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Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)

Do you like walking door to door, greeting neighbors with no introduction?

If you do, then go do it. You will be wildly successful, if not injured in the process.

There is no substitute for face to face interactions. Most people don’t like it though. Why? Because it is intrusive.

With that said, as if reading our collective minds, the USPS has graciously created a kick-butt product that actually solves the problem of walking door to door as the only method to meet new clients.

Every door direct mail (better known as EDDM) is offered to send print pieces on behalf of marketers. The USPS does not require you to provide an address list. You just need to pay. Sound good?

The challenge here is cost versus potency. It is expensive to get your brand mailed directly to a consumer household. So you don’t want to blow it.

Let’s define blowing it. Blowing it means that you spend $0.15-0.40 per household, and all of the time it takes to develop a pretty collateral piece. You write it. You draw it. You have a designer do it. You throw out their design and re-do it yourself in google docs. Then, you send it to the printer. Then the printer re-designs it. (cmon – we all know how this goes). Then, you haul it down to USPS and sit through two days of basic loserdom, lost in procedure, finally to get the package bundled and delivered. But none of that is

blowing it – no! Blowing it is going through all of that and then reaching the consumer. And, the consumer literally throws it away before walking in the front door after retrieving their mail three days after it was delivered.

So, to not blow it, we have to prevent the throw away.

How to prevent advertising pieces from being tossed in the garbage

There is a very basic framework to successfully not get something thrown away.

  1. Don’t send consumers garbage
  2. Don’t send consumers something that looks like garbage

What is garbage?

  1. Garbage is something without value. ie.
  2. a picture of yourself,
  3. your contact information,
  4. your company’s logo,
  5. high quality paper stock,
  6. something that benefits your and not them.

Do you follow?

What is not garbage?

  1. Valuable information.
  2. Something that brightens their day.
  3. Something nostalgic
  4. Something Free, but not cheap
  5. Something they want

5 Non-Garbage Ideas to EDDM

  1. Information about local schools
  2. Information about local sports
  3. Information about places that support kids
  4. Information about how to make more money with less work
  5. Information about the good life
  6. Information about your neighbor’s wife (just kidding)
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We Post & Promote Your Messages

Do you see the kid pushing? That is us pushing your message onto the correct social media platform at the correct time.

Social media is where your customers go for entertainment every day. Each social media outlet has its own specialty and subset of users.

YouTube is fantastic for long form media. If you have a complicated, and detailed message to deliver, YouTube viewers are there to consume it all. You can successfully explain every detail of your product, without alienating yourself from YouTube users. This is useful for explaining processes and delivering customer testimonials as well.

Instagram is suited for image highlights. Capture your brand with an image that represents a message. Or, use it to share a special achievement about your business. Instagram is not suited for oversharing, or multiple posts in a day. Instagram recently launched a stories feature, but it is generally used by older users.

Snapchat is the primary place to reach a younger audience. Snapchat’s stories format is extremely popular among the teen audience. Fun photo filters also set the product apart. It is not suited for long brand messages. Use Snapchat to reveal consecutive actions around your brand, or use it to reveal details of your personal life. Behind the scenes footage is great!

Twitter is just like it feels. Loud and to the point. Feel free to post often. With the short format, you will not offend users by posting too much. Twitter is also a great place to test before posting to other mediums.

Facebook is a hybrid of the other formats, where you should be methodical about the content you post. Facebook ads make Facebook one of the best places to acquire new audience and promote posts because you can control viewership with ad spend.

E-mail marketing is perhaps the most potent medium to perform business transactions. It is the lifeblood of your organization. If a customer wants to purchase, they typically have committed to your email list already and trust that you offer value.

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We Position & Package Your Content

Do you yell in client meetings?

At some point, you learned enough about your environment that you have a general sense for the correct behavior in social settings. Sure, we all slip up, and catch ourselves laughing nervously or frowning when we don’t mean it. But, in general, you know when to keep quiet and when to shout it from the mountain tops.

Positioning content is just like learning to control the inflection of your voice. How many posts communicate the right tone on Facebook? Can I say more on Twitter? What the heck is a Snapchat Story?

Positioning & packaging content takes a fine touch. The goal is to paint your brand in a valuable and likable light. Saying too much can ruin this. Saying it in the wrong forum is a disaster. Saying nothing at all is a loser’s game.

