🧠 Living Off The Net Academy: Insider Advertising Report
Chapter 11: How To Advertise An Online MLM Program
Although the title of this chapter is how to advertise an online MLM program, the strategies and principles discussed here can well be used to promote other things.
Hence, even if you are not interested in MLM, don’t skip this chapter.
The Wrong Way to Promote an MLM
Most MLM programs come with a few standard sales pages and squeeze pages that one can use to advertise.
What most people do is they will pick one of the standard sales pages or squeeze pages and advertise it.
There are 3 problems with this approach:
Lack of Personal Touch
Most corporate sales pages look formal and lack personal touch.
They focus more on product features, benefits, and the business plan, rather than how they can help a person to succeed.
Such sales pages may appeal to goal-getters who have confidence in themselves. But most people are followers. They need to be assured that someone is there to help them before they have the confidence to do it.
As I’ve discussed in Chapter 3, the reason why people do not buy is because they have
no confidence in you or the company
no confidence in the product
no confidence in themselves
Corporate sales pages usually fail to build the third confidence — i.e., confidence in themselves.
As a marketer, that is where you can come in.
I’ll show you a case study later. Let me explain the other 2 problems…
Over Exposure
The standard ads provided by MLM companies have often been over-used. They may appear to be effective initially. But when more and more people use them, their effectiveness will drop.
If you advertise such an ad to people who are actively looking for money-making opportunities, chances are they have seen these ads several times.
They may or may not have signed up before.
If they have signed up before, they will not sign up again.
If they have not, they may decide to try it after seeing the same ad many times. But you need to be the lucky one to sign them up.
Advertising the company’s standard ads is actually beneficial to the MLM company, but not to you. To the company, it’s a means to create corporate image and branding. When people keep seeing the same ad repeatedly, their confidence in the company will increase, and eventually they may sign up. Again, you’ve got to be the lucky one to sign them up.
You Lose the Leads If They Don’t Sign Up
If you advertise the corporate sales page and people don’t sign up, you may not see the leads again.
Considering the fact that corporate sales pages are often over-used, it means you are losing most of the leads that you get from advertising.
That is not smart.
The Right Way to Promote an MLM Business
The right way to promote an MLM business is not to promote it!
What?!
Yes, don’t promote it.
Instead, you should promote yourself or your system, showing them how you or your system can help them to achieve financial freedom, passive income or other goals.
If they are interested, they can join your system or opt-in to your list.
When you promote your own system or opt-in offer, you will overcome the three problems above.
You add a personal touch to your sales page and let the prospects know that you are going to hold their hands and teach them how to make money.
Your unique sales page will never be over-exposed.
You keep the leads, since they have opted in to your list or system.
Remember what I said?
List building is confidence building.
Once you get the prospects to your list, you can continue to build their confidence in you, in the business, and in themselves.
You can show them how to promote the business, how you’ve progressed, and how much money you’ve made. If you don’t have much result to show yet, you can show them other case studies provided by the company.
People love case studies. It is a great way to boost all 3 areas of confidence.
The idea is to show them that it is a viable business, a trusted company and more importantly, they can do it!
Some people who join your list may have already joined the MLM business that you’re promoting. That’s fine.
In the process of showing them how to promote the MLM business, you may recommend some products or tools to them. They may not be your downline in that MLM, but they can be your customer in other products.
Case Study – Promote Yourself, Not The MLM
This is an ad from one of my regular customers.
I’ll highlight the main points that we can learn from it.
A catchy headline.
The headline has 2 catchy points. First, is “How I make my 5-figure monthly income part-time”. Second is “Here’s my story…”.
People love to read other people’s stories, especially when the story sounds interesting. In this case, it is a story of him getting his 5-figure monthly income part-time.
I’ve explained to you the importance of a headline. If your leads are willing to put down their work and read your sales page completely, half the battle is won.
A self photo.
A personal photo will increase the prospects’ confidence in you.
Catchy subheaders
As I said earlier, a sales page should be written to be scanned.
Look at the subheaders:
“My Personal Wish… To Retire Early”
— Who doesn’t wish to retire early?
“Looking For My Plan B”
— What pitfalls did he experience?
“I found My Dream Plan B”
— What is it?
Catchy subheaders keep people wanting to read more.
Picture of a hand-shake
The picture of a handshake before the opt-in form gives prospects the feeling that he is going to work hand in hand with them. This will boost the self-confidence of the prospects.
