Put The Digital In Multi Level Marketing
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Knock Knock...Hi, It’s 2018! Stop using old-school methods of reaching people! Everyone is ONLINE. You don’t have to call someone! (Ugh, I hated cold calling.) You also are not limited to a physical in house demonstration. It’s time to embrace the internet and use it to explode your business! Digital marketing is an untapped resource that many MLM business owners are forgetting to use. Let’s start with getting you acquainted with exactly what digital marketing consists of.
Digital marketing is a way for you to create a brand for yourself through attraction. Attraction Marketing is an extraordinary way for you to become completely irresistible in the eyes of potential prospects. Prospects start seeking you out versus you chasing them down. You may be wondering exactly how you will become this attractive leader in your MLM industry?
Sell Your Brand By Selling Yourself
As a former Director of an MLM Company, I never realized how important it was to connect with your clients and team on a more personal level. I was more interested in promoting the products and opportunity. This was TOTALLY the wrong thing to do. It was salesly and cheesy! By using yourself, you essentially become the brand, not your MLM Company. You’re the FACE of your business! You become an EXPERT in your industry! People will start gravitating towards you and what you have to offer, but you must understand your vision and purpose.
So, what is your vision or purpose? Have you ever given it more than five minutes of genuine heartfelt time to really think about it? You’re claiming to be an entrepreneur, but have you taken the time to really discover how to connect with your audience and build a relationship with your followers?
If you’re an entrepreneur, then you need to become the brand. Let’s go through the steps you need to brand yourself.
Step 1: Become an expert with your MLM. If you’re working with makeup, learn every tutorial about applying makeup. Learn every tutorial about the proper use of skincare. If you’re working with organization containers, use the containers to organize your child’s room or a kitchen cabinet. Becoming the expert in your field means you need to research the products, know how to use the products, and share how to use the products. Want to take it a step further? Discover consumers pain points and offer a solution. The research is endless.
Step 2: Establish a website. Yes, I know your company provides you with a website for consumers to purchase directly from your MLM business, but this website is for branding yourself. Consumers will use search engines to research and potentially do business with you. That’s why it’s important to build a website around your name. You should purchase a domain (yourname.com). You can easily purchase a domain for less than $15.00, sometimes less than $1.00. By using your name, when someone searches for you, you could possibly be in the top ten results in a Google search. You need to claim your name domain as soon as possible. In the event, your name is taken and they are asking some astronomical price, add your middle initial or add a creative ending to your name. For instance, I could not brand Jessica Grimes, instead, I had to brand Jessica Grimes Digital, LLC. I wasn’t ready for a $17,000 investment!
Also when establishing your website, make sure to purchase an email address that reflects your website. This will benefit you when you start utilizing email marketing campaigns.
Step 3: Become the Source. I know I scour the internet looking for solutions to what ails me, whether it’s the latest makeup product or essential oil for moodiness. Everyone is searching for solutions to various ailments or situations. With you becoming an expert in your MLM Industry, you have the opportunity to share valuable information with these people. By researching your audience, you will discover what they are reading, watching, following, eating, etc. Become a trustworthy source so people will know you can offer a solution to what ails them. If you don’t know the answer to a question that is posted on your social media or asked during a Livestream, don’t just give an off the wall answer. Just politely respond that you want to research that topic and have a Livestream q&a about that particular topic. This makes you a reliable and trustworthy source.
Step 4: Network to build brand awareness. I am a living testimony that networking will build a business. When you network, you want to discover where the people you want to reach hangout. One of my favorite things to do is network in Facebook Groups. I don’t mean you need to post a link for someone to purchase a product. The way you network is by giving valuable information and content. For example, if you’re in an MLM that promotes essential oils, you can easily network with others in business groups. Share about your favorite essential oil that keeps you on task and focused throughout the day. Then ask what everyone else’s essential oil or favorite oil to use. Networking is not about selling, it’s about building relationships and brand awareness. Remember, you are the brand.
The overall point is to build a personal brand that stands out without being salesy. Your business IS an extension of your life and you should embrace your uniqueness.
Lead to Customer to Team Member
Every single business relies on leads to grow their business. Leads are individuals that are excited about what you have to offer -- services, products, expertise, information, etc. Lead Generation is the process of locating your prospects who need your product, opportunity, information or services and then persuade them with how you can assist them with their need or situation; and finally converting this prospect into a customer or team member.
What are you using for lead generation: fishbowl method, friends and family, 3-way calls, referrals, etc.
JUST STOP! These watering holes have dried up and it’s not going to rain anytime soon.
You need a better method. You need better leads!
These are all OUTDATED methods that will not benefit your business in the overall long-run. It’s time to kick these old-school methods out the door and build your business on the INTERNET!
Let me introduce you to Beaver Builder and how building a lead funnel in their program will grow your business. Beaver Builder is an amazing plugin that attaches to a WordPress site. This plugin helps you create your lead funnel by simply dragging and dropping a template into place. There’s no messy and confusing coding to worry about! By creating this hidden funnel within Beaver Builder, you will be able to gather leads quicker than by word-of-mouth. You can use this funnel for networking in Facebook groups, Facebook advertising and more!
Now, you may be wondering how you’re going to capture their email address to continue to keep your lead warm. This is when you need to have a convincing and captivating landing page that is optimized!
