Article marketing is an excellent way to promote your business and elevate yourself to expert status within your field. With that comes trust and increased sales – but it doesn’t happen over night.
As it is one of the cheapest ways to market yourself, it seems mad that so many businesses shy away from it.
Getting started
The hardest part of article writing is getting started. How do you come up with ideas? When you have the idea, how do you start the article?
If it’s any comfort, once you’re over those hurdles you’ll get a great feeling when you’ve finished it.
One reason many people put forwards as an excuse not to write articles is that they don’t think their writing is good enough. But remember, it’s only an article – you’re not trying to bag yourself a huge advance for the next best selling novel series.
Don’t put so much pressure on yourself – no one is perfect. Yes, I hate to admit it, but I am not perfect – pretty damn close though.
Discipline
However much you hate that word, discipline is important if you are serious about article writing and marketing as part of your marketing. Without it, nothing will get done or written. Having discipline causes any writer, especially those who write articles for the internet, to think clearly so the focus is on the output and not on the ego. Basically it helps you leave the creative writer at home so the business writer can focus clearly on the subject and how they want their reader to react to the article.
Discipline helps to:
- Maintain focus
- Break a topic down – smaller subject chunks are easier to get your head round
- Let go – don’t force your writing, natural writing is easier to read
- Write – ignore distractions
- Stop you editing as you go along– your first draft is the place to let your ideas flow. Editing comes at the end of the process.
- Make you read and review the article
- Relax – leave the article for a while after writing it for at least a day, it’s best reviewed with fresh eyes
Discipline will help you make article marketing a regular and effective part of your online marketing strategy. Whether it is for a company blog or publishing on article sites, working on best practice will help your confidence and sales.
Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter