What are the benefits of article marketing?

There are many benefits associated with content marketing on such sites. Here are a few listed by the publisher of EzineArticles:

• Boosts Your Personal and Business Credibility: Getting published in EzineArticles.com boosts your credibility and begins the trust cycle with your readership. For many authors, being listed with EzineArticles.com is an excellent way to get started, especially if you are a published author or hope to be published soon. There is a book inside each of us waiting to come out.
• Builds Brand Equity & The Brand Called You: Having your articles featured in EzineArticles.com builds brand equity for you, your business, and your expertise. It begins or reinforces in your customers’ and prospects’ minds what you can do for them.
• Surges in Traffic to Your Website Like No Other Site Can Deliver: This is caused by the ezine publishers who come to our site throughout the year to pick up quality articles for their email newsletter or website in addition to our end-user base of millions of people who are looking to immediately benefit from your expertise. When your articles get picked up for reprints, you will often get a surge of traffic as your articles are introduced to their email list members or audience.
• Massive Exposure To The Hundreds of Thousands of Unique Visitors That Come To EzineArticles.com Daily: Your articles may be viewed by the (MILLIONS of visitors) that use our site every month! We work very hard to deliver a positive, fast and end-user obsessed experience that keeps our fan base returning for more.
• Receive Quality and Relevant Leads to Your Website: People who read your articles and click on your link(s) found in your Resource Box at the end of each of your articles are highly-qualified prospects by the very nature of how they found your website.
• 7-10 Times More Effective Than Regular Advertising: You become known as the expert by your article and this endears potential customers to you before they even visit your website. There is no better way to “pre-sell” your prospects than article marketing.
• You’ve Got A Head-Start on The Reciprocation & Trust Cycle: Your prospects are pre-sold as you have already begun the reciprocation cycle by giving first, through your expertise in your articles. When they visit your site, your qualified prospects will already know something about you and feel endeared to reciprocate, or at least check out your products.

The following article on branding was published by Karen Dunlap. I enjoyed reading it and I hope you do as well.

Is There Passion Behind Your Brand?

By Karen Dunlap

Do you create from the inside out or the outside in? That question applies as much to designing a space as it does to creating your brand because the answer to both is the same. You should build from the inside out. But, like many of our clients who make the mistake of choosing the paint color before anything else, we make the mistake of designing our marketing materials and building our website before we even define the brand. And a brand that connects with people and draws them in starts from the inside, with you and your passion.

Your brand should communicate your passion. When people visit your website, pick up a marketing piece or listen to your greeting on your voicemail, they should sense that passion that is behind what you do. Passion by definition is energy and people are always attracted to that energy. They want to get a piece of it, experience it firsthand.

Think about your passion. What inspires you about design? What moves you and stirs your soul? Get crystal clear on this because once you make that connection and incorporate that into your brand, both clients and prospects take notice. They’ll sense there is something different about your business and they’ll be attracted to working with you.

Your passion is your calling. It’s a reflection of pure alignment between being and purpose. When you see someone living their passion, it is contagious. My son’s music teacher from many years back was a shining example of this. He taught music at the elementary school level which for many music teachers is just a job. But you could tell for him it was so much more. It was an opportunity to share his passion with the world around him. He gave these students so much more than just an appreciation of music because he was living his passion. The kids loved him and wanted to be around him. In sharing his passion with young and old alike, he draw us all in and left us feeling energized and inspired. You could tell what he did was with ease and pure joy. While he didn’t need a “brand” per se, he was a perfect example of how living your passion becomes your brand and draws people in. You said his name and people instantly smiled. That is what you want to create for your business through your brand.

Realize your passion is very much connected to your brand. A brand that stands out and resonates with your ideal client starts from the inside out. It starts with your passion!

