Some Article Marketing Do's and Don'ts

I don't like article marketing per say! Strange statement for someone that writes blog posts for three different blogs. You don't have to write articles and post them to article sites to be doing article marketing. Really? Although if you write a good blog post I do suggest that you post the article to some article directory sites.

Why do I say that I don't like article marketing? Because I think that every time I do a blog post on one of my blogs I am in essence involving article marketing. Why else would I be doing blog posts! I may not be writing to promote a specific product but none the less I am promoting something even if it is something that I think will help my readers.





"Let's start with a number of "don'ts" 

* You should never begin your rough draft with the phrase "The following article is about gardening," (or whatever it happens to be). Always begin by using a thought-provoking problem or bold statement. The concept would be to draw your audience in and make them want to understand more about what you have published. 

* Never make your article too long. Shorter ones tend to be more powerful with fewer chances of your reader becoming lost in your article. 

* You should not turn your written article into a big product sales message. Steer clear of this process, it won't improve your results. Your readers are searching for true information or, precisely what could this do for me personally? They are not looking for hyped-upped ad copy. 

* You should never overly cram keywords and phrases into the articles. The various search engines aren't keen on it. 

* Don't confuse your readers by starting off a sentence and never answering it or not identifying the resolution in the article. 

And now for the do's 

* Discuss ideas that you're experienced in or you have expertise in. When you possess experience with a certain subject, it always shows in your writing 

* Do proofread your article, and then proofread it once again checking for spelling and grammar errors before posting it on the internet. 

* You should always include a professional bio box with your article. Attempt to help make the reader interested in what else you provide. 

* Regularly write articles and submit them to directories and websites. You should not stop at just submitting to a tiny handful. It's going to take many submissions for you to benefit from it. 

* Pay attention to your article statistics. Which ones are getting you the most traffic. You should promote or showcase those specific articles somehow. 

There you have it, some simple do's and don'ts of article marketing. If you don't work marketing the proper way, then you're wasting your time. You can write the best pieces in the world, however, if they're not represented correctly, or you don't follow the basic tips above, you are also wasting their time. Why not do it the proper way to begin with?" 

Taken from an article by Scott Lindsay. Learn about Working From Home and Start Your Own Work At Home Business at WAHCheck. Don't Work From Home until you do a WAHCheck! 

Article Source: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=597088&ca=Marketing

By the way, article marketers don't write articles to promote a product within that article. This is not a good thing to do unless you are critiquing a specific product. Their promotion is within the signature after the article. So make sure to end with a strong signature which of course includes your name.

Always write articles that give your readers something that they can grab hold of and use in their life and/or their business.

Hope you got at least a hint into article marketing by reading this post.

Elaine

Tips That Will Help Your Email Campaigns

If you are trying to build your business then email marketing is a must 'to-do' thing. Yes, you can market on social networks, safelist, rotators, etc. but remember it takes more than one time for someone to see your message before they are apt to buy. Having a list of potential customers is an absolute must. (My opinion and some other's opinion.)

For this post I am going to assume that you have a good list. Also let's understand that we have to send out not only what we are marketing but also good informative information that will assist your list subscribers. I have found that including both in every email is the best. 

After all is said and done the main reason for even sending out business emails is to increase your revenue. You do want to eventually sell something.

You should have a little marketing pitch worked into your message alone with some great information that you have found. It is all over the internet so finding something is easy if you are willing to look. You can just send out a marketing email for something special. Be sure to make it special. Hope you understand what I mean.

I received some interesting information about all this email marketing stuff from DEMC E-Magazine. The article was written by the editor, Abbie Drew. In the email it gives 4 Insider Tips to Higher Email Revenue:

     1. What time of day to send emails.
     2. What day to send out emails.
     3. How many emails to send out for each specific marketing item.
     4. Use of preheaders. 

Let's take one at a time and expand on them.

"1. Send emails between 8 PM and midnight. 

According to a Q4 2012 analysis by Experian CheetahMail - emails sent late in the evening outperformed emails sent any other time of day. 

Emails sent between 8 PM and 12 AM generated higher open and clickthrough rates, more transactions, larger orders, and greater revenue per email than emails sent at any other time. Email sent from 8 PM - 12 AM had return of 48 cents per email. This was triple the overall average of 14 cents per email. 

2. Deliver email promotions on Saturday. 

Experian found Saturday generated the best return on investment. 

The transaction rate on Saturday was .16%, compared with .11% overall. 

3. Increase the number of emails sent for each specific offer. 

A one time email for a singular offer, will generate response. 

You'll increase your response and your revenue if you send out three to five emails for each specific offer. Use different copy for each emailing and build on the urgency to act before it's too late. 

4. Use preheaders to sell. 

A preheader is the text shown at the very top of your email. When viewing email on a mobile devices, preheaders are most often displayed right after an email's subject line. 

Don't waste this valuable space to simply list out subscription information or links to a web version. Instead use your preheader as an extension of your subject line. 

Include additional information pertaining to your offer. Enticing preheaders increase overall email open rates by more than 17%!" 

