1.It drives qualified leads to your website.

People who arrive at your website via a link in byline (or signature line, or resource box) of your article are what is called “pre-qualified.” It isn’t random. They are already interested in you and what you have to offer. This is advertising “gold”.

2.It establishes you as an expert.

The written word still has clout. When people read articles by you repeatedly on Internet, they come to know you as expert you are in your field.

3.It defines a niche for you.

Articles associate you with a certain subject matter. You can’t be everything to everybody. You need a niche. (Important point: You may in actuality do many things, as I do, but to market, you need a niche.)

4.It’s repeat and endless advertising.

My articles show up in most amazing places. Recently I walked into a real estate office and there was one of my articles in their regional magazine. Articles in article banks and on websites stay around indefinitely. Someone has just written me they’ll be using three articles I wrote about spring activities for families over 3 years ago. You write article once and reach – in space and time – are unbelievable. They have a shelf life longer than Strontium 90, if that means anything to you. Lazy advertising, yes?

5.It increases your link popularity.

Each of those bylines contains a link to your website, and each time your article is used on another website, you’ve appeared there. Among complicated methods search engines use for placement, link popularity is most comprehensible.

Furthermore, people will start writing you asking to exchange links.

IMPORTANT TIP: Be sure and demand that if they use your article, links be “activated on Internet.” Otherwise, you don’t register with search engines.

6.Increases search engine placement.

I have made it to #3 under “personal coach” on google, an extremely difficult feat, eclipsing people who’ve been there much longer. It’s hard to bump long-standing people. I’ve done this without spending a dime. Let me show you how to do it with Internet articles and a few tricks of trade.

7.It increases your knowledge and your ability to communicate about your specialty.

Especially if you offer a service, and are professional and serious about it, as I am, writing articles makes you grow professionally. It is entirely true that you don’t really know something until you teach it, and that’s what you’re doing.

If you’re serious about your work, writing about it keeps you on leading edge. You have to keep researching new topics and learning more, and then developing new ways to communicate about it. This is good for you! OK?

WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT

So, within your given field, or consistent with your products, what do you write about?

I recently reviewed hundreds of articles I have on one article-bank site which tells you how many “visits” each article has gotten.

And BTW, you MUST do this kind of “market research.” Don’t just write, click and send; analyze! www.ideamarketers.com tells you how many people have visited each article. Take time to go over this data every several months. Then formula is simple: win-stay, lose-shift.

If many people have visited article, write more like it, and vice versa.

Now here’s tricky part. The single most popular article I’ve written is – are you ready for this? – “Emotional Intelligence and Gentle Art of Conversation.” (http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/article.cfm?articleid=18584&wherefrom=LOGIN )

What do you make of this? That question – “What do you make of this?” must always be your TOOL in marketing. Is it title that’s appealing? Of course, Emotional Intelligence is a very hot topic, but I’ve written hundreds with that in title. It must be other part – gentle art of conversation. Who knew?

In fact I was asked to be on a radio show, and was also interviewed for a national newspaper as a result of this article.

I’m sorry to say I’m not genius who knew ahead of time that “conversation” would be a hot topic. I hadn’t a clue. I was just anticipating holidays and wondering what people might be thinking about. I know family get-togethers can be trying … and a bit of formal conversation can make occasion more pleasant and less likely to degenerate into turf wars and old-wound licking.

Each of these 11 marketing tips is based on a marketing strategy or tactic proven to boost sales. How many are you using?

Tip 1: Your customers buy your product or service to feel a certain way after their purchase. Keep this in mind as you develop your ads, web pages and other sales tools. Use vivid word pictures to dramatize pleasant feelings your customers experience when they use what you are selling. It intensifies their desire to have it and motivates them to buy now.

Tip 2: Continually test new advertising and marketing methods ...and old methods you never tried before. A good guideline to follow is to allocate 80 percent of your budget to proven promotions and 20 percent to testing new things. Most businesses using this formula keep growing regardless of changing market conditions and intense competition.

Tip 3: Reduce size of your ads so you can run more ads for same cost. Don't be surprised if your short ads generate a higher response than long ads - giving you a bigger return for your expense. One of most effective ads I ever used was only 11 words.

Tip 4: Print your best small ad on a postcard and mail it to prospects in your targeted market. People read postcards when message is brief. A small ad on a postcard can drive a high volume of traffic to your web site and generate a flood of sales leads for a very small cost.

Tip 5: Active, stimulating words and phrases keep prospects interested in reading your sales copy. Look for dull passive words and phrases and replace them with active ones. For example, change a phrase like "...it's practical and inexpensive" to "...it's fast, easy and you save $99".