these process teams were successful, an additional benefit of teams was realized: teams could also help improve employee engagement and satisfaction. Eventually, companies grew to understand that happy employees created happy customers, and while the emphasis on teaming remained, the strategic reason for teams was often forgotten. Teams were often formed only as a "feel good" device to make management feel like they were doing something. As a result, individuals and organizations became increasingly dissatisfied with the teaming process.

In cases where teams don't work, it's often because team members have been chosen based on availability instead of specific skills and abilities. And many times, teams are assembled as a way to keep the troops happy by providing them a forum to provide input, without a full organizational commitment to translate their input into something meaningful. These approaches are a waste of time.

In his best selling book, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team," Patrick Lencioni uses the story of a fictional team to elegantly illustrate five very simple characteristics that must be present for a team to be fully functional. Ensuring the presence of these characteristics will help ensure that the collective work product delivered by your team will be extraordinary.

The Heartbeat of an Extraordinary Team

Often when a team comes together the primary motivators of team members are to impress, protect, judge or criticize. Because they operate with the assumption that "it's a jungle out there" and they feel pressure to be perfect, people are conditioned to value strength, power and results. Weakness, vulnerability or mistakes are to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, when "strength" and "power" rule, there is no ability to assemble on neutral territory, admit to the unknown and create solutions from a place of learning rather than share answers from a place of knowing.

What is missing is trust. The basic element of trust is the heartbeat that continuously feeds and nurtures teams. Trust allows team members to shift to a place of collective learning that's critical to the success of a team. Trust is so fundamental to the team process that without it, a team cannot be successful. Regrettably, ensuring an atmosphere of trust is often overlooked.

Here's what happens in teams without trust:

People avoid conflict and don't say what they really think in a misguided attempt to maintain harmony. Unfortunately, all this does is send conflict underground, allowing passive aggressive behavior and secret agendas to flourish.

People fear retribution for articulating an opinion outside of what's generally accepted in the organization. Thus they either learn to "tow the party line" or find another job.

Individuals conceal their weaknesses and mistakes due to a focus on defending themselves and/or advancing their careers. This prevents members from engaging in healthy dialogue and debate which inhibits the development of creative solutions.

People judge and criticize in an attempt to protect their individual power base.

Building Trust as the Cornerstone for Extraordinary Teams

Without trust, the other four dysfunctions of a team are allowed to flourish. It prevents healthy conflict and makes it virtually impossible for the team to realize the benefits of comparing and contrasting different opinions in an environment of respect and healthy debate. When potential issues-be they technical or interpersonal- are not aired, real commitment to a decision or plan of action cannot take place. Team members simply pay lip service to agreed upon goals and do their own thing anyway. When they don't really buy into the group goals, they avoid accountability both for themselves and other team members. They avoid accountability because they are not sure what is expected of themselves or their co-workers. This creates an environment where each member becomes more focused on their own career than the results of the group. And obviously, you can't have a successful team if each member is more focused on their own goals than the team goals.

The Role of the Leader

The executive team or team leader plays a crucial role in determining the success of a team. How they behave sets the tone for the rest of the team. In order to create an environment of trust, the team leader must be willing to be vulnerable. They must be willing to take risks in order to show other team members that it is safe to do so.

Taking risks makes room for healthy conflict but the team leader needs to be careful not to immediately jump in when things get heated. The leader needs to have a healthy tolerance for respectful, and sometimes emotional debate. If the leader shuts down conflict, team members learn that conflict is "dangerous" and don't develop the ability to drive through the conflict that is an inevitable part of developing creative solutions.

The leader must also ensure a consistent focus on results. If team members feel there is an over focus on keeping peace, protecting sacred cows, or burying potentially negative issues, they will read it as permission to do the same.

What You Can Do to Turn the Tide

Establishing trust first requires that team leadership, whether formal or informal, authentically models vulnerability and risk taking. Secondly, a process involving an intentional focus on creating trust will help build the cornerstone that leads to achieving extraordinary results. Some ideas for the process include:

Personal sharing of individual stories in a way that the team learns both the unique talents as well as the personal triumphs and challenges of individual members.

Personality and Behavioral Preference Profiles. Popular tools and assessments for this include DiSC, Meyers Briggs (MBTI) and Birkman. These types of assessments provide a non-threatening way for people to understand the strengths, weaknesses, thinking styles and communication styles of each team member. They help teams come to appreciate the differences among them.

360 Degree Feedback An experienced coach can interview individual team members and debrief the overall team on concerns, fears, opportunities and other themes and patterns that exist within the team. When shared in the appropriate way, a coach can help a team use these collective insights to build a solid foundation of trust.

Extraordinary teams are not created by accident. Although they may have a high level of conflict they also have a high level of trust. They also have strong leaders who can both model team behavior and allow a certain level of trust. Read Patrick Lencioni's book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" to learn more about you and your team can achieve the results you want.

Copyright (c) 2006 Tim Link

Tim Link is an executive coach and management consultant with a record of successfully guiding leaders and organizations from small business through Fortune 50 to increased employee productivity and satisfaction. Link Resource Group provides customized business coaching, consulting and leadership training programs, both large and small. http://www.LinkResourceGroup.net