How to Generate Local Network Marketing Leads Online December 14, 2008 3:09 PM For a long time one of the major disadvantages to marketing online was the inability to generate local network marketing leads.    There are tremendous advantages to building a local team but because of the international scope and reach of websites, there was really no way to segment traffic and visitors by area.   However, with the advent of social networking web sites and the ability to do online advertising by region, there are now a number of strategies that you can use to generate local network marketing leads online.    With these strategies you can build a local team without having to rely on traditional network marketing techniques like the three foot rule and attending local events.   Social Networking Sites   One way you can generate local network marketing leads is to use social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook.    On these web sites you can tap into large communities of users many of whom are in your local market.    Myspace has one of the most powerful resources to do this.  There is a zip code search feature that you can use to find all Myspace users within a certain number of miles of your zip code.   While Facebook doesn't have zip code searching features, you can search Facebook by city name.   For instance, if you are looking to recruit prospects who live in a certain town or near a certain major city you can by typing the name of the city in the Facebook search engine.  Facebook will then return the profiles of people who live in that city or town.   Advertise on a Pay Per Click Search Engine    Another method for generating online local network marketing leads is advertising on pay per click (aka PPC) search engines.  This allows you to generate targeted traffic consisting of people who are looking for what you have to offer.    Most pay per click search engines have a regional feature where you can have your ad only appear for searchers who live in specific countries or regions.   Craigslist   A third online way to generate local network marketing leads is to use Craigslist.  Craigslist is an online classified ad website where people search for a wide variety of products and services to buy.    With Craigslist, you can create ads that appear in certain cities or regions to attract local prospects for your network marketing business.  As long as you make modifications or use different ads, you can promote your business in a number of different areas.   With the internet, there are now a number of different ways you can identify and attract local network marketing leads to evaluate your business opportunity.    The key to success in this area is to test different strategies and approaches and see which ones work best for you.    Generally speaking you aren't going to be able to master each and every area because there are only a certain number of hours in a day.  Therefore pick one area that interests you, focus on that one area and then once you feel you have maximized it, expand to another area.   To get the help you need to grow your business, click for step-by-step Internet Network Marketing Training.   top

Buying leads vs. Generating Your Own Leads

Some distributors believe that the best way to build a business is to generate their own leads. Other distributors believe that the best way to build the business is to buy leads.

Distributors who don't have an opinion often wonder to themselves "who is right on this issue and what is the best way to get leads?"

The truth of the matter is both sides can be right assuming they have created massive success with the help of their chosen method.

In the network marketing industry, "massive success" is defined as earning a six-figure or greater income that is paid by the distributor's primary network marketing opportunity. These are the leaders that have created true success in the industry.

Successful Network Marketers Are Not the Ones Debating Lead Generation Methods

The problem with this debate is that much of the debating is being done by distributors who haven't created this level of success as of yet.

In fact, many of the distributors participating in this debate haven't even figured out how to create a profitable network marketing business. They spend more money than they make every month, yet vigorously debate that a certain method of lead generation is better than the other.

The fact of the matter is it really doesn't matter whether you generate your own leads, buy them or do both if whatever you do allows you to generate a six-figure passive income from your network marketing business.

A six-figure passive income indicates that you have not only been successful in earning income but you have helped others in your organization to earn income as well.

Quality Leads or Quantity of Leads

When you generate your own lead, the lead tends to be of a significantly higher quality than a lead that is purchased.

It is rare that a lead that was personally generated by you claims to have never responded to a request for information about working from home.

With purchased leads, however, you will find that many of the leads you call will claim to have never requested information.

It takes a significant amount of time to generate your own leads, especially when you are first starting out in the process. You could literally spend hours on lead generation only to find that you generated few leads or even none at all.

When you purchase leads, you have no worries about generating enough leads. Whatever amount of leads you purchased, you will receive those leads.

Promoting You as a Brand or a Generic Business Opportunity

Generating your own leads also allows you to personalize your approach. It is significantly easier to market you and your brand, meaning what you uniquely offer to the organization.

