Marketing Archives - Page 2 of 9

Marketing Ideas For Small Architecture Firms

Small architectural firms have slowly dwindled, being unable to cope with competition from established larger firms. This makes it essential for the existing small architectural firms to have a well-thought-out marketing plan and effective marketing strategies to become successful firms. Some firms have selected a certain niche to specialize in; others have formed alliances with other services to stay in business. With a good marketing strategy they can attain their target goal more easily.

Some Marketing Ideas for Small Architecture Firms:

– Making use of the Internet is a great way to market small architecture firms. By creating a content-rich, visually pleasing and easily navigable website, you can attract a number of clients. You can make your small architectural firm visible to the whole world using the Internet; and if it is keyword-search optimized, your site can be displayed when keyword searches are done by prospective clients, thus making it highly target market-oriented.

– You can also start a free newsletter service asking those who visit your site to subscribe to it, generating leads as well as staying in touch with potential clients.

– Ask for your satisfied customers to put up their testimonials on your website as this may help persuade other clients to consider your firm.

– Permission-based e-mail marketing is a very cost-effective and easy way to market your services online.

– Use carefully planned advertisements that are well planned and that convey the right message to the clients extolling the benefits of choosing your firm. The TV, radio, newspaper, free newspapers, and magazines can be used effectively to advertise your services. Make sure you advertise regularly and effectively. Try advertising in magazines that deal in home decoration or building and construction. Infomercials on TV that are informative as well as portray your firm as trustworthy and capable can help, too.

– Form alliances with other services that complement your business, in which they can refer you and get a commission from you for doing so.

– Work out deals with local real estate agents who may recommend you to people who are in need of your services.

– Offer excellent customer service, since nothing can compare to word-of-mouth advertisements. Your firm has to appear dependable and experienced and promise them quality work, but make sure you keep your promise.

– Market research and competitive analysis have to be done frequently to stay ahead of your competition and to counter any of their strategies.

– Keep track of how your client heard of you, since it can help give you valuable insight as to which advertising media is working for you and which area is not that effective so that you can allot appropriate funds to the various media.

You can use these tips and many more for getting new clients for your firm. If required you can even take the services of professional marketing consultants and business management software for managing and developing your business.

Is Network Marketing Recession Proof?

If we want to be realistic, we know that people from all over the world are being affected by this tough economy. Jobs and businesses that were once secure are now disappearing all over the place, and too many folks are losing their retirement funds and savings.

Which is making a lot of people start thinking about and looking for a way to make more money to add to their diminished income, or to replace the paycheck they no longer get. But how does someone figure out what is recession proof?

With all the media about the bad economy, it makes you wonder if there is an industry that isn’t being affected by the recession. Network marketing is not only unaffected, but has its greatest growth during rough economic times.

We’ve seen in history that network marketing is one of the best recession proof businesses you can be in when times are tough. Home based businesses and the internet marketing industry are growing during this recession, and are predicted to produce many new millionaires over the next several years because of the opportunities available.

Fortune magazine has called network marketing “the best kept secret in the business world”. This industry has experienced nearly a 100% growth in the last ten years, and business experts and economists have already predicted that the next 10 years will be a continuous growth boom for the direct sales/network marketing and internet marketing industries. Even Warren Buffet has purchased network marketing companies, and Donald Trump has started his online Trump University.

Two of the wealthiest men in the U.S. are investing in or creating internet/home businesses, and that’s because they see that the network marketing and internet marketing areas of the economy are booming and will continue to boom. Robert Kiyosaki (of Rich Dad/Poor Dad) and Donald Trump have both recommended MLM (multi level marketing) as a way for an average person to build wealth.

The best part about MLM is that you’re paid not just for your own work, but for the work others do as well. By building a downline, you’re also building a passive, residual income that goes on indefinitely. Sponsor just one or two successful business builders, and you can all secure your long term financial security. And there are thousands and thousands of people out there right now who are looking for an opportunity, so that they can create the income they need and want.

There couldn’t be a better time to get started in a network marketing opportunity and put your financial future in your own hands. This recession will eventually end, but in the meantime, it’s an incredible time to start building your empire. And when the economy does get better, what you’ve started now can only get even better!