Questions to help position your brand:

  1. What is your brand story?
  2. What messages do you want to communicate about your brand?
  3. What messages do you want to communicate about your products?
  4. When should these messages go out to the public?
  5. How many times can your target customers hear the same message?
  6. Where are your customers now?
  7. Do you customers go other places?
  8. How do your competitors answer the questions above?
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We Build Your Content

Content is king, said Viacom founder, Sumner Redstone. Then, he built a billion dollar media business and was quoted millions of times by every communications professional in the land.

Why? Why did anointing content as king result in an eternal motto, perhaps more well known to marketers than John 3:16, or other words to live by? Why couldn’t cool tools like sales process be king? Or, just having a nice handshake.

One reason is that content and information is really hard to produce regularly.

Information never stops changing. Therefore, there is an unlimited demand for information. It evolves with the world. Change is constant. With costs of distribution dropping to zero, there is always new, relevant, potent, revenue driving information to organize and express. One person companies can shred multi million dollar companies with one swift article, garnering attention for their product.

The ability to surface information and explain it to people, in order to improve readers lives is extremely valuable. Without it, nobody understands your product. If nobody understands your product, then nobody buys it. If nobody buys it, then you have no income. If you have no income, then you have no job. If you have no job, then you have no family. And, as stated by Jack Nicholson in The Departed, ‘This is America. If you don’t make money, then you are a douche bag.’

Communicating new information is more important than ever. Now that an unlimited amount of infomration is available without thought (other than a few swift taps on your phone), consumers – AKA – people shopping for your product – expect a swift explanation.

If you want to compete, you need content.

The big change is that content is not just for media companies anymore. The world is so competetive that all businesses need content to prove their value to customers.

It used to be that timing was the most important thing in reaching new customers. Now buying cycles are longer. It is not immediate unless you are on a trusted site. How do you get the trust. How do you manage this process for customers.

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We Develop Your Monthly Social Media Calendar

Everybody knows that posting on social media is important. But when do you post – and more importantly, WHAT DO YOU SAY?

The short answers is that it should be 1) valuable and 2) it should re-infoce your brand, or align with your brand story.

What is a social media calendar?

Elements are platform, message, resources, content, proofing process and date of release.

What makes it good?

Continuity between brand and message.

How do you tell if it is good?

Does it move the needle for your business? Do the metrics move? What are you counting?

Third – the quality of the content is good.

Good social media marketers are able to create content that appeals to an audience. They are like mini movie directors. They make a project and the public responds.

In brand marketing, the ability to ecreate entertaining content is nice but not required to reach your goals. In social media environments, the

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We Build Your E-mail List

Do you plan to be in business in 24 months, or are you planning to change careers?

If you plan to be in business, then an email list of current and potential customers is a required asset.

Lots of attention is given to social media and web traffic when marketing people get together and communicate the latest and greatest to their potential clients. However, e-mail is still the more efficient and cost effective form of marketing. People use email to get work done. Hence, there is no wasted energy with e-mail. People are more likely to click through and transact on an email than in other forms of marketing communication.

In fact, to a large extent, social media is best used as the mouse trap to capture real customers – or e-mail addresses.

Successfully collecting e-mail addresses is like guaranteeing long term success in your farm. So, why doesn’t everybody do it?

The challenge is that e-mail marketing is hard. Successful email marketers know what they are doing. You can’t just send any old message to an email list. There is risk involved. If you send the wrong message, your potential clients can opt out of your list, thus removing themselves from your contact reach forever.

The solution is building a list that will last. You do this with value. Each message you send should take thought. It should support your brand story, or your specialty – the single reason that you should support many, many clients in successful transaction after successful transaction. Each message should be helpful or useful to your potential client in some measurable context. This means that the message does not have to be useful today, but it should be useful within the context that you connected with your potential client.

Questions to ask yourself when setting out to build your email list:

  1. How many people do you want on your list?
  2. What information is useful to the people on your list?
  3. How can you extend your brand story to people on your list in a useful way?

Benchmarks

In farm marketing, a good and realistic bench mark for e-mail marketing is to aim for 10-15% of all residents in your Farm. This is a short term benchmark. Over time, you should aim for 20-30% of all residents. But, it takes time and effort.

