How to Use Article Marketing to Create Your Own Online “ATM Machine”

Jan. 16, 2014 - PRLog -- I’ve been a prolific article marketer since 2005. I’ve used this form of online marketing to promote everything from affiliate products, to my self-published ebooks and e-classes. It’s some of the easiest, most effective web marketing you can do. Why/how?

Well, quite frankly when web surfers go online, what they’re looking for usually is information. Study after study after study has shown that the vast majority of shoppers conduct research before making purchases. Proof?

GE Capital Retail Bank’s second annual Major Purchase Shopper Study has found that a growing number of consumers extensively research and compare prices and financing offers before making major purchases. According to the study, 81% of consumers go online before heading out to the store … and spend an average of 79 days gathering information before making a major purchase. [Source: RetailingToday.com, Study: 81% research online before making big purchases]

Article Marketing Is Simply Giving Online Shoppers What They Want

When you write and distribute articles, you’re giving prospective customers the info they need to make an informed decision before purchasing. And if you do this consistently, you’ll become a go-to option so that when a prospect is looking for your type of product/service, you have a much better chance of making the sale than some unknown entity that they’ve never heard of.

I like to think of article marketing as courting potential customers.

Article Marketing 101 Tip: Every time you write and distribute an article, be sure to link back to your website (remember, the whole purpose of giving away free content is to drive traffic to your website/blog).

The best thing to link to? More detailed information and/or a product service. I like to link to both; usually in the body of an article I put a link to a page on my site that has more detailed information. In the About the Author section (Resource Box), I'll link to an actual product (ebook) or service (e-class).

Now that you know why article marketing is so effective, let’s look at how you can use it to create your own online ATM machine.

3 Things You Need to Do to Start Making Money Online Marketing with Articles

(i) The first thing you need to do is set up a website or blog with your product/service on it.

(ii) Second, add a subscriber box (like the one at the bottom of this page) where you ask visitors to give you their email address. You can use newsletter services like ConstantContact.com and Aweber.com for this, which costs as little as $10 per month.

(iii) Third, in order to entice visitors to give you their email address, offer something free, eg, an ebook, a report, a webinar, etc. You will need to create this, and of course, it should be something about how your product/service can benefit them. Never forget, this freebie is not about you. It’s about how you (your product/service) can help prospects achieve their goals.

Tip: Make sure your freebie is valuable – it should be something that you could easily sell, but choose to give away for free.

The whole idea here is to build a subscriber list that you can market to consistently over time. And you know what -- it doesn’t even have to be that large. For one of my affiliate programs, I have a list with just over 400 subscribers. But, they’re extremely loyal.

Two or three times a week, I send out an article to this list, and every time I do, it’s like inserting a bank card into an ATM machine. Why/how? Because when I send content to them, they send it to their lists, post it to their social media accounts and list it on their websites. This brings sales – for them and for me.

And it all started because I got their email address.

Treat Your Traffic Like Honored Guests

Article marketing (http://inkwelleditorial.com/article-marketing-is-it-still...) will bring a lot of visitors to your site. And many of them will gladly give you their email address if they’re interested in your product/service. And, you should treat them like gold. What do I mean?

Well, I’ve belonged to some affiliate marketing lists where the promoters bombard you with offers – wanting you to buy, buy, buy. But, they don’t take the time to answer questions, or give you tools (like free content) to become more successful as an online marketer.

Don’t be like this.

How to Keep Subscribers On Your List Happy

Respond to queries that people on your list send to you; be honest and upfront about your product/service; give a generous commission (the standard is around 50%); and don’t blitz the inbox of your list members with offer after offer after offer. This amounts to spam in my opinion.

Conclusion

Article marketing can be summed up in two words in my experience – building relationships.

You see, you have to build a loyal customer base who will purchase from you over and over again to make good money using article marketing. This starts with building a respectful, mutually beneficial relationship. Never forget this.
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About the Author: Yuwanda Black is an online entrepreneur who has written and distributed over 1,000 articles and more than 50 ebooks. She’s used internet article marketing (http://inkwelleditorial.com/what-is-article-marketing) to generate thousands of dollars in sales of her ebooks and e-classes. You can build up to this too!