How To Choose The Best Digital Marketing Agency For Your Business?

Often do we read news of fraud, scam and reports of some digital marketing agencies that add no value to their clients’ businesses. In a world where companies spend millions of dollars every year on digital marketing campaigns, the need to distinct good agencies from bad cannot be stressed enough.

Combining various internet marketing tactics with other forms of media and strategies, digital marketing has become one of the most effective methods of lead-generation, branding and procuring bigger customer-base. Broadly speaking, it can be subdivided into internet marketing, mobile marketing and offline marketing.

The importance of having a digital marketing agency for any type of business is obvious. It is the nature of any firm to focus its whole attention to the industry that it is in and subsequently to the primary objectives that form the company. This necessitates delegating other works like digital marketing to external agencies.

For example, a company that manufactures clothes will devote most of its workforce to manufacturing and selling clothes alone. The business of that company is clothes, not marketing or advertising; and even if it does its own marketing campaigns, there’s a better chance that a marketing agency, whose sole business is creating marketing campaigns, is going to do the job far better than the company’s marketing department.

And in a world where most consumers are now equipped with mobile phones, TV, internet and other electronic media, the need to digitize one’s marketing campaigns need not be mentioned. Because there’s a simple truth above all else: digital marketing works. It is cheaper than traditional strategies and visibly more effective.

So how does one find the right digital marketing agency to work with?

Choosing the right agency can be a daunting task especially because there are new companies springing up almost everyday. And because the variety of services offered by these companies is not the same. Let’s take a look at the various elements that will help you choose the best digital agency for your business:

Services Offered

The first thing you should always consider when looking for digital marketing agencies to work with is the nature and variety of services they offer. A good agency should offer as many services as possible under one roof. This will save you the trouble of finding another company for a specific service as you can easily delegate all your digital marketing needs to that company.

A full serviced agency typically offers:

– Web design and development

– Search engine optimization and marketing

– Mobile marketing

– Email marketing

– Social media marketing

– Online advertisement

– Online reputation management

Portfolio And Testimonials

A good digital marketing agency will always have a portfolio that consists of clients with visible levels of success. You can easily access this portfolio from their website. A portfolio page that lists a good number of clientele is more trustworthy than one that displays only a few.

Testimonials are another criterion to help in choosing a digital agency for your business. Good agencies will have feedback and testimonials from previous customers. The more testimonials, the better.

Online Presence And Reputation

It’s only natural for a company that deals in digital marketing to have a visible online presence. Does it have a Facebook page and if so, how many Likes does it have on the page? What is its Twitter following like? Social media presence and activity is a good measure of a company’s repute.

A quick Google search using the company’s name as the search term will reveal a great deal of information about the company, including reviews and feedback on review sites, if any. A search query that returns very little result may not be the best company to have your marketing work delegated to.

Support

Any good company should have excellent support. Try contacting the digital marketing agency that you’re currently researching on from their website or via their Live chat application, if they have one. How long does it take for them to respond? Call them up and talk to them. Find out how knowledgeable their support team is. This is a company that you’re going to give a lot of money to, it’s important to know before-hand if they are worth investing in and that if you ever run into problems, they are there for you.

4 Key Considerations For Every Social Media Marketing Campaign

Throughout my career, I have developed and outlined numerous internal company process, policy and strategy documents. With experience and practice, it became evident that a process will not withstand time and change if it’s not scalable and replicable. The same principles hold true for a Social Media Marketing Strategy; it must be a process that can adapt to growth over time and change.

New social media channels are popping up left and right, especially for niche social networking communities and geo-targeted business networks. In order to reach new prospects, you’ll need to continuously expand your reach across the appropriate new networks. With each expansion, whether you are launching your initial social media marketing campaign or launching into a new social network or space, there are four key considerations. This article does not address the details for your social media game plan to include your business strategy, goals and actions required to make it happen, but rather offers a repeatable approach that can be applied throughout the life cycle of your campaign.

