Know a few things about your niche? Looking for a
cost-effective way to get your name, business, products,
and services out to fresh prospects and a wider (yet more
targeted) audience?

Consider the humble article for content.

Articles are everywhere, yet annoy no one. They’re
promotional, yet don’t reek of in-your-face advertising.
The best ones are easy to read, deliver valuable
information, and entertain as well as inform.

Marketing experts hail articles as one of the prime lead
generation tools for small business owners limited by time,
budgets, and resources.

This workhorse of a content vehicle:

1. BUILDS YOUR EXPERT REPUTATION. People see you as
important because you’re out there. You’re viewed as the
go-to guru in your field. And you’ve got a leg up on the
non-published competition because of it.

2. INVITES TARGETED TRAFFIC. Your article isn’t a cold call
or a sales pitch. It’s a low-risk, low-cost portal for
those who read your articles to visit your site, learn more
about your offerings, and ultimately, do business with you.

3. INCREASES INCOMING LINKS. Article marketing gives
publishers and professionals in your industry an easy way
to recommend you as a resource to their audience and
clients. (More exposure, leads, and opportunities!)

4. PRE-QUALIFIES YOUR PROSPECTS. This is a great way to
educate your audience. If readers connect with what you’re
saying - your style, opinions, voice, vision, philosophies,
knowledge, etc. - they’re more likely to want to work with
you when they’re ready to move forward.

5. DELIVERS DIGNITY-RICH VALUE. Instead of feeling like
they’re being sold to, your audience gets what they want to
know when they want to know it. They’re grateful to you for
sharing your niche information. They get to know, like, and
trust you.

6. LEVERAGES YOUR TIME, KNOW-HOW, AND EXPERTISE. One online
article can reach hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of
thousands of prospects. And since it’s online, it can
attract new readers year after year. What’s more, you can
use these articles in your other marketing efforts - in
emails to inquirers and current clients, on postcards, and
as printouts at networking and speaking events, for example.

7. BOOSTS YOUR BUSINESS AND BOTTOM LINE! Online articles
with exceptional resource boxes are organic, keyword-loaded
traffic magnets that win the hearts of prospects and search
engines alike!

Next time you have an hour or so to work on your business,
why not give article marketing a whirl?

Jot down a few bullet points around a process. Answer a
frequently-asked question in your area of expertise.
Provide a how-to, share a case study, or launch a
myth-busting rant.

Then submit your article to a online distribution service,
industry publications, relevant media outlets, or all of
the above. Post it on your website, send it to your current
clients, and put it in your marketing arsenal for unlimited
use.

That’s the humble article, at your service. This could be
the beginning of a beautiful, profitable friendship!

About the Author:

(c) 2007 Epiphanies, Inc. As the “Content Lovers” of
Epiphanies Inc., Lani & Allen Voivod help budding
entrepreneurs and small biz dynamos “A-Ha Themselves” in
fun and profitable ways. For FREE articles, marketing tips,
and content strategies designed to fire up your passion and
profit-ize your niche, sign up for their “Inciter” ezine at
http://www.epiphaniesinc.com

[tags]article marketing, content[/tags]

Great Marketers are great story tellers and great landing
pages tell great stories. People won’t buy your product or
service on facts and benefits alone. They need to see
themselves using your product. They need to feel the benefit
that comes from using your product and that feeling only
comes about by telling them a compelling story that they can
relate to.

You don’t need to be the next coming of Mark Twain to write
effective copy (although it wouldn’t hurt either), but you
do need to be able to engage readers at their own level.
That’s one of the reasons why the conversational style of
writing is so popular and effective. It draws people to you.
You’re not a salesman trying to pitch yet another product at
them. Rather you’re a friendly voice relaying your
experience and findings in an topic of shared interest.

Seth Godin is one of the best marketing authors in ages and
has a great take on what makes a good story. Her are my some
of my favorites tips that have helped my marketing
tremendously: Great Stories true; Great Stories make a
promise; Great Stories are trusted; Great Stories happen
fast. People have a remarkable ability to ferret out scams
and insincerities.  If you don’t believe your story, they
won’t either. That’s one reason why it’s so much easer to
market products that you yourself use and rely on in your
everyday life.

Marketers frequently get caught up in all of the great
features that their product has to offer. However all of the
whiz-bang features of whatever you’re promoting aren’t worth
a thing if your reader can’t see the value. Granted the
story you write needs to be backed up with a solid offering
but features alone are not what move people to action. They
need to believe the story you tell and most importantly, be
able to see themselves as the story’s main character. As
soon as they see themselves in that role, your message can
start to seep through.

Getting your story started can be the toughest part of the
the writing process. A blank page staring you in the face
can be quite intimidating. The best way that I have found to
get the ball rolling is to get into a state of “flow”.
“Flow” is a mindset where you develop a running stream of
thoughts in your head that overflows out onto paper.  The
techniques for getting into this mode are many but one
simple way is to just “turn off your internal editor and
write without criticism”. The book “Flow: The Psychology of
Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi offers a
complete discussion of the topic and I highly recommend it.
Once you compose your initial draft, you must revise and
edit it until it takes final form. Some people can simply
rewrite their work calling upon years of writing experience.
However if you don’t have years of experience there are a
couple of other paths to good copy. Working under the
mentorship of a great copywriter is very effective but can
be very expensive and time consuming. There’s also software
that can statistically analyze your work and guide you
towards higher converting copy. I’ve found the software
approach particularly effective, it’s always ready to work
when I am, and the more I use it, the less I need it,
because it’s a powerful learning tool too.

