Marketing with Your Writing

If you are an entrepreneur working in and on your own business, you probably do most of your marketing yourself. If networking is one of your most unfavourite things to do, I bet writing is probably second on your list, maybe it even comes first.

Why is writing important?

Whether you are marketing through an ezine and website or traditionally, your ability to “speak” to large numbers of people is much more easily realized through your writing. As a writer, you are able to create opportunities to be quoted as an expert in articles or write your own articles. Is the information you provide more believable if it’s in the editorial of a newspaper or magazine, you bet!

On your website, if you communicate more clearly do you think you will have greater success there too?

Website conversion to sales or even to sign up is always a hot topic in online forums. If you have hundreds of people visiting your site and you want it to be thousands because you think the extra traffic will result in more sales…it may not. Small changes in the writing can make big changes in the results.

How to develop your writing skills?

The easiest way to improve your writing is through practice. If you can’t think of a topic to write about, think back to the last question a customer asked you or the questions that come up most often and write on that. Once you get going you can write and keep articles on hand so you aren’t under pressure to create something at the last minute, when you receive a request.

There are some very good books to help you hone your writing skills; Eats Shoots and Leaves; The New Well Tempered Sentence; Words Fail Me; Woe is I and one of my favorites; The Joy of Not knowing Everything. All of these books offer tips and tricks, in a light-hearted, very readable format, to improve your writing and your enjoyment of writing.

Do you think you would like writing better if you saw direct results?

Recently, we changed a client’s home page and told visitors, in a new way, what we expected from them. Sign ups for the newsletter went from 0 per day to one or more per day immediately. Makes it worth the work, doesn’t it?

Where else can you benefit from your improved writing skills?

1. You can write articles and post them to free online directories where other people can access your articles and reprint them in their newsletters, on their websites and in their blogs…all with a link back to your website.
2. Press Releases are another great way to attract customers without having to network. Send it to the correct reporter/editor and you get thousands of dollars of free publicity. At the very least you can distribute in with an online press release distribution service like PRWeb.com and again have new links coming back to your website from relevant websites and blogs.
3. Your ezine can be one of your best networking tools, spreading virally when people on your list share it with others.
4. Online Video is hot right now and there are many ways to take advantage of this. Create your own movie like we did at www.YourMoneyyourWay.com and create a viral marketing campaign.