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Article Resources
The Most Effective Way To Advertise Your
Network Marketing (MLM) Business! Now
that you're in a Network Marketing company, or you're thinking about
joining one, you will inevitably be asking your upline or your company
this very important question: First of all let me say this. You don't HAVE to spend a dime on advertising if you don't want to. Why, I know a man who has over 20,000 people in his downline who never mailed a recruiting tape, placed an ad, mailed a brochure or licked a stamp for a post-card. He did it the old fashioned way--he earned it through one-on-one presentation! He personally sponsored about 55 people and 9 years later that turned into over 20,000 people. He makes close to 1 million dollars a year from his network marketing business. So, if you were to ask this man how to advertise your business he'd give you advice based upon his own personal experience--warm marketing. The only two reasons, in my opinion that anyone started advertising nationally to recruit others into their downline was because it was easier and faster. But, I have talked to literally hundreds of frustrated networkers who have lost money in advertising. Let me tell you the ups and downs of recruiting nationally. First of all the benefits: * You can build your group faster through card deck, magazine and direct mail. Ultimately, you'll want to find people just like yourself who want to work from home, in their spare time in the evenings and weekends, building a nice residual income on the side. Your hope, is that you can either mail, phone or fax your way to wealth. * You don't have to bother or hassle your family, friends, associates or run after strangers at the gas station to build your MLM empire. Remember, my 20,000 example. This is how he did. It can be done. You just have to decide how bad you want it. If you don't believe in this type of marketing you surely won't be good at it. Now, the pitfalls of building your downline via national advertising: * Not everyone can afford the expense of running ads, printed literature, postage and phone calls. Plus, more than 90% lack the organization skills necessary to pull this type of home based business off. And, you'll find that the “window” of motivation for most is only 90 days. They go into their Network Marketing endeavor with a “I'll try this thing for about 6 months” attitude. It's too bad that this kind of attitude even exists today, but it does. And with this kind of start it's no wonder that 95% of most people who start their own Network Marketing business fail. It's like saying at the alter, “For better or worse in the next 6 months”. When I got married I made a commitment “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, till death do us part”. When I joined the Network Marketing industry I took that same attitude with me. My philosophy was simple. I knew corporate American wasn't good enough for me. And, I knew that traditional business wasn't the answer either. My ONLY alternative was to develop a walk-away income through Network Marketing. I came up with an attitude of: “Build it or die!” Now, that my seem a bit “gung-ho” or overboard for some, but it was what it took in order for me to triple my income and retire at age 34 and become a full-time networker. * It's very hard to build relationships via long-distance sponsoring. Heck, in one of my downlines of over 2800, if I ever called a meeting together I'd probably be lucky to get 100 to show up. I'll go back to my 20,000 downline example. How did he do it? He developed relationships with people first, then they followed him in the business second. This goes without saying if you want to be successful on a massive scale in Network Marketing. Think about it for a minute. How many people do you have in your life right now that you would trust staying at your home for a week? How about leaving them alone with your children for a evening? Taking care of a loved one? You see, I have a core of friends that I would trust not only my family with, but my check book too. Wherever I go, they go. It's that simple. Now, I didn't build that type of relationship overnight, nor did it occur by simply flooding the country with post-cards. Instead, I ran an ad in a magazine or card deck or I mailed a post-card and I generated a lead. I mailed my information pack within 48 hours and 5 days later I made a phone call and asked my prospect if they've read the material I've sent them and if they have any questions. I then LISTENED and learned from tens of thousands of people all across the country what they wanted--and I learned to deliver it--financial freedom. You see, when you know the outcome of a certain event, the process then becomes less stressful and manageable. For example, let's say I put you in a football stadium that had 1 million rocks on the field. Under just ONE of the rocks I put a cashiers check, made out to you for $2 million dollars. How fast would you start turning over the rocks to find your fortune? You're right, IMMEDIATELY!! And, if you knew for certain, that there was INDEED a check under ONE of the rocks, you'd NEVER quit until you found it. Right? The biggest reason people aren't successful in Network Marketing today is that they QUIT before they've even turned over a half dozen rocks--and it takes a million flips to be successful! So, here's my advice to you. First of all determine how BAD you want to make enough money to quit your job. If you LOVE your job, then find a dollar amount that you WANT to do with as you please. Then, find someone in your upline who has advertised successfully. And, follow in their footsteps. The discouraging part of this process is that 9 out of 10 Networkers never pick up the phone and call their upline and ask for help. Why? Because they think that asking for help is a sign of weakness and that they'll look