People are attracted to you, not necessarily your network marketing company and your product. By generating your own leads, you give yourself the ability to capitalize on the process of marketing you.

Purchased leads are marketed by a generic offer for a business opportunity that can apply to as many opportunities as possible. This allows the lead company to resell the lead to multiple distributors to maximize profits.

Business Skills Necessary to Generate Leads or Buying Leads

Purchasing your own leads requires you to learn significantly less skills to be successful as generating your own leads. When you purchase your own leads, the only skill you need to master is how to effectively turn that lead into a client or new distributor in your organization.

Creating your own leads requires you to not only learn sales skills, but also lead generation, copywriting, conversions and other skills necessary for creating leads.

As you can see there are benefits and disadvantages to both approaches.

The key is for you to find the approach that works best for you and that you feel most comfortable with.

I have used both approaches and have found generating my own leads to be more effective for me and my organization in building our network marketing business.

Contents at a Glance

1. Recruit Network Marketers Into Your Business
2. How to Generate Local Network Marketing Leads Online
3. Lead Generation: Should You Generate Your Own Leads or Buy Leads?
4. Network Marketing Leads Generation: Old School vs. New School
5. So What Are "Old School" Network Marketing Prospecting Techniques?
6. What Are "New School" Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategies?
7. The 4 Types Of Network Marketing Leads You Can Generate
8. How To Work With Product Leads?
9. How To Work With Company Specific Opportunity Leads?
10. How To Work With Business And General Opportunity Leads?
11. How To Work With Existing Network Marketers?
12. Network Marketing Leads Generation for Under $100 a month?
13. #1 - Article Marketing As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy:
14. #2 - Social Networking As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
15. #3 - Viral Marketing As a Network Marketing Leads Generating Strategy
16. #4 - Blogging As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
17. #5 - Discussion Groups & Forums As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
18. Why Split Testing Your Ads Is The Short-Cut To Network Marketing Success!
19. Track Your Website Promotions with Bubbl.us

Find Related Topics

If you take a look at all of the network marketing distributors that are struggling in the industry, the large majority of them struggle because they simply don't have enough prospects to talk to.

Not having leads in network marketing is like a retail store owner not having inventory for his or her store.

You either have to address it immediately or you go out of business.

Regardless of which method you prefer to use when it comes down to leads generation for your network marketing business, there are two prevailing philosophies of generating leads.

You can use "old school" prospecting techniques or you can use "new school" prospecting techniques.

Traditional network marketing is based on the philosophy that if you want to be successful you have to go out and bring the business in yourself.

What are some examples of these prospecting strategies?

The most common example is making a list of your warm market.

The warm market consists of everyone you know.

Once this list is made you then let everyone you know about what you do.

Most will not be interested.

Some will become customers.

A minority will become customers and also participate in the business.

Another example is referred to as the "three foot rule."

This comes from the philosophy of "everyone is a prospect for your business."

With this method of prospecting, you come up with creative ways to meet new people and bring up your business in hopes that you find someone who has a level of interest.

Old school prospecting techniques are actually the most commonly used and taught in network marketing today.

The vast majority of distributors in the network marketing industry generate leads in this fashion.

Now there's certainly nothing wrong with this approach if it is working for you.

There are some people with massive networks of friends and acquaintances that effectively work the warm market for a long time.

There are others who are fantastic at meeting new people on a daily basis and creating interest in the network marketing product or business opportunity.

Unfortunately, I have found that there are a lot of distributors who are NOT having success with these methods and are tired and frustrated with not having success.

If that is you, perhaps you may want to consider some "new school" network marketing leads generation methods.

For example, one new school approach to prospecting is to use pay per click and search engine marketing.

There are prospects out on the internet that are already looking for information about the network marketing industry, your company's product or even your particular company's network marketing opportunity.

You can pay to advertise on the search engines or develop strategies to appear in the search engine results for free to attract these prospects to do business with you.

Another new school approach is to use a "funded proposal" strategy.

With this technique instead of advertising and promoting your product or opportunity, you instead promote a solution to a problem in the form of an information product.