Discover how to optimize your sales page to drive
conversions through the roof. Recommended by Trevor Stalling
http://www.conversionchamp.com/tools/stats.php

[tags]long copy, hard sale, optimize sales page[/tags]

How do you choose the products you buy? Do you simply accept as gospel truth all the good things a merchant says about their own product? Or, do you ask your friends’ opinions and look for independent product reviews before opening your wallet?

If you’re a savvy consumer (which of course you are), then you put more stock in your friends’ opinions and independent product reviews.

As affiliate marketers, we become much more successful when we approach our site visitors as friends and take the attitude that they too are savvy consumers.

From that standpoint, an affiliate’s real work is to pre-sell our merchant partners’ products by writing fair and balanced reviews, also known as endorsement letters.

Sure, writing a review for each product takes a little time and effort, but it’s an activity that sets the super affiliates apart from their less-super counterparts in terms of rewards… read ‘income’.

Product reviews can be either stand-alone or comparative. The first type focuses on a single product, while the second is an evaluation of similar items that allows readers to choose which product best suits them.

Before you begin to write a product review, you’ll need to evaluate the product. (Nothing like stating the obvious, eh?)

I prefer to endorse products that I’ve actually used. However, buying a product isn’t always feasible. If that’s the case, affiliate managers will often grant ‘proven’ super-affiliates access to products for their review. That’s especially true of information products and services that are delivered online, such as internet dating services.

But what if you’re not yet a super affiliate, and can’t fathom a basement full of treadmills to review for your exercise site?

Well, do what your customer would do if product reviews didn’t exist on the Internet - go to the store and test those treadmills out!

And how do you review acne medications for your skin care site if you don’t have acne? Surely, you have some friends with (previously) pimply-faced teenagers… ask them to tell you what worked for them.

If you can’t find out that way, search Google for “consumer reviews” + “acne medications”. Read as many as you can to come up with three to five effective products (that have affiliate programs).

Once you’ve collected information about the product, it’s time to start writing that product review.

The structure for a product review is simple, containing an introduction, overview and summary.

The introduction consists of a few sentences outlining the problem and introduces a possible solution for the reader, without going into detail. The overview describes the product’s promise, a description of how the product is used, as well as its effectiveness and value. The summary is almost a repeat of the introduction, and contains a strong recommendation for purchase based on your conclusions.

To simplify the review-writing process, I ask myself the following questions when writing product reviews for my own affiliate sites.

1. Who is my reader and what is their problem?

2. What does the product promise?

3. How well does the product solve the problem? What does it do? How does it work?

4. Does the product offer good value? (Would I buy this product?)

Let’s look at each question in turn.

The first question asks, “Who is my reader and what is their problem?”

If acne is your reader’s problem and your site visitors are adults, you probably want to avoid terminology like ‘Zap those zits!’ and use more age-appropriate language.

Remember too, that ‘zits’ aren’t really the problem. The real problem is how your reader feels about having pimples all over their face and how that affects their life.

If you’ve experienced the problem yourself, say so. Describe your experience, and show understanding and compassion for the reader’s plight. Speaking from real experience earns your readers’ trust which always improves sales rates.

If you have trouble figuring out how your reader might be affected by his problem, then you can research that online too.

For example, I searched Google for “hate acne” and came across Acne.org, where one young woman lamented, “My sh%tty skin is seriously ruining my social life and my relationships with men. I’m avoiding it all just cuz I don’t want to show my face. Its really sad. I also spend a lot of money on make up. I’m not even asking for the most perfect skin (even though it would be nice) but even if I was limited to just a couple zits….and then it would take me under 30 mins to get ready….I would never be home, and I would go back to living the life that I ohh so miss.”

That gives you a pretty clear picture of how she feels, right?

Now address those concerns using emotive terms and you’ll improve your conversion rates.

Here’s an example.

Rather than say, “Product A will cure your acne”, start with a question that appeals to your reader’s emotion, such as “Is acne ruining your social life? Scared to leave the house - or even show your face? There IS a solution to your plight.”

That introduction brings us to the next question which is, ‘What does the product promise?’

Does the product cure the problem? Does it work faster, or with less hassle and expense?

You found answers to that question during your product research. In this section you simply summarize your findings.

Next, answer the third set of questions, “How well does the product solve the problem?”, “what does it do?” and “how does it work?” based on your product research.

Results are the most important information, so it’s not necessary to provide nitty gritty details about how you use the product or what it’s made of or how it is packaged, etc. unless the merchant does not supply that information on their site, and you consider the information of importance to your reader.

Too, we’re all aware that no product is perfect, so don’t go overboard and write a completely glowing, one-sided review. To make the product review balanced and fair, detail what you do and don’t like about the product. If you want to avoid negative statements when outlining your dislikes, try phrasing the sentence like “although I’d prefer a slightly less greasy formula…” or “although the bottle lacks a pump dispenser…” and finish on a positive note.

Lastly, make a value statement. For example, “While Product A and B both eliminate most acne problems in 30 days, Product A wins our ‘best value’ award priced at $20 less per bottle. Or, if you’re writing a single product review, you could say something like, “Acme’s Acne Product would be great value even at twice the price, but at this price it can’t be beat!”

For even better conversions, be sure to include a product graphic on your product review webpage, and a testimonial or two from users that you solicit through your site or use with permission from your merchant partner’s site.

In summary, tell your visitors what you would say to a friend if you were telling them about a product that you found and liked. That approach will make writing reviews easier and your friendly attitude will push your conversion rates through the roof!

Article by Rosalind Gardner, author of the best-selling “Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online”. To learn how you too can suceed in Internet and affiliate marketing, go to: http://netprofitstoday.com/

[tags]Rosalind Gardner,write a product review,[/tags]