This information about email marketing is different from what came out some two years ago so pay attention.

If you would like to subscribe to the DEMC E-Magazine then enter your name and email address at DEMC Subscription Service. You will be glad you did.

Do you have some stats about email marketing that would help others? If so how about leaving a comment for all of us. Helping others is the fun part of this business.

Good luck with your email marketing efforts...

Elaine

Content!! Is Your Content Working?

Content! Content! Content! 

What could be more important?

Your content has to bring your reader to a state of total focus on what you are saying. Otherwise, they will just glance or read the first words and move on. You don't want this to happen. You want your reader to get so caught-up in what you are saying that they will not even think about clicking to somewhere else. 

It doesn't matter if you are writing an article, an ad, blog post, email, short, small, long, etc. The content you create must draw your reader in and be good enough to keep them reading. 

Remember, content must be genuine. In other words be honest with what you are writing. Readers are not stupid and dumb. Eventually they will see right through you.

Scott Aughtmon developed this guide to help all of us with our content endeavors. Thanks Scott.



Source: Scott Aughtmon of  http://recessionsolution.com/

Some more resources for writing great content:

1. http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/blog/

2. http://www.scoop.it/t/curation-corner

Email Marketing Etiquette

Photo from: http://www.compraremails.net/

Most of us that have been in business for a period of time understand the importance of email marketing and how to use it properly. You have probably heard the saying, "The money is in the list." Well, actually the saying should be 'The money is in the right list.' 

But have you ever taken the time to learn what you should do and not do with your email marketing list? Hopefully you have. Whether you have or not here is a great infographic provided by Vertical Response and Skadeedle that shows the Do's and Don'ts of email marketing. Pay close attention; some of you need reminding.

I noticed that there is one very important item left out of the infographic Do's. It is incleded within the Don't area. An item that is required by law if you are sending a business email. That item is an unsubscribe link. This is a must. No one wants to be accused of spamming and this is one sure way to get black- balled. 

Another thing I might mention: if you are going to send out business emails be sure that each person has agreed to receive business emails from you. 

Embedded from Skadeedle

A Small Rant

I got such a kick from reading this email from Paul Myers of http://www.talkbiz.com that I asked if I could use it here on my blog. Paul has been in internet marketing and writing about internet marketing for some 15 years so one might say he has been around the block more than once. For more straight talk about the internet visit the link and sign up. You won't be disapointed.

I can't remember when I first learned of Paul and his work ethic but I can tell you it has been many moons ago. Hope you get as big a kick out of reading this as I did. Oh! and by the way, for those of you that this fits, shame on you!!!




"There has always been a strong undercurrent of conflict among people who want to use the net to sell stuff. Basically, it comes down to the spammers versus everyone else.

In the old days, that was an easy line to draw. Spam was a term used mostly to refer to unsolicited bulk email and off topic commercial Usenet posts. Many of the people engaged in this
sort of behavior back then were simply naive. 
The medium was new enough that they didn't understand the long-term impact their actions would have.

These days, we're dealing with a whole different kind of 
snake.
....

Harking back to the Auld Daze, we're now seeing a resurgence of
the whackamole spammer. The sleazeball who scrapes or buys or
steals a list of email addresses and pounds them with stuff
they never asked for, and just moves to another host when they
get shut down.

This problem went away for a while. The easy availability of
anonymous proxies, ultra-cheap hosting, careless email service
providers, and pre-paid debit cards made the reincarnation
possible. The rise of new affiliate networks that cater to the
"Internet marketing" crowd made it inevitable.

Add to it the Chinese and Russian networks that sell credit
card and Paypal account data in bulk, and the online banks that
make creating fraudulent accounts a matter of a few minutes and
a few mouse clicks, and it's become big business.

The point?

If they have to use any of those mechanisms to get access to
send their email, there is no way they can expect anyone to
believe they think they're doing something legit. They're
thieving spambags, and they know it.

If you're not one of these people, you're one of their 
victims.

If you are one of these people and you feel insulted by what I
just said... Too bad.
....

Then there are the people who feed the beast.

If you've ever run a blog or a forum and had to deal with
spammers, you know the destructive influence they have. Or if
you've ever tried to find something in a search engine and been
swamped by results that have almost no relevance, but are there
because the sites' owners paid some "search engine optimizer"
to rank them for some unrelated (or spammy) term.

This is where it gets sticky.

Have you ever paid some SEO firm to blast your links? If so,
you're part of the problem.

Funny story...

I got sick of seeing the spam from one source on a forum I
participate in. Garbage posts, with the obvious goal of getting
the link love from their signature files. So, in addition to
banning the creeps, I started calling the companies linked in
the signatures and asking why they were spamming the forum.

Ooops.

One guy told me he didn't care, as long as it moved him up in
Google's rankings. Last I knew, he'd been gutted by a Panda.

The rest were appalled at the notion that their links were
coming as a result of some kid in Pakistan spamming business
discussion forums. That was nothing like what they had been
promised by the "Professional SEO Firms" they'd hired to move
them up the SERPS.