stupid. Well, you have determine which is more painful for you -- looking stupid a few times until you learn the ropes, or going to a job or business that you hate, for fewer and fewer dollars every year! The choice was simple for me. I went the stupid route and kept asking and asking and asking until I finally found the answers that I wanted--how to retire before I was too old to remember my name! And, because of my diligence, I have been successful. All too often, I get new people in a program who want to know EXACTLY what to say and do when they first get started. That's a necessary element--but I've yet seen anyone go through networking without encountering obstacles. And, just as in life, those who SEEM to be lucky or get all the breaks are the ones who listen and learn from those who are doing what they want to be doing and NEVER, EVER QUIT! Advertising--How To Spend Your Hard Earned Money Most Effectively--So You Get Maximum Results! One of the biggest mistakes you can make when advertising your network marketing opportunity is to spend your entire advertising budget on one ad! Your ultimate goal in advertising is making the most money possible from a given source. If there are 10 different sources to advertise in you should at least run a small ad in all 10 sources before you run out of money! Here's why... Advertising is a relentless pursuit of TESTING! You must first test your ad to determine if it pulls either inquires or orders first--then you test the magazine, newspaper, list or card deck second. Let's assume you have $1,000 to spend on advertising over the next 3 months. What do you do? Do you run a full page ad in Cutting Edge Magazine all three months? No, (sorry Kevin!). But that wouldn't be prudent--unless you have already tested the effectiveness of your full page ad. You should run a 1/4 page ad for 3 months instead of a full page ad. And, test different copy in all three months. You want to test 3 different headlines--but keep the body of your ad the same. In other words, don't change the headline in month two and your text copy too. Why not? Because you won't know if your increase or decrease in response is because of your headline change or your text change. If a 1/4 page ad cost $190 then you would be spending $570 over the next 3 months--instead of $1500 with 3 full page ads. A savings of $930. What kind of response should you expect? A 1/4 page ad should generate you 50 to 75 leads. A full page ad should generate you 150 to 200 leads. The cost per lead for the 1/4 page ad is $3.80, where the cost per lead for a full page ad is around $3.33. As you can see the cost is comparable for either type of ad. The real benefit of running 1/4 page ads is that you get to test different headlines without breaking the bank. Then, once you know which ad copy works the best you won't be afraid to spend $500 on a full page ad! I also recommend that at the same time you're testing your three 1/4 page ads in Cutting Edge that you also place the same identical ad each month in another publication similar to Cutting Edge. This way, you can test the effectiveness of other magazines--a very necessary element if you plan on building a large organization over the next few years. As your group grows, you're going to need more and more leads. If you do your homework right, then you'll be ready to roll out your ad campaign as your group grows! Another way to test your ad is to run a 25,000 test card deck card in the Cutting Edge Card Deck. Cutting Edge is the only reputable source in the Network Marketing industry today that runs 200,000 cards every other month! Plus, you can test your post-card ad by running 25,000 cards--all for a cost of around $595. What kind of response should you get from a 25,000 card deck? I usually get 200 to 300 inquires. That puts your cost around $2.97--slightly lower than your magazine ad. If you're a savvy networker you should at least get 20 people to join your opportunity from your 200-300 leads. If you're a smart networker, you will then get at least 2 people out of your new 20 members to co-op with you in your magazine or card deck ads. If your new members can't afford to run a 1/4 page ad or 25,000 card deck on their own then sell them shares in the ads. You can sell shares in multiples of $25 or $50 dollars. If you spend $595 on a 25,000 card deck you can sell 24 shares at $25 each, or 12 shares at $50 each. When the leads come to your office, simply divide them up according to the number of shares and either mail or fax these leads to your downline members who gave you money--it’s that simple! Using this simple co-oping technique in 1996 I had over 4 million post-cards and ads run for me--and my downline paid for all of the ad costs! That's how I was able to have exponential growth in 1996 while I was on the golf course most weekdays! Don't get over anxious or over zealous. Advertising takes time and money. And you have to test, test and then re-test in order to find out which ad pulls in the most leads for your dollar. My recommendation is to start with a 1/4 page ad and work your way up to full page ads and then card decks of at least 25,000 circulation. It might take you 6 months or a year to do so--but it's better waiting for the results and doing it right than spending your entire budget on one big ad and it flops! Then you're out of business! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert
Blackman is President of Diversified Enterprises Inc. A printing
and Direct marketing company. He is also President of The Profit
Network, a Voice Mail & Fax-On-Demand MLM company. Not only
is Robert successfully making money in 7 different network marketing
ventures, he also provides a discount printing, writing, designing
and ad placement service to all his readers. --------------------------------------------------------------------
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