Brand Marketing Online

Brand Marketing Online

I have always been envious of offline marketing companies because of brand marketing. It must be glorious to create marketing plans where you don’t have to show precise cause and effect results. Creating an image for a product sounds like so much fun, particularly when you don’t have to show a particular advertisement produced exactly “x” amount of sales. On the Internet, you should always be able to show such a revenue analysis or you are not going about things correctly.

While there are many online marketers that make feeble attempts at branding services or products, there is one area where you can establish a branding element. This area is known as article publication and distribution. Traditionally, this marketing strategy has been used as part of a search engine optimization strategy, but it works for branding as well.

The Internet is all about the flow of free information. There are millions of sites on the web and they are all looking for new content to keep their visitors coming back. This is where articles and article directories come in.

An article directory is a site where writers publish articles that other sites can use without worrying about copyright issues. In exchange, the sites agree to publish the authors name and an author byline. The situation is similar to writing a column for your local newspaper, except you are writing for hundreds or thousands of “newspapers” depending on the number of sites that pick up your articles.

To take advantage of these directories, you need to write articles on subjects relevant to your business. The articles are not press releases nor should they be sales pitches. They are information articles and should offer something juicy. Think of like the free workshops you attend at Home Depot to learn how to fix or build something. Your articles should provide the same value.

So, how does this constitute brand marketing online? It establishes you and your business as a credible source on a subject. If you publish hundreds of articles in the directories, your site will become the dominant site in your industry.

When you read the paper, do you have a favorite columnist? If so, you inherently view that person as highly credible and knowledgeable in their area of expertise?  You also pay attention to things they speak highly of or recommend. When you need to buy one, you will almost always go with what they recommend. By publishing quality articles in the directories, you can become that columnist.

Can you imagine a more effective method of brand marketing online and increasing your internet production efforts? If you have a great web design, and a great product or service, why not become a blogger and begin to expand your web presence?