Techniques

  1. Host a local event
  2. Walk door to door and ask for email contacts
  3. Run a Facebook campaign with a reward in exchange for contact information
  4. Parnter with businesses that target the same farm area
  5. Publish local content and advertise

More about E-mail

People use e-mail to get work done. Real estate transactions are work. The public trusts that your messages are important, unless you bombard them with information that is not valuable. The best way to get somebody to open your e-mail is to offer them value.

Examples of Value Statements

Short term value – examples include small, low priced incentives. Consider this example – answer this survey for a $5 gift card to Starbucks. Or, like my page for a chance to win a new iPad II.

Long Term Value – examples include – long term thinking and strategy. Consider an article premised on the prediction of home values in 5 years – who would find that article valuable? Yup – you guessed it. Anybody who is retiring in 5 years and planning to sell their home. Who would they want to work with?

What is your Brand Story? How does it play with the information that you plan to distribute? What story do you plan to tell? Who are your target customers?

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We Develop Your Brand Story

Develop your brand story to get more customers. The brand story starts like this:

Who am I? The parent (existentialist) in me asks this once a day. The marketer in me wrote it down and never looked back.

Your brand story is critical. It is how you will position your service and value forever, unless you want to change it.

While debated among men tougher and richer than I, it turns out that you should truly be able to explain yourself, purpose and value in a short couple of phrases – let’s say three to five sentences.

You should be ready to tell it – the simple, easy to explain and easy to understand version at a moment’s notice.

Here is an example: I am a former sports reporter. 10 years ago, married with (4) kids, I needed to make more money. Contacts had asked me to write projects on their behalf. I realized that I could support my family quicker and more efficiently by starting a business writing for other people, than I could working for a company. My experience as a father and writer has enabled me to specialize in community marketing. And it is my passion. The best things come from community.

Now – I am going to leave out some of the more difficult to understand details. For example: one boss may recall firing me for poor performance. I tried to make it work with several startups. I had a failed startup of my own. My kids real father is a deadbeat. I have emotional problems and issues with focus. Sometimes I find myself eating string cheese after dinner and desert and I notice the Cheez-its. My wife…

You get the point. Nobody needs to hear all that. To be a successful marketer, we need to simplify the complex in short terms and communicate the message we want to leave our audience with.

My message is this: I know my subject matter and I am an expert writer and content generator.

What is your story?

Examples of how to develop a brand story

 

Quick questions to develop your own brand story:

 

  1. What is your job?
  2. How do you know you are good at it?
  3. How did you get started?
  4. What is the highlight of your career so far?
  5. Which event has been the low point of your career so far?
  6. Who are the customers that you target? How old are they? Where do they live? What type of jobs do they have
  7. Why should these customers work with you and not somebody else in your profession?
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Multi-Touch Marketing is Mandatory for Small Business Success

Multi-touch marketing plans are effective ways to increase your company’s return on investment, or ROI, by taking advantage of cross-channel marketing and repetitive marketing strategies.

What is multi-touch marketing?

Multi-touch marketing refers to a repetitive marketing practice used to reinforce your company message and get that message in front of potential customers as often as possible. However, as opposed to releasing the same marketing message through one avenue repeatedly, multi-touch programs use many channels of communication to affectively reach customers and enforce brand recognition. This includes sending the same message through several platforms at the same time to force potential customers to take notice.

Examples of multi-touch marketing

Some potential customers are more likely to open a piece of snail mail from a company than an email, and some are more likely to open email than snail mail. To increase sales potential, it’s smart to send your message via snail mail and e-mail at the same time to capture the potential customer’s attention. If you are local, you can also do some door-to-door marketing and slip business cards into door cracks.

Engage through multiple channels

When it comes to the many channels available for company to customer communication, there’s more than direct mail, email and social media to fall back on. The most effective multi-touch marketing campaigns employ cross-channel marketing through as many channels as possible. Consider the following while developing your multi-touch campaign.

  • Direct mail
  • Emails
  • Phone calls
  • Tradeshows
  • All social media channels
  • Landing pages
  • Webinars
  • Company website
  • multi-media, including videos
  • Mobile text messages
  • Online Advertising, including Facebook Ads

Repetition works

The more someone sees your brand, the more likely it is to stick in their head. By getting your message in front of people multiple times and in multiple ways over a short period of time, you are helping to create brand recognition, an important step in any marketing campaign.

