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 ½  hour, and only have an hour to do anything each day, only submit to about 30 sites. If you do that, you need to be Methodical, do a different 30 every week, track the results, when you have done the whole list, you will have a list of the very best thirty sites, the ones that are most productive.
Remember work hard, but more important work smart.

Go to my Resources Section and you will find my Article Directory List.

Certain things, I have left up to you, but I will mention, like this;
I said that you can write an article about anything, so if its a specialist subject your working, combine your clever Niche Marketing Tactics with Article Marketing by searching out sites that Specifically Want content in the same niche you work with, trust me lots of places will,
Heres where it gets fun, and those that are here with me now and still looking for some juicy bits, get it here, Your Article, is Your start point, you can then recycle that work in a Number of ways. Once you have submitted it everywhere as an Article, you could package it up as an Ebook, and distribute using various Ebook Marketing Methods, similar to article marketing, its the Same content, packaged differently for a Broader Distribution.
You could use your Ebook now for various Viral Marketing Tactics, such as free content for Niche Type Site owners to perhaps give out to there newsletters.

 Thats ANOTHER Reason why you need to write an article, or 10 or 100, as quickly but as Well written as possible, because not only can you send it off to the Article Directories, and not only can you distribute it as an Ebook, but you can let people use it in there Ezines, and start a whole new Ezine Marketing Campaign, use it later down the line in your own ezines!!

The possibilities are endless, and once you grasp the concept of my Spider-Fox idea, you’ll see that the Article Writing part of your entire Marketing Campaign, is MORE than essential, it is Integral, and Article Marketing, is one Necessary Spoke, in the wheel of a Truly Successful Online Business.
Note- So Much for keeping it short and sweet eh??