Marketing is the art of informing people about products or services or even about companies, although in that case the activity is closer to branding.
Writing articles is a marketing activity where you inform potential buyers about certain offerings. The acronym – AIDA (attention, interest, desire and action) is often uttered in this context showing the four steps of a successful marketing (and sales) approach.

The interest for writing articles is a very fundamental one, because you are able to reach many readers at the same time and any such a reader could be a consumer, a professional, a business representative, etc.

Yet there is an even more successful way of marketing that doesn’t involve article writing. But probably the oldest marketing rule is invented by indeed ... an author.

This is about a marketing rule that proved itself for more than four hundred years and was introduced by Miguel de Cervantes himself, one of the greatest authors of our times and the first to hit the world with a novel.

Even if you are not familiar with Cervantes, you must have heard from the novel he had written in de beginning of the seventeenth century;

"The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha."

The book is till today very popular and continues to be analyzed. And one of the details of analysis is just about the marketing of the story. We all know that literature should be credible and everything in a story must fit and contribute to the overall credibility. Otherwise the reader will not "BUY" it.

In order to increase the credibility of the novel, Cervantes added a literate vehicle. Instead of pretending that the adventures of Don Quixote were written by Cervantes himself, he introduced an new character. In the book known as: Cide Hamete Benengeli. And this Cide, this very mysterious character is the one who originally ought to have written down the wanderings of Don Quixote. The reader is overwhelmed by this mystery and all his attention is drawn to the next steps of the tale. Not in the last place because the story had to be translated first.

A marketing trick that has survived four hundred years of history.

Because still today, the best attention your product can receive is that of someone else. If you write your own story, it’s fine. But if someone else -– especially a satisfied client -- tells about the success of your product and the interesting features, you have got the best marketing agent working for you.

Writing articles is one way to fulfill your marketing activity. Having others tell your success story is even more promising.

© 2006 Hans Bool