The magic touch

Market research has found that five is the magic number; it takes, on average, five touches to convert a sales lead into a paying customer, meaning you successfully got you’re your message in front of that customer five times before they paid. Most people will not scroll past your Facebook ad once and become hooked. It likely takes seeing a targeted message at least five times before a sale is made. Consumers are fickle and they don’t often make snap decisions about purchasing, especially when the product or service has a sizeable price tag attached.

Starting a multi-touch campaign

Once you’ve decided to take the time to develop a multi-touch campaign, a strategy too many businesses shy away from, you need to proceed in an organized, and sensible, fashion.

Decide who is your audience

Before you can start any sort of marketing you have to decide who is your audience. This will determine how you communicate with them through every level of your multi-touch marketing plan. It should also dictate your message, your logo, your website and how you deliver information to potential customers. No company is successful without having a clear picture of who their customer is.

Don’t get too discouraged to try

Multi-touch marketing plans are more elaborate than single-touch systems, but don’t let that cause you to shy away from the approach. Multi-touch systems are proven to be more effective. If it works, it’s worth your time.

Many companies avoid these campaigns because they realize several teams have to collaborate on every touch to maximize its effectiveness and delivery. It’s a timely, ongoing process as each new touch requires collaboration, research, feedback and adjustments.

However, once a multi-touch system is complete, is can be employed over and over again with the goal of gaining customers and driving sales. Every new customer in one audience can receive the same communication through the multi-step plan.

When ROI increases, everything is worth it

ROI is key in every marketing approach. The more value you get for your time and money, the better off a company is. Multi-touch plans are hailed as being successful because they increase overall ROI. That’s because cohesive touch campaigns, versus disjointed single touches, are more likely to secure customers and lead to sales opportunities.

Track analytics

Through every step of your multi-touch campaign, someone should be in charge of analytics. Tracking how well each channel is received will help you revise your multi-touch plan along the way. By building on the most effective channels—perhaps by increasing frequency or changing its place in the string of communication—sales will increase, boosting your multi-touch campaigns ROI. You may also notice that one channel is driving your ROI down. If that’s the case, remove or replace that avenue of communication.

It can help to focus on one message at a time

Whether you have an upcoming event or want to attract new customers with a sale, it’s important that multi-touch campaigns have a clear, cohesive message. When you find a door hanger made of pizza coupons on your front door, you don’t have to wonder what the purpose of the campaign is. The goal is to get you to order pizza with an enticing deal. If you’ve ever ordered a pizza online before, you’ll probably get duplicate coupons in your email. Follow Dominos or Round Table online? You’re seeing their deals pop up all over your social media feeds, as well.

Maximizing email in a multi-touch campaign

The very essence of a multi-touch campaign is to use multiple avenues of contact to reach customers, however, some channels of communication are more effective than others, and this will vary by company. However, generally emails are the most effective component of a multi-touch plan. In fact, a survey found that emails are responsible for approximately 30 percent of online sales for most businesses. It should never be the only component, but it can be the biggest. The Direct Marketing Association reported that email marketing had nearly double the monetary ROI of mobile, social, display and search advertising. If you’re not sending emails often, you should be!

Creating a calendar to manage messages

Companies should reach out to customers often. If you run a yearlong marketing campaign where seasons or specific months shift the way you market your business, then calendaring your messages for an entire year can save your company thousands of dollars. The same can be said if you have a business that runs the course of a school year. Your marketing approach will encompass all nine months of messages to close sales because the message will shift month to month.

How it works

Utilize a customer relationship management program, or CRM, and take advantage of automation to amplify the effects of your multi-touch marketing plan. Automation is effective because with a little extra time up front, overall man hours are reduced, which directly impacts your company’s bottom line. Because a marketing plan should be thoroughly thought out before implementation and not play-as-you-go, it’s important to develop the entire campaign at the beginning. Once a campaign has been established, you can create seasonal or monthly emails to reconnect with customers and potential customers frequently.

For smaller campaigns, such as a month-long sale, the messages should be managed in a calendar with dates for each message to be sent. One calendar can be used for email messages alone, or combined with other channels of communication so an inside sales team has a full-view of the outgoing messages.

