9. Article

What it is:

A flexible medium, both in length and format, the article opens opportunities for companies to address issues, trends, concerns and topics of immediate interest to their intended audiences. An ongoing article publishing campaign, complemented with a roster of speaking engagements, has been the traditional tool for establishing thought-leadership in numerous industries.

A cool tool for:

• Sole-proprietors, consulting groups, professional service firms that need to demonstrate their expertise
• Companies that have thought-leaders they can promote
• Non-profits addressing public policy issues

Not so hot for:

• Organizations that cannot commit to a stream of articles
• Companies with little intellectual capital
• Articles based on product pitches

HP EDS  THREE INNOVATION DON'TS
	EDS, an HP company, attracts and holds Web readers with informative articles addressing urgent industry issues.  Notice the call to action next to the article sample, an excellent best practice. Case study compliments of D Custom.

3 key play points:

1. Once isn't enough; plan on a series of articles in order to create impact
2. Article marketing is a key search engine optimization effort and should go hand-in-hand with SEO campaign
3. Always think from the editor's point of view (if you are pitching to outside publications) - your article must conform to the publication's requirements (length and tone for example) and be of immediate interest to its readers

Bonus Links:

• Is Article Marketing Worth Your Time? via Entrepreners Journey
  
• The 6 C's of Content Marketing courtesy of ClickDocuments
  

Chapter 8 - Case Study

Chapter 10 - Comic Book