The information product acts as a pre-qualifier and revenue generator to help you make cash while you build your organization and your residuals.

Whether you use old school lead generation strategies or new school methods to your network marketing prospect, the most important element to your success if to have enough qualified prospects to talk to.

If you are constantly talking to prospects that have an interest in what you do on a regular basis you are going to make money.

If you're not talking to prospects at all or all of your prospects have no interest in what you do, you are not going to make money.

If you want to be successful in network marketing, you have to generate leads for your business.

The first step to successful leads generation is to decide what type of leads you are going to generate for your network marketing business.

This doesn't refer to the marketing method you will use.

Some distributors use warm market and three foot rule marketing.

Others use leads purchases or social networking strategies.

These are marketing methods, not types of leads to prospect.

There are four types of network marketing leads you can generate for your network marketing business.

It is important that you understand the difference between the four and the best approach for each type of lead. Otherwise it is very likely that the prospect will NOT do business with you.

So what are the four types of network marketing leads that you can generate?

They are as follows:

1. Product leads

2. Company specific opportunity leads

3. Home business & general opportunity leads

4. Existing network marketers

Each of these 4 types of leads is very different and you have to know exactly how to handle and work with each group so that you create successful results instead of wasting your time, resources and money.

For instance, you may market a weight loss product. A product lead prospect would be someone who is interested in losing weight.

The best way to handle this type of network marketing lead is to focus on the product and go for the product sale.

Never mention the network marketing business opportunity until after they have purchased your product and are satisfied with it.

So many network marketers try to pitch the opportunity to product prospects before the prospect even makes a decision to purchase the product.

This is like a car salesperson trying to sell a prospect on buying a car dealership before the prospect even buys a car!

Contents at a Glance

1. Recruit Network Marketers Into Your Business
2. How to Generate Local Network Marketing Leads Online
3. Lead Generation: Should You Generate Your Own Leads or Buy Leads?
4. Network Marketing Leads Generation: Old School vs. New School
5. So What Are "Old School" Network Marketing Prospecting Techniques?
6. What Are "New School" Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategies?
7. The 4 Types Of Network Marketing Leads You Can Generate
8. How To Work With Product Leads?
9. How To Work With Company Specific Opportunity Leads?
10. How To Work With Business And General Opportunity Leads?
11. How To Work With Existing Network Marketers?
12. Network Marketing Leads Generation for Under $100 a month?
13. #1 - Article Marketing As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy:
14. #2 - Social Networking As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
15. #3 - Viral Marketing As a Network Marketing Leads Generating Strategy
16. #4 - Blogging As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
17. #5 - Discussion Groups & Forums As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
18. Why Split Testing Your Ads Is The Short-Cut To Network Marketing Success!
19. Track Your Website Promotions with Bubbl.us

Find Related Topics

Typically they have been exposed to the network marketing company before, but for whatever reason they are now interested in getting involved in the opportunity.

They may have lost contact with the person that initially exposed them or may not even want to work with that person.

The best way to handle this type of lead is to show the person why you and your support team is the best approach to your specific network marketing company.

You cannot distinguish yourself from other distributors in your company by focusing on the product or opportunity.

It is by focusing on your uniqueness and the uniqueness of your upline support team that will allow you to get prospects to make the decision to come on board with you.

These leads are typically the least qualified because of the way they are generated as well they aren't looking for your product or network marketing company specifically.

The best way to handle this type of lead is to have some type of pre-qualification process in your marketing system.

Many of these prospects have various levels of interest.

Some are just curious and really have very little interest in making a commitment.

Others are more serious.

Having some type of pre-qualification process like requiring them to go to a web site, having someone else make initial calls for you or even requiring them to purchase something first helps you identify and sort the serious prospects from the curious prospects.

This way you spend most of your phone time with people who are serious.

They make good prospects for your business because they have already invested time, energy and money in network marketing.

Although these leads are great prospects for your network marketing business, they are also the leads that are most commonly prospected incorrectly.

