Did you get into business to make a difference in your clients’ lives and help them reach their goals and improve their lives? But did those goals somehow get lost after all the marketing, blogging, social networking and everything else you have been doing lately to promote your business and get clients?

I have great news for you! You can use marketing to make a difference for people in your target market. When you market effectively and authentically, both you and the people in your target market benefit! Marketing does not have to be a you-win, and they-lose situation. When you apply online marketing techniques authentically and effectively, you turn your marketing into a win-win. You win and people in your target market win! Here is how:

- Make A Difference With Article Marketing. When you are writing articles to submit to article directories, ask yourself — “how can I write effective articles that make a difference in my clients’ lives and at the same time demonstrate my knowledge and expertise?”

Share information that people need and you will help them, while demonstrating your expertise and knowledge at the same time.

- Make A Difference With Your Blog. Why do people come to your blog? They want to learn from you, and yes, they want to learn something that will help them improve their lives.

Use your blog to share tips and information that help people in your target market to improve their lives and reach their goals.

- Make A Difference With Social Networking Web Sites. This is one of the easiest methods to share and to help people in your target market. Use social networking web sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, to connect with people in your target market and to share your tips with them.

Bonus: since you are already writing articles and blogging, share your articles and blog posts on social networking web sites. That way you will share your expertise and help more people at the same time.

- Make A Difference With Your Products And Programs. When you create products and programs, create products and programs that are of the most value to the people in your target market and that help them improve their lives and reach their goals. Learn how to create programs and products that make a difference to people in your target market during this Thursday call,
http://www.marketingsalad.com/fall.html

Article marketing is an extremely effective marketing strategy. When used effectively, article marketing can bring you a lot of web site traffic and newsletter subscribers.

What is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing articles and submitting them to article directories. When you write articles that are of interest to your target market, people in your target market will read them, and then follow the link in the Resource Box back to your web site.

The implications of this are huge! When you write effective articles, you can bring a ton of traffic to your web site and convert this traffic into newsletter subscribers! In fact, here are four ways to get traffic from just one article:

1. Traffic From Article Directories

What happens after you write articles? You submit your articles to article directories, of course! Article directories are places where you can share articles that you write, so that you can get more exposure for your business.

When you write an article and submit it to article directories, you are now sharing your expertise in article directories as well. Then, when people in your target market read your articles on article directory web sites, they will follow the link in your Resource Box and visit your web site!

2. Traffic From The Reprints Of Your Articles

When you write articles that are of interest to your target market, great things happen. Not only do people in your target market read them and follow the links to your web site, but others want to reprint your articles as well!

Many people are looking for content for their blogs and newsletters. And when they need content, they look at article directories. And if they like your article and they feel that reading your article will benefit their readers, they will reprint your article and share it with their readers!

What this means to you is that you are going to get more exposure for your business, and more traffic to your web site! When your article is reprinted, your Resource Box is also reprinted. So when people read your article in someone’s newsletter or on someone’s blog, and they like it, they will follow the link to your web site and you will get more traffic.

3. Traffic From Social Networking Web Sites, Such As Facebook and Twitter

Once you write an article, don’t keep it to yourself! Submitting it to article directories is a great first step, but in addition to doing that you should also share your article on social networking web sites.

Your articles contains lots of tips for people in your target market. Since you are connected with people in your target market on Twitter and Facebook, share your article with them, and they will benefit from all the tips you are sharing!

4. Traffic From Search Engines

When you are writing your article, make sure to optimize it for search engines.

When you optimize your articles, you are also going to bring people from search engines to your articles. When someone uses search engines to find information that you wrote about in your article, they will be able to find your article and read it. Then, they will be able to follow the link in your Resource Box and go to your web site!

To learn more about how to use article marketing to get more web site traffic and build your list, register for the How To Build Your List With Article Marketing Teleseminar at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zarticles

More Blog Posts On Article Marketing:

- Does Article Marketing Only Work For B2B Businesses?

- Top Three Strategies To Grow Your List

- How To Create A Marketing Plan For Your Business

If you think that many list building techniques, including article marketing, only work for B2B businesses, you are not alone.

B2B businesses are businesses that work with other businesses, not consumers. Examples of B2B businesses include business coaches, marketing coaches, etc.

Truth is, though, article marketing works for all kinds of business owners, including the ones that work with consumers. For example, the Easy Recipes Blog is a blog that shares easy recipes with those who don’t have a lot of time to cook, but still want to make tasty food. There are a ton of recipes on this blog, including Pasta With Italian Sausage and Broccoli, Green Beans and Tomato Salad, Potato Salad Recipe Without Mayo and many more.

