Before you read on and see my answer, I must warn you that my answer will shock you. Please take a seat before you move on.
Despite what other article marketers will tell you – my answer is: YES! You must sell within your articles. Now, I do not mean in any way that you should explicitly sell your products and services and disguise a sales letter or advertisement as an article. I do not mean that in any way.
Now, I love the “how-to” article and the “top 3, 5 7 or 10 tips” article as much as everyone else. But too many people overuse the article formulas they love. Take this quiz and find out if you need to change your article style.
1. Are you getting bored of writing the same way every time – I’m the article marketing and writing expert and I’d get bored with writing in the same format. I write articles for my LinkedIn group (because I follow the advice of LinkedIn Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo at http://www.getlinkedinhelp.com.) I write articles for my blog on an almost daily basis. I write articles for my newsletter and for article submission. So I write lots and lots of articles. If I wrote in the same style and format, each and every single time I’d procrastinate. I’d put off writing and then you the readers would lose out on the education and value that I provide.
When writing and submitting articles to top websites, ezines and blogs – your goal is NOT to do a hard sell for anything but yourself and your information to your readers. Online article submissions has 8 main purposes:
You can, however sell to your readers in a very subtle way. For example:
Within my online article marketing courses and online article writing courses, I heavily stress the fact that you have to write articles for your specific audience. Why would you want to bring traffic to your site – that you simply don’t want to work with? However, some people can’t stand the idea of singling out readers.
For, example..LinkedIn Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo recently wrote an article entitled: Does your experience section in your LinkedIn profile stink?
You can read the article in Kristina’s Get Help with Linked Strategies group at: http://tinyurl.com/43gbbe7
In this article Kristina mentions the following mistakes:
I know what you are thinking — “Eric, what the h#$! are you doing watching day time talk shows?”
In between helping clients improve their linkedin marketing at http://www.getlinkedinhelp.com, my wife occasionally likes to relax and watch these talk shows. So I get stuck listening to it.But, this time it really caught my eye as they were making over those who like to reveal too much of their bodies. It’s amazing what the fashion and beauty makeover artists can do.
Now, as I watched the show, I started to think how we can use these “makeover” shows to create a “makeover” instant article writing template.
1. In these makeover shows, the talk show host always show a before picture and have a guest explain why their family member or friend desperately needs a makeover. They explain the situation in detail. So, in your articles take the first part to describe the “before” situation for one of your clients. Paint a picture in our heads as we don’t have a visual picture like they do on T.V.
2. Once the host shows the before picture and talks to the guest – they invite the guest who received the makeover to come out from behind closed doors. They then compare a before and after picture. So, the next step of the “makeover” article, you show the positive effects of your work – and compare their “before” situation to the “after” situation.
3. The last thing they do during these “makeover” shows is have the beauty and fashion experts come out and reveal what they did and why. Now, in the above section, you made a connection by telling a story about a “before” situation that prospects can connect too. You gained credibility by showing results and how you helped your client. Now, the next step – is to give some takeaway tips and information. This way you add informational value so publishers will want to publish your article.
For even more article templates go to:
My LiveWebsiteReviews.com partner Adam Hommey (who helps me review client’s websites and show them live on video using screen shot technology exactly what they are doing wrong) recently wrote an article entitled:
7 Proven, Surefire Ways To Guarantee You Never Convert A Visitor Into A Buyer
Now, of course you want to increase website conversions. But, people are attracted to the “negative.” Just look at any newspaper, celebrity magazine or even the news – what percentage of the content is negative?
Why is that? Because bad news travels faster than good news. That’s why the average person who has experienced exceptional one-of-a-kind service will only tell one person about it – yet the average person person who has received poor service will tell 7 people about it.
So, instead of writing a how-to article that can get quite boring if that’s all you write, why not switch it up and share ways your prospects get a negative effect. This will allow you to add personality to your articles as you can have fun with it.
Check out Adam’s article and see this article idea in action:
http://www.helpmywebsitesell.com/never-convert-a-visitor/
Another example is Barry Dunlop’s post - 10-Step Guide to Being a Loser. This article definitely has a negative slant. After all, being a loser is very rarely a good thing. But this article is actually full of awesome self improvement advice.
The exact article template to use with this type of article and blog post can be found at: http://www.StartWritingArticlesFaster.com
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eric@articlemarketingexperts.com