What is optimization? On this convincing and captivating landing page, your prospects will have an opportunity to give you their contact information, usually just their first name and email address. This landing has to be irresistible and has a compelling call-to-action. (People are always searching for ways to stay home and earn an income!)
What is call-to-action? The question should be, what are you willing to offer to your prospects? Do you have a product guide? A short video? Whatever valuable resource you are offering, the call-to-action button must say something more than “subscribe.” For instance, if you’re offering a free webinar in exchange for a prospect’s email address, the call-to-action should be ‘Watch Webinar Now’.
Focus on these points....prospects are coming to you...you’re not cold calling. You’re able to nurture these leads with your email marketing campaign.
Optimized Blogging with Content Upgrades
Wait...what did she just say? Let me break down each part of optimized blogging with content upgrades.
Have you ever visited a blog and experienced an opportunity to enter your email address to receive some type of content, whether it’s a PDF, video, etc? That is what optimized blogging with content upgrade looks like. A content upgrade is simply a lead magnet for someone to give you their email address. By having an optimized blog, you can easily grow an email list that you will need to nurture and turn into loyal followers.
For each blog post, you can easily insert a content upgrade that is related to your blog post. For example, if you’re in the makeup industry, you can create either a video series on how to create various ‘looks’. If you’re in the essential oil industry, you can create a cheat sheet of essential oil recipes for solutions to various health concerns. Use your imagination when it comes to creating content. You want this to be unique to your industry.
Content upgrades include PDF, cheat sheet, check list, list of resources, audio/video recording, start-up guide, research report, simple printable, industry challenge, worksheets, interviews, success story e-book, infographic of your product guide, Slideshare, etc. There are numerous ideas for content upgrades. Spend the time to create these valuable upgrades to obtain quality leads.
Turning Attention into Revenue
To expand your reach across the entire country, you will need to invest in advertising. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google Adwords are just a few places where your targeted audience may be hanging out. My personal favorite is Facebook.
With Facebook, they do not permit MLM’s to utilize their platform. That is one of the many reasons why it’s so important to brand yourself! Once you start branding yourself and creating your own content, this is how you can grow your following.
The first thing that you will need to do is attach your Facebook Pixel to the header of your new website. This pixel is a little piece of code that tracks individuals who land on your website. You are able to continue to target these individuals for specialized retargeting ads.
Since you’ve researched your audience, you should know a little bit about their behaviors: purchasing, watching, reading, listening, etc. You can use these behaviors and more to narrow your audience and advertise your content. You will need to create a compelling and valuable description of the content with a captivating image. Then you are set to start advertising.
Once you start advertising, you will need to monitor your Facebook advertising account to make sure your ad is approved and running smoothly. Once you understand all the metrics involved and how your audience is responding, you can quickly make modifications to your audience, description or images.
The whole purpose of running advertisements is to grow your email list.
Growing and Nurturing Your Email List
So you’ve created the content and are ready to run ads, but where are you going to send your leads? Your sole purpose of all this work and invested time is growing your email list. As these individuals opt-in to your content upgrade, their email enters into your email management system.
Nurturing your email list is communicating with people who’ve wanted to give you their email address. Think of this as the opportunity to create a lasting relationship… and relationships need nurturing. Just like a flower that needs watering to thrive, your email list needs valuable content to continue to build their relationship with you. This is the opportunity to share more about your brand with your valuable content. You always want to remember to give more than you ask for.
Now, since you are with an MLM, you cannot immediately start off advertising your business opportunity or buy my products. That relationship isn’t there yet. Depending on your MLM Industry, you want to share about special announcements, exclusive ‘members-only’ content, special deals, etc.
Be personable and relatable when you are writing your emails. You will also want to determine the frequency of sending emails (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). You can always test this and review your email open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates.
When creating your email content, you will need to create an email content scheduler. The most important thing you need to remember is that they have received your previous email. In your first email, you may tell a story about a certain MLM topic and relate it to your brand. In your second email, you may relate back to that story (which will pique their interest.
You also want to diversify your content within your emails. Add in a video, send an infographic, etc. These are added connections that keep your list warm.
If you’re just starting out and searching for an easy program to use, I would highly recommend you checking out MailerLite. MailerLite is free up to 1,000 subscribers and you have the opportunity to create landing pages and website opt-ins in this program. If you like to organize your list with specialized tags and grow a list over 1,000, I would recommend ConvertKit. ConvertKit is the big brother of MailerLite. You are able to create landing pages and custom opt-ins for your content upgrades.
Build Your Tribe
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Periscope, Pinterest, Google+, etc. are worldwide platforms readily available to billions of user. For this particular conversation, I’m going to share my personal favorite, Facebook. Facebook alone has an estimated 2.07 billion active users. (That means the number of accounts that were logged into in the last 30 days when this census was taken.)
By building a Facebook Business Page, you will quickly build an audience of followers by creating a scheduled content plan. Video is a highly sought after marketing tool for various audiences. Consumers want to hear about products or opportunities.
To make your business page more personable, I would not use a third party scheduler for your posting. Facebook wants you to utilize their scheduler, which will be to your advantage. You won’t have a third party scheduler tag stating that it was posted from a program, instead, it will appear as if you have personally posted the content.
Final Thoughts
Before sharing information about your MLM business, please review your contract with your company and an attorney to confirm you are in compliance.
Make sure you are having fun with your MLM business, but make sure you treat it as a business. Just remember, “Growth demands a temporary surrender of security." Gail Sheehy, New York Times Bestselling Author.”