How your writing can attract more clients

Writing articles and blogs posts are ideal for connecting with potential clients and referral sources. Here's why:

Your writing shows a sample of what you can do. People who read your articles are doing so because they are already interested in the topic. Thus, you're connecting with those who are most likely to contact you or recommend you to others.

Much better than a business card, your written piece gives people something useful. They can take your insights and and follow your tips - and notice immediate benefit.

Writing is a way to market without being pushy or “salesy.” And if you write about common problems that lots of people have, the impact can last for years. People's issues and challenges change over time. Those who need you today may not need you 5 years from now. But by then, there will be new people with similar problems who can benefit from your advice.

Your writing makes it easier for people to recommend you to others – Instead of saying “Call so-and-so – she’s a good therapist,” people can show their friends samples of what you know and how you can help.

Writing articles positions you as an expert. The more you write about a given topic, the more your name will be associated with the subject matter, and the higher your name will show up in Google search results.

Writing builds your online presence. You will become more ubiquitous online as you continue to publish articles and blog posts. If you do it right, your writing will end up on dozens or hundreds of websites, and others will quote you.

Get more mileage from your community presentations

One of the best ways to market your practice is to give presentations to local community groups. But for all the work you put into the preparation, wouldn’t it be nice to reach more than a few dozen people?

You can, if you take the content of your workshop and “repurpose” it into different formats for different audiences.

Let’s say you gave a presentation to a group of parents about communicating with their teens, and that you distributed a handout. You can repurpose the content of both your presentation and your handout:

• Take your handout and create a tips sheet for your clients. You may have to condense your ideas so that they fit on one page. If you have too much content for one page, create several tips sheets, each covering one sub-topic. 

• From the notes from your presentation, write an article – or a series of articles, depending on how much you covered in the presentation. Your articles should be no longer than 500 words. Post them online at your website or blog, or distribute them via email. You can also post them on article banks such as ezinearticles.com, where others can use your article in their own newsletters or blogs (with full credit to you.)

• Make video recordings of segments of your presentation and post them on youtube. They should be no longer than 3-5 minutes each.  If you covered 7 points in your presentation, make 7 individual videos.

• Make an audio recording of your presentation, using an inexpensive microphone connected to your computer. Using the free software, audacity, you can record, edit, and even add music to your recording. Post the mp3 file as a download on your website. Or put it on CD. For just $1 apiece at kunaki.com, you can create professional-looking CDs and jewel cases.

These are just a few ways to get more mileage from your presentations. Please share how you have repurposed (or intend to repurpose) your content. Post your comment below.

Holiday-themed articles: Re-use them every year

Every professional should have a file of holiday-themed articles. Whatever your field, write about something related to the Christmas season, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, etc.

Once you write a holiday-themed article, you can use it every year, with minimal tweaking.

It's OK if you publish it over and over - because someone reading it this year might not have noticed it last year.

People pay attention to what pertains to their own lives at any given moment. Thus, your Valentine's Day themed article on how to stay emotionally connected when your spouse is overseas, will be noticed by women whose husbands are in Iraq. But it probably won't be of much interest next year when their husbands are back home.

OK, now that you have a set of articles, what can you do with them?

• Rotate them on your website or in your newsletter
• Submit them to article banks such as ezinearticles.com, so that others can find and publish your content in their own newsletters or websites.
• Upload them to social media sites such as scribd.com
  
• Post them on your social networking page, such as Facebook.com
• Create press releases out of them and send them to off-line media - newspapers, TV, radio. See my blog post on press releases.

Always be thinking a couple of holidays ahead, and plan your strategy on how to distribute your articles.

It's also OK to repurpose them in different formats. See my slideshow on 7 Ways to Repurpose Your Content - and let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

And be sure to include in every article that you write:

• Your full contact information - name, phone number, email
  
• A link to your website
• A specific offer or directive - e.g., Start building your expert status online today, with my step-by-step audio-narrated course, Market With Authority: Build Credibility and Name Recognition on the Web. ;-)

--Pauline

p.s. My friend Mark Hendricks is still going gangbusters with his 12-Days-of-Christmas Giveaway. Get dozens of marketing tools for free! See my last blog post below.

Get more mileage out of your articles

One of the best ways to establish yourself as an expert online is to write articles.

You can post them on your website, of course. But to get greater distribution, you should submit them to article banks, such as ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com and others. Just search for "article bank" at your favorite search engine for thousands of other article banks.

Article banks are websites dedicated to collection and dissemination of articles written by experts who offer their work for free.

When you submit your articles to article banks, they may get picked up by publishers who are looking for fresh content for their ezines, newsletters and websites. Thus you have the potential of reaching audiences that you would otherwise not have access to.


Boost your chances of getting your article picked up by publishers:

• Publishers generally look for brief articles that offer tips, advice or insight - emphasis is on BRIEF. Keep your articles to 500-700 words.

• Keep your focus very narrow. Better to cover one or two points well than to try to pack in tons of information.

• Write on topics that appeal to large groups of people. But don't be so general that your article is watered down.

Include links back to your website.

In the body of your article, or at the end, be sure to include a link back to your website or blog. 2 reasons for this:

1. It will encourage readers of other people's ezines, newsletters and websites to visit your website. Those who click on your link are obviously curious about you or what you have to offer. Once they get to your website, they'll learn more about how you can help them.
   
   
2. It will boost your ranking in the search engines. When people click over to your website from somewhere else on the internet, that tells Google and other search engines that these other websites are "recommending" you - which raises your popularity value in search results.

Click to learn more about marketing yourself online to build a strong expert presence in this tough economy.

-- Pauline

Pack Your Articles with Statistics

When writing articles for the public, you can boost your authoritative credibility by citing statistics related to your topic.

A good place to start is LibrarySpot.com, which has links to statistics on dozens of sources, listed by government agency and by topic.

Speaking of government agencies, the U.S. Census Bureau has a great resource for journalists and other writers - Facts for Features and Special Editions. These are collections of statistics around specific topics. For example, the "Back to School" statistics list statistics on student enrollments, how much money is spent on back-to-school shopping, government spending, the earning power of eduction, and more.

Another source for statistics is the University of Michigan Library's Statistical Resources on the Web. There you'll find links to data on business, health, demographics, economics and more. If you don't find what you're looking for, you can request assistance from the librarian. (Priority is given to University of Michigan students, staff, faculty and alumni.)

A little rusty on how to interpret averages, sample size and margin of error? Here's a link to an article, Statistics Every Writer Should Know.