Articles

Is your boss upset with you about an article? Mine was...

My boss was having a minor fit.

“Look at this!” he shouted, holding up this month’s issue of the industry’s leading trade journal.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This issue has a bylined article written by “X” (our major competitor) touting their product and bashing our approach” he said.

“Why aren’t we in this magazine?” he whined. (Don’t you just hate it when the boss whines?)

The answer, of course, was that our competitors had written something and they’d gotten it accepted. We hadn’t. We had been focusing on running advertising in the same publication. It’s just easier to buy advertising. Get an ad designed and pay some money to the magazine. They’ll run anyone’s ad.

They won’t run anyone’s article unless:

  • They have the space to run the article.
  • The article meets the magazine’s focus and editorial standards.
  • The article meets the scrutiny of the magazine’s editor-in-chief or managing editor.

The problem, of course, is that prospects are highly skeptical about what they read in paid advertising. And rightfully so. Running full-page ads also costs a small fortune so your marketing budget dwindles faster.

Much more important: your prospects are more likely to believe what you have to say if they read it as an article written about or even by you than they are if they read it in an ad.

 

Getting tons of free PR for your product, service, or business – once difficult, now easy!

If you’re not writing articles for and running them in trade journals, in magazines, in e-newsletters, and on Web sites that reach your customers and prospects … and publishing them on a regular basis … you’re not connecting to your audience as well as you might. Can you afford not to use every competitive edge in this cutthroat market? Of course not.

As a three-time editor-in-chief, I know how to write promotional articles … and how get them published. You should get your articles published in trade magazines and online on sites that are frequented by your customers and prospects. You should also go after e-zines, online magazines.

 

How and why you should write and submit articles for other people’s e-zines.

The why is twofold.

  1. First, as with writing articles for print publications, you want to get your company’s name out there, establish yourself or someone at your company as an expert, and get people to inquire about your company’s products and services.
     
  2. Second you can generate direct sales of your products or build your own e-newsletter subscriber list – or both – in exchange for letting e-zine publishers use your articles free of charge. You merely have them agree to run a URL hyperlink to one of your Web sites or pages.

The hyperlink drives traffic either to a landing page selling a product or to a registration page offering a free subscription to your own e-newsletter. Those names are gold and you get them inexpensively. Free, if you don’t count the cost of creating the article.

As for writing online articles and get other e-zines to publish them, leave that to me. As a long-time writer and three-time editor-in-chief, I know how to create an interesting, on-target article that connects to your target audience.

Now would be a good time to pick up the phone and call (408) 910-5992 or send an email to me at steven.leibson@gmail.com and discuss your needs. The consultation’s free.

 

 

©2009 - 2022
Steve Leibson
 (408) 910-5992

steven.leibson@gmail.com