Staying organized

Few businesses truly succeed without being organized, and a content message calendar does just that—keeps your flow of communication between company and customer organized. An effective calendar automates email campaigns to keep the lines of communication open, and remind customers that your company is still there.

Adjusting a multi-touch marketing plan for new customers

When new customers sign up for your communications, they should start their campaign from the beginning. If you’re using seasonal messages, those will send on specific days, but the campaign targeting the new customer should play out from start to finish, meeting the customer where they are at instead of forcing them to meet your company in the middle

Seamless flow of communication

By calendaring messages, sales teams are able to take advantage of the most effective timeframe for customer interaction. For example, if a new potential customer signs up for your newsletter, it is important to schedule their first message immediately, while your company is still fresh in their mind and the need for information hasn’t passed.

From there, however, analytics may have determined checking back in with your customer in two days is the best strategy for closing a sale. Either way, creating a calendar of outgoing messages for targeting new customers is one more way to use automated software and save money on man-hours. It also increases ROI by sending messages in a timely fashion without human error to derail the system.

Several campaigns will be going at once

From seasonal messages to sales-centric or event-driven campaigns and new customer acquisition models, your company will likely be deploying several multi-touch campaigns at once. That’s again why the calendar is important. Initial customer contact and follow up messages should be calendared as well as specific messages you need to get to your entire customer base. Calendar organization cuts down on missed opportunities and lost customers.

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Customer Relationship Management Software Helps Small Business Save Thousands

Customer relationship management software, commonly referred to as CRM software, helps small businesses save thousands through optimized workflow processes.

Customer relationship management software helps streamline workflow and reduce man hours to save companies thousands.

If you don’t know what CRM stands for…

CRM stands for customer relationship management, and it’s an integral part of every business. It refers to all practices, strategies and technologies used for customer interaction. This includes all channels of how a company interacts with its customers, such as social media, email blasts, phone calls, e-chats, etc. It also refers to how companies use the data gathered through customer interaction to improve their customer relationships. This takes into account all practices that affect consumer retention, customer-facing interaction and closing sales. The main goal is to drive sales through the use of good CRM practices.

There’s software to help

Customer relationship management software helps customers put these practices to work through an automated system. This reduces man-hours and leads to better return on investment (ROI).

IT automation

IT automation allows business owners to streamline customer communication tasks by sending automatic alerts, calendar updates and more. The goal of the software is to increase ROI by setting these systems in place and letting the machine handle the tedious task of sending replies to incoming messages. It can also ensure that sales leads are getting messages immediately, as opposed to waiting for someone to log on and send the message manually.

IT automation is not, however, a smart system. Computers will make errors humans would not have made. These errors are less of a problem than human errors though. Computer errors are easy to track and fix.

Have patience and take the time

It’s trial and error as you troubleshoot possible malfunctions with the automated software. You want to make sure messages and alerts are pinging customers at the right moments. If they are firing off to incorrect keywords it can cause confusion or email repetition that will lead a potential customer to unsubscribe.

IT automation decreases man-hours but you may have to streamline processes and remove potential errors first. This results in a hefty ROI. This is especially true if your automation increased customer acquisition percentages. Those upfront hours to get the systems up and running will pay off when you are not manually sending email alerts to several thousand customers.

The end goal is to streamline your workflow and create a seamless process for customer interaction and ongoing communications. There is also a chance to learn and grow your business from the customer relationship management software’s tracking capabilities (but more on that later).

Use automation to its fullest potential

Customer relationship management software is useful for data entry and other menial tasks. By taking advantage of every type of automation your customer relationship management software allows, you cut down on employee time spent on tasks easily left to an automation system. It also cuts down on human error. While customer relationship management software isn’t perfect, it completes repetitive tasks without fail. If there is a breakdown in the software somewhere, the system will make the same mistake again and again. The sporadic mistakes humans make are harder to identify and correct.

How customer relationship management software helps with sales

Use social media, email and other channels in customer relationship management software to manage marketing messages. The ultimate goal is to turn a sales lead into a customer. By sending automated marketing messages to sales leads in an organized fashion, one click can turn into profit. These messages are scheduled to shoot off to new leads the moment they enter the system. This means they get your message while your company is still on their mind.

