Lead Generation is the life-blood of your business.
If you want massive success inside the MLM industry, you must figure out how to generate MLM leads and master free lead generation online and offline.
The truth is, like anything else in life (eating right, exercise, good habits, sticking to a budget, etc.), most people quit.
It is (and will always be) a mystery to me.
But if you’re here, I assume you’re either new to network marketing or you want to take your mlm business to the next level.
You may even be struggling in your business, but deep inside you know you only have two options… quit… or figure it out.
Great News!!…. This post is for you!
Reading this will help you “figure it out” because I’m going to walk you through the nuts and bolts of lead generation.
You’ll learn how to get so many mlm leads you won’t have to wonder IF you’ll be successful.
Instead, you’ll know in your soul that it’s just a matter of time.
So far this week, we have enrolled 2 new people in our business and I never talked to either one of them before they joined!
That is what happens when you learn how to generate mlm leads online.
So grab a pen and paper to take notes or bookmark this page!
We’re about to do a deep dive into all mlm lead generation for your business.
This includes both paid mlm leads and free mlm leads.
We’ll cover:
- Why people quit and why lead generation for network marketing is so important
- Different ways to generate leads (online and offline)
- Active vs. passive marketing
- Lead Funnels
- Content and attraction marketing for lead generation
- The benefits and drawbacks of each method of creating mlm leads, including:
- Blogging
- Social Media
- Youtube (or Vlogging)
- Podcasting
- Paid Advertising
- Offline lead generation methods
- Finally, we’ll cover how to take all those leads and increase your conversion rates.
This is The Ultimate Guide to MLM Lead Generation.
Let’s get started.
First, you need to understand the game so you can understand how it really works.
Why People Quit Network Marketing
First we need to identify the problem and why it’s necessary to generate leads at all.
I mean, can’t we just sign up a few people and let duplication take place?
Um… no.
Maybe your sponsor told you that, but it doesn’t work that way unless you win the mlm lottery.
We all make personal resolutions. Unless that resolution is extremely important to you, you will probably let it fall to the wayside.
Network Marketing is no different.
In fact, because it’s so easy, cheap, and low risk to get started, the attrition rate is a bit higher than a typical small business.
Notice I said attrition rate, not failure rate.
More people who actually fail in small business can be classified as failing because to fail something, you have to do it unsuccessfully.
Usually when a person starts a small business they at least attempt to succeed, since they have more skin in the game (i.e. financial capital, resources, and risk).
The majority of people who fail in network marketing don’t actually fail, they just quit.
It’s different.
They typically quit without doing much (or anything) at all.
Quitting and failing are two totally different things.
People quit for many different reasons which is beyond the scope of this article.
I’m going to focus on just one main reason people quit and that’s because they feel they don’t have enough qualified people to talk to.
Yes, I know… I know… I know.
There are people everywhere.
But regardless of what you’ve been taught, just because somebody has a heart rate and is breathing doesn’t mean they are a qualified prospect.
A qualified prospect is somebody who wants (not needs) your product, service, or business opportunity.
Why Should You Learn
How to Generate MLM Leads?
As I said above, most people quit stuff.
All sorts of stuff.
We call them quitters.
Finishers on the other hand, are far and few between.
That’s why the 85% of the wealth in this world is controlled by 15% of the people (Investopedia – Wealth Distribution).
That means if you’re serious about building a profitable and sustainable business, you better go in with your eyes wide open.
So what do I mean by that?… eyes wide open?
I mean, you shouldn’t be surprised or caught off guard when people quit, you should understand it’s part of the process.
And yes, that means the people you just know would never quit… might quit.
You should see the whole process as part of your business plan and keep the emotions out of it.
Large corporations refer to this as the churn rate.
You must know by now that the famous mlm sales pitch (get 2 and they get 2, etc..) is a load of crap.
Otherwise you wouldn’t be here looking for a solution.
The way the statement could be true is… “Find 2 serious distributors, and they find 2 serious distributors… and so on, and so forth.
But unless you just get lucky, you’ll need to recruit a large number of distributors to find your few leaders that will work with you until you’re all successful.
So, how many do you need to recruit to be successful?
Well, it depends.
It depends on how you define success and it depends on your compensation structure.
