Did you ever go fishing with a young fisherman?

My nephews are driven to the water by a life long love of angling for their dinner. Their grandparents fished every holiday away on their boat, or from the shores of favorite lakes, and from the early days of their lives, their mother (squeamish and all girl in most ways) baited hooks like a champ. How could they be anything less than compulsive fishermen?

I’m not a fisherman.

In fact, I’d just as soon have a tooth pulled as sit on the banks of the water waiting for fish to bite.

WITHOUT Novocaine.

But he needed a ride to the lake. So I had a book in my hand and offered to drive him to the lake so he could fish for a few hours, while I evaded the work that I probably should have been doing, instead of reading my book.

With a grin and a wink, he stepped out of the truck with a “here fishy fishy, here fishy fishy” in his best ‘tickle me auntie’ voice. Far beyond the age of being tickled, I grinned at his silly antics and found my place in the book.

Normally, John Gresham can hold my attention through about any situation… but that particular day, I was mesmerized by the heat, and wanton for something different to kill my time.

I found myself walking along the water’s edge barefoot enjoying the sand, and watching my nephew with his pole casting out to the deep water and trolling back slowly, tempting the schools of fish to follow his hook until one took a nibble. He’d pause for a bit, allowing the worm to swim in the water and then, just as the fish grabbed one big gulp of wiggling pink worm, he’d jerk the line, set the hook and begin reeling in the next catch.

Eight northern Pike later, he bagged his catch, unbated his hooks, and put his gear away to return home.

Dinner was in the bag. He’d completed his task and had a compelling and tempting meal planned by the time he got home.

Such are the steps of article marketing that bring you one great list after another until you have a list of buying clients and happy customers waiting for your next profoundly incredible product to hit the market.

It’s all about the worm.

You see, in article marketing, the big reality is already set; content is king. No argument here, but there’s more to the story. The king sits on his throne and waves his sceptor at those who appear before him, but what brings his subjects to the throne room?

Everyone needs a solution.

This is a biggie and before they need a solution, they have a problem. When you figure out what it is your market really wants a solution for, then you’ll be right there in the midst of understanding their problem. And they may still be trying to understand the problem…

But once you know the problem (those schools of fish were searching for food), then you can offer a solution (a wiggling pink worm on a hook). The problem for you becomes knowing how to FIND the market. In my nephew’s case, he threw his line out past the fish and drew it in slowly until he got the first nibble, then allowed his market (er… fish) to surround the worm.

Then he brought in that one fish that caught the worm.

There were many fish in that school of fish, but he caught one.

The more times he threw the hook in the water with a worm, the more he brought in another fish. Point being, he threw the hook in with many worms to catch many fish.

Solutions come in many forms.

The more articles you write, offering your market solutions for their problems, the more likely you are to catch the attention of the one who wants what you’re offering.

Write more articles. The more articles you have in the line up, for people to find using compelling calls to action, the better your results will be.

But he could have thrown that line in the water a million times without the hook and never caught a single fish. Not one single fish, unless one accidentally got tangled up in the line… The hook was important, and the kind of hook that captured the fish, with the right kind of bait was JUST AS IMPORTANT.

Always include a call to action.

At the end of every article you MUST include a call to action. A specific directive to your reader telling them what to do now that they’re done reading your content is a call to action.

• Give them a directive: DO this.
• Give them a reason: Free Gift.
• Give them results: ezine subscription.

That’s a powerful call to action if you offer the right ‘stuff’ as your free gift.