As another bonus, automated IT systems can send messages to large groups of contacts in seconds. Even if only one in every twenty people contacted make a purchase, the ROI is still high because less hours have been invested.

Customer relationship management software allows for tracking

Anytime you can track your business there is a learning opportunity worth taking.

Customer relationship management software systems come with tracking capabilities for all customer interactions. This helps to limit repeat efforts, something a sales lead may not like. Initial contact as well as follow up is tracked through sales force automation. This also creates a paper trail (in the metaphorical sense) of interaction with each customer so messages can be targeted, information gathered and sales attempts focused.

Tracking is also a great way to learn about productivity

CRMs provide managers with information to help them adjust marketing campaigns for better ROI. The customer relationship management software tracks the percentage of sent emails that are opened and which links within the message are clicked. It gives insight into the effectiveness of a specific message and can be especially valuable in managing content.

For example, if one email message out performs the average by two to three times, you can duplicate that success by looking at the successful message and analyzing why it worked.

Without customer relationship management software systems that allow for data tracking, staff would have no way of knowing whether or not a person opened the email message, or simply deleted it based on subject line alone.

CRM management includes several points of contact, including customer call centers.

Contact centers

Think about the last time you called into a credit card customer service line. Before you reach the numerical options part of the menu, basic company information is supplied. That’s because this information answers several caller’s questions and there is no need to proceed. This is a type of contact center automation. The goal is to give information that could satisfy a person’s request without requiring a transfer to the operator.

You’ll notice many phone systems use an automated message at the beginning of a call to satisfy frequently asked questions. This includes providing details about the company’s addresses and contact phone numbers. It also often gives options for making an automatic payment. If the information satisfies five percent of people, the company has successfully cut down on its need for customer service representatives. If less calls need to be transferred to a rep, then less reps need to be staffed and less overall hours worked. This results in a lot of savings for the company.

And there are more options, too

Online e-chats where customers can ask sales reps questions are another contact center format. Basic questions are addressed in an online FAQ. This cuts down on the need for customer service reps.

These online self service options are great for business because they help customers help themselves, but they have to work. Make sure you are tracking how well self-service works on your website. If customers get lost trying to answer their questions online and make a call to customer service nine times out of ten anyways, then you are driving customer frustration (which is not good for business) and not cutting down on the company’s customer contact needs.

There’s plenty to choose from

There is plenty of software to choose from. This is both good and bad for business owners looking to automated systems to manage and track customer interactions. It’s good because you have more than one option and you can pick the software that works best for your company. It’s bad because choosing which software fits your company best takes work.

Start by asking yourself what you need from a customer relationship management software program. If the goal is to track productivity, choose one with reliable data gathering capabilities and easy-to-decipher graphs that give insight to customer experience. Even a simple software can send automated email messages to newly acquired customers.

Don’t pay for a premium customer relationship management software package if you’ll only utilize the most basic components of the software. Instead of searching for the highest-rated or most expensive product, start with your needs first. Use that information to find software that performs best in the areas you need it to.

Customer relationship management software is pointless if your team doesn’t know how to use it, so spend time on training. This cost will pay off in the end. Remember, CRMs are about increasing ROI in the long-term, even if they cost a little extra upfront.

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Article Writing Transforms Business Marketing Practices

Article writing is the backbone of an effective marketing campaign. A memorable company name and eye-catching photos are important. Likewise, written content builds an effective online presence and drives sales.

Instead of using writing as space filler, create quality content that will drive visitors to your site. This overview will explain how to transform an article into a multi-media campaign using videos, infographics and social posts and how to optimize article writing to capture more followers. Read on.

Article writing is the backbone of every marketing campaign.

How to use article writing for marketing

Part of an effective business marketing plan is communicating with clients and potential clients about your business. At first you’ll need to explain the value of your business quickly and effectively. Then you can expand on it in-depth. Using visual and written components in marketing will help build your company’s story. Photos enhance written content, but they cannot replace it.

Moreover, the words you use to convey the importance of your product or service set the tone for your business. Article writing should be a marriage of your company’s overall tone and message. If you want your company to speak to customers in a friendly, upbeat fashion, then use that voice in article writing.

