Running and promoting any business, on or off-line, usually needs massive exposure in your chosen market in order to survive. Off-line markets tend to be stuck with the more traditional style of marketing, which, traditionally, has been very high risk, high cost, and not very responsive to change. However, whether your business is on or off-line, there is one common denominator that covers both although for maximum benefit, your off-line business really needs some kind of on-line presence, such as even a basic web site. That common denominator comes in the form of article writing, which can also encompass the power of press releases. You can probably see straight away that there will be a certain amount of crossover, as press releases and articles can appear in hard copy newspaper and magazines as well as on publicity-seeking web sites. Articles (and to a certain extent press releases) can very rapidly put your business "on the map" and in front of vast audiences if your business can have an on-line web presence.



Articles can establish your credibility, your expertise, and your ability to get in front of your competitors, however long they may have been established. But, many small to medium size business owners fight shy of doing any on-line work with articles as they mistakenly think that to write an article they have to be expert copywriters, or have to employ some expensive consultant to write them. Then, when the article or press release is finished, they think it will cost a fortune to get their content published on the internet. So, what do they do? They stick with what they know, which is 'old fashioned' marketing styles like buying space in newspapers and magazines, that not only cost a fortune, but may take months to get published. You don't have to be a specialist these days to write quite compelling articles, and you don't need quiet offices to write them. (I wrote this on the London train, and have written a number of articles while flying the Atlantic - beats the heck out of boredom!) Articles can be written rapidly, and can be distributed rapidly across the internet if you know what to do, and although not as instant as the effects of press releases (which need a different style - you cannot 'Sell' in an article, you can in a press release) results will come in. Properly constructed articles should start to pull sales leads to your company or web page in dribs and drabs within a week or two, and after a month or two should have a regular stream coming in. Even if you don't have a company to promote, you can still create a very sizeable income with articles either by selling other people's products as an affiliate, or the very lucrative Google Adsense income streams, which are the opposite end of companies spending money advertising on Google's Adwords facility.

Write just one article a week, and get it distributed properly, and after three months, you will be very satisfied with the ever-growing sales leads coming your way - which did not cost you an arm an a leg - just a bit of your time.