Marketing success secret: Give your audience what they want

Based on my research for the Marketing success secret, the answer is simple ~ "Give your audience what they want".

Some people find great success with article marketing, while others think its proponents are full of bull. The difference between the winners and the losers in article marketing is most frequently defined when the writer sits down and begins to write. That is right. Success and failure is most often determined by the writers' motivation, and more importantly, by the writers' commitment to the reader.

Flawed Strategies
In 2005, a few of the Internet Marketing gurus took notice of the success people were having with article marketing, and they passed this news to the Internet Marketing newbie’s of the world. But, there was something missing from the advice given.

In a lot of cases, the people preaching the power of article marketing had not used the technique themselves. Even today, few of my article distribution competitors utilize reprint articles to promote their own businesses. Most of my competitors rely upon affiliate marketing to promote their websites.

Unfortunately, the Internet Marketing newbie’s of the world were given a lot of bad advice. It was said that:

* The only purpose of article marketing was to build links, and link popularity for search engine rankings;
* The writer only needed to write enough words to meet the minimum word count requirements of publishers;
* It wasn't necessary for the content to be well-written, since the publishers do not read the articles they approve for publication;
* Anything that can be done to reduce the time/cost of article writing would benefit the marketer.

The only suggestion that bore any resemblance to the truth was the first item about "building links for link popularity", but the error in this statement was to assume that there was no other purpose for article marketing.


The Bigger Picture
As one of the pioneers in this industry, There have always attributed three benefits to article marketing, in this order:

1. Publication in a newsletter ensures that thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of readers, can read ones' article when it is published. (Frequently, publication day for my articles will generate phone calls from many potential customers and multiple sales, sometimes thousands in sales.)

2. Publication on a website increases the likelihood that your article will be found and read on websites that have targeted and loyal visitors.

3. Building links for link popularity and improved search rankings.

I have not ever denied the ability to use articles to build ones' link popularity and to improve ones' ranking in the search engines. But in my experience, using articles to improve search rankings is something that is ranked at #3 in my list, because it is a long-term play. Your ability to rank in Google for specific keywords is influenced significantly by what your competitors have done before you. I have used this example many times before, but if you want to rank for the keyword "travel" against such websites as: Expedia, Yahoo, Orbitz, The Travel Channel, CNN, Travelocity, Lonely Planet, USA Today, the New York Times, and the U.S. Government; then you better bring a huge budget to the contest.

Once the newbie in Internet Marketing is aware of the challenges of the search rankings game, then the newbie is better prepared to target and get realistic results from an article marketing campaign.

Partial source from EntireWeb Newsletter.