We all know by now that it pays to be a bum…a bum marketer that is!

Thanks to the name given to this simple marketing strategy by Travis Sago, a marketer for whom I have a great deal of respect. He said, “It’s so easy to make money by writing and distributing articles, you could take any ol bum off the street and they could do it!” Kind of like Geico’s caveman play.

You know what? He’s right. It is easy to make money with article marketing, and you can generate big piles of leads to fuel any business if you can get enough articles written, and sent out to enough quality article directories.

But here’s the thing. Most people are doing it wrong.

Well, let me back up. I should say, “Most people just aren’t doing it nearly as effectively as it could be done.”

Here’s why.

When most people “market like a bum”, they simply write an article and send it out to as many places as they can. The same article with the same title and content. They include a couple links in the article, all pointing at their ‘money site’, then they rinse and repeat with the next one.

That’s all great and good. You’ve taken action and done something, which is more than most, but if you changed things up just a bit, you’d be seeing far greater results much faster!

Here’s what you should be doing.

Step 1: Write an original piece of content and post it to your blog.

Step 2. Take that original article and submit it to one of the top article directories. My personal favorite is Ezine Articles because they always seem to rank so well, but you could choose one like GoArticles or Article Dashboard if you like. Now, most directories allow you to post 2 links within the article, so point one of those links back to the original article on your blog (using anchor text), and the other link to another related site that makes you money or generates a lead for your business.

Step 3. Next bookmark the article you posted in the article directory at one of the social bookmarking sites, like Digg or Stumble Upon or one of the dozens of others. This is crucial! A fantastic, semi-automated service for posting to dozens of sites at once can be found at OnlyWire.com It’s free, and works great.

Step 4. Next, create as many new versions of that article as you can…either outsource the re-writes to someone who’ll do it on the cheap or find a quality article spinning software to create them, and distribute those articles to as many directories as possible. I would recommend using a service to do this or it will take you forever. At least one of the links in these articles should point to your original article on EzineArticles.com, or wherever you posted it. The other link should point back to your blog or lead capture page.

Step 5. Next, summarize the article into bullet points and create a short Power Point slide show. Use screen capture software and read the slide show aloud in order to make a short video…3 min or less.

Step 6. Finally, distribute this video to YouTube and as many other video sharing directories as possible. A great free service to use for distribution to about 20 video directories is TubeMogul.com! If you want maximum promotional power, you may want to check out Traffic Geyser. Make the very first thing you put in the description a link back to your original article posted on the main article directory!

That’s it!

This process will create a traffic avalanche that can’t be stopped.

Do this with one piece of content per day and I guarantee you’ll be generating at least 25-30 leads per day for your business within a month. It’s simple, and it’s very, very powerful!

What has your experience been with ‘Bum Marketing”? Please share in the comment section!

And, if you feel this information has been useful and could help others, feel free to click the little ‘tweet’ or ‘share’ button at the top right of this post….or both!