My Internet MLM Experience

10-18-2007 I have been looking for an online business for about 6 months, and I finally have found that MLM seems to appeal to me. I think, after much research, that it can be done effectively online. After much study, I wrote an article generally describing the differences between how MLM used to work, and how it now can be streamlined today, using the internet.

I posted this article in several online directories over the past week, and I am including this article in this post.

Update Your Internet MLM Thinking

Network Marketing the Old Way

MLM marketing used to be taught by pre-internet methods. The problem with this method is that with the advent of the internet, the old rules were never updated. If we look at the old way, we can see how inefficient it is compared to the internet ways of marketing a product.

We were taught to make a list of (usually 100) friends or people we knew, and try to market our mlm product to them. The problem with this method is that the list was not targeted, and most of them, if not all of them, were probably not interested in mlm and wanted nothing to do with it.

We were also told to hold parties (especially products that were geared to women) and sell the products to them. However, this may have made pocket change from the products that were sold, but did not really build an mlm network.

We were also told to use traditional forms of advertising, such as classified ads, etc. However, these methods still had the same drawback. They were not targeted to the audience that you were trying to reach.

Updated Network Marketing Thinking

Today, network marketing, or mlm, should be taught using the new tools that depend upon the power of the internet. The internet has the advantage of reaching large numbers of people using both free and paid methods of advertising. These methods can be made, if correctly used, to reach a very targeted audience. Because of this, hopefully a person’s conversion rate will be much higher than with conventional methods taught the old way.

These methods include, but are not limited to, article marketing, solo ads in related online magazines, using adword campaigns, email campaigns (not spam), and other methods.

Article Marketing
Writing, or using a pre-written article with permission, and submitting it to e-zines for
acceptance and publication. This would include a website to either a lead capture page (squeeze page) or a sales website. This method takes a little longer than other methods, but the price is right, and it is often a very effective method, if done right.

Solo Ads
Writing a solo ad and submitting it to an e-zine to be mailed out to their ad distribution list, while not free, can be an inexpensive way to promote your mlm business. There are various price rates, and these lists vary in size of listings.

Adword Campaigns
Adword campaigns can be a very effective way to advertise. This method is also known as pay per click. The best known adword campaigns are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. However, you should not go into an adword campaign without first studying how to safely use adwords without losing money.

Email Campaigns
An email campaign is where you send out an ad to an opt-in email list. This list should be derived from your capture page, where you gain permission to email that person. This is to protect you from spam complaints. Most reputable marketers, including myself, denounce spam, and it can cause you lots of grief and usually creates bad feelings instead of customers. Also, buying email lists usually is a poor investment, since the lists that you purchase, even though they may be advertised as such, are not usually targeted to your desired audience.

Other Methods
There are other methods that are also effective and should be considered, such as autoresponders and blogging.

Summary
Many advertisements for internet businesses try to sell a person on how easy and how little time it takes to become a millionaire on the internet. This is a bunch of BULL.
It does take work, time, passion, and a commitment. It may happen quickly, but more than likely, it will take a few months to build your business. DON’T get discouraged. It does give you the freedom to set your own hours, take a day off now and then, and put you in the driver’s seat. If you decide this business is what you want, it can be very rewarding.

Best of luck in whatever your decision is.

Resource Box:

Ken Colby has been in various internet businesses over the past 10+ years. He is currently doing mlm and affiliate marketing. The internet offers him the freedom of setting his own hours as well as determining where and how he wants to devote his time.
http://kencolby.getnetmlmprofits.com
mlmking@comcast.net
Ken Colby
603 818-2047