Action Steps:

What is your passion? If you find yourself hesitation to answer this or unclear of your answer, take the time to discover what that is. So many times we get so caught up in the day to day that we lose sight of the passion that lies within us. It is still there and always will be; you just need to make the time to connect with it. Make time for the things in your day that allow you to slow down and nurture that passion. Once you have a clear understanding of what you’re passionate about, make sure your brand reflects that passion. As you look through your website and marketing pieces, do you feel connected to the words and pictures? If not, your passion is not coming through. Create a brand that speaks from your heart and is a reflection of your soul. You’ll connect with prospects and clients alike in a very powerful and lasting way.

Karen Dunlap is an interior designer, business owner and creator of the Design For Your Success NOW System™, a unique training and coaching program specifically created for design professionals. Using specific strategies and systems, Karen coaches design professionals on how to simplify their business, attract ideal clients and get back to their original passion, designing and decorating.

Karen Dunlap | Interior Designer, Student Member ASID, Trade Partner AIDP
____________________________
KMD Interiors, LLC
43283 Thaddeus Lane
Lansdowne, VA 20176
p. 571.218.6531
w. http://www.kmdinteriors.com

Article Source: EzineArticles.com – Expert Author Karen_Dunlap | Is-There-Passion-Behind-Your-Brand

Growing small business owners rarely have the staff in-house do it all, all of the time. One way to set the odds in your favor is to use similar marketing tactics that the high-paid marketing pros use. When you pick up a cork-screw you don’t first ask how many bottles it opened – you know it works. Many marketing tactics in today’s high-tech world are similar.

I read a lot of email newsletters focused on website marketing. Although many are not necessarily geared toward small business, the tactics used can often be scaled and implemented within the limits of a small business budget. Here are a few interesting links and marketing articles for your perusal. They just might spur a few ideas that you can use within the limits of your small business marketing budget:

Ad AgeDIGITAL – NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The 186 responses that Old Spice pitchman Isaiah Mustafa recorded for fans of his beauty, intelligence and outstanding physique took just a week to eclipse the original TV ads themselves in total views, according to new numbers from Visible Measures (full article here at AdAge.com).

Youth, Business, and Podcasting – SitePoint talks with a couple of veteran podcasters about the medium and have an interesting discussion about youth and entrepreneurship. This is the SitePoint Podcast #70: Youth, Business, and Podcasting with Dave Moyer and Jeff Chandler. (SitePoint Podcast here).

Flipboard for iPad – Designed from the ground up for iPad, Flipboard creates a magazine out of a user’s social content. Launch Flipboard and “flip” open the cover – readers can view their sections and personalize the magazine. (Flipboard Press Release here).

“With over 1 billion messages posted every day, social networks are quickly becoming the primary way people discover and share content on the Web. The result is a huge influx of incoming messages and links people must sort through across multiple web sites just to stay up to date,” said Mike McCue, Flipboard?s CEO. “We believe the timeless principles of print can make social media less noisy, more visually compelling and ultimately more mainstream.”

Let us know what works for you – drop us a comment below. Thanks.

- Greg Magnus

Quantcast, with just 70-employees, is already the de facto standard for measuring Web audiences. They determine who’s clicking on ads, visiting websites, and buying products online. Subsequently, the information is used to help match consumer characteristics with the campaign goals of media buyers. According to Fast Company, 9 of the top 10 media buyers in the U.S. are customers; as are CBS, ABC, and MTV Networks.

Here’s a quote from the “About” page at Quantcast:

Ten years ago the Internet had 9.5 million websites and 150 million people online. Email was a relatively new phenomenon. Fast forward a decade and we’ve seen the most rapid adoption of a new technology in the history of the planet. Not only is everyone, including your grandmother, using email, chat, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter, but 1.6 billion people, and growing, now engage with over 240 million web pages on the Internet.

CrunchBase reports that Quantcast received $27.5M in Series C funding (1/4/10), $20M in Series B funding (1/1/08) and $5.7M in Series A funding (3/1/07).

Another company on the Fast Company top 10 list is Slide. Through its branded Funspace, the company now serves some 10 million videos a month and is the largest video-distribution platform on Facebook. And Facebook, by the way, is number one on the most innovative list in the web category.

What do all of the companies on the list have in common with small business owners?
The ability to identify opportunities and react quickly – innovation. How does your company plan to innovate in 2010 and beyond?