1. Start Small

If you are just venturing into the social media world for your business or deciding it’s time to get serious with your social media involvement to truly take advantage of this incredible marketing opportunity, take a step back, focus and start small. It is easy to get caught up in the possibilities of social media marketing and quickly jump into too many areas at once. This will not only be overwhelming, but will water down your campaign. Do a little research or hire a specialist who can advise you to pick two or three social networks that are most applicable to your business. Setup your profiles, identify your target audience, and start to build your presence in those select networks ensuring you stay aligned with your business strategy.

2. Get Comfortable

Developing comfort and familiarity with social media forums and technologies is very important, especially if you are new to the social media space. You need to be comfortable with not only how to use the technology, but in engaging with your target audience. Your interactions should be natural and personable. A key benefit of social networks is the ability to talk “with” your audience and not “at” your audience. You are sharing ideas and providing value to your prospects and to leaders in your industry. There are countless ways to connect with your audience based on your business and area of expertise. A little trial and error is fine. Test the water, try different approaches and be sure to track and measure the outcomes so you can determine what works best.

3. Establish A Routine

This can be a difficult area for many businesses. Yes, it takes some discipline but once you establish a routine that works for you, you will have consistency which is essential to social networking. If you only post an update on Twitter once a week, an article on your Facebook page now and then and respond to a discussion on your niche social network once a month, you’re not gaining visibility. The more you contribute, the more visible you are. Staying active and providing value will lead to return on influence or brand recognition which in turn will lead to return on investment. What routine works best will be different for each business and will depend on whether you are running the campaign alone or with help from colleagues or a social media specialist.

For some, it’s best to group social networking activities together at one time during the day in order to focus on other tasks through the remainder of the day. For others, building in small amounts of time throughout the day to focus on a specific social network is easier. There are some great tools to schedule your posts in advance across multiple networks such as Hootsuite (my personal favorite) and Tweetdeck. This can save you time and help you maintain that consistent level of interaction. Not all updates and post should be pre-scheduled but incorporating some that are scheduled is a good practice and also a great way to utilize the services of a specialist. By delegating some social media marketing activities you will have more time to personally interact with your target audience replying to comments and responding to discussions on a routine basis.

4. Expand

Once you have fine-tuned this process for two or three social networks, you can expand into new networks but first, do your research. You need to determine the best social networks or social media space where your business should have a presence. Maybe this time you want to reach out to niche communities. Perhaps it’s time to venture into video marketing, a truly exciting space in internet marketing with such possibility for going viral if you do it right. You may be ready to start your own social network. There are readily available tools to make this happen. Decide what social networks should be next on your list and begin the process to build upon your existing strategy starting back at number one.

Whatever direction you take your campaign, by remaining within the framework of these four considerations while you build out your strategy, you will maintain control and consistency which are key to the success of every social media marketing strategy.

Rev Up Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

In less than five years, social media has revolutionized not only our communication culture but how we conduct business. The dizzying effect of unlimited-and sometimes unfettered-24-hour access to people and information has transformed the various tools into a game changer.

There is a broad and increasing list of sites, including BlinkList, YouTube, Delicious, Flickr, Tumblr, BlogMarks.net, and the triumvirate of major sites: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These social destinations have become to business professionals and entrepreneurs what golf is to C-suite powerbrokers-an opportunity to strategically network and close deals based on shared interests and personal engagement. But these sites do more, by offering users valuable real estate to advertise products or services, create and expand brand recognition, solicit feedback, build relationships, and create community forums. Users also have unprecedented access to consumers, hiring managers, prospective clients, industry experts, and opportunities.

Moreover, social media levels the playing field by allowing anyone access without restrictions on time, location, or social status.

The most diligent and creative players are reaping huge benefits. According to a report from Forrester Research, 55.6 million U.S. adults-just shy of one-third of the population-visited social networks at least monthly in 2009, an increase from 18% in 2008. Recent Nielsen research says Americans spend nearly 25% of their time online on social networks and blogs, up from nearly 16% a year ago.

