_Businesses?

"Articles.The Ultimate Multi-Purpose Marketing Tool for Small Businesses"

Time is precious.

Money is precious.Especially when it comes to marketing and growing your
small business.

You simply can’t afford to keep running new ads, creating fresh promotions
and reinventing the wheel.

Instead, you have to do more with less. Luckily there’s lots of ways you can
reduce, reuse and recycle your marketing materials to get more bang for your
marketing buck.

One of my favorites is by writing articles.

Whether you write them yourself, or have someone edit or ghostwrite them for
you, a well-written article is the ultimate low-cost, multi-purpose
marketing tool.

Articles can promote your products or services, drive traffic to your
Website, and increase your search engine rankings. They can highlight your
knowledge and expertise, and help you become more well-known. You can use
articles to stay in touch with your clients, or attract new ones.

The list goes on and on.

The key is that if you really want articles work for you, each one needs to
be informative, well-written and carefully targeted to your audience. And
you’re going to need to write more than one.

Here are ten different ways you can put one single article to work for you:

1. Post your article to your blog.

2. Publish your article in your own print or email newsletter.

3. Other businesses are often looking for content, so offer to let them
publish your article in their newsletter or on their blog.

4. Put it on your Website. The more fresh, relevant content you have on
your site, the higher it ranks in the search engines.

5. Submit your article to free, online article databases like
http://www.ezinearticles.com/ <http://www.ezinearticles.com/> or on social
networking sites like www.biznik.com <http://www.biznik.com/> . This creates
incoming links pointing to your Website, gives others the opportunity to use
your article and spread your name and links, and also drives people directly
to your Website.

6. Give your helpful article away as a handout at networking events.

7. Mail a copy of your article to clients, contacts or prospects.

8. Build your list by offering your article for free on your Website in
exchange for reader’s names and email addresses.

9. Include an article (or two) with any promotional packets you send
out to prospects.

10. Expand upon one article, or combine several, to create an e-book to
sell or give away.

Just remember, while you can always include a link or two in your bio, or
even a call to action, don’t be overtly salesy in your article. Just make
sure it’s easy to read and packed with useful info and people will want to
know more.

Got more ideas for marketing your business with articles? If so, please do
share by leaving a comment below!