100-200 personally sponsored recruits over time is a good goal to start with.
It’s highly unlikely you’ll have massive success with less than that.
I encourage anybody just starting out (if they’re in a binary like ours) to shoot for 20/20 as fast as possible (to create momentum).
That’s 20 people on the left team and 20 people on the right team.
Then, see where your leaders show up so you can strategically continue building your business.
So, if you need to recruit 100-200 people, where do you find enough qualified prospects?
Basically, you have 2 options.
1. Talk to lots of people and sort though them to find out who is qualified and interested.
2. Generate your own MLM leads of people who want to talk to you.
To me, finding people and sorting through them is time intensive and energy draining.
It isn’t scalable and it’s inefficient.
In addition, it typically feels needy, spammy, and slimy to the person you’re talking to.
It doesn’t position you well either.
Since you’re the one bringing it up, you’re placing your prospect in a position of power.
What do I mean by that?
It seems like you need them… instead of them needing you.
In reality, they may really need and want what you’ve got, but they aren’t interested because you seem desperate.
Remember all those mental mind games you played while dating?
It’s kinda the same type of stuff here.
Whomever seems to want it and need it the least, is the person with the power.
The problem is, when you’re prospecting random people or your warm market, it’s hard to not come off as a little desperate and needy (even if you do things right).
That’s simply because the situation positions you in that way.
The second option, generating your own mlm leads, is opposite in every way.
That’s why you should always be learning how to generate mlm leads yourself.
You do the work once by setting up a marketing system for generating leads.
Then your lead generation system works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week- 365 days a year whether you get out of bed or not.
You can go here to check out our current system.
It works well and we’re tweaking it all the time.
Plus, it’s easy to help my new distributors set up something similar using the same videos/format, etc.
That’s called a REAL system.
No a foo-foo system like “talk to more people”.
But I digress.
Once you have a system in place, when somebody does reach out, they are reaching out to you to learn more.
You’re not trying to convince them of anything.
You’re simply acting as an adviser to see if what you’re doing will gel with them and vice versa.
This positions you differently from a psychological standpoint, but it also takes the pressure off each conversation on both sides.
If you do this right, you’ll have more leads than you have time to deal with, so if somebody isn’t interested you can just move on AND actually feel okay about it.
You legitimately won’t care what they decide.
In fact, you’ll actually be qualifying them to see if you even want them in your organization.
How’s that for a change?
You will actually be disqualifying some people.
For example, if somebody books a phone appointment with me instead of signing up, they already have one strike.
I go over all the information in my video, so if they don’t have any legitimate questions I’m not wasting a whole lot of time with them.
For the most part I already know by their action that they’re indecisive.
Here’s an example. I had a person on the phone this week.
Everything sounded good she said.
She TOLD ME, I’m signing up tonight, I have the link in my email.
She never signed up.
I’m not wasting any time with her.
She’s not at the right place in life or she can’t make a decision or it’s too much money… yada, yada, yada.
I’m not being harsh, it’s just a reality that when you have a good system in place, you don’t need to waste time with tire kickers or naysayers.
Besides that, most tire kickers are even more inclined to quit.
When you learn how to generate mlm leads yourself, you also be better postured with people you talk to face to face because you don’t need them either.
Instead of faking like you’re not needy… you’ll actually be NOT needy.
Refreshing, isn’t it?
I’ll go into how you do this in the next few sections, but I want you to see and understand the difference.
Here’s what it looks like in real life.
Let’s just say you implement this strategy of generating leads instead of chasing people.
The system you set up does all the sorting and filtering, and you have 10 people who reach out to you each week.
Are you going to care if person #1 doesn’t join you when you know you have 9 more people to talk to this week (and another 10 next week)?
No. In fact, you’ll be super confident that the right people will show up for you to enroll.
You might even dislike that you have 10 and try to scale it back.
Personally, I’ve designed my business so I hope the first conversation I have with somebody is AFTER they join my team.
Interestingly, your new confidence will come through to your prospects and your sponsoring percentage will go up, even if you’re not that good.
Remember, once you generate your own leads, everyone you talk to has already been sorted and sifted through your system.
They are semi-qualified and actually want to talk to you about starting a network marketing business.