This advertiser could have further improved the conversion rate if he included some income proofs. But the basics of a self-promotion page is there.
Strategies for Newbies
“Trevor, I’m a newbie. I have no idea how to generate traffic. I don’t know how to create a website. What should I do?”
Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you. Here comes your solution!
I’ve seen many newbies in MLM marketing. Some quickly rise to become a star. Some give up after a few tries.
The good news is I managed to identify some common traits of those who make it:
They work in a team.
They are not alone figuring out what works and what doesn’t. They work in a team with their uplines and they leverage their uplines’ effort to succeed.
They have a duplicable system, usually a system from their uplines.
I’ve seen MLM marketers with good initial results from their advertisements. But they give up eventually because they do not have a system that allows their downlines to duplicate their success.
They position themselves as the guru.
The term ‘guru’ is actually a relative term. If you know more than another person, you are a guru to that person.
As I said, people like to be led. If they see you as a leader, they will want to follow you. If you want to succeed, you will have to learn fast and become a guru in internet marketing within a very short time.
I’ve seen a complete newbie turn into a guru in as short as 3 months!
If you have a psychological barrier about behaving like a guru when you are not, let me tell you this: Your college finance teacher has probably lost money in the stock market, but he can teach you everything about the stock market!
It seems that a teacher is someone who has studied the subject well, not someone who has done it well.
There is an infamous saying in the self-help industry: If you don’t know how to get rich, teach people how to get rich and you’ll be rich!
The same thing seems to be happening in the internet marketing industry too!
Napoleon Hill wasn’t really successful when he wrote the book “The Law Of Success”. But he became rich, famous and successful after writing the book as well as the famous “Think And Grow Rich”!
Now, let me clarify this: I’m not saying you can go round teaching the wrong thing! I’m saying you can teach what you know and what you’ve learned.
Like Napoleon Hill, he learned the secrets of success from 500 successful people in America and he taught these secrets to other people while practicing these secrets himself.
If you are a newbie, you need to learn fast and become a guru fast. The faster you can position yourself as a guru, the faster you can be successful.
Remember this: Learn it, Do it and Teach it.
If you have no experience, no income proof, no testimonials and no idea how to create a website, your fastest solution is to leverage on your uplines.
You need to leverage on your upline’s sales page, your upline’s traffic conversion system, and even your upline’s reputation in order to grow your own team FAST!
As usual, the best way to explain this is by showing you a real-life example:
This ad on the right has been advertised for more than a year, helping the creator to build a ton of downlines.
The ad was the same, but the advertisers kept changing.
The initial advertiser was the creator of this ad. As his downlines grew, his downlines were using the same ad to generate leads for themselves instead.
See what I mean?
If you are a complete newbie, you can leverage on your upline’s proven sales page to help you to build your leads.
You should also leverage on your upline’s system to help you convert your leads into sales.
While all these are taking place, you should work extremely hard to learn the ropes of the business and grow so that you can be as good as your upline within the shortest time possible.
Most newbies fail despite having a good upline because they are too lazy to learn and simply hope to rely on their uplines to do all the work for them.
Disclaimer: I need to emphasize that I’m not related to any of the examples I’ve shown you. I use these examples simply because they have achieved phenomenal results and I believe you can learn better with examples rather than just theories.
“But Kenneth, what if my upline isn’t as good as what you’re saying?”
Then you check with your upline’s upline and keep looking up until you manage to find someone who is as good and can help you!
Let me assure you that almost ALL top leaders in the MLM industry have their own unique sales page. Being in their team, I’m sure they will allow you to use their sales page and they are willing to show you the ropes.
That’s the main benefit of participating in MLM!
“But what if I really can’t find someone who can help me?”
Then you should quit the company!
I’m serious!
I once had a customer who spent several hundred dollars to join a MLM company and she wanted to advertise with me.
I told her that her sales page wasn’t going to work, but she said ‘just try’.
Ok, we tried. It didn’t work.
She asked me for help. I suggested that she should check with her uplines and see how they advertise successfully.
She said no one could help her.
I asked her to quit and ask for a refund.
I pitied her, but there was really little I could do to help.
You see, the reason why you want to join a MLM company is because you want to leverage on the infrastructure and the expertise of the company to help you succeed.
If you join one company that needs to leverage on YOUR expertise to succeed, then I suggest that you better quit!
Next Chapter: How To Advertise A Product That Has No Immediate Needs