I have written some articles that have been posted online:

Potato Salad Recipes Without Mayonnaise - What to Add to Your Potato Salad to Make it Delicious

Summer Salads - Two Favorite Summer Salad Recipes

and more. These and other articles help bring traffic to the Easy Recipes Blog, and more traffic means more newsletter subscribers!

As you can see, you can get more newsletter subscribers and traffic with article marketing, even if you are not a B2B business. All you need to do is:

1. Write articles that are of interest to people in your target market.

2. Create an effective Resource Box for your articles.

3. Submit your articles to article directories.

I will show you how to do all of this during the How To Build Your List With Article Marketing Teleseminar. Register for the call and you will learn how to easily attract more people to your list using article marketing!

A lot of people have been asking me how they can start growing their lists TODAY - what are the actions that they can take today to start growing their lists immediately.

Here are my top three strategies to help you invite more people to your list. Start using them today and you will see more people joining your list:

Strategy #1: Article Marketing

I love using article marketing for list building. It is effective, it works great and you can use it to invite exactly people you want to invite to your list! How do you do that? By writing articles on topics that are of interest to people that you want to invite to your list.

What is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing articles that people in your target market are interested in reading and then submitting them to article directories to be published. It is extremely important to write articles that are of interest to your target market, because that is another way to qualify your subscribers. When the topic of your article is of interest to people in your target market, people in your target market will read your articles and find out more about your newsletter.

When you submit your article to directories, your article will also include a Resource Box. Your Resource Box is a one-paragraph description of you and your business and a link back to your web site. Use the Resource Box to invite your article readers to get your free gift and join your list!

Strategy #2: Social Networking

Social networking web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter are great for inviting people in your target market to join your list.

In order to invite more people from social networking web sites to join your list, first you need to have an effective profile page. If you do not have any information about your newsletter in your profile, how are people going to even know that you have a newsletter?

Next, you need to get involved, become visible and start building relationships with people you meet on those social networking web sites. If you are invisible on social networking web sites, people will not be able to sign up for your newsletter. When you are visible, you will get many more subscribers.

And then, make sure to share about your free gift using your social networking updates. Your profile is not the only place to let people know about your free gift. People should also hear about your free gift from your status updates on Facebook and your tweets on Twitter.

Strategy #3: Blogging

Blogging is another great technique to use to invite more people to your list. There are a ton of things you can do with your blog to bring more subscribers to your list.

First, your blog itself should contain information about your newsletter and your free gift. If you don’t tell your blog readers about your newsletter, how do you expect them to ever subscribe? Make sure that your blog has at least some information about your newsletter.

Your blog posts themselves are also very important for inviting people to your list. Remember – you will write your blog post once and it will be seen by people and search engines for a very long time. This means that if you write an interesting blog post and it gets indexed by search engines, you will be able to gain blog visitors and newsletter subscribers from the same blog post for a long period of time.

Use search engine optimization each time you write a blog post. Research keywords and find effective ones to use in your post. Then use the keywords in your blog posts, so that your blog posts can be indexed in search engines for the relevant topics and you can get traffic. Each time someone finds your blog post in search engines, they will be able to read your post and find out about your free gift and your newsletter!

This is just one blog post. Optimize each blog post that you write and you will start getting more traffic from search engines to your blog.

For more tips on how to grow your list, get the FREE Report, Four Keys For Building Your List at http://www.effectivelistbuilding.com/4keys/

I have been watching hundreds of coaches struggle to get clients for their businesses. The most common reason for this is not having a marketing plan. Instead, they do random marketing techniques from time to time hoping that one of them will stick and bring in clients. If you do not have a plan, you will not be able to get clients.

Here is a 5-Step Plan that will help you get more clients for your business:

Become Clear About Your Goals

This is really the first question that you must ask yourself, because what you put into your Marketing Plan will depend on what you want to accomplish. Without knowing what your goals and intentions are you will not be able to find the right marketing actions to market your business.

Find Your Target Market

A lot of the marketing that you do will depend on who your target market is. Decide on your target market before doing anything else. As soon as you are clear on who your target market is, it will become much easier for you to market and it will become easier for you to build your list and get clients.

Create An Effective Web Site For Your Business

Your web site is the tool that helps you build your list and sell your products and services. Your web site must have pages specifically for selling your products, pages specifically for selling your services and pages specifically for building your list. By creating pages with a single purpose your will focus your web site visitors’ attention and inspire more of them to take action with you.

Build Your List

Very few people who come to your web site are going to become your clients immediately. This is because they don’t know you yet and they do not trust you yet. People buy from people they know, like and trust.

