:: Copywriting and Direct Marketing ::

It is certainly no secret that the network marketing business has undergone some real change over the years. Finding good qualified leads for your business certainly isn’t as easy as it once was. And the competition for those leads is getting fiercer every day. It takes a new set of skills to succeed in today’s network marketing arena.

Most of the big players in network marketing know this. They have honed their skills to become some of the best internet markets around. I’m amazed at how many network marketers are still using only the lead generation techniques we used 10 years ago.

The skills you need today aren’t difficult to learn. You don’t have to be a genius or have a master’s degree to succeed. But you have to be willing to learn new skills and make some effort on a consistent basis if you want to achieve results. And those results can be increased income in a meaningful way.

What are these skills? They are the same ones that any good internet marketer uses. First you are going to need a website. Not one of those replicated websites you get for free from some organizations. These DO NOT WORK. Don’t waste your time with them. You need to brand yourself. People will join your opportunity if they believe in you and trust you.

You will need to learn how to identify specific market demographics that you want to target for your opportunity. All good internet marketers know how to segment their potential market and appeal to each with different messages and offers. For example do you want to target retirees looking for extra income, working moms looking supplemental income, or individuals who want to quit their current job as quickly as possible. Your message to each of these would be different. You would appeal to different emotions.

To craft powerful messages you need to learn copywriting. This is not difficult even if you consider yourself to be a poor writer. What it takes is practice and dedication. The more you write the better you get. There are many sources of excellent copywriting courses to build your skills.

A great website and excellent copy targeted at specific demographics is worthless unless you can generate traffic to your website. You will need to learn how to generate targeted traffic to your website. If you have the budget you can buy traffic on the major search engines and get it quickly. Otherwise it will take time and effort to begin to generate the free traffic.

Once you have everything up and running you will need to be testing constantly. Test everything to see what gets the best conversion - generates the best leads. One of the biggest mistakes internet marketers make is not testing their copy. Test everything. Change headings. Change graphics. Change copy. This is called A/B split testing. There is software available to help you with this but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Learn these skills and apply them. You’ll be way ahead of the game and your competition.

Todd Gleason is a small business owner and internet marketer. He is frequent author on small business development and internet marketing. You can learn more about the new skills needed for direct network marketing and get a free copy of “7 Secrets to building a Productive Downline” here.

categories: Network marketing,MLM marketing,internet marketing,small business