Article Marketing: A Question of Value

The dynamics of the article marketing content market are a classic example of the failure of simple supply and demand to create a value-based outcome. The Web offers writers easy access but low-pay opportunities but they should be withholding supply to this cheapskate demand. The Web would be a better place for it: less junk, more worthwhile content.

Aspiring freelance writers, the supply side of the market, as Jennifer Williamson of Catalystblogger asserts, need to understand that they can say no to poor pay for article marketing copy.

Trouble is the Web, which makes it so much easier to sell writing, provides a medium for putting people who don’t understand the value of good content together. It also provides a medium for getting the “don’t sell yourself short short-term in hope of long term gain” message out to writers and freelancers in general. But the noise of the supply and demand curves meeting in a chorus of low-bids drowns out the voice of reason…

It Goes Beyond Low-Value Content

The noise drowns out the good sense. Hmmm… How like the web. How like modern media. How like modern life… [At which point I am going to stop before I start my essay on the ills of our information saturated time... Others, better qualified, can deal with that. Back to the issue: Article marketing...]

But the Ugly Article Marketing Picture is the Matter at Hand

It’s an ugly picture. Poorly… No… Abysmally paid writers producing articles of dubious value that offer minor link profile value and make it harder for people to find valuable information. The web is flooded with hundreds of articles making it harder for people and search engines to find useful information.

And I don’t think I captured the whole picture when I bemoaned the article marketing generated junk website content phenomenon a while back.

• I was naive to think that the bulk of bids for $5 article writing would come from the less prosperous countries of the world.
• I forgot that there is a large supply pool of people for whom earning money from stringing words together — even at a fraction of a cent per word in the string — is a “major life goal”. (Silly; I was involved with a site for aspiring writers on a daily basis for six years.) And then there’’s the whole “build up your portfolio” temptation.
• And, because of my first two errors, I neglected to address the supply side of the market equation properly.

Value Your Writing to Enhance the Value of Writing Work

In a compelling argument for ignoring those fraction-of-a-cent-per-word writing “opportunities”, Williamson of encourages people to ask for more. As she said, the low value article writing market prices writers time at well below minimum wage.

Who’d work for less than minimum wage? Well, it seems, lots of people — $3, $4 and $5 per 500 word article projects on Elance.com, Guru.com and the like are seldom short of bidders.

What to do then?

Williamson’s blog earned a comment from, master copywriter and freelance writing information seller extraordinaire, Bob Bly about sites like Elance turning article writing into a commodity market. He urged people to concentrate on copy more directly linked to revenue to get/demand a premium price.

Value Shouldn’t Only Be Associated with Obvious ROI

All makes sense:

• If writers start ignoring the $5 article opportunities the price starts to rise. So, its important for writers to value their time and their writing.
• It is much easier to demonstrate the value in a landing page or email newsletter content that asks for a sale.

But the message I’d prefer to get through the low-pay article market noise is the first. The second message — pragmatic in it’s “accept of the way things are and work around them” approach — could contribute to the continued devaluing of all article marketing.

Demonstrating expertise and building trust through article marketing can be an important part of achieving sales and ROI online. But low-pay, low-value articles make it harder to stand out…

Bottom line:

The situation is a classic case of the dark side of the Web. The web facilitates a market, bringing people who need content together with people who can provide it. But it’s too easy for both parties. Neither party understand the potential value of that content because they can get together without doing the groundwork that might have been required to join a less accessible market. The content traded is devalued.

All of which makes it harder for writers to get a return on their writing effort that reflects the effort put in and harder for valuable content to stand out. Eventually people find voices of reason like Williamson and Bly but the ease of access means the supply of people willing to offer super-cheap writing services won’t dry up any time soon.

Later:

Here is a classic case in point. This Tennessee based business owner doesn’t attach much value to the time of the “Freelance Article Writers” he/she asks to submit proposals…

“Project Description:I am looking to hire a freelance writer that is willing to write three (3) articles a day for $1.00 per article for one (1) week. After a relationship has been established and I get to know your work, we can talk about future business involving more articles at a slightly higher rate[...]

Project Category:Article

Document Length:450 words

But there is also the issue of the quality of the articles in question. If he/she finds someone willing to do the job, are they likely to produce work that you’d want associated with your business? [sigh]