The initial foray into social media can be daunting and bewildering. Newcomers to the space might wonder: Who’s reading? Will I be heard or noticed? Isn’t it all just fun and games? Isn’t it invasive? Making the effort worthwhile requires time, patience, and a work-smart-not-hard strategy. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a corporate professional, the success of marketing your products, businesses, or your personal brand will be determined by how well you engage interest on the varying platforms. In part one of a series on social media strategies, Black Enterprise offers some tips to get you connected.

What Business Owners Should Know

Finding out who your customers are and how they like to be served is essential for the success of any business. Questions and surveys offered on social media platforms can help business owners quickly access that information. Jason Burton, social media strategist and marketing director of Lab 5702, a boutique marketing solutions firm in Kansas City, Missouri, says such data can help you position your product to broader groups outside your initial base of contacts. “Put your product in front of the trendsetters or the next level of users,” he suggests. “Targeted searches let you drill down beneath the surface to find followers and potential influencers that can use or promote your product or service.”

Location-based social mapping services such as Foursquare, Google Latitude, Loopt, Facebook Places, and MyTown allow consumers to benefit from their influence. For example, if you visit your favorite flower shop in Tucson and tweet it to your followers, you get $2 off your purchase. The greater the network and influence, the bigger the discount. These services also enable users to find friends and events; share locations, updates, tips, photos, and comments; and share across online social networks and blogs. Loopt has more than 4 million registered users and partnerships with every major U.S. mobile phone carrier and is available on more than 100 smartphones, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. Google Latitude and Foursquare boast more than 3 million users each. Greater social media interactivity has been facilitated by mobile apps such as ÜberTwitter, MobileLinked IM, and Nimbuzz. According to a Juniper Research report, the number of downloads from mobile application stores is expected to rise from fewer than 2.6 billion per year in 2009 to more than 25 billion in 2015.

What Corporate Professionals Should Know

Carmen Hudson, CEO of Tweetajob in Seattle, oversaw employer branding campaigns when she was senior manager of talent acquisition for Yahoo and has witnessed the shift in recruitment practices. “Companies are cultivating and marketing a brand that attracts and is attractive to certain types of candidates,” she explains. For companies such as Yahoo, Starbucks, Apple, and Microsoft, social media is increasingly at the forefront of that strategy. Recruiters will, for instance, use LinkedIn to create a search stream of attributes to find precisely the type of candidates hiring managers are looking for with minimal time and fuss. Moreover, Hudson adds, “They’re also looking at how many followers you have. Do you have a strong network? If you’re an expert, friends and/or follower numbers are strong indicators of that.”

A Jump Start Social Media survey of hiring managers indicates that 66% go to LinkedIn to find candidates for openings, 23% go to Facebook, and 16% to Twitter. “Job seekers who frequently post and update profiles are nimble and often get to job opportunities first,” Hudson says. “Recruitment officers can execute a well-rounded and more diverse search, through a search stream of attributes because they now can meet candidates where they play,” says Hudson. At the same time, companies can promote the brand and the company message, which gives the job seeker a more informed perspective on the companies as potential employers.

How to Maximize Social Media Marketing to Promote Your Brand or Business

• A blogging platform such as WordPress or Blogspot, is essential, advises Warren Laidler, webmaster and creative director of DeLite Multimedia] in New York City. Blogs have greater potential for organic leads because their content-rich nature makes them more search engine friendly. Search engines love content-driven platforms and rank them higher than static websites. “Think of your blog as a launch pad or hub for your enterprise. Your social media efforts should lead back to your blog or website, which should be dynamic and informative, providing content and information that encourages visitors not only to return, but to distribute your content to their network.”

• Blogs or websites should contain SEO, or search engine optimized, keywords and phrases that help visitors find the business when they search via Google, Yahoo, Bing], and others. Laidler also suggests pulling in RSS feeds and useful links into your blog. “RSS feeds allow you to import content from outside sources and are a great way to share information that visitors find interesting.”

• Work on engagement and consistency. For example, your Twitter timeline should be a combination of original updates, retweets, or shares from other sources, replies from connections, inspirational quotes, and trending topics. A standard formula is two to four tweets per day. Positive activity can also blossom quickly and create buzz that reaches well beyond a business’ core audience. In the virtual world, consumers and job seekers can become influencers and trendsetters by persuading their network to take action or buy a product or service. Laidler suggests using tools like Klout or Twittergrader.com to measure your social media influence and find out the reach of your Twitter posts.