The chances of you recruiting a network marketer by leading with your product or opportunity are slim to none especially if they are already involved with another network marketing company.

The best approach with network marketers is to take a consultative approach where you direct the prospect to tools and resources to help him or her build their network marketing business.

This will establish you as an expert and a leader and naturally some of these people will reach out to you about your opportunity.

Contents at a Glance

1. Recruit Network Marketers Into Your Business
2. How to Generate Local Network Marketing Leads Online
3. Lead Generation: Should You Generate Your Own Leads or Buy Leads?
4. Network Marketing Leads Generation: Old School vs. New School
5. So What Are "Old School" Network Marketing Prospecting Techniques?
6. What Are "New School" Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategies?
7. The 4 Types Of Network Marketing Leads You Can Generate
8. How To Work With Product Leads?
9. How To Work With Company Specific Opportunity Leads?
10. How To Work With Business And General Opportunity Leads?
11. How To Work With Existing Network Marketers?
12. Network Marketing Leads Generation for Under $100 a month?
13. #1 - Article Marketing As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy:
14. #2 - Social Networking As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
15. #3 - Viral Marketing As a Network Marketing Leads Generating Strategy
16. #4 - Blogging As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
17. #5 - Discussion Groups & Forums As a Network Marketing Leads Generation Strategy
18. Why Split Testing Your Ads Is The Short-Cut To Network Marketing Success!
19. Track Your Website Promotions with Bubbl.us

Find Related Topics

Unfortunately this is a scenario that is all too common.

Prior to recent times if you didn't have a significant marketing budget, there were only two ways you could generate leads for your network marketing business.

They were the warm market and the three foot rule.

Fortunately, we now live in an age of advanced technology where it is easier than ever to set up lead generation strategies for your network marketing business for under $100 a month.

These methods all involve the Internet, which is the great equalizer for marketing for businesses of all types including network marketing distributorships.

Here are 5 network marketing lead generation strategies you can implement in your business. Each method cost anywhere from $0 to $100 a month.

#1 - Article Marketing

#2 - Social Networking

#3 - Viral Marketing

#4 - Blogging

#5 - Discussion Groups & Forums

Your articles are typically found by people searching for information related to your article topic.

At the bottom of your article you provide a link to your web site.

You can either write the articles yourself or you can have someone else write them for you.

While you can certainly pay someone to write articles for you, there is a good chance that $100 a month won't get you a lot of articles for your marketing strategies.

Therefore you need to be prepared to do a trade of services.

For example, if you know how to do web design, you can offer to do web design for an article writer in exchange for articles.

These web sites allow you to communicate with other people with similar interest to you.

They might live in the same area as you.

Perhaps they might have the same profession as you.

By utilizing these web sites you can network with people that could potentially become prospects for your network marketing business.

They in turn pass your content along to others and so on.

Ideally if your content is good enough it will experience a viral affect where people will continue to pass your content around.

This results in free exposure for you.

Some examples of viral marketing include creating videos and sharing them using online video sharing web sites such as youtube.com and video.google.com.

You can create audio files and share them using podcasting web sites such as apple Itunes.

You can also create ebooks and reports in text format and give them away for free or sell them.

Blogging is a strategy that has two approaches you can use for prospecting purposes.

The first approach is to start your own blog.

You can write about any topic you want that you believe will attract your ideal prospect.

You then link from your blog to the landing page you want to promote.

The second approach is to contribute to other blogs.

Most blogs will allow you to put a link to your web site either as a highlighted link for your name or at the bottom of your post.

Readers of blogs click on links on blogs all the time.

If you contribute good content, some of these readers will click on your link and visit your web site, potentially becoming a prospect.

Many of these discussion boards are great ways to prospect for your business.

You can find discussion forums about network marketing itself.

You can also focus on discussion forums for other topics that tend to draw people who potentially have an interest in network marketing.

Some examples of good discussion groups to investigate include personal & self development groups, financial groups, business groups, sales groups and more!

So take advantage of these five methods of prospecting.

You could literally focus on any one of them and generate plenty of prospects for you to talk to if you build your business on a part time basis.

