Have you ever considered what it would be like to harness the power of both the internet and network marketing?
Traditionally, network marketing is a business that places reliance on word of mouth recommendations. For many years the buzz-word in network marketing was “recommend your products to others” if you want to build a large network marketing business.
With the advent of the internet, the rules have also changed. Instead of recommending your products to people you meet, you now have to promote your business to people you will hardly ever meet. This is the challenge facing many network marketers.
What is the best way to harness the power of the internet and network marketing?
Many network marketing companies have tried to solve this problem by developing websites for their distributors. This is ineffective for a number of reasons:
The internet is by far the most powerful marketing tool there is. With the internet, you can reach billions of people across the globe. It is unfortunate that many distributors still regard internet and network marketing as separate entities.
Recall that the traditional approach to having a successful network marketing business is...
If you want to take your network marketing online, it is in the second and the third step of this process that you will see the power of internet and network marketing. Why?
Because the internet makes it simpler to contact more people who may become your committed loyal customers. It is these loyal customers that you want to eventually sponsor into your business.
It is not as easy as it sounds though.
Internet network marketing is getting tougher by the day. Do a search for network marketing on your search engine and notice how many hits you get. Google produced 158 000 000 hits at the time of writing.
That’s how tough the competition is.
But all is not lost. Your job as a distributor is to find retail customers for your products and convert these customers into distributors.
How can you tap into the power of internet and network marketing when competition is this stiff?
The logical and highly recommended answer is...
Have your own website
Yes. Have your own website registered in your own domain name.
Nothing will give your internet and network marketing business more oomph than your very own website. However, your website has to be seen to be of any value to you.
As I mentioned earlier, many network marketing companies recognise the power of the internet and network marketing. As a result they have designed websites which they make available to their distributors.
You will find everything but unique content on a replicated website – generic content, products etc. All you need to do as a distributor is select a template, choose a domain name and register it (sometimes not necessary).
You will have a fully-fledged-ready-to-take-orders website in less than 24 hours. At this point you might say “Wow! Problem solved, I have a website.” But...
For your business to thrive, you need a constant inflow of potential customers - traffic.
People need to know about the existence of your website, visit it and either buy from it or contact you for further information on your network marketing business. That way you are in business.
So, where do you get traffic once you have your website from your network marketing company?
This is where many would be internet based network marketers fail. And this is where you will fail, unless you stay miles away from replicated company websites.
To have a constant flow of traffic to your site you need to...
Provide good quality content on your website
People visit websites for one reason, and one reason only...
To find information which they can use to solve particular problems in their own lives. Provide this information, and you will never run short of traffic.
Test it yourself. Why do you surf the net? Are you surfing for the sake of surfing or is it because you are looking for specific information you want to use to better your life?
The odds are very good that you are surfing the internet because you want information which will help you better your life.
The odds are also very good that you are reading this page because you are looking for information which may help you make your network marketing easy. You would not be reading unless you believed this page can somehow help you. And...
That is why everyone surfing the internet is surfing. So, 'giving people what they want' is the operative phrase for any internet business. You can do this by providing your visitors with good quality content.
What kind of content do you put on your website?
Since you are in network marketing, the best content would be information about how your visitors can benefit from using your products or service.
You don’t have to write about your entire product range. Select a product that you really love – ideally one you use yourself. See the importance of using your products?
Be careful not to sound like you are advertising. You are not. You are merely sharing information with your audience, either from your own personal experience or what you have learnt about the product.
For example, one of your products is a heartburn remedy. Why not make heartburn your subject? Something like: causes of heartburn, symptoms of heartburn, how to prevent heartburn, etc. You are limited only by your imagination.
Providing quality unique content to your visitors is the most efficient and effective way you can tap into the power of internet and network marketing.
Why do you need your own website?
With your own website you are in control. You put your own content which you can edit anytime you need. And...
If you set up your website right, free traffic will start flowing from search engines. This traffic will keep coming as long as you provide quality content that is unique to your site only. Your only job will be to keep adding content.
As you provide solutions to people’s problems, you also build lasting relationships. This where recommending your products comes in. People are more likely to buy if you approach them in this way.
You can create a form on your website that takes down their contact details which you can use to promote your business further. It is not unusual to even receive telephone calls from people you don’t know wanting to know more about your internet business.
Once you have decided to harness the power of internet and network marketing, it will be necessary to select a hosting company.
Selecting a company to host your website can be another minefield on its own. Unless you already know how to design, build and provide content that is search engine optimized, select a package that will do most of the work for you.
Your main job should be to provide the content required while the rest is handled by the software your hosting company provides.
Word of caution: Many companies will offer websites templates and leave the rest up to you. This could be fatal to your internet business.
With your own website, putting internet and network marketing together will take your network marketing to new heights. This will put you ahead of the pack if you do it right.