When people visit a web site for the first time, they forget all about it a few minutes after they leave. This means that they will only come back to your web site and may potentially become your
clients if you are able to remind them about yourself.

Your newsletter is the best tool you have to get your potential customers to keep coming back to your web site.

Drive Traffic To Your Web Site

Now that you have effective web pages that sell your products and services, as well as a large list list, you must bring in web site traffic.

There are many marketing techniques that will help you bring in traffic. Social networking, article marketing, business blogging, and search engine optimization are all great techniques to bring traffic to your web site.

Start with one and learn how to use it to get web site traffic. Once you are comfortable with using it, move on to the next one and master that approach. This way you will master all online marketing techniques one technique at a time.

Having a marketing plan is the best way to start getting clients for your business. Take an hour right now and start creating your marketing plan to create a successful business!

Need help creating your online marketing plan? Learn how to create your marketing plan and use it to get clients for your business at http://www.MarketingSalad.com

Biana Babinsky

http://www.MarketingSalad.com

Some time ago a client had asked me a very interesting question. She said: “If you wanted to start creating web site andbuilding a list immediately and you could only use one online marketing technique, what would you do?”

“Article marketing” was my answer. Article marketing has been my favorite online marketing technique for a very long time. This is because article marketing can bring targeted traffic to your web site as soon as you start using it.

When I just started using article marketing, I saw immediate results. First, I saw increased traffic to my web site from articles that I had posted in article directories. After some time, my articles started getting reprinted on other people’s web sites, blogs and newsletters. This generated even more newsletter subscribers and clients from exactly the same articles.

How do you get started with article marketing? Here is a 5-Step Plan to help you get started with using article marketing for promoting your business, products and services:

Understand The Goal Of Article Marketing

Any time you take action you need to know exactly why you are doing it and what results you are expecting from it. With article marketing, your goal is to start a conversation with your potential customers, to let them know about who you are and what you do and to ask them to take the next step in this conversation — visit your web site, subscribe to your newsletter and buy.

Find Good Topics For Your Articles

To start the conversation with your potential customers (and have them respond!), they need to be interested in having this conversation. If they are not interested in a topic, they will drop the discussion before it even starts.

How do you get them interested in the conversation? By writing articles on topics that they are interested in!

Write The Actual Article

Now that you know what topics you want to use, pick one and write an article on it. Once your article is ready, let it sit for a day or two, and then come back to it to make revisions and changes. If you made any mistakes, now is the time to correct them. You want your articles to have good grammar and spelling.

Create Effective Article Resource Box

Your Article Resource Box is the most important part of your article. It introduces you to your article reader and contains link(s) to your web site. This is your one chance to continue the conversation you started with the article!

Submit Articles To Article Directories

Congratulations on your new article! Now is the time to submit it to article directories to get exposure for you and your business.

Use this 5-Step Article Marketing Plan to start your article marketing campaign and get more traffic and clients! To learn the most effective way to use your articles to build your list join me on the How To Build Your List With Article Marketing Study Guide, that you can register for at http://www.marketingsalad.com/articles.html

Biana Babinsky

Last week I posted this note on Twitter: “Don’t use a marketing technique just because someone else is using it. You are not running their business, you are running YOURS!”

This post has generated a tremendous number of comments from people on Twitter and Facebook. When business owners see their colleagues getting results from certain marketing techniques they decide to use the same techniques in their own business. However, many times the techniques don’t turn out as successful for them, so business owners are left disappointed and unhappy.

Why does this happen? Many times business owners see others using a marketing technique effectively, so they jump in and start using the technique without proper evaluation and planning. As a result, the technique does not work for them and they are not able to get clients using it. Before starting to use a marketing technique, spend some time on evaluating how it is going to fit into your overall marketing plan.

Here are three reasons why a marketing technique that others are using may not be working for you and how to correct this:

#1: The marketing technique you are trying to use isn’t helping you reach your target market and isn’t bringing in clients as a result

For example, let’s say you are a dating coach. You have a colleague who is a business coach and who has been gaining a ton of clients by speaking at many Chamber Of Commerce meetings. You try to speak at the Chamber Of Commerce meetings to bring in clients, but are getting no takers.

This is happening because people who go to Chamber of Commerce meetings are in a business coach’s target market, but not in a dating coach’s target market.

How to correct this: Speaking is a great technique to promote your business. Look to speak at meetings for groups/associations/chambers for your target market and you will start seeing results!