Now that you know why you should be generating leads yourself, lets get into the nuts and bolts of how to generate mlm leads.
This is not a fluffy post.
It’s meant for serious distributors and what I’m about to lay out here is work… but it’s strategic work.
It’s how you build a business with the end in mind and it’s how you build something sustainable.
If you do this well, you will never have to worry about a company shutting down or your income going away.
You can always re-create that income because it’s not based on luck.
Let’s get ‘R done….
Should You Buy MLM Leads?
Before we start really diving in to exactly how to generate your own leads, let me say a little about purchasing MLM leads.
This is a hot topic and there are differing opinions on it.
You’ll need to figure it out for yourself because it will come up with your team.
Personally, I’m against purchasing mlm leads and here’s why.
At some point in the network marketing industry, everyone who is serious has reached out and contacted most everyone they know.
You may be at that point now.
It’s at that point you start to think to yourself, “If only I had an endless supply of people to get in front of my presentation, then I would be unstoppable.”
The problem is, your brain automatically tries to figure out how to get more eyeballs on your presentation.
That good ‘ole brain of yours is trained to go to what it thinks is the path of least resistance, so you think to yourself “I’ll just buy leads”.
Your thinking is only partially correct though because you never asked the right question.
The real question should be “how do I get qualified people in front of my presentation”?
Lead generation mills are not the answer to that question.
Yes, you need more people to talk to, but they need to be qualified people.
Your leads need to be good, solid leads… buying leads IS NOT the answer.
Here’s why.
#1 Reason Not to Buy MLM Leads
First, there’s no way of knowing how these companies generate their business opportunity leads, how old the leads are, or even how many people they sell them to.
You may be 1 of 5, 10, or 20 people who purchase that lead.
Heck, maybe they sell it to 50 people on a good day.
Additionally, many of these companies use tactics like free giveaways and raffles just to get people give up their information.
It’s like the online version of the old raffles at the mall (they still do these).
The mall near my house used to have this box with a picture of a cruise on it and some cards that said, “if you want to enter to win a free cruise, please put your information on this card and drop it in the box- If you win we’ll contact you!”
Of course, everyone uses their real address and phone number because they don’t want to NOT get their free cruise… and BAM!
That company has a lead to sell.
Somebody contacts you alright!
Everybody and their brother is calling to sell you something else!
In the fine print somewhere it stated that by entering your information, you agree to have people contact you with other offers.
Many companies are doing the equivalent of this online and some are doing it offline as well.
Just this week my broke college daughter (who lives at home), received a direct mail magazine showcasing some really cool (and really, really expensive) furniture.
Here’s the thing… my daughter couldn’t buy that crap right now if she wanted to.
She wouldn’t even have the credit capacity to charge it to a card (which I don’t ever recommend anyway… I’m just sayin’).
When I asked her about it she said, “oh, if I gave my name and address I got a discount at the pet store”.
Her information was sold to an expensive furniture company (and probably other companies as well).
Guess what?
That isn’t a lead!
It certainly isn’t a qualified lead!
As I said, she couldn’t buy that furniture if she wanted to.
That is a person’s name and number!
NOT a furniture lead.
There’s a big difference.
Unfortunately, that’s what many of these online lead generation companies are selling.
Why pay for that?
Just go to the phone book yellow pages (yes, they still print them) and start cold calling business owners.
You don’t want to call people who put their name on a list trying to get something for nothing.
Especially if that list was sold to 20 different people or it ends up being a high school student trying to get a rebate on a chicken sandwich.
Seriously.
Actually, you would probably have better results cold calling business owners you find on Yelp or Craigslist.
At least they are entrepreneurial in nature and probably have a budget.
#2 Reason Not to Buy Network Marketing Leads
Even if the leads were awesome and they weren’t generated in any shady ways, you aren’t positioned the way you would be if you generated your own leads.
With purchased leads, you’re chasing people instead of following up.
It’s a big distinction.
They have no idea who you are or why they should be in business with you.
To them, you’re just a random person following up with them (best case scenario).
At worst, you’re the 10th person to call and they’re really frustrated by the time you get them on the phone.
