Article marketing can be a very important part of your advertising arsenal if you do it right.  Basically, what article marketing consists of is writing articles and submitting them to submission sites such as EzineArticles.com, along with a "Bio" of your personal information.

 How is this advertising?  If your article is interesting and well written, people will read it.  They will also read your bio which will have the links to your website or information about you business.  This will in turn attract targeted prospects.  Article writing will also help your to gain credibility in your field, which will make prospects feel more comfortable buying your product or service.

By submitting to these submission sites, you are also giving others permission to reprint your articles, creating link backs to your site.

There are tons of articles and sites devoted to article marketing, if you are interested in learning more just do a Google search for "article marketing" or sign up for the free "Bum Marketing" course at http://www.bummarketingmethod.com/.  In my opinion, this course is the best way to learn the basics of article marketing.