If you’re a big business with dedicated marketing staff and a budget that matches your size, you can afford to spend quite a bit of time and money on marketing and advertising. But if you are a smaller business, chances are you simply can’t afford to keep running new ads and creating fresh promotions. Instead, you have to find ways to do more with less. Luckily there’s lots of ways you can reduce, reuse and recycle your marketing materials. One of the best options I’ve found for getting maximum bang for your marketing buck—hands down—is writing articles. Whether you write it yourself, or you have someone edit or ghostwrite it for you, a well-written article is the ultimate multi-purpose marketing tool. Articles can promote 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… Keep in mind that if you really want articles work for you, each one needs to be informative, well-written and carefully targeted to your audience. Be sure to include your Web address, and ideally a “call to action” directing people do something—sign up for your newsletter, call for more info, or visit your Website. A short bio is often a good idea too. Here are ten different ways you can put one single article to work for you:

1. Even if you aren’t a professional writer, if you have something useful to say—and a clear, readable writing style—you can likely publish an article in a local magazine, journal or newspaper. Just send a query first. Not the complete article.
2. That same article can be published in your own newsletter (If you want to get it in a magazine or newspaper, always send it to them first. Many publications won’t use an article that’s been published anywhere else). Other businesses are often looking for content, so add an offer to let them publish your article in their newsletter as long as they include your bio and contact info and/or offer.
3. Post it to your blog and submit it to online blog carnivals focused on your topic or area of expertise. Then Tweet about it too.
4. Anything you write can also be posted to your Website. The more fresh, relevant content you have on your site, the higher it ranks in the search engines.
5. Submit it to online article databases and social networking sites. This creates incoming links pointing to your Website and gives others the chance to sample your expertise.
6. Give your articles away as leave-behinds at networking events or speaking engagements. It’s a terrific way to encourage people to visit your display table.
7. Mail a copy of your article (especially if it got published in a newspaper or magazine) to your own clients and/or contacts.
8. Build your contact/mailing list by giving your article away for free on your Website in exchange for reader’s names and email addresses.
9. Include an article (or two) with any promotional packets or mailings you send out to potential customers.
10. Expand upon one article, or combine several, to create a book or an e-book to sell or give away.

Can you think of more ideas for marketing your business with articles? If so, I’d love to know. Please leave a comment below… [tags] Articles, Multi-Purpose, Small Business Marketing Tool, Online Networking, Offline database submissions, blog carnival, write, publish, submit, post ebook, e-book [/tags]