Better than such offline promotion as press releases, talks, or book reviews?

Better than search engine placement, banner ads, ezines and news groups?

Yes! The number one way to promote your self and your products is through informational how-to articles that you send to hundreds of opt-in ezines, announcement groups, and Web sites.

Content is still King on Internet. People want your free information. That is why they go Online. When they see your useful, unique information, they will be more inclined to buy your books or other products.

Where to start?

1. Find an existing article or excerpt.

First, look through your files for information already created, or check out interesting parts of your already written book. Take excerpts or parts and think of what audience they will help.

2. Target your article to your Web site buyer or other group that will buy Online.

Without a specific audience such as entrepreneurs or small business people, your article may lose cohesiveness and continuity. People loose interest if your article is disorganized.

3. Write a new introduction for your article.

Mention your audience's main problem. What questions do they need answered? If you don't give them benefits with how-to's, valuable resources, or tips, they will delete your message. Be sure to answer their challenges and needs.

4. Write what ezines want.

Reach 25 opt-in ezines plus reach 500,000 subscribers to Web site ezines daily. Most opt-in ezines, article announcements, and Web sites that use articles from 500-1500 words for new content. They want you to write them with up to 65 characters per line. To be published, what you send out must be useful, interesting, and written is a simple way.

5. Write for your audience.

(You can find that article here: http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/newsletter_03032003.html)

The reason why is because you are going to need content for your newsletter. There are some excellent sites out there that offer great free content for your newsletter, but if you want your newsletter to stand out, you will need to write some of your own content.

Now you've probably heard it said a 1000 times by top online marketers: single most important thing that you can do is build your list.

I challenge you because there is a second part to this: build a relationship with your customers and readers. Provide them with content that they can use and products that they want. You'll have loyal subscribers who will buy your products.

Ok, so how do you build a list?

First, there's two types of lists that I recommend you offer. You can use either one or both.

You can build a newsletter and/or offer free tips or a free course.

1. Newsletter Before you do anything else, you need to decide what your newsletter is going to be about.

Be specific. You can't write about everything.

If you've created a target market for your business, then you'll know what you are going to write about.

For example, my newsletter, Small Business Success is for small business owners, but I am looking for specific small business owners, people who have 10 or less employees or no employees at all, but they do most of work themselves. They may work at home, but they may have an office.

My goal is to provide them time saving tips and tools to help them run their businesses faster and easier. I want to help them make most valuable use of their time so that they can make more money.