Best of all, most of them require no financial investment to use for prospecting purposes.

When I first began affiliate marketing using capture pages that were created by people who knew what they were doing, I thought I had arrived! Surely network marketing success was around the corner.

My first experience was finding out from Ann Sieg's program that I could post a free classified ad with great "copy." Affiliate programs write ads with "copy" that sells and give affiliates permission to copy their "copy." Cool.

So I started posting ads, using Ann Sieg's ad examples and her capture pages. If someone clicked on my ad, it would take them to her capture page.

Who knew!

And if they filled out her form, I would get the lead for my network marketing business.

Wow!

And the really big deal was the people who clicked, opted-in, became a lead AND bought her eBook from me!

Split Testing - And the Winner Is...

I wanted to know why some people clicked on my ad, some signed up and some even bought from me, actually from Ann Sieg because I was still just copying good "copy."

I had found my favorite website to place classified ads, meaning the site that gave me the best results. I remembered in her eBook, The Renegade Network Marketer, Ann Sieg mentioned that her ad examples had been tested and proved to have high opt-in rates and conversion rates. I had no clue what that meant.

I just began to notice things and then make a few changes to see what would happen.

I was learning my stats, the "metrics" of internet marketing.

I began to notice who and where people:

• Saw my ad (# views or impressions)
  
• Clicked on it (click through rate)
  
• Signed up (opt-in rate)
  
• And bought the eBook! (conversion rate)

I was just having FUN posting ads and watching to see which ones received the most traffic and which ones received the most clicks, etc.

I had no idea that I had discovered the FUN-damental short-cut to internet network marketing success!

I was split testing and didn't even know it!

How Do You Split Test?

Split testing has been around since the early 1900's in the marketing industry. The way publishers would sometimes test the title choices for a book was to publish the book on a small scale, half the books with one title and half with another. The book title that "sold" the most became the title of the book.

How to find your winning ads isn't as easy as it sounds but it is very easy to get started. Begin split testing by going to two free classified ad websites and post two ads for split testing at both sites. Test Ad(a) against Ad(b) both places.

Do this small scale pilot split testing for free. When you have a winner, you can more confidently spend a little at the best site. You are split testing the two websites as well.

For example - put these two ads (or two of your own) on two free classified ad websites:

a) Renegade University - Get Endless Prospects Chasing You - Paying You To Work With Them! - one of your RU referral links.com (an RU capture page)
b) Renegade University - Attract Prospects To You. Take It To The Next Level! Click here - the same RU referral link.com

Then just throw away or delete the loser, keep the winner. Wash, rinse, and repeatJ

Split Test Again by Refining Your Ads Even More

Repeat the process only this time on just one site, the winning website. Post the winning ad twice but make a tiny change on one of them. In our example, change the title a little on one to say "Enroll free at Renegade University." The two ads should be exactly the same except one has the tiny change in the title.

How Do You Know When You Have A Winner? Know Your Metrics!

With your classified ads, the title that gets the most traffic does not necessarily win. To find the real winner, we have to look at more than just traffic.

What if Ad(a) had 100 views and 7 clicks but only one person filled out the form, one person opted in?

• 100 views (100 views or impressions)
• 7 clicks (click through rate 7/100 = 7%)
• 1 signed up (opt-in rate 1/7=14%)

But Ad(b) with only 25 views and 5 clicks, two of the five people who clicked on Ad(b) also signed up!

• 25 views (25 views or impressions)
• 5 clicks (click through rate 5/25=20%)
• 2 signed up (opt-in rate 2/5=40%)

We have a clear winner! The one with the least amount of traffic actually won!

Why?

Because our goal is targeted traffic; traffic that will most likely result in generating free leads for our network marketing business.

The reason for any capture page is to get people to fill out the form. They can only do that by clicking on our ad.

The short-cut to that success is split testing!

To get the help you need to grow your business, click for step-by-step Internet Network Marketing Training.

If you're a student of Renegade University, Magnetic Sponsoring, or Building on a Budget, then you are undoubtedly in the pr