Lately I’ve been hanging out with a bunch of writers and while I do consider myself a writer, for the most part I write as a way to promote the internet marketing products I create. That’s the core of article marketing, after all.

Those other folks, though, write because they’re writers. And while they also get paid (usually) for their writing, marketing is not what they’re thinking of. How can writing an article for payment be different than writing an article for marketing?

Here are the top three differences:

1. The purpose of the article. While both kinds of articles should give good value to the reader, an article written for non-marketing purposes will stop there. No further action is expected from the reader after finishing the article.

But in article marketing there needs to be a strong call-to-action at the end of the article. Remember the old show-business adage, always leave them wanting more? Your article should whet their appetite and the resource box at the end of the article should promise them more information, all they have to do is click the link.

That call-to-action is what changes the article from straight information to a direct-response marketing article.

2. Where the article is published. Most article writers are trying to get published in offline magazines, most article marketers are trying to get published online. There is a lot of overlap and even today there are online-only magazines that article writers target, but in general there’s a pretty apparent split between the two.

3. How often the article is published. For “real” writers this one is simple — when your article is sold you forget about it and start working on another article. In many cases the article is published one time and that’s it.

For article marketing purposes, your article is going to be published online as many times as you can. While there are some online article directories that require exclusivity, most article marketers steer clear of those. The majority of the directories like exclusive articles, but don’t require it. That means most articles for marketing are going to end up posted on the author’s blog, in the major article directories, in as many ezines and newsletters as the author can make deals for, etc.

The more people who see the article, the more chances of making a sale when the reader clicks the link in the resource box at the end.

If you’re a writer and you’ve never thought about using your talents for marketing purposes, you might want to look into it. You already have the skills, all you need is a direction to get yourself started.