#2: You are not using the marketing technique effectively and are not seeing the results others are seeing from using the same marketing technique

For example, I see many coaches using article marketing and trying to immediately get coaching clients with it. Truth is, it is very hard to convert someone who has just read your article for the first time into a coaching client. It is much easier to convert this article reader into a newsletter subscriber.

How to correct this: Instead of concentrating on immediately getting a client from a marketing technique, concentrate on getting newsletter subscribers and then using your newsletter to turn your subscribers into clients. You will see much better results this way.

#3: You do not have all the pieces of puzzle. Many times business owners hear about someone else using a marketing technique effectively, and they jump in and start using it without any kind of a plan

Just using a marketing technique is not enough. You need to know what results to expect, how to track them and what infrastructure you need in your business in order to get these results.

For example, if you are using article marketing, you need to know what types of articles to write, how to structure an effective resource box, how to use the article to get newsletter subscribers, etc.

How to correct this: Before starting to use a marketing technique, get all of the pieces of the puzzle. Do research to learn exactly how the marketing technique is used, what kind of results to expect and how to apply it effectively for your business.

Remember, you are running your business, not someone else’s! Before jumping into using a marketing technique do research to make sure that you know how to apply it so it will work for you! Get the
step-by-step instructions for applying online marketing techniques to your business in the How To Get Clients Online Home Study Guide at http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zmarketing

Biana Babinsky

Article marketing is a great technique to use to build your list. In fact, each of your articles can bring you dozens or even hundreds of subscribers if your article and Resource Box speak to your target market. Here is your 3-Point Plan to build your list using article marketing:

Step 1. Write an article that is of interest to your target market.

Step 2. Create your Author’s Resource Box that convinces your article readers to subscribe to your newsletter.

Step 3. Submit your article to Article Directories, so that your articles are seen by your target market. Once your target market reads your article, your Resource Box will convince your target market to subscribe to your newsletter.

I have read hundreds of articles written by business owners and it is clear to me that many of them are making a mistake in Step #2. Some don’t spend any time on their Resource Boxes, and as a result, are not getting any of their article readers to subscribe to their newsletter.

Writing effective Resource Boxes is crucial to your success. If your Resource Box does not convince your reader to visit your web site and subscribe to your newsletter, then your article marketing efforts are a big waste of time because they will not produce the results that you want.

Here is how to create a Resource Box that will get results:

- Set aside time to create effective Resource Boxes. For many business owners a Resource Box is an afterthought that they spend just a few minutes writing. Don’t make this mistake. Your Resource Box is the most important part of your article. Take the time to create an effective Resource Box.

- Create a few different Resource Boxes to use with your articles.

- Test your Resource Boxes to see which ones produce the best results.

I have spent a long time testing different Resource Boxes, both for myself and on behalf of my clients. In the Build Your List Home Study Guide, you will see the examples of effective Resource Boxes and we will also talk about how to rewrite your current Resource Boxes to make them extremely effective. Get the Build Your List Home Study Guide at http://www.EffectiveListBuilding.com

Biana Babinsky

As you know, I am a bit proponent of using article marketing to market your business. This is why I am very excited to interview Christopher Knight, the CEO of EzineArticles.com:

Biana: Many of us have had careers before getting into online marketing. What is your background? What did you do before starting EzineArticles.com?

Christopher: Before EzineArticles I was the Founder & CEO of SparkLIST, a permission-based email newsletter hosting service provider. I’ve been involved in several dot com companies since the mid 1990s ranging from website design, web hosting, running an ISP and an email newsletter advertising network.

Biana: Please tell us how EzineArticles.com got started. How did you get the idea for it? When did you launch it? What inspired you to start it?

Christopher: EzineArticles.com started in November of 1999 and our team acquired the site from its original owner as part of a 30 site roll up. I had raised VC and went on a buying spree to acquire sites that provided value for email newsletter publishers. EzineArticles was one of the 30 sites.

The site was largely ignored between 2000-2004 due to other competing priorities and then in August of 2004 our team scrapped the entire site and started all over again. The old model for the site included only the article title, author name and article summary…and our site visitors had to give up their email address in order to get access to the full article. Seemed like a smart idea in the late 1990s but no longer a smart idea in today’s world.

Biana: How many authors/how many articles do you have at EzineArticles now?

Christopher: As of this interview, over 150,000 expert authors in 570 different niche markets have registered and we’re hosting a little over 1.25 million unique/original articles.

Biana: Why is it important for business owners to write and submit articles online?

Christopher: Business owners gain market credibility, exposure and traffic back to their website in exchange for writing and submitting short 450-700 word articles centered around their expertise.

They are essentially exchanging content for highly pre-qualified visitors/traffic back to their website.

