When we left off earlier this week, article marketing best practices were the topic of the day. I like to think of it as content distribution more than anything. Deciding which articles are to be marketed for each target is a big part of the game.
Media/News outlets
Industry Blogs
Social Networks
Associations
Supplier Sites
Vertical non-competitor
No easy way here, hopefully you already know the major players in your market. Track them down, establish what types of articles are common, the general demographic and set about crafting a piece that had a high likelihood of appealing to their senses.
It could be argued that we’re now crossing into blogging terms such as ‘guest posting’ or ‘content marketing’ but ultimately we have an article and we’re using it for marketing purposes… so let’s not mess with semantics. Ok?
Now some directions to get you going….
News Media – If we were in the ‘Antique lighting’ niche we could try some things like; Interior design news Or Interior design news, submit- Play with some related market keywords and start making a list of sites to assess and short-list some for targeting.
Blogs – there are more than a few places to seek out worthy industry blogs to potentially guest post on… try these; Google Blog Search -Technorati - Bloglines - MyBlogLog - BlogMarks - Blog Hop - Blogmarks - BlogPulse - IceRocket - Kinja - TailRank - Live Journal - BlogMemes
Social Networks – find the networks and social media sites in your niche to find top influencers and top sites being published. Start to make some contacts and opportunities to guest post. Here is a Big list of Social Media sites - or search out niche ones.
Associations – once more you need to find international, national and local associations that are related to your market and see if they have any white papers, articles or blogs that you might be able to target content at. Google is your friend.
Supplier sites – not only do your suppliers love you for promoting their products, they also are in a need for content and this can be a win-win situation. Have a look at some of your supplier’s websites for ways to get your content (and name) out there.
Vertical non-competitor – beyond the above mentioned tactics, there are often related niches to yours (verticals) that are not direct competitors. We can also look at these sites as places to hopefully publish our articles. No stone un-turned right?
The approach and pitch you use when looking to place articles will vary. The main thing is to be respectful, humble and have one helluva a targeted piece that they want to publish. Remember, one well placed article can build a lot of link love for the not only target site, but from author links it will also flow to you.