Spiders, Foxes, and Articles
In case you haven't ever read anything by me yet, or in case
you haven't quite "twigged" my angle yet, then the simplest way
I could put my overall marketing philosophy, is like this, Think
of a spider, and its web, and also imagine a Fox, and his
Cunning ways. To define these as strategies, I would say, the
spider was "Catchall" type "Fisherman" strategy ( yes I was
going to try and use a fishing analogy here but I have heard
some before, and well, it just isn't fit, ) Whereas the Fox, is
a highly adaptive species, very clever, and will be able to
figure out where to get food in practically any environment.
Imagine, A spider-fox, an animal with all the cunning of a fox,
and the ability to spin webs too! don't you think that fox would
set some Cunning traps, in places you wouldn't even imagine?
trying his luck, as well as edging his bets with Certain Sure
Win "food-Traps", imagine the Spider-Foxes surprise, when it
stumbles across a trap it laid some days ago, and noticed it had
more food than he had caught all week!!!
That is my approach to marketing,
Some people preach the Spider web philosophy, spread a Huge web
and catch what you can, Bigger the Web, the more food you get.
Sure, its true, its true, go on and do your work like that,
yeah, you will make money. Then you got the Wiley Foxes, hunting
down "Uber-Niches" no other person has hit yet, which is fine
too, yeah that persons gonna make money too. They wont get as
much food as the Spider-Fox though, who takes the best of both
worlds, and tries out as many different things as possible, all
thought out and methodical but Laying traps in Unusual places.
This means Using Every tool at your disposal, and getting AS
MUCH as you possibly can out of every Resource you possess or
have access to,
Thats Marketing, Thats Business,
THATS Why you Should be writing articles for your business,
something thought out and professional, based on the theme of
your chosen niche. You got a website about, lets say Local
Bands. You would probably have a Strong opinion and viewpoint on
music, perhaps you have a passion for doing your best to help
talented people get appreciated. You could write an informative
article suggesting to people why they should appreciate and
support talent from their local area, in a nice tactful sort of
way obviously. That should now start becoming Second Nature for
anyone who is reading this and expecting to get any use out of
anything I discuss within my articles, Start Writing Informative
Articles. Your definition of informative, and your choice of
area to focus, is only limited by your own imagination. You
could write about football, or footwear. OK, so for everyone
who's asking why this is important, Saying "I sell stuff, its
nothing to do with books or anything", its simple.
Marketing is about exposure.
On the Internet, the majority of people that are Browsing around
websites, are searching for information. Now that seriously may
be someone searching for a way to keep head lice from their
children from re-curring, or anything, so you have to think that
they could be absolutely anywhere looking for that information,
a Search Engine, some site they found, a link in an email from a
friend, it could have been anything. So bearing in mind, that
you want to be "Stumbled across" when that person is searching
for information about that product, and you can tell them
whatever it is you like if they do stumble across a message from
you, you now decide to write a nice Piece on how Its amazing
what natural products can achieve, but obviously thats not all
we can do. Lets go back to our Music Guy Example, so he writes
his article, and now, he needs to get it seen by as many people
as possible for it to have been of any benefit to him. He
doesn't know who mightsee his Message at what time in what frame
of mind, so hes excited but doesn't know what to do.
THATS OK!! He remembered, he signed up to my mailing list, (all
that hard work writing several articles, he nearly forgot what
he was doing!), and he dug out my email and found the link to my
Article Marketing Section, and picked up where he left off,
Which was Mass Article Exposure. People WANT YOU To send them
Informative Articles, and they will often have a Link back, and
an Authors bio, so people can find out about who wrote the piece
of writing they just read, and where to get more information.
These people have MASSIVE Directories FULL Of informative
articles, and searchable databases, so perhaps one day someone
might stumble across your article?? One day, someone will, And
bearing in mind we want to be a Spider-Fox, we decide, (with a
little guidance from myself,) that we need to make sure that
absolutely ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE that wants to have our little
piece of work is going to have it, so we set about finding
places that are willing to accept our Article Masterpiece, and
there are lots of these Article Directories, you just need to
find them,
REST ASSURED, you didn't think I would leave you hanging,
I have compiled a list of sites that I Regularly Submit my
articles to, and heres a couple of tips - Use a browser like
Firefox, you can open Multiple Tabs instead of windows, useful
with lots of sites you are working with, I think. Go to google
and search for a tool like Typeitin (thats how its spelt) it
comes with a nice free trial, it will help you fill out the
forms a lot quicker!! Take time to sit down, and go through the
list, I have compiled a LONG List of places that will take your
articles, a lot of them need you to have a Free Account, which
means sign up for their newsletter usually, so you need be able
to setup an email address for this, my recommendations is use
something like your domain name if you can, myname@mydomain
rather than a free one. Lastly, for a tip with this directory
list its all about Speed, and maximum exposure, you work out
what You can do in what time You decide to allocate for this
task and stick to it, if you can write an article in