PR LEADS’ Official Guide to How to Write “How-to Articles”

Why you need to write articles

Why is this a good strategy?  Very simply: it’s your message.  It’s your message uncut, undiluted, presented exactly as you want it.  So imagine if you have 500 words to say exactly what you want to say that show off how you can help people, show off your methodology, show off your strategies, show off some of your best suggestions and advice. That’s what publications are looking for in these “how to” articles.  The other great thing about “how to” articles is that they reach your target audience so you have a say in determining where the articles are placed and we’ll talk about how to place these articles as well during this session.

Imagine your key audience is reading your message exactly as you presented it in a publication that gives you credibility because that’s what publications do de facto.  If they have chosen you to write this article and printed the article and printed your picture what kind of impact, what kind of statement does that say to the reader?  It says this person must be the expert on this topic in order for a magazine to give them this much space. That will help you in your marketing.

Let’s talk briefly about some of the success stories that I’ve seen.  There are a number of people in the National Speakers Association, who have used this strategy and have told me that this has made their entire careers.  I won’t mention names here because in some cases you don’t know them and in other cases they want their privacy maintained. But it’s safe to say that more than just a handful of people have told me this is the single best strategy they have ever used because they are getting their message out to their audience exactly as they printed it in a format and length that gives them credibility.  And it’s very rare that you won’t get calls from these articles and those calls can lead to speeches. Those calls can lead to consulting assignments. Those calls can lead to book sales. Those calls can lead to opening new doors.  Also when you get these articles placed, you now have a great marketing tool that you can use to open the door on your other sales calls and your speaking calls and put it in with your new business proposals and your book proposals and such like that.

But in terms of some anecdotes and case studies, I know one woman who wrote case studies for banking publications and has literally made hundreds of thousands of dollars from the resulting sales that started with the leads from that article.  You know we’re talking about speaking engagements for thousands of dollars. We’re talking about book sales and work sheets and workbooks from those attendees at those seminars. We’re talking about consulting assignments from the attendees at those seminars, as well as consulting assignments from people who just read her articles and said this is the person we want to work with, come on in and let’s work together.  And I hear that time after time after time.  This strategy really does work.

I think there might be some people on the call today who are my clients who have actually sent me emails in the last two days saying “I’ve tried this, it works, it’s really, really great. Can I be guest and you can interview me?”  Well if they are on the call today we will get to you and we will during the Q&A section, in the open section do that.  I’m not sure if they’re going to show up or not but hopefully they will, but it was one of those things where everyone just wanted to share their ideas because it really is a worthwhile strategy.

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