Go in-depth

In-depth articles explain the value your business can bring to a client. This is why it often takes several articles to paint a complete picture of your company. If you are offering marketing services to other businesses, then use a lengthy article to describe the benefits of each service. Keeping article topics pointed is important so clients don’t have to read through thousands of words to find the information they need. Instead, they can click a link for the service that interests them and immediately be transported to an article that explains the benefits of your service to them.

Article writing is a starting point

An article can then be transformed into a multimedia message for clients, including the following:

  • Video
  • Infographics
  • Social media posts.

One article can create a mini-campaign that encompasses all avenues of communication.

Example: If you sell a car modification product that can improve a customer’s gas mileage, then use article writing to explain the product and how it works to the consumer. The article should also explain what results can be expected. That’s the starting point. From there, you can move on to these three key elements of every marketing campaign.

Video

Incorporate video through an ‘explainer’ format. An explainer video [Link to explainer video content] is a short two to three minute video that explains through pictures and voice how to do or use something. This is where you would show graphically how the mod works to improve gas mileage. The written article will be used to create the script for this video. In that way, article writing supports video production.

Infographics

These graphics show results so clients can quickly see what to expect when using the product. This is where information related to how much gas mileage improved will be shown and, if the original article was well done, the information to support why customers need your product will be readily available. This infographic takes all of the data from the article writing stage and puts it in a colorful, easy-to-digest format.

The infographic works to draw people in. When potential customers see it, they click on the accompanying article to learn more. Infographics satisfy a person’s visual need to get information quickly, however, they still only scratch the service. Truly interested parties will want to do more research and that’s where article writing comes in! You’ve already done the research for them to create a better, easier opportunity to purchase, which is how article writing drives sales.

Infographics are also extremely shareable through social media, which leads us to the next part of the campaign.

Social media is one way to expand article writing into other marketing campaigns

Social Posts

Anything can be a social media post. Posts with graphics, videos, links and quotes have higher success rates than plain text. Share infographics and explainer videos over social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc. So can article writing (use a linked image on Facebook and LinkedIn to drive traffic). Quotes from the articles, key statistics and other bits of information from within the article can become their own posts. Every time you link back to the article, it increases traffic to the webpage, which is another key element for closing a sale.

Quality over quantity

Most businesses have a large range of clients to appeal to. Consider all ways the product or service can be used to benefit customers to appeal to all of them. Article writing for each is necessary. Add additional articles that play on trends, news stories, etc. to keep content fresh and timely.

It’s easy to see how this need for content can quickly pile up and feel both overwhelming and expensive. If the article writing you publish isn’t of good quality, then it can do more harm than good.

That’s not to say you can’t get quality content at a good price. You can. But going for the cheapest option based on price alone can spell trouble. These articles often come with typos and grammatical errors that cause your company to lose credibility. Remember, every bit of information you put out there about your company is a reflection on both you and the company

Quality content will be thorough and include enough information to help clients feel well informed after reading the article in its entirety. Complete the research for the customer so they aren’t using Google to answer the questions raised by your content because potential customers could find competitors in the process. Even if your product is superior, it is possible to lose customers to a competition with better article writing.

Start small

Don’t let the volume of article writing that needs to get done overwhelm you. Instead, simply prioritize. Start with the five most important articles you need to write and go from there. These articles should focus on your company’s best or most profitable services and products. In addition to these articles, subsequent pieces can be written, branching out to smaller expert pieces, niche markets, trends, complementary topics, research and more.

SEO Writing

The goal of article writing for marketing is getting your company in front of people. Boost your article onto the front pages of Google by using search engine optimization effectively. Stealing a front-page spot on Google is a great way to drive customers to your business and it makes your company look like an expert in the industry. Both of these accomplishments will drive sales.

Reference Google’s list of the most-important page optimization factors to increase search visibility:

  • Use a keyword in the title tag
  • Place a keyword in meta description tag on your web posting software
  • Write a keyword in the headline 1 tag (and headline 2 and 3)
  • Continue the use of keywords and phrases throughout the page copy
  • Optimize article writing for visibility by utilizing length standards
  • Duplicate content to boost its appearance rate
  • Use a canonical tag
  • Optimize the images used within your article, as well

DO NOT hire an article writer who does not understand basic SEO principles.