5 Ways To Brand Your Business With Article Marketing
Posted by Brad Sauer on Wed, Aug 03, 2011
Article marketing is a fast-growing online marketing strategy. Articles are written by business owners and submitted to niche blogs or article directories for further syndication. Article marketing is a great tool for online businesses and site owners which combines SEO, quality content, name recognition, and branding.
These days, consumers purchase brands as much as they purchase products and services. Your brand is the ideas and character traits which consumers associate with your product or service. Unfortunately, brands can be manipulated by the consumer or competitor, especially in a world where information constantly flows and is impossible to control or monitor. Article marketing gives you the opportunity to shape your brand. This post will focus on five branding techniques which can be accomplished through article marketing.
Brand Yourself as Credible: This may be the branding technique which can be furthered most by article marketing. Whereas many marketing techniques are designed only to get the consumer’s attention, writing a short article gives you the opportunity to explain to the consumer why he should associate himself with your product or service. The hidden matrix of SEO gets the consumer’s attention, but the credibility you demonstrate in your article keeps it. Once you are able to keep the consumer's attention, you can continue to shape your brand.
Brand Yourself as Honest: Once you’ve branded yourself as credible, you can brand yourself as honest. Consumers aren’t stupid (well, most of them aren’t). They know that your product or industry isn’t perfect. By first branding yourself as credible, you can then be honest with the consumer about any drawbacks of your product or industry. Because you’re credible, you can still conclude that they should purchase your product (depending on the rules of the directory or blog for whom you are writing). If you’ve branded yourself as credible, your honesty will be refreshing, and will only enhance your brand.
Brand Yourself as an Industry Leader: Consumers want to buy from businesses on the leading edge. You can use article marketing to brand yourself as a leader in two ways. First, you can brand yourself as a leader in innovation. Use your article to explain to consumers why your product is a generation ahead of your competitors’ products. Second, you can brand yourself as a leader in social responsibility. Consumers want to know that businesses have more on their mind than just the bottom line. Use your article to explain your green initiative or your philanthropic endeavors.
Brand Yourself as Funny: This can serve two purposes. First, virtually all consumers like to laugh. Including humor in your article marketing campaign will keep the consumer reading all the way to the end of your article. By keeping their attention, you advance other brand strategies. Second, consumers don’t like businesses which take themselves too seriously. Injecting humor into your article will tell the consumer that you want to give them something of value (a good laugh) even while telling them about your product or industry. This is the entire theory behind most Super Bowl ads!
Brand Yourself as Engaged: This strategy works primarily when your articles are submitted to a manageable number of niche blogs which can be easily monitored in the days and weeks after your guest-written article is posted to the blog. Consumers appreciate a business model which values the feedback of the consumer. You can engage consumers by reading and responding to their comments. Best of all, every response is a chance to further brand your business consistent with the principles already discussed.
Article marketing is just one type of content marketing, but most principles of content marketing will apply to writing articles. In the end, the key is an ability to write quality content that is worth reading. The Internet is full of content that’s not worth reading, and although that content may get a few clicks, it rarely influences the people who click on it. Your goal in article marketing is to influence people by branding your business as one they want to be associated with.