If you’re really good on the phone and really good at sales, you may get a few sign ups, but you will have a SUPER low conversion rate.
Besides, if you’re that good at selling on the phone, you are literally wasting your time if you’re using it on mlm leads generated by somebody else.
You’d be 10x better if you were calling people already familiar with you and one might even make the case that your cold calling time would be better spent selling selling high ticket items.
Of course, high ticket and high commission doesn’t necessarily lead to time freedom.
#3 Reason Not to Buy Home Based Business Leads
If the leads actually were really, really good… I mean really good- like,… as good as all the companies selling them claim that they are…. why wouldn’t the companies generating those mlm leads capitalize on them themselves?
Seriously, let’s go down this rabbit hole.
Let’s just suppose you figured out a way to generate thousands and thousands of mlm leads or home based business opportunity leads.
In fact, you’re generating so many that you literally can’t keep up.
So the floodgates have opened.
Leads are pouring in.
Not just leads, but incredible, high converting leads….
You solve this problem by selling them for $3 a pop to anybody who will get out their credit card?
Hmmm…. You see the problem?
It just wouldn’t happen.
They would be leaving too much money on the table.
The company is selling the leads because of one or all of the reasons below:
1) The leads don’t convert
2) The company is generating low quality mlm leads with shady methods… and they know it.
3) The company feels like $1-25 is the best value of the lead
4) The company is making good money selling the lead multiple times.
If you sell 10 leads at #2.00, that’s $20.
If you sell 10 leads at $2.00 to 20 different people….
That’s… wait for it…. 10 x 2 x 20 = $400.
And the lead gets more irritated with every sales call they get.
If the leads were fantastic, high quality, and highly converting, the company would capitalize on them differently rather than selling them online to desperate network marketers.
In network marketing, you might have to go through 100 people to find a few good ones and one absolute rock star.
BUT….
That rock star can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to your company, your organization, and your income.
Let’s look at it from a different angle.
If you sell leads for $10 each, you believe $10 is the best value of the quality of those leads.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be selling high quality mlm leads for any price.
I tend to believe that if the leads are being sold, they probably aren’t very good.
But suppose I’m wrong and you find a company with incredible leads that convert.
Let’s just agree that they’re the best mlm leads in the world.
Even if they’re fantastic leads, they aren’t nearly as good as the ones you could generate yourself.
The reason is, the leads you generate yourself are already predisposed to working with you.
So when you call, they’re already familiar with you and you’re positioned better because of your marketing.
This means you’ll have less tire kickers and a higher percentage of enrollments.
Final Thoughts on Purchasing MLM Leads
Don’t do it.
I’ve done it…
But don’t do it.
Save your time and money and invest it into producing your own leads.
If you are dead set on buying mlm leads and are going to do it anyway, then start with the most expensive, best, and well qualified leads you can find.
Yes, I said most expensive.
Go ALL In.
Go crazy.
Find the most expensive and high quality ones you can get.
I’m talking double phone verified, ready to buy, patched straight through to your phone in real time.
It’ll be cheaper in the long run.
Here’s my reasoning.
If you buy the cheap leads and they don’t convert (and are total crapola), you’ll think it’s because you bought the cheap ones.
You’ll be tempted to spend more on better leads, thinking they will convert better.
It’s a vicious cycle.
You’ll actually be primed to be sold more expensive leads when you call to complain or try a different company.
So from the get-go, you should start with the most expensive, high quality leads you can find.
Then, at then end of your little experiment, you can legitimately decide for yourself that purchasing leads doesn’t work.
How To Generate an Endless Supply
of MLM Leads for Free
We’ve already covered that people quit in life, in business, in anything.
It’s just a fact of life.
People quit.
Because of that, you’ve got to sponsor and enroll enough people to find the few who will build a massive organization with you.
The best way to do that is to create so many mlm leads that you can sponsor at least a hundred people.
Yes, I said at least a hundred.
That means you may need more.
Too many people are brought into this industry on the “it’s gonna be easy” plan.
Another thing.
When I say create mlm leads for free, I don’t actually mean for free.
Nothing is free in this world.
Nothing.
Nothing worth doing is easy, that includes building a highly profitable network marketing organization.
It includes generating your own leads.
