Online Publicity Tactics

So far, we've discussed how to get free publicity and advertising for your business, product or service through the use of press releases. This is the "traditional" way of doing it and still one of the most productive as well.

But, there is another way of getting free publicity and that has to do with articles being submitted to editors/publishers of magazines and online newsletters/ezines. Since I've mainly discussed offline publicity tactics, I'm going to devote the rest of this section to online publicity.

What's An Ezine?

These days, most good marketers and Web sites have a newsletter or ezine (which stands for "Electronic Magazine").

Newsletters (whether they would be email ezines, web based newsletters like mine or even off-line hard copy newsletters) help the publisher stay in touch with his/her subscribers and customers.

The publisher can use his/her newsletter to further build credibility of his business and/or expertise in a particular subject matter, help expand and secure relationships with his subscribers, or promote products and services for himself or joint ventures with other marketers!

Another reason for having a newsletter is to charge for advertising space... "tiny classified ads" as infomercial giant Don Lapre would say.

Most of these online newsletter/ezines are free to subscribe (or as we call it, "opt-in") and because of this, they all contain some sort of advertising to help pay for and justify the author's time being spent each week or month in pumping out a newsletter issue (note that the author can also ONLY advertise his own products... either way, the end result of the newsletter is more revenue!).

Submitting Articles Vs. Classified Ads

There are two ways you can get traffic to your web site. You can place classified ads in the newsletters or you can get free publicity by submitting articles. Since this section is all about "free advertising", let's discuss article submission tactics and its importance.

Why Submit Articles

Unless you have absolutely nothing to do and your business is on total automatic pilot, you will not have enough time (or energy) to write out a new, fresh article every week for your newsletter (you time would be better spent promoting and marketing your business in other ways).

Most newsletters go out once a week (or biweekly) and after the initial tidal wave of creative juices, the editor can go blank with ideas! This is where you come in and take advantage of the situation because most newsletter editors will be craving (and almost begging) for good articles to be submitted to them.

This is a great opportunity because as I've already discussed in the previous pages, an article gives you far more credibility than an advertising. It may take a little bit more work, but it's free and the results will always be better than an ad.

How & What To Write About

This will be easier for some than others, but the best advice I can give that will save you time and allow you to write out the best article is for you to basically write about a subject that you are very familiar with.

Write and talk about your experiences... what has worked, what hasn't and what you've learned. Heck, that's exactly what I'm doing right now and this is probably why the words and thoughts are just flowing out effortlessly.

You can easily do the same. There is no need to copy or hack away at other people's articles (nobody wants or likes to read rehashed, old material). Use your imagination and be creative. Put your own writing style into your works and people will love it.

Also, your articles don't have to be very long or very technical. In fact, most newsletter publishers prefer the shorter articles as opposed to long ones (of course, if the article is very well written... the length will make absolutely no difference.)

If you need an example of a "good" article, that's also a bit on the "long" site, take a look at my free report. This article has been published in well over 85 newsletters, ezines and magazines world wide!

Study the headline, the subheads and notice how the topic itself is interesting, as well as very informative.

Where To Submit

With over 100,000 newsletters and email lists on the Internet, this can be very difficult. The first thing you must do is narrow your search down to your specific topic or subject matter.

If you're business, product or service has to do with the selling nutritional supplements, then you would need to look in 'health' and 'sport' based newsletters. If you have an online business, you would need to look under topics of 'business' (or more specifically, 'home-based' businesses), 'marketing' and 'advertising'.

There are a few places to start your search. The first place you can look is at the "Liszt" which is a huge mailing list directory where you can search over 90,000 lists by subject matter and/or keywords. A couple other places you can also check out is "Infojump" and "E-ZineZ".

What you want to do it take a look at all the different ezines that have to do with your specific subject matter, see if they do or do not allow for article submissions and if they do, see what their rules, guidelines and restrictions are.

Definitely check out the above Web sites... but one major problem with them is that you're given too many choices and it will take a VERY long while to sort through everything.

Luckily, I found a very cool resource that only has information about ezines, article submission guidelines and their advertising rules! But I'll get to that in a few minutes... I don't like to get side tracked just yet.