• Choose a picture for your social media avatar, rather than a logo, advises Joel Comm, social media expert and New York Times best-selling author of Twitter Power. “People like faces associated with companies. Customize your Twitter background. Use photos, links, contact information, RSS feeds, etc. to individualize and promote your brand.”

• Choose a third-party application or service, such as TweetDeck or Hoote Suite, SocialOomph and Twaitter, which allows quick, easy distribution of posts and other content among multiple social media sites. “You can incorporate plug-ins or apps on the sidebar of your blog page that allows visitors to easily access all your social media,” says Laidler. “All social media sites have plug-ins or widgets that allow fast, easy updates with one click.”

• Don’t follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. Conduct targeted keyword searches for individuals, companies, and other industry players who are important to you or who you want to have as a client.

• Show off your expertise. If you’re in business, you’re already an expert with valuable information people want to know, Comm says. Use your talents, passion, ability, and personality to your advantage.

Benefits Of Selling Products In The Information Marketing Business

In my opinion, the best home business in the world is the information marketing business. What is “information marketing”? Well it’s simply the process of selling instructional information in the form of: books, eBooks, CD’s, DVD’s, newsletters, seminars, and even membership sites. This is the ultimate lifestyle business.

And it’s even better on the internet. Many people have been running their own information marketing business offline for decades. But with the advent of the internet, it has taken information marketing to a totally new level. The main component of the information marketing business is something called, “information products”.

As I stated earlier, information products are simply products that deliver instructional information. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in or the kind of products and services you sell – you can use info products to boost your sales and profits, along with adding another income stream into your business.

For example, a bakery shop owner could offer a free report (another form of information product) about how to make red velvet cupcakes. Then for every person who requests this information, the bakery shop owner can send out the free report, plus a copy of their menu – that already includes the red velvet cupcake that they can buy from their offline store, or website.

And the list goes on and on. Almost all businesses that I know of can use this very same approach to boost their sales, and add a new revenue stream. You can even make this your entire business, and sell products for hundreds of dollars – depending on your niche, and the components of your product.

You can get high profit margins with information products and the business of info marketing. Products are very cheap to produce also. You could sell a CD for $19, and have it only cost you 50 cents to reproduce it. Don’t believe me? Well, consider this for example.

Have you ever seen those late night infomercials about ab workouts or real estate ventures and etc? Well, those people are simply selling information products. They’ve exited out of the real estate game and the bodybuilding game, and are now making the bulk of their money selling information products.

Yeah you may buy their $19 product and they send you a lot of stuff, but more than likely after you order, a telemarketer will call you and try to upsell you on a $2,000 product, showing you the “real” secrets. This is nonsense – but this is how they REALLY make their money.

I don’t want to assimilate them as “sharks”, but I just want you to be aware of how information products are popular online. It’s easy for you to get started selling your information products, you just need the right guidance, and a good marketing plan to sell your products.

And yes, you can use information products in your business to boost your sales and add another stream of income in your life. Be sure to use them today – because they are very profitable. I even sell them in my business.

Good luck with selling information products today.

Digital Marketing Means Business Survival During COVID-19

Even during the thick of the pandemic, we saw businesses struggling to change operations enough to stay afloat. Now, the name of the game is “adapt,” and we are all players trying to find out where we fit into the larger picture. Even if it means stepping out of our comfort zone, we are forced to move past the traditions we built and forward into the digital age.

Contact-Less Service
Before COVID-19, some businesses didn’t even have a social media page. These businesses relied on loyal customers, word of mouth, and in-store marketing endeavors. You know the shops I’m talking about, mom and pop shops who use printed flyers, bulletin boards and give the 100th customer of the day a prize.

For some, this type of business model set them apart from the mainstream shops and made them popular. For others, it was a general lack of enthusiasm for technology (or the inability to pay for pricey digital marketing campaigns). Then, with a snap of the fingers – it was gone. Nobody could come through the doors, and like that, the entire structure of the business folded.

