Getting New Business Fast:
Case Study #12
by Marcia Yudkin
The Challenge:
In early September 2002, business was slow in my own publicity and
marketing consulting business (www.yudkin.com/marketing.htm).
I wasn't sure why, although the fact that the general economy was in the
doldrums could certainly help explain the slowdown. I considered
two
methods of drumming up more consulting business in a short amount of
time: 1)direct mail to my in-house postal mailing list with a
special
offer; and 2)distributing content I already had around the Web.
Method #2 would be far cheaper than method #1, and it was something I
hadn't done in more than half a year, so I decided to give it a try,
with a new time-saving twist.
The Solution:
Previously, I had periodically posted selected articles that I had
written for some other purpose at article posting sites that I had
discovered in one of two ways: first, I had done searches for
the
phrase "submit article" with a subject like
"marketing" or "small
business" after it. Second, I had searched for articles by
colleagues
whom I know used this strategy intensively and added sites where their
articles were posted to my list. However, many of the sites I
had on
my list required submission from their Web interface, which was
tedious and time-consuming.
Somehow in my Web travels I had come across EzineTrendz, an article
distribution service (www.ezinetrendz.com),
which for a small fee
could get my material to their proprietary list of ezine and Web site
editors hungry for content. Editors using material distributed
in
this way agree to leave copyright notices intact and to include a
short promotional paragraph at the end of the article. I asked
for
references and got quick replies from the site owner and positive
responses from her clients. I decided to release one article
weekly and to tie each to a specific consulting service.
My next step was to edit and update 12 previously written articles,
most of them 500 words, a few slightly longer, and to write a
different promotional paragraph for the end of each one, tied to one
or another of my services. I emailed them all to EzineTrendz at
one
time and sat back to see what might happen.
The Results:
Every week I heard from several editors who said they were using one
of the articles in an upcoming issue. By early November 2002, my
Web
site traffic logs showed an increase of around 25 percent, my
newsletter was getting new subscribers at a faster clip than
previously and best of all, I suddenly had more consulting business
than I could easily handle. One thing that struck me was several
new
clients naming colleagues who had recommended me whom I did not know
personally and who must have remembered me through reading my articles
in one of the many ezines running my work.
Since I had not changed any other aspect of my marketing during this
period of time and the economy hadn't suddenly turned rosy and rich, I
concluded that the article distribution was the cause and decided to
renew my arrangement.