The ability to distribute your content across several online platforms from one source is critical. And, if you want to save time and increase your online exposure you need a system to perform the task for you automatically. First, consider your content source. Are you using a Content Management System (CMS)? Examples include dynamic websites, blogs, and shopping carts. All include simple tools for re-publishing your content on other websites whenever you update the “source” (your website, blog, etc.).

LinkedIn.com “applications” is one example of an automated website marketing tool. Whenever I publish content on my blog it is automatically re-published to my LinkedIn profile where hundreds of my contacts are notified and millions of LinkedIn users can stumble upon the information while browsing. This simple process, which is easy to setup if you have a WordPress blog for example, increases traffic to your site. We measure the traffic using analytic tools such as Google Analytics, which is the science of website marketing. In a few clicks, we can determine the popularity of our latest blog post on LinkedIn, and a bunch of other sites for that matter.
[slider title="Support for LinkedIn.com"]Prefer we do this for you? If so, just give us a call: 804-723-9160. We provide LinkedIn customization as well as social media training for our clients and their staff.[/slider]

Similarly, you can connect your website content to dozens of social networking sites such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com; it is relatively easy when your website is built using a CMS.

Here’s a short-list of links to website tools – detailed explanations are included on the sites:

• bit.ly – Allows you to shorten long links and track how many people click on the link. This tool is great for posting on twitter or Facebook given you can measure how many clicks your shortened link gets. There are numerous tools similar to bit.ly. Here’s an article that covers five more: visit FriedBeef’s Tech blog here.
• StumpUpon.com – Allows you to bookmark and browse content made popular by a community of Stumblers; you can also use the tool to bookmark your content for others to view.
• AddThis sharing tool by clearspring. Including a “share” tool on your site makes it very easy for you and others to share your content with friends and colleagues.
• Website Grader – provides a website grading score that incorporates your website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
• Google Webmaster Tools – Check your keywords and how well you site ranks for those words and determine if any pages on your site are causing problems for Google when crawling your site. The tools also allow you to see what pages are getting the most links, etc.
• Term Extractor – This tool analyzes the content of a given page and extracts the terms that appear to be targeted at search engines.

To begin with, website marketing requires a lot more than a website. What’s essential?

1. Website Marketing Plan
   • Development of a small business website marketing plan requires: industry knowledge (current trends, marketing research), strategic planning, financial management (budget), team management (human resources) and a clear understanding of what it will take to implement your plan (basic, if not advanced, technical skills).
2. Things to consider:
   • MARKETING EVENTS CALENDAR (2010): Prepare a schedule of major industry events such as trade shows (local/national), PR events, seminars, speaking engagements, etc. Determine in order of priority the most important half dozen or so for your business (certain businesses will have a few dozen).
   • LEAD CAPTURE: What online resources do you plan to use to capture leads before and after each event? Do you intend to create specific website content for each event? You said yes, right?
   • MARKETING CAMPAIGNS: Have you planned out the resources required to implement your marketing campaigns for each event? Consider what it really takes to implement email marketing, social networking, press releases and similar tactics such as blogging and article marketing. Website marketing requires IT support, graphic designers, and copy writers for each event as well as post event follow-up marketing.
   • SEGMENTATION – TARGET MARKETING: Have you created a contact and prospect list for each event identified? Known as list segmentation and target marketing, it is key to successful website marketing. List development and management is often neglected by small business owners new to online marketing.
   • LIST MANAGEMENT: Review your customer list as well as your social network connections and determine if the majority are within your target market. If not, grow your list as well as your network by specifically targeting key players that have the ability to drive new business and referrals. Also, determine how you’ll manage your list? Your email client, such as MS Outlook, is probably the wrong answer.
   • CONTENT MANAGEMENT: Over stated but not something you want to forget, “Content is King.” Regular website updates are mandatory for marketing online. And, it almost always requires technical resources that often overwhelm the average small business marketing department.
   • TECHNICAL SUPPORT (IT): Understand the need for IT support and graphic designers as well as the usual marketing copy writers. Also, understand your sales people are not website managers. Asking them to do so is a misuse of their talents so make sure you have the right people doing the right job when it comes to website marketing.
   • SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO): The most important thing to understand about SEO is “you must be persistent.” SEO is an ongoing process, not an event. There are numerous SEO strategies and the costs can range from a few hundred a month (limited expectations for growth) to tens of thousands (shopping cart sites with high ticket items that require lots of website traffic). Search engine optimization is often beyond the technical skills of most small business owners; get help when you need it. Sure, you can “do it yourself” but in most cases the skills require an expert to be truly successful. Think of website traffic like putting gas in your car – stop adding gas and you’ll sit on the side of the road where you’ll watch the traffic go by.
3. Financial Management:
   • BUDGET: Does $3,000 or $5,000 per month sound like a lot to you for website marketing? If so, think about it. That figure is equivalent to $36 – $60,000 per year, which probably isn’t enough to hire the appropriate staff with the skills needed to successfully grow your business online. And remember, everyone it seems is planning to grow their business online in 2010.
   • VENDORS – OUTSOURCE: To rise above the competition, you’ll need to get the appropriate help or spend a lot of your time each day as a “website marketer” instead of as a business owner. Do what you do best with your time. If it isn’t website marketing, then consider outsourcing.
   • Online marketing budgets vary greatly depending on the industry and business revenues. Contact us for assistance with the budgeting process if you don’t already have specific numbers in mind for your plan.