How To Submit

Once you've written your article and found about 5-10 target publications to submit to, we can get started with your "publicity campaign".

Chances are, you're going to email the publisher your article. The first rule is that you have to make it personal. You can't just use a generic template, send it out to a bunch of newsletter publishers and say something like:

To Whom It May Concern,

I've recently written an incredible article entitled, "How To XYZ On The Internet" and I think your newsletter would fit the exact profile for it. Feel free to use my article in an upcoming issue.

Sincerely,

John Doe

Most likely your email is just gonna get deleted and your article, how ever good it may have been, will never get read! What you want to do is customize your email.

Send out something like:

Dear John (first name of the publisher),
I've read a few issues of your "XYZ Newsletter" (fill in the actual name of the publication/newsletter/ezine) and I've really enjoyed the articles you've presented.

I've also noticed that you accept article submissions from outside writers and I would be honored if you could possible include one of my newest articles in a future issue of your "XYZ Newsletter" (fill in the actual name of the publication/newsletter/ezine).

Below you'll find my new article entitled, "XYZ Headline" (make sure it's a catch headline). I think it will benefit your subscribers in many ways because they'll discover...

benefit one...
benefit two...
benefit three...
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at yourname@yourdomain.com.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Warmest Regards,

(your name goes here)
(your web site goes here)

================================================

[ article goes here ]

Now, you don't have to be as long as I was and you could simply leave out the section with the "benefit bullets". But I like to leave that in because it teases the publisher and gets him to read your article (the same way it'll get his customer's to read the article!).

As you become more experienced in article submissions, you list of newsletter and publisher contacts will grow to 20, 50 or more (I know of one person who has over 2000 personal contacts!)

How To Send It Out

You could simply use your current email program and send everything out individually, but this could become a real pain in the butt! (Whatever you do, do NOT send the names out using BCC feature. This will reduce the personalizing effects completely!).

There are a lot of email programs that will allow you to send out customized, personalized emails to your list. The can really save you a ton of time. Four such software programs that will do the job for you are Campaign by Arial Software, WorldMerge by ColoradoSoft, NetContact by Earth On Line, and MailKing by Revnet.

[Note, both NetContact ($399) and Campaign ($495) are super expensive (and definitely not worth the price). Use either MailKing ($99) or WorldMerge ($39). To be honest with you, I'd just go with WorldMerge (it only being $39) because it'll do almost everything the other's do, for a fraction of the price and it's simpler to use!]

Last Minute Tips

Short By-Line/Footer

Make sure you have a short by-line or footer at the end of your article (no more than 3-5 lines maximum). To tell you the truth, with out this "indirect ad", your article is almost a waste of time for you.

At the very end of your article, just write a very brief statement about you and your business. Also, try to entice people by giving away something for free. Write something like:

----------------------------------------------- John Doe (your name goes here) has written/done/accomplished (fill in some credentials). His web site located at (web address goes here) reveals (put in one or two catchy benefits). Make sure you stop by and pick up a free newsletter at (your newsletter subscription site) or send any email to subscribe@yourdomain.com (have an auto responder subscribing them to your newsletter). -----------------------------------------------

Don't Sell Anything

Don't try to sell anything or promote your "new product" in your article. Just keep it informative, educational and filled with new ideas and tips. Leave the subtle promotions for your footer at the end of the article.

Double Check

Once you've written your article, put it aside for a day and then re-read it. Make the appropriate changes, spell check and make sure your grammar is correct and understandable. You may even have a friend or colleague proof read it for you.

No Email Attachments

It's best not to send your article as an email attachment simply because a lot of people don't open them up (thinking that it could be a potential virus or something else bad). Now, if your article is very long, you may want to send it in a two or three part email, just so you don't bog down their server, but this usually isn't a big problem.

70 Characters Max.

Lastly, keep the length of each line in your email article to 65-70 characters. Most email newsletters (or any email for that matter) should only be that wide and it will save the publisher tons of time trying to reformat your article.

You can use a simple text program like TextPad which guarantees correct length in each line. This is something simple, but it could make a big difference.

Now that you have a solid foundation of online and offline publicity tactics, let's discuss how you can put it all to work for you and start making some serious cash!