You couldn’t rely on word of mouth, flyers, or bulletin boards. A rise in online shopping for a contactless experience became the thing to do. What did this mean for those who didn’t even have social media?

Dive Head-First Into Digital
Pride has to be replaced by necessity in terms of entering the digital world with your business. You have to be mindful of social media, you have to have a website, and you can’t rely on physical customers to do your bidding. Forget about getting used to the water. Jump in and hope you to swim and stay afloat.

If you want your business to survive now and in the future with the pandemic at large, you can’t wait for things to go back to normal. You have to move forward and adapt to the changes, and they need to be made now.

Transitioning to Digital Marketing
Everything seems to be done on a smartphone or computer device, including making purchases for everyday needs. To expand your clientele and remain in full operational order, the use of digital marketing is more than a requirement. It is the only lifeline that most businesses have. Business owners cannot expect to survive during COVID-19 if they don’t transition to a digital marketing strategy. Make sure your business has an adequate, modern website that is mobile-friendly and user-friendly. Customers should be able to easily contact you or buy through your website on all devices so that you do not miss out on any potential sales.

Business practices and catering to the customer have not changed in your marketing structure, only the method in which it is delivered. Customers need to feel safe during their purchases, and they feel better doing things online. Businesses will not survive this new age if they do not turn to the digital marketing platforms required to reach these customers.

Local Business Online Marketing: Increase Your Exposure Today

Are you searching for local business online marketing tips? You’re in luck.

In the business world, your exposure means everything. It’s actually a pretty simple concept to understand. The more people that are aware of what your business has to offer, the better.

Assuming your business offers a quality product line or service, marketing is essentially a numbers game. What is your current marketing strategy?

If you haven’t yet implemented internet marketing into your strategy, now is the time.

Can the Internet Help?

You’re here today because you’re interested in learning a few local business online marketing strategies. First of all, congratulations on your entrepreneurial drive. This rare trait will assuredly help you build your business efficiently.

Billionaire Microsoft mogul Bill Gates recently made an interesting comment regarding internet marketing. And considering this man’s success, his remarks may be worth listening to.

Bill Gates said, if your business is not on the internet, your business will be out of business. This is an incredibly interesting quote that will continue to ring true. So how do you go about implementing local business online marketing strategy?

Setting up Shop

When looking to jump into the internet marketing realm, first thing is first; set up shop. Like your office or store in the real world, a website/blog on the internet is your home base and work shop.

This is where you will house all of the necessary information regarding your company. Efficiently maintaining a website or blog will allow your business to establish an online presence and garner a following.

But how?

When the modern consumer, locally or globally, is interested in making a purchase of some kind, they consult the internet. Through the power of search engines, such as Google or Bing, these consumers locate the products/services they need.

This a major reason as to why the internet is so incredibly useful. When an internet surfer types in a given search query, Google’s predetermined algorithm does its best to produce the most appropriate results. Because of this, you can do some local business online marketing by creating web content that targets popular search terms in your industry.

As an example, let’s say I own a local Pizza shop and I live in San Diego. A popular search term in your area might be ‘San Diego Pizza Delivery’.

If I write a blog post using that search term, the odds of my website ranking on the first page of Google increase dramatically. This strategy is referred to as SEO; or search engine optimization.

Expedite the Process

While running a website/blog and SEO can be efficient local business online marketing strategies, getting started can take some time. In order to rank on the first page of Google, you have to post your content on an authority website.

A new domain name is not aged enough to be considered an authority. As you can see, starting from scratch can be tough.

Luckily for local business owners, there are some programs allows you to promote your business on their aged domain/authority blog for a relatively low price. Alternatively, if you’re looking to implement a local business online marketing strategy fast you can purchase an aged domain. This will cost you more than buying a new one but you’ll have the advantage of being able to rank in the search engine more quickly.

Article Marketing – Living Its Golden Age & Climbing to Its Peak! Do You Get Your Share?

Recently Article Marketing has been experiencing an active and exciting popularity reviving some old strategies such as Web Logs and RSS feeds. Article marketing has replaced e-mail marketing as the most powerful marketing strategy.

