This article should have gone live yesterday – Saturday 6th July 2013 (my 43rd birthday). But since my blog posts auto-publish on my Facebook profile, I felt it would be disrespectful to those who had taken pains to post birthday wishes on my wall. So I auto-scheduled it to publish 0400 today. Thanks a lot. I appreciate you all.

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If you do not currently use articles for your marketing, you could be spending more time, effort and money on marketing than you need to. Articles remain one of the most cost-effective tools for business promotion – and they’ve been used that way for decades. Both online and off the web.

Whether it’s Article Marketing or Guest Blogging – Using Articles for Your Marketing Can Pay Timeless Dividends!

People have access to large volumes of information today. As a result, knowing what is worth paying attention to is now more of a challenge for many.

That’s why they depend on the thought leaders to guide themselves. In every field, experts who are competent function as thought leaders. Others depend on them to review the mass of information/trends, and make some sense of it to share – via writing, speaking, and other methods.

As an expert in your own field, how do you currently do your marketing?

What combination of strategies do you use? Are you focused on serving target audiences online, or off the web – or both? What have you found to be the most effective way to attract such persons?

What do these different strategies you use currently cost you in terms of time, effort and money – compared to the verifiable benefits or returns they yield to you?

Do you know?

I ask these questions simply to challenge you to do a little thinking about the methods you currently employ to achieve your business promotion goal.

Articles Cost Less & Stick Around Much Longer Than Most Other Marketing Media

There is no doubt that not all businesses will benefit equally well from using the same methods.

However, I’ve learnt one thing from years of experience, and also observing others”

It is the fact that articles remain a universally applicable instrument for promoting virtually any kind of product or service.

The major benefits one stands to gain from using articles to promote one’s work, or business, are (among others) its combined low cost, and generally long lasting impact.

Articles enable one achieve “timeless marketing”. Be it on the web, or in print, very often an article has a much longer shelf-life than virtually all other promotional media.

And it often costs next to nothing too!

Useful Places to Publish Your Articles for Marketing Purposes

Despite attempts by some who lack accurate insight to suggest otherwise, article marketing – of the kind done via directories like EzineArticles.com – remains viable – despite Google’s algorithm changes.

So, that’s one place you can go: Articles directories.

Many website owners or content publishers regularly visit EzineArticles.com to pick up articles they use on their websites, and in newsletters they publish.

If your work meets their needs, your articles will get picked up a lot. And you’ll see the result in form of increased traffic back to your site.

This is mainly because in your article by-line (right at the bottom) EzineArticles allows you to insert a promotional block of text, with URLs of your choice.

In addition to that, you have a profile page you setup on their website, and of course people who read your articles may also choose to Google your name.

Another approach is to write Guest Posts – currently a popular strategy used in many industries.

Guest Posts are articles typically published on blogs. You’ll submit them to blog owners to consider publishing on their blogs. Again, you usually get to put in a byline that gains you traffic back to your website.

It of course goes without saying that you will also write and publish articles (and even a newsletter) on your own website or blog.

These you would actively use promote via social media, and to search engines, to get increased name recognition, and credibility.

Final Words: You Don’t Even Have to Write Them Yourself

I realize not everyone will find it easy or convenient to write articles as often as may be required.

More business persons are discovering the advantages of using articles. However due to limited writing proficiency, or a lack of time, they find themselves struggling to do it as often/well as they should.

If your schedule is too tight, you could formally engage a reliable professional (e.g. yours truly!) – to ghost-write articles or even books for you, on your preferred theme(s). You would then only have to make “editorial” input to align what is written with your preferences.

In other cases I’ve seen persons who got started in the above manner, and over time understudied their hired writing expert. And eventually, at some point, they were able to take full ownership of creating new article content.

The truth is each person must settle for what works for him/her. What is crucial is that action be taken to add the use of articles to your marketing arsenal.

Doing so is bound to boost the overall cost-effectiveness of promotional strategies you employ.

What’s more, articles provide a flexible interface, through which most other promotional activities can be given further exposure. As a result, they complement other methods – enabling you to reach a larger number of people.

The long run implication is that your business promotion efforts will cost less. At the same time they’ll get you more marketing exposure, attracting more buyers for your products and services.

At the end of the day, that is what we are all looking for!

And the easier and less expensively we can get it, the more profitable we end up being.

Which is why if you don’t already use it, you really want to give Article Marketing a try!

NB: This article was first published online in July 2013 via Tayo’s 9 year old former flagship website (www.spontaneousdevelopment.com – now defunct), and republished via www.ezinearticles.com