A few quick tips:

1. You can use most any magazine editorial calendar appropriate for your industry as a planning guide. I’ve owned and worked for a few publishing companies. The major publishers put a lot of time and energy into their editorial calendars – no need to recreate the wheel. For local events, check with the chamber of commerce and city magazines as well as last years blog posts; many publishers have maintained blogs for several years now and you can review their archives. Also, ask your mentors, vendors and business colleagues as well as your competitors websites.
2. Learn from others that are already successful. A business colleague and personal friend publishes the “Rich Niche Group” blog. A significant portion of his blog posts are interviews of successful entrepreneurs; learn from their experiences. Here’s an example and a link for you: “We originally had visions of building a little bit of a client base, selling to AOL, and retiring in the Caribbean. Well, we were a little late for that, so we had to opt for Plan B which was to buckle down and build the business.“ Dale Coyner, Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of Communicast and Open Road Outfitters.
3. Email marketing software that is hosted online can be used to cost-effectively manage a small business contact list. Use a software program that allows you to add custom fields to the database. Also, you can easily add new prospects to your list just by opening up a website browser and accessing your list and/or your newsletter subscription form.

Are you preparing your 2010 Website Marketing Plan? Share your ideas in the comment section – thanks.

By Greg Magnus
AIM Custom Media
www.aimcustom.com

Are you planning to start a new business? Or, are you a small business owner looking for assistance with business planning, marketing and finance? Richmond SCORE is holding a small business workshop on December 11, 2009, just for you.

During the Richmond SCORE Workshop, local business professionals provide workshop participants with valuable information and ideas on better ways to start or grow a business. The presenters include accountants, lawyers, bankers, commercial real estate brokers, and business managers from diverse businesses and industries. Other facilitators are SCORE counselors who have years of industry and business experience.

Workshop Topics

• How to Write an Effective Business Plan
• Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Business
• Website Design Strategies
• Choosing the Legal Structure That’s Right For You
• Purchasing the Proper Business Insurance
• Sources of Business Loans
• How to Negotiate a Commercial Lease
• Building Successful Marketing & Sales Plans

To sign up for the workshop, visit the Richmond SCORE website for more information. Hurry, seating is limited and advanced registration is required. The workshop is held from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Capital One Town Center, which is located at West Creek.

About SCORE

The Richmond, Virginia Chapter of SCORE is part of a national nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of the nation’s small businesses. Richmond SCORE provides free and confidential business counseling tailored to meet the needs of your small business and your personal objectives.