Generating leads may not cost money upfront, but it will cost you hard work, time, discipline, and even a little heartache.
It will cost you money in other ways.
I spend money on this site.
I spend money on ads.
I spend money on technology and equipment.
It’s all part of the process.
If you want to just make a little extra cash on the side, you can ignore everything in this post.
The strategies I’m about laying out here aren’t necessary for you if you’re a hobby network marketer.
But if your plan is to completely change your financial world and climb to the top ranks of your organization, then these tactics are absolute necessities.
Now let’s get into how you can generate network marketing leads with marketing.
After all, it’s called Network Marketing.
Active vs. Passive Marketing
Before we get too deep, you need a basic understanding of the difference between active and passive marketing.
Active marketing in our industry is basically prospecting.
Active Marketing (Benefits):
Control – With active marketing (prospecting), you control how many people you talk to each day.
Speed – It can also go quicker (in the beginning) because you have full control over your activity level.
Active Marketing (Drawbacks):
Time – If you’re part time or even if you’re full time, you only have so many hours in a day to talk to people.
Scalability – Active marketing isn’t very scalable. Plus, if you’re an introvert like me, it can be quite draining and feel uncomfortably unnatural.
Efficiency– It’s also not efficient.
Prospecting is typically a one to one endeavor.
You strike up a conversation and steer it in the direction you want it to go.
It’s time consuming, especially if you’re trying to “build rapport”.
It’s much better to spend your time talking to people who are qualified.
Qualified means they have shown interest before you talk with them or they already enrolled before you talk to them.
Then it’s just a conversation and maybe answering some questions.
If it’s a good fit for them… great.
If it’s not, that’s okay too.
Passive Marketing Benefits
Passive marketing, on the other hand, is like fishing with lots of poles.
You’re creating and putting value into the market place (bait) and waiting for a person to qualify themselves by responding.
Actually, it’s like fishing with a few poles in the beginning, then it’s more like fishing with nets because it’s super scalable.
With active marketing, if you’re talking to somebody you meet, you’re only talking to them.
Then you move on and talk to somebody else.
The process is linear.
1 person at a time.
With passive marketing (like this blog post for example), I can talk to multiple people at the same time!
For example, you’re reading this post right now.
I’m technically prospecting you.
You are getting familiar with me and with what I do.
I’d love to help you build a business.
But here’s the rub and what makes passive marketing infinitely better than active prospecting.
How many people can be reading this post at the same time as you?
More than 1? Yes
More than 10? Yes
More than 1,000? 10,000? 100,000?… Yes, yes, yes.
I could go on, but I’m sure you see the point.
Once your passive marketing channel is set up, you can literally expose thousands or millions of people to you and your product or service.
How’s that for getting “eyeballs on your presentation”?
That being said, this post is focused on generating leads through passive marketing methods.
If you want to hone your skills at traditional prospecting, head on over to our ultimate guide on prospecting and recruiting.
If you’re looking for a network marketing opportunity and want to build it with passive marketing methods, feel free to contact me and we’ll see if we’re a fit for each other.
Generating Leads with a Marketing Funnel or Lead Funnel
The best way to generate your own constant and endless supply of mlm leads is through combining content marketing, attraction marketing or paid marketing with a system that pushes people through a marketing funnel.
The people who come out of the funnel at the end are your high quality mlm leads.
What is a Marketing Funnel and How Does it Work?
Picture a marketing funnel just like the picture you have in your head of a funnel right now.
A funnel is used to direct something (usually a liquid) into a certain location (container).
A marketing funnel is no different, except that instead of directing liquid, it steers and directs people into taking certain actions.
A marketing funnel could steer people to a desired action.
That action could be to purchase a product, sign up for a list, book a call, share a social post, etc.
In the case of generating mlm leads, your funnel should direct people to a lead capture page.
This is a specific page where people put in their information in order to have you contact them.
Funnels are big business.
There are different theories, best practices, and software out there to make it far more complicated than it needs to be.
For example, you can purchase or subscribe to software that will do all kinds of crazy detailed marketing funnel stuff.
Things like segmenting lists and putting people on “if this, then that” auto-responders.
These email sequences change based on the action or inaction of the person on the list.
