Pick up any magazine, and browse through the ads. What do you see? Catchy slogans, free-trial or limited-time offers and wild claims. In other words, companies make use of that medium to actively promote their products or services and try to persuade readers to buy them. But sometimes this backfires. At best, readers might overlook the glossy ads, and worst case, they view them with skepticism.
So what is the alternative? Investing in editorial content, namely articles—the real guts of a magazine. Readers look to magazines to provide valuable information, solutions to their problems and other educational content. Therefore, if you author an article, the chances of it being well-received go up dramatically. You have instant credibility. This leads to a positive image—one that creates trust. In fact, a Nielsen study found that 67% of consumers trust editorial content.
Editorial coverage delivers additional benefits beyond trust. Rather than the fleeting image that comes from an advertisement, a feature article, case study or opinion column has a long shelf-life and can be used in many ways throughout the year. It’s also a more cost-effective way to reach thousands of prospects or customers. To get the most out of your marketing investment in generating editorial content and coverage, try these suggestions:
- Create professional PDF reprints of the articles for salespeople and other representatives to use in their live and electronic sales and marketing presentations.
- Post article reprints and links to online publications on your website to demonstrate tangible recognition of your expertise.
- Use social media to share PDFs and links to online articles with your followers.
- Include reprints in your online and hard copy media kit to promote speaking engagements.
- Distribute PDFs or hard copy article reprints by electronic or traditional mail with personalized messages to prospects and consumers.
Articles Deliver Benefits
By consistently producing articles and other relevant editorial coverage you will attract more readers who will reward you with their loyalty and their business. Not sure how to break into the editorial coverage publishing realm? Contact us at 805.496.8550 or [email protected]. We’ll explain how our proven five-step process gets you published in the magazines read by your prospects and customers.