SCORE was founded in 1964. It is a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and a premier source of free and confidential small business advice for entrepreneurs. SCORE is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization headquartered in Herndon, Virginia and Washington, D.C. With 389 chapters in locations throughout the United States and its territories, and 10,500 volunteers, made up of both working and retired executives and business owners who donate time and expertise as business counselors nationwide.

• National SCORE website
• SCORE’s “Ask an Expert” blog
• SCORE’s Women’s Success blog

Posted by Greg Magnus, owner of AIM Custom Media and one of many local professionals serving Richmond SCORE as a volunteer.

This 4 day event is a comprehensive playbook designed to give you step by step instructions and coaching that will move you from transition to dream job, as well as life management tips along the way. Every topic of transition will be covered so that each participant has a complete understanding of what it takes to accomplish their goals for employment.

October 19th & 20th from 9:00am – 12:00 noon: St. Michael’s: 4491 Springfield Rd, Glen Allen

October 21st and 22nd from 9:00am – 12:00 noon: Three Chopt Presbyterian: 9315 Three Chopt Rd, Richmond

It is designed so that each participant should attend the entire 4 day camp.

RSVP: virginiacareernetwork.com or canon@equity-concepts.com

Speakers

Greg Magnus: Publisher, AIM Custom Media
Social Networking PRESENTATION (PDF)

“Social networking that works for YOU.”

John Sarvay: Owner, Floricane, Next Steps

“Live your A life. Identify your greater purpose and begin to generate your ideal future.”

Eleanor Rouse: Life Coach, Executive Coach for the Frontier Project

“Align the next chapter of your life or career with your personal values and vision.”

Bob Ruthazer: Executive Director, First Things First

“Relationships: Thriving in Transition. Understanding communication and warning signs.”

Veronica Boyd: Consultant, Lee Hecht Harrison, JAM Leader

“Map out your game plan. Step by step instruction on what you need to do to find career opportunities.”

Jim Roman: Networking Extraordinaire, Owner, Team Roman

“Networking that works.”

Brent Peterson: Owner, Interview Angel

“Confessions of a Hiring Manager. How to Land an Interview. How to Inspire the Hiring Manager. Personal Statements. Tell Great Stories. Getting Hired is a Project.”

Alan Dole: Wealth Manager, Equity Concepts

“Money Matters. Unemployment insurance, cash flow, 401k options and warnings.”

Debbie Stocks: Principal, Your Benefits Partner

“Understanding your benefit options. COBRA, Individual policies and HSA’s.”

Clayton Gits: Owner, The Gits Group

“Manage your mortgage. Precautions, options, last resorts.”

To put it simply, now is an excellent time to gain a head start in the race for revenues; now is the time to build relationships and capture market share.

The Planning Process
First things first. Prepare a “Marketing Plan” that meets the needs of your short and long-term marketing goals. Far too many business owners view marketing as a project here and a project there. And, they fail to integrate their activities into a cohesive marketing campaign. How much does it cost to promote this or that event, seminar or presentation? How much for a printed or email newsletter?

As separate projects, it is expensive and ineffective. As an integrated, ongoing marketing process these projects become a component of a larger, focused marketing campaign. Synergism flourishes, relationships build and referrals as well as the revenues roll in.

Where do you start?

Target Markets – Clearly identify your target markets. This is one of the most important components of your marketing plan. For example, how many people on your social networking “connection lists” are actually prospects? How many people have you specifically targeted? How many are on your mailing list?

Let’s say you want to spend the money to send out a printed and/or email newsletter. How much time have you spent building your mailing list? Or, was your antiquated mailing list an after thought? I still get direct mail and email for a company I owned (and sold) over a decade ago, which tells me don’t do business with the un-organized company that sent the info to me.

Do the names on your list really include your target market or is your list a bunch of names you gathered at the last minute?  Review, segment and revise your list. But first, you must understand the characteristics of your target market.

Market Needs – Your business provides value to your customers. Marketing efforts work best when focused on the benefits you are providing based on the customer needs you are satisfying. Therefore, the short-term and long-term customer needs must be clearly defined. Content developed for your marketing campaigns must support your findings.