There are many logical reasons for this replacement. First
of all, e-mail marketing was, and still is risky. Because of
thousands of annoying spam messages people were receiving daily, a general sensitivity was built against e-mail messages, even if many of them have not been spam or fraud in any way.

On many occasions, people were complaining about the
newsletters or e-zines they were receiving as spam, forgetting that they had subscribed to them for a while ago, on their free will. Publishers have been having hard time trying to prove that the messages or the newsletters they sent were not spam, they were legitimate messages that were only sent to people who subscribed and wanted to receive those online publications.

The new active marketing methods, I mean the content
marketing in the forms of articles, press releases and RSS
feeds do not impose any risk on you. On the contrary,
these recently popular marketing strategies provide you
with many vital benefits comparing to other traditional
advertising and marketing ways.

As mentioned above, you can use these recently popular
marketing strategies without any fear of bothering people
and getting spam complaints and trying to defend yourselves, striving to prove your innocence wasting a lot of valuable
time and energy. You know, time is money!

Content marketing, including articles, press releases and
RSS feeds save you time and money.

Article Marketing

Basics of article marketing such as how to write, where to send, how to use, how to benefit from Article Marketing are reviewed below.

How to write an article:

Now, you may worry that you are not very good in writing your personal letters, let alone articles and press releases. You may be right. But don’t worry. You are not alone. It’s natural that all marketers may not be experts in writing.

The solution is, there are many good copywriters who can
write the articles you need for you at an affordable price.
It is perfectly legitimate, and I can say that it is also popular in the business world to hire ghost writers. You can find expert copywriters to write articles on any topic, and press releases in the special press release format for
you, at:

http://www.ideamarketers.com/

So, there is no need to worry about writing articles. You can start your article marketing campaign anytime you want. I highly recommend to start to write your articles as soon as possible, without wasting your valuable time.

Where to send:

Another question to be answered may be where to send
these articles and press releases you or your copywriters
wrote. The answer is, there are thousands of article
distributors on the Internet, mostly providing their services
at no cost, saving you tremendous amount of time and
money.

You can be sure that your articles you have
submitted to them will be sent to thousands of relevant
publications almost immediately. Or, publication come and get the articles they want to publish in their ezines, newsletters, and websites.

Articles are generally sent as plain texts to thousands of
content providers and distributors, to portals in relevant
categories, and websites which accept articles.

Article distributors send your articles in plain text to
thousands of e-zines, newsletters, magazines, newspapers,
journals/blogs, other publications, and websites.

Thus, the message in the articles you submit, with a link to your website, reach a great number of target audience. The number of distribution points differ from one distributor to the other. Some renowned article distributors you can submit your articles are listed below:

http://www.EzineArticles.com

http://www.iSnare.com

There are many other valuable article distributors I would like to list here, but it’s not possible to provide such a big list in one article.

Your customers, and potential customers who read your articles will see you as an expert in your business, and they will trust you.

In fact, your articles will gain you credibility, reliability. Trust, credibility, reliability are the most important factors to grow almost any business fast.

To display content including articles, press releases and RSS feeds in your websites and in your blogs would help you attract more visitors , increase your quality link popularity and get high rankings in search engines, no matter if they were written by other entrepreneurs, for other businesses.

Article marketing creates a positive impact especially on major search engines such as MSN, Yahoo!, and Google.
Exposing articles in your website and blogs with links to other high ranking websites may help you get higher placements at search engines.

And, links from a great number of websites through your articles, press releases and RSS feeds will help you get higher placements in search engines, growing the number of visitors to your websites and blogs, eventually increasing the number of sales, revenues, profits and ROI.

Where to find content to display in your websites:

You may want to add content to your website to increase
its value, to make it more informative for existing subscribers, and more attractive to get more visitors and potential customers to your website, eventually to increase your sales and revenues, as explained above.

You can find good content on any topic at many sites on
the Internet. In fact, there are hundreds of content providers who offer their services and products without asking money. Yes, there are still such nice people on earth, especially on the Internet, offering their valuable services at no cost.