The owner of one of those "professional SEO firms" threatened
to sue me. When I asked what he intended to base his suit on,
he said "Slander!"

My reply: "I didn't even know you existed when I called the
guy. I asked HIM why HE was spamming the forum. How is HIS
response slander on my part?"

[crickets]

You may not be able to stop the human robots these folks use
for their "work," but costing them a few clients is an
excellent way to get them to leave your site alone.

You don't have to sit back and let these slime run rough-shod
over your work.

Take back your sites.
....

And watch your back.

One of the big fads to hit the "Magic Button" circuit lately is
actually an old concept: Solo ads. The idea is simple. You pay
someone to send an ad to their subscribers, usually to build
your own list.

Paid advertising. Wow. What a concept. As long as it's 
properly disclosed, there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Here's the thing: These ads are normally sold on a "per click"
basis. The seller usually gets anywhere from 20 cents to a
dollar a click, depending on the niche and the list. (It can
vary wildly, but those are not unusual prices.)

So, some geniuses decide they're going to cash in. They offer
clicks in large volumes at cut-rate prices, and sell tons of
orders. They claim to have massive lists of targeted
subscribers who've asked to receive their emails. To make it
sound legit, they claim they'll only accept a limited number of
orders each week, as they don't want to burn out their
"valuable subscribers" with too many offers.

Sorry, folks, but these guys will take every order they can
get, for as long as someone is willing to play the sucker.

Problem: The clicks aren't really clicks, and they're not from
emails sent to real people who actually subscribed to the lists
the sellers claim. They're exposures on traffic exchanges or
PPV networks. If it costs them a penny a click, it's a lot.

You end up paying gourmet prices for dog food traffic. And it's
not even good dog food.

"Would you like flies with that?"
....

There are tons of ways these pukes abuse marketing systems. And
all of them make life harder on legitimate businesses.

They spam YouTube with "spun" videos, uploading hundreds of
copies of the same video, with slight changes. Or they download
your videos and add their own tweaks, to steal the rankings and
traffic that you created real value to earn.

So, YouTube has to tighten up their policies, and they delete
thousands of accounts. Sometimes nailing legitimate creators in
the process.

I have friends who got seriously screwed by Google's Panda and
Penguin updates. Including a guy who was making a ton of money
from AdSense, and had been touted by Google themselves as a
great example of the right way to create an authority site.

Does that mean Google was wrong?

No. They're doing what they can to stop the SEO spammers, and
this isn't an exact science. There's no way to operate on any
scale much bigger than "small group" and not have some false
positives.

That's the gift the spammers give to you. Stricter sets of
rules, which end up clumping you in with the thieves and the
sleaze. And there are so many people in these systems that it's
impossible to keep them running without tightening things up so
much that some innocent people get caught in the nets.

The scary thing is, the real spammers adjust, and they're back
in the game in no time. But legitimate businesses don't know
how to adapt to these things, so they get hurt bad.

And there is no-one to blame but the spambags.
....

Here's a fairly recent example, with a prediction.

Facebook recently started offering a service that allows you to
upload a list of email addresses of subscribers, and ask them
if they want to also follow you on their site.

Brilliant idea, really. Used properly, it's a great way to make
things more convenient for you and your subscribers. It lets
folks choose which channel is most useful for them.

I love the concept. Seriously.

Here's the rub... People are using this to invite folks who
aren't really subscribers at all. I've gotten dozens of these
over the past couple of weeks, and not one of them has been
from anyone I've even heard of in the past. The emails look
like this:

  Subject: Sum Beech is on Facebook

  Message: Hi Paul,

  Since you're already subscribed to their email updates off
  of Facebook, Sum Beech has suggested you like their Page to
  stay connected.

  If you like Sum Beech follow the link below:

Sorry, goys and birls, but this Sum Beech needs to get 
Gibbs-smacked.

This is a brilliant, simple, useful option that is going to be
ruined in no time by dipwads who are more interested in gaming
the system than in actually doing something productive with
their lives.

This sort of abuse should be punishable by 20 years of 
following grizzly bears around with a pooper-scooper and an air
horn. All the while, they'd be wondering if what they were
cleaning up was the remnant of the last guy to serve the same
sentence.

This would, happily or otherwise, give rise to the next viral
country dance craze...

"Toot. Scoop. Boogie!"
....

There are some technical options that could be useful. The one
I would personally like most to see would be a proxy blocklist,
which would let blog and forum operators keep out the majority
of the spambags. But that's just another part of the arms race.

The main point I'd like to make is simpler...

If you're doing this stuff, don't kid yourself, or try to kid
the rest of us. You're a leech, and you deserve to be burned
off the net like any other blood-sucking parasite.

If you're not doing this stuff, don't make excuses for the
folks who are. This isn't a "competitive edge." It's abuse.
These practices are inherently destructive, and should not be
tolerated.

The most fundamental basis for any civil society is respect for
the person and property of others.

Stand up for yourself.

Take back your sites!


Paul

-----===(*)===-----
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