Articles are usually ‘how to’ or do it yourself informational type articles and they are followed by a “resource box” at the very bottom of each article. The article body is where the expert gives of their expertise; the resource box is where they get to promote themselves and give a link to their website.

Example: If an business owner is an expert in Vacation Rentals and wrote articles about various beach, cottage and vacation rentals; the visitors who come to the expert authors website are already interested in the topic they are reading… hence they are pre-qualified visitors (the best kind!).

Biana: Can you give your top three tips for business owners who are just starting with writing and submitting articles?

Christopher: CONSISTENCY: Know article writing & marketing is not a one shot strategy. It’s important to be consistent over time. It’s a lot like advertising where you market your business every single month.

QUALITY: Your articles should be easy to scan, include bullet points, numbered lists and proper spelling, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. Articles must be original and unique / exclusive to the person who wrote the article, but does not have to be exclusive to EzineArticles.com (means you can also use your articles on your own website).

QUANTITY: After you master writing quality original unique articles, the only way to really succeed with this strategy is to build your article inventory over time. Every article you write is what I call an “article agent” that sells for you. More article agents = more articles out there attracting traffic for you. Build your article inventory into the dozens, then hundreds and eventually thousands of high quality articles.

Biana: Once we submit our articles to EzineArticles.com, how can we make them stand out among other articles?

Christopher: Considering less than 15% of our members write more than 10 articles; the easy way to immediately DOMINATE your niche is to enter yourself into the top 15% club of expert authors who write more than 10 articles! Yes, it’s this simple.

On the quality side, make sure your articles offer unique tips, tricks, strategies, and ideas that are not the same rehashed tips you see in every article written by a lazy expert copying some ideas found elsewhere.

Be sure to include your author photo and extended bio as this builds more credibility and gets you access to more exposure within EzineArticles.com as we restrict certain features to authors with their photo uploaded.

Biana: What’s ahead for the article marketing industry in the next 1-3 years?

Christopher: Every month the quality standards continue to raise and that means low quality thin content writers will find it harder and harder to get their content accepted by the best sites.

It’ll continue to take a higher volume of articles to make the same impact that a lower volume would do today. This is largely due to the rising content supply and competition… but again, remember that only a minority of expert authors publish beyond 10 articles. You should aim to be the expert author who writes way more than 10 articles.

There will continue to be a shortage of really high quality original & unique articles. Ultimately, there are no easy short-cuts to produce high quality work. You can stand out easily in the crowd of fellow experts by only putting out high quality work; but don’t be paralyzed by writing for perfection. Perfection is not necessary. Massive writing & article submitting action is if you want to be really successful.

Every time I review traffic coming to my blog, I see a lot of traffic coming from search engines. How do search engines bring traffic to my blog? Here is how:

- I come up with a post idea and write a blog post.

- I optimize the post for search engines and post it on my blog.

- The post gets indexed in search engines.

- People who have never heard of me before use search engines to find information. They see my blog post in the search engine, visit the post and read it.

Search engine traffic is very useful - if I look further into my statistics, I see that some people who come to my blog from search engines subscribe to my blog feed, subscribe to my newsletter and become clients. And search engine traffic is free - it does not cost me anything to get this traffic to my blog.

So how can you capitalize on this and bring free search engine traffic to your blog? Here is how:

Come Up With Good Topics For Your Blog Posts

It is not enough for people to find your blog posts using search engines. When they come to your blog, you need to convince them to stay and read. And this is done by writing interesting blog posts.

Optimize Your Blog Posts For Search Engines

Do research and find popular keywords that you can use in your blog posts. Then, use these keywords to optimize your post. Use a keyword in your blog title and use it in your blog post’s text.

Warning: do not use the keywords too many times in the blog text. A few mentions are ok, but too many will adversely affect your search engine rankings.

Get Links To Your Blog

Using keywords is not enough. In order to get good rankings in search engines, your blog must have other web sites linking to it.

There are lots of different ways to get links to your blog. You can participate in blog rolls and use article marketing and social networking sites and do many other things to get links to your blog.

Monitor And Make Changes Accordingly

Monitor your search engine traffic and analyze the keywords that search engines use to drive traffic to your blog. You may find keywords that you are not using yet in your statistics. Start using them to drum up even more traffic.

Keep refining your search engine optimization strategy based on what you learn in your statistics. Doing this will help you get more search engine traffic to your blog.

I discuss how to get traffic to your blog in the How To Get More Traffic & Readers For Your Blog Study Guide. Get it now at http://www.marketingsalad.com/blog.html

Biana Babinsky