You can find good content at the websites of content distributors, some of which are listed in the ‘Where to Send’ section above.

You can get articles from the websites of hundreds of content providers and distributors at no cost, and display them in your website, even without having to ask their permission. They give their written permission, with only a few restrictions, at their websites, generally on their ‘home’ pages.

The benefits you will enjoy utilizing article marketing are so many, I can say they are almost unlimited.

You can reach millions of potential customers with your articles, in addition, your content will stay in the archives of most of those thousands of publications, blogs and websites for many years to come, continuing to send possibly hundreds of thousands of visitors and potential customers to your website every year, without having to do anything else on your part.

Renowned entrepreneur Christopher Kyalo sent an article to only 20 article distribution points and his article was published on 16,000 sites. If you send your articles to hundreds of distribution points, can you imagine on how many websites your articles would appear, and how many links would point to your website?

I strongly recommend to use article marketing as one of the most powerful marketing strategies to establish trust, credibility, reliability, fame which are very important elements to grow your business fast. So, all business owners must use article marketing as their prominent marketing strategy if they want to substantially increase their sales and revenues, and grow their businesses real fast.

Inbound Vs Outbound Marketing for Your Business

Perhaps the single most important step you can take as an entrepreneur is to effectively market your goods and services. You can have the best products in the world, but if no one knows about them, your business will fail! When it comes to successfully promoting your business, you can choose from a variety of inbound and outbound marketing techniques.

Outbound marketing is the proactive process of finding potential customers and motivating them to buy your products and services. It is a traditional form of marketing that involves the promotion of your goods to people who are not actively seeking them. Common outbound marketing techniques include television and radio advertising, newspaper and magazine advertising, telemarketing, trade shows, direct mail (both electronic and paper), e-mail blasts and public relations activities.

Outbound marketing has a long history of success and it typically provides quicker results than inbound marketing. Unfortunately, it has its weaknesses as well. Advertising, trade shows, telemarketing and the like can be prohibitively expensive. In addition, outbound marketing is intrusive. In many cases, you are trying to sell your goods and services to people who have no interest in them. This has led to many attempts to block outbound marketing efforts such as caller ID, call blocking, spam filters and pop-up blockers, which makes it harder to get through to your market niche.

Conversely, inbound marketing consists of promotional efforts that focus on getting found by customers. The idea is to take proactive steps to bring potential customers to you, and motivate them to buy your goods and services because of the quality content you provide in various formats. Inbound marketing techniques include blogging, articles, white papers, search engine optimization, video, and social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Inbound marketing has the advantage of being far less expensive to implement than outbound marketing. In fact, you can facilitate a successful inbound marketing campaign without spending a dime. You are also able to provide valuable content for potential customers and to distribute information about your business in a non-intrusive fashion. This is one of the great benefits of inbound marketing. It tends to be a more welcome form of promotion on part of consumers because you are providing valuable content as opposed to offering a sales pitch.

Of course, inbound marketing has its weaknesses as well. While there is little monetary cost, there is a tremendous cost when it comes to time. Developing and maintaining a blog, writing articles, creating video and maintaining a consistent presence through social media requires a significant amount of your time, especially when compared to the time required for most outbound marketing campaigns. Another weakness of inbound marketing is that it can take a long time to achieve success.

So, what’s the bottom-line when it comes to inbound vs. outbound marketing? My recommendation is to incorporate elements of each. Both marketing approaches can be successful when used properly and each offers unique benefits. Think about how you can incorporate both approaches in a marketing strategy that will provide you with the greatest possible return. For example, an experienced business coach might decide to use e-mail marketing (outbound) because she has a long client list she can use for the distribution of her product information. She could also use blogging (inbound) as a way of disseminating useful business information and demonstrating her expertise to potential clients.

Likewise, an engineering consultant can effectively use print advertising as an outbound marketing technique while simultaneously using social media to position himself as an expert, network with a diverse array of individuals, and become a respected member of social communities devoted to engineering. The key is to be clear about what you want to accomplish with your marketing strategy and to select techniques that allow you to achieve your goals.