Strengths – To develop and implement a marketing strategy for your business, you must identify the strengths within your business that add value, both tangible and intangible attributes (i.e., employee knowledge, product attributes, your expertise, credentials, etc.).

Opportunities – Assess the factors that represent the reason for your business. Understand the opportunities and create actionable marketing projects and implementation strategies in areas that matter most: website usability, content development, graphic design, search engine marketing, newsletter marketing, etc.

Competition – Assess your major competitors in terms of the factors that most influence revenues. The marketing strategy and performance of your competitors are important to develop your most cost-effective solutions for branding your company, delivering your message and growing your business.

Positioning – Based on the findings of the items above, among others, develop positioning statements. In essence, a strategic focus on the most important target market, that market’s most important market need, how your product or service meets that need, and why your company is better than the competition.

Now, and only now that you have a comprehensive marketing plan, launch it.

When it comes to small business, the owners are often a vital part of the sales and marketing team. If not “the team.” And, many hit the streets on a regular basis to engage in hand-to-hand combat; presentations, seminars and local business events. This is especially true for service professionals such as attorneys, accountants, architects, business advisers, life coaches and consultants.

So, you just returned from an exhausting, long day of face-to-face marketing. It is by far the most time consuming and costly sales tactic but also one that can produce high closing rates. And, most importantly, you now have an excellent opportunity to follow-up with not only the people you met but also your target prospects that couldn’t make it that day. How so?

It is easy to follow-up with the prospects you met as well as reach your online social network while doing so. Here are a few tips to consider:

1. Trash that “thanks for attending, let me know if there is anything I can do..” email. Engage your prospect with a keynote summary of your presentation that includes an added “bonus” and I don’t mean a coupon here. Write-up your notes and add the questions asked as well as the answers provided during the presentation. However, don’t email the notes or the presentation. First publish the information online; preferably your blog. Send a link to your online content in the email.
   • Now your offline activities are being integrated with your online marketing tools.
   • A limited number of prospects will see your email. Potentially dozens if not hundreds or thousands can access your useful information online.
   • Your making an effort to engage your prospects.
2. Talk about the questions asked during the presentation on:
   • Social networks and forums
   • Your blog, your customer’s blogs and others read by your clients and target prospects
3. Let everyone know you have additional and important information to add; Part 2 of the story for example. Normally there isn’t enough time in a presentation to adequately cover all of the material. For your top prospects, invite them to subscribe to your blog and/or email newsletter; better yet, subscribe them yourself and ask them to confirm the subscription. Inform them you’ll be adding Part 2 to your newsletter or blog – give them a reason to want to subscribe.
4. Collect feedback and publish the comments online with your presentation. If a prospect emails the feedback to you, go to your blog and publish the comments for them. But don’t forget to reply to the comment online and directly to your prospect.

In fact, all of the recommendations above include one very, very important aspect of sales and marketing – engaging your prospects. Without engagement, building a meaningful relationship is impossible given there is a lack of emotional attachment. We’ve all seen it before. “Information” is presented to the target audience. Considerable time is spent “marketing” the material but the content fails to hit an emotional cord with the target due to lack of engagement.

What else is important? The steps covered above are typical processes in a marketing campaign. Unless you gave that presentation for sport, your in business to do business. An integrated marketing campaign is an absolute necessity if you want more business.

Here’s an excerpt from an article on follow-up marketing I published previously on our company blog:

“Instantly, I felt I was getting special treatment and all I really received was a simple document. I shared my experience with several friends. Engagement in action – it works when you know how to set up communication strategies for every new prospect or client.

Several much shorter and concise follow-up communications were sent to me by the concierge. The messages included service features that were easy to digest, remember, and most importantly repeat to others. Following up with a new client or prospect with the right message, at the right time, is a key element of your marketing strategy.”

Many marketers fall short here. They often fail to incorporate the “process” into their marketing plans, or lack the resolve and resources to promote their campaign beyond the early development stages. [Source: Word of Mouth Marketing: People are Talking by Greg Magnus, AIM Custom Media, Glen Allen, VA - December 2005.]