Does all that fancy stuff increase conversions? Perhaps.
Maybe someday I’ll get into all that conversion optimization, but at the moment it’s not a priority.
Network marketing is still a people business at the end of the day.
It’s also a lifestyle business.
The way I see it, if I have to get that creative to get you to reach out to me, I’m probably not the right fit for you or this industry isn’t a fit for you.
My funnel is very simple.
You can sign up for my emails with that link or by putting your information into the pop-up that has probably long come and gone for you if you’re this far down the page.
If you do that, you’ll get an email a day for 15 days as a follow up and then the emails I occasionally send out.
Simple and easy.
My other main funnel strategy is to direct you to the change your world page and put in your information to learn more about my company and working with me.
That’s it.
Very simple.
Very Clean.
Other than that I focus on driving traffic to this site.
Don’t think you have to have some complicated system.
It doesn’t need to be complicated and it certainly doesn’t need to be expensive.
Keep it simple and remember:
Proverbs 23:4 says “Do not wear yourself out to get rich…”
That sounds like pretty solid advice.
Right now, the priority for me is traffic.
So when I’m in “work mode”, I’m doing something to draw in the traffic while leaving my basic funnel in place.
I can tweak that strategy over time.
Getting Organic Traffic Using
Content Marketing and Attraction Marketing
I just mentioned bringing traffic to this site, so now would be the perfect time to mention traffic generation and using that for helping with your mlm lead generation strategy.
For leads to come pouring out of your marketing funnel, you have to have a lot of people going in at the top of the funnel.
That’s where organic traffic comes into play and can help.
Organic traffic is traffic that finds your content without you having to pay for them to be there.
Free traffic!
Yay!
Organic traffic happens naturally and quite organically- go figure.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is when you produce valuable content that is made to inspire, educate, inform, or entertain.
Once it’s created, it’s put on a platform and can be found by people who are searching for that particular information.
It’s very targeted and because of that it’s fantastic traffic.
This page is a live example of content marketing in action.
I posted quality content, it was indexed by Google, and you searched for something… then Google said “here, this is what you’re looking for” and…
Bata-Boom-Bata-Bing, you clicked on my link.
When you clicked on my link and started reading my content, you entered the top and widest tier of my funnel.
Now that you’re on my site, you’ll do one of three things:
1) You’ll leave, never to return (hope not, but it’s possible).
2) You’ll find what you’re looking for and consider us a good resource in the future, so you’ll return again.
3) You’ll decide you want to work with us and learn from us, so you’ll submit your information for me to contact you… and officially become an mlm lead for me.
It’s really is that simple.
So What is Attraction Marketing?
Attraction marketing is similar to content marketing, but you should be familiar with both terms.
It has nothing to do with using attractive people or the idea that sex sells.
The idea behind attraction marketing is that you are trying to attract the type of people you want to work with, rather than go out and try to find those people.
You want your ideal prospect to find you.
Attraction marketing and content marketing work hand in hand.
They are almost interchangeable.
However, I like to distinguish between them because you can be great at content marketing but not attract any quality prospects.
Simply producing loads of quality content can and often will attract people to you and your site.
But are you attracting the right type of person?
The goal isn’t just get people to your site.
It’s also to convert those people into leads.
You want to find and build your tribe.
That’s why having an attraction marketing plan is vital.
Who are you trying to attract?
What type of person are they?
What types of problems are they facing or trying to solve.
This site has a spiritual element to it.
I am willing to work with and help anybody, but at my core I am a spiritual person.
God is an important part of my life and belief system.
So part of my content marketing is devoted to developing people spiritually, inspiring them, and encouraging them.
It may turn some people off, but that’s okay because not everyone is a good fit for us, or us for them.
On the flip side, like attracts like.
If I’m authentic and let my beliefs come through, that will resonate with some people and they’ll want to work with me more because it resonates with them.
Whether you realize it or not, people will be attracted to working with you.
Once they get to know some of your likes and dislikes, life experiences, etc., you will have people that want to work with you specifically.
They might connect with you, with your message, or with your story.
The problem is, too many people out there trying to be somebody they’re not.
This repels people because even though they don’t exactly what isn’t right, they can feel that something is amiss.
So just be yourself.
