Article Marketing & Book Promotion
by Mark Hyman

Although Mark Hyman had a strong, multi-faceted marketing and sales plan in place, the addition of an article marketing strategy helped him in his quest to push his book, UltraMetabolism – The Simple Plan For Automatic Weight Loss to the #2 spot of the NY Times bestseller list.

By including a targeted article marketing program into your marketing plan, you can achieve book marketing success. Doing this effectively requires planning and perfect execution from beginning to end.

Step 1: Create an Article That Grabs Readers Interest.

One of the most important parts of the article is the title. Remember, the first 3-4 words of your article title have the most weight with Google and other search engines. The point of the title is to intrigue your audience to actually sit down and read the article. You may even want to offer an outrageous proposition that you can fulfill within your article body as we have with the title of this article.

The articles that get the best results are the ones that provide unique, high quality content that solve at least one piece of a problem puzzle. However, to convert readers to buyers, you must not give the reader all of the answers to solve a particular problem. Instead you want to tease them with some of the how and top it off with why it’s important.

Step 2: Turn Readers into Prospects with a Strong Call for Action and an Offer They Can’t Refuse.

You want to encapsulate the essence of what makes you and your offering unique. This is your Unique Selling Proposition. Do this by chiseling away the information that no one cares about from your golden nuggets. Refine them into gleaming insights. Hammer them into logical sequence. Fasten them to reader benefits. Then polish and polish it until your fingers ache, to create a glittering necklace of persuasion that seduces the eye, charms the imagination, and dazzles the reader with so much human interest that it is indeed much easier to click and go to your website than skip.

If you add a free bonus offer, you will make it even easier for readers to click to your website. You can offer a sneak preview of your book, a free ezine subscription, or a free special bonus report that further enhances your credibility as the expert.

Step 3: Maintain Reader Interest and Create a Squeeze Page.

Think of your article as a sales funnel. Your article title, content, bio box and the link you send your readers to should all flow right into each other. Including a link to the main page only distracts and frustrates readers. You will lose that sale forever.

When you promote your book in your bio box, then take them to a squeeze page within your site that convinces people why they should either buy the book or why they should subscribe.

Step 4: Target Your Audience with Ezines and Websites That Make a Difference.

You need to find websites that are highly visited and ezines that are the most read, but more importantly, you want to focus on websites and ezine publishers within your specific niche that have strong emotional connections to their audiences. Through our research for Mark Hyman, we found a popular About.com editor. About.com is among the top 50 sites on the net today. This submission resulted in over 1,500 opt-in and new sales in one day, not counting the successes from other credible websites.

Step 5: Submit Your Article and Build Your Links and Traffic.

Now is the time to perform the tiring, boring and tedious task of submitting your articles. But, as you completing this process, know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. By using these article marketing strategies, you can build a steady stream of warm ready-to-buy visitors and substantially increase your book sales.

By including article marketing into your multi-faceted marketing and sales plan, you too can achieve success in marketing your book. You will then only be limited by your imagination and your time. The question is, “What is your destination?”

Article marketing expert and award-winning public relations practitioner, Eric Gruber helped promote Mark Hyman’s book to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. For a free consultation on how to increase your book sales using today’s hottest Internet marketing strategies, email Eric at Eric@prleads.com or go to http://www.prleads.com/article.htm to have Eric manage your article marketing campaign.

Editor's Note: The above article is itself an example of article marketing, in this case to sell a service rather than a book. It had to be edited. Even then, it's still a little verbose and flowery for my tastes and doesn't give as many details as I would like in an article. But it does provide inspirational examples. I know authors and information marketers who have built multi-million dollar businesses using this technique as their major tool.

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How to Close More BIG Sales by Getting More Smaller Yeses

by Eric Gruber, the article marketing expert

In just a couple weeks, I am going to be proposing to my girlfriend, Kristina Jaramillo. Now, I am very respectful and old-fashioned, plus I know the fact that she is extremely close with her family — so during the past weekend, I asked her family for their blessings.

First, I asked her sisters — which I got my first yes.

The next easiest target was the grandmother. I got my second yes.

Now, I already went through the process twice. I already got 2 yeses. And, although I was quite nervous (I paced up and down) before I spoke to the parents, it was still 1 million times easier. Why? Because I already got 2 smaller yeses.

Closing More Sales is a Series of Yeses!

Just like I went through a series of “yeses” to get the “yes” I really wanted — you need to go through a series of “yeses” with your customers in business. Many article marketers try to promote a high-priced product or service in the bio box. Then they wonder why they’re not getting website traffic or sales.

So, How Do You Get More Prospects to Move Forward and Say That First Yes?

1. Offer prospects a free special report or sneak preview in the bio box.

2. Be sure to include a reason why they should go to your website to get this free incentive.

3. Send prospects to a focused squeeze page — with no outside distractions.

This way, it will be easier for prospects to say their first yes. For example, check out: http://www.FreeArticleCreationTemplates.com. This is where I offer you three free instant article writing templates that will help you write articles in 30 minutes or less.

Once you enter your name and email address, you are taken to a page where you can download the free templates. You are also given an offer to get my complete collection of article templates that can be found at: http://www.TheArticleTemplateGuy.com.

Let’s say you choose to get my article templates (this means I already got 2 yeses!), I upsell you and offer you supplementary products like my Complete A to Z Article Marketing System that can be found at: http://www.broadcastyourarticles.com/bookmarket.

I then have my virtual assistant follow up with my article marketing product buyers to offer them a free strategy session with me. At the end of the session, I invite them to take advantage of my article marketing services or my article marketing coaching program.

Notice, I start off with a free offer — then to a low priced product, to another product at a higher price point. Finally, I get them exactly where I want them — investing in my article services or in my monthly article marketing coaching program that you can become part of at: http://www.getarticlemarketingcoaching.com/bookmarket.

See, if you want to close more sales, then you have to go for a series of yeses — and not for the BIG yes right away.

Now, wish me luck as I have one more “Yes” to go — the most important one of them all. I now have to ask Krissy in a couple weeks if she will marry me.

 -- Eric Gruber, Your Article Marketing Expert, http://www.TheArticleTemplateGuy.com

Cracking the Article Marketing Code -- http://www.crackingthearticlemarketingcode.com/bookmarket

Online Article Marketing Course -- http://www.onlinearticlemarketingcourse.com/bookmarket

Article Submission Site Database -- http://www.articlesubmissionsitedatabase.com/bookmarket

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Here are two free ways to syndicate your articles and get them featured on Google News, but through the back door:

First, log on to American Chronicle at http://www.americanchronicle.com/ AMchronDefault.asp and submit your article.

Second, submit articles to http://www.PRLeap.com. You should be submitting your articles and press releases to as many free submission sites as possible.

— Jeniffer Thompson of Monkey C Media, http://www.monkeycmedia.com

Free Articles Online

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Complete A-Z Article System — This downloadable e-book by Eric Gruber is a do-it-yourself guide to working with article directories, ezines, and others to publish free articles that will bring your website and book free publicity, more traffic, and increased sales.

“I just started using a software [note that she didn't say which software or service she was using] that distributes articles one has written and I've had really good results hitting 35 of the top 50 slots for my keywords on Google.... It's all one big experiment and I won't know for about 3-6 weeks what the real results are like, because I'm not sure how long those articles will stay at the top of Google or how many will be reprinted on blogs about adoption or scrapbooking.” — Lisa Copen, author, Adoption Scrapbook Album

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