Period. End of discussion.
The Power of Focus:
Master One Lead Generation Method At a Time
I’m going to cover a bunch of different strategies here.
Implemented correctly, they’re all good ideas and they all work.
But I STRONGLY caution you:
If you’re just getting started, stick to becoming an expert in one lead generation strategy before moving on to the next.
My main strategy is to use blog posts like this one as my main content marketing and lead generation strategy.
There’s soooo much to learn about search engine optimization (SEO), analytics, wordpress, plugins, backlinks, page speed, etc.
It would be ridiculous to spread yourself so thin trying to master everything that you become a master of nothing.
All the different methods I’m going to cover will require learning, testing, and time to get the most out of them.
However, since they’re so scalable, it’s not necessary to master them all.
You’ll just be overwhelmed if you try and you’ll be doing so much that you won’t do anything exceptionally well.
Social media and search engine algorithms reward what is done well and done the way they want it done.
So take a look at these strategies and then decide which one fits your skill-set and personality, (or which one you could see yourself enjoying the most) and go for it.
If you want to build a power team inside the network marketing space, find a person who will become the team expert in each of these areas and then feed off the synergy.
I’m still looking for somebody to master YouTube and Master each of the social media marketing.
If you fit one of these, consider joining our team.
So remember… PICK ONE AND ONLY ONE (not 2, not 3… 1).
Then direct your focus and energy to it, master it, and after that you can move to another one if you choose to.
Capturing MLM Leads by Using a Blog
If you enjoy writing and want to make a website part of your strategy, you need to have a blog.
A blog is what you are on right now.
It’s basically a website of written content where you can share information and attract people to you.
Google is the Hercules of search engines.
It’s the largest search engine in the world and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
As you can see from the image below, 99.5% of my organic search traffic every month comes from Google.
In case you’re wondering, the colors at the far right represent different versions of Google from different countries around the world.
Why is understanding Google’s power so important?
Because if you blog you need to learn SEO (search engine optimization) and keep up with Google’s changes to their algorithm.
The overarching theme for Google SEO is (and has always been), that they want to provide the best user experience possible and display the most relevant content to it’s users.
So if you’re putting out top notch, high quality content, you should do well over time.
However, the more you learn the better you will do.
If your content is thin or isn’t optimized properly, you could get no traffic from Google at all.
The best places to learn SEO are:
Benefits of Using a Blog as Your Main Content Marketing Strategy
- It gives you an online presence and positions you as a professional for prospects you talk to
- Once a blog post is created, it exists for ever and ever and ever (unless you remove it)
- You own the content instead of some other platform (Facebook, YouTube, etc.). So you have total control and don’t have to worry about somebody shutting you down
- You can monetize it to create additional revenue streams on top of your MLM business (follow this link to learn how to make money from a blog).
- It’s inexpensive to set up and keep going.
- A blog allows you to easily experiment with lead capture pages.
Drawbacks of Using a Blog as Your Main Content Marketing Strategy
- The world is moving toward video, so it may be more obsolete in the future.
- The competition is fierce, there are millions of websites you’re competing with.
- Voice search is becoming more prominent (people talk into their phone and ask for a result). Typically, voice search only gives one option instead of a whole page of options to choose from, so competition for the #1 position is steadily increasing.
- Blogging is time and labor intensive.
- There’s a steep learning curve if you’ve never done it (wordpress, seo, formatting, site speed analytics, etc.)
- Even with an exceptional post, ranking in Google isn’t guaranteed and it takes time (lots of time).
Don’t underestimate #6- how long it will take to rank!
If you’re not a patient person, blogging will be difficult for you because you WILL NOT see immediate results.
According to an Ahrefs article covering how long it takes to rank, pages that hold the #1 position in Google for competitive keywords are nearly 3 years old!
That means that it probably took at least 2+ years to get into that position.
Are you patient enough to play the long game?
I am, so here we are.
However, if that’s not you, don’t go down that road, pick a different method.
Using Social Media to Generate MLM Leads
If blogging takes lots of time, social media can be the exact opposite.
Instant gratification or instant disappointment.
It’s a great tool that didn’t exist the first time I was in this industry and it can allow you to go quickly, especially if you create viral content.
Benefits of Using Social Media to Generate Leads
- There are lots of pools to play in (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.) and more are popping up all the time. But remember… master 1 first!
- If you’re on social media already, you have connections already that you can reach out to.
- It’s easy to make friends in groups or on the other side of the country (or world) that you can potentially share your products or opportunity with.
- A popular post or video can go viral and get you massive exposure (thousands or even millions of views) in a short amount of time.
- If you have a big budget, it’s pretty easy to do advertising and get in front of the masses.
Drawbacks of Using Social Media to Generate Leads
- You don’t own your channel and your account can be shut down at any time, with very little recourse. So what you built can literally go away overnight.
- Monetizing usually requires you to get people off the platform and to a website or squeeze page.
- It’s interruption marketing. Basically, that means that people are not on social media to shop or be sold to. They are typically there to pass the time, make connections, and be entertained.
- Getting lots of views is becoming more difficult because companies such as Facebook are tweaking their algorithm to favor paid advertising.
Using YouTube (Vlogging) for Creating MLM Leads
Most people think of YouTube just as a place for uploading videos.
But what you may not know, is that it’s the 2nd largest search engine in the world and is also owned by Google.
The act of creating video content is sometimes called vlogging (video blogging).
Benefits of Producing MLM Leads with Youtube
- It has tremendous reach and high traffic volume (just like blogging)
- As production becomes cheaper and easier, the world is moving toward video.
- In depth analytics. You can see where you’re viewers came from, how much they watched, etc. If you study and learn from these analytics, you can improve the engagement of your future videos.
- It can create a stronger connection with your audience than just the written word (and do it faster)
- The potential to “go viral” is there because of how easy a viewer can share/embed the video on their site or social networking channel.
- People can subscribe to your channel, making it easier for them to follow you and for you to build trust with them over time.
- It positions you as an expert in the industry if you’re producing high quality, engaging content.
- If done correctly and you have the time and budget, you can re-purpose the audio into a podcast and transcribe the video to create a blog post (the ultimate 3 for 1 – the Trifecta).
Drawbacks of Using YouTube for Lead Generation
- You don’t own the channel. YouTube isn’t just a search engine, it’s also a platform, which means (again) you could be shut down at any time and have no recourse.
- You’ll have to drive people off the platform to capture them as a lead. The problem is, if people are leaving YouTube to fill out a form, YouTube will rank your video lower than a video that doesn’t send people off the platform. This is because YouTube wants to keep people on their platform so they can make more from advertising revenue.
- It’s time and labor intensive to produce great and engaging videos.
- There is no guarantee that people won’t give you bad feedback or undesirable feedback. Since it’s not your platform, you can’t just not approve or delete the comment. It’s there forever.
- Social media platforms like Facebook are in direct competition with YouTube. So if a video originates on YouTube and then is put on Facebook, the Facebook algorithm gives it less weight than a video that was uploaded directly to Facebook (i.e. the social media platform shows it to less people).
Podcasting to Drive MLM Leads to You
If you’re not familiar with it, podcasting is the creation of audio broadcasts that are made available for downloading.
Podcasting is growing as a medium for learning and the number of people listening to podcasts is growing at a rapid pace.
This is a great option because the number of people putting out consistent content isn’t keeping up with the growth of the listeners.
That means there is less competition than some of the other channels.
In addition, podcast listeners are consummate learners.
They like to learn and their income shows it.
They are typically more affluent than the average person and typically they listen to most of the episode, which will help you build rapport with your listeners.
Check out this infographic about the average podcast listener from PodcastInsights.
I am a huge fan of podcasting. I don’t waste time in my car when I’m driving.
Instead, I listen to podcasts and learn, learn, learn.
In fact, I would say listening to podcasts has changed my life.
Most of the content marketing and SEO strategies I use come from information I learn through podcasts such as:
The Smart Passive Income Podcast (Pat Flynn)
Marketing School (Neil Patel & Eric Siu)
The Blog Millionaire (Brandon Gaille)
Growth Everywhere (Eric Siu)
These are all phenomenal podcasts and a great place to start if you want to learn about growing your business.
But I digress.
Why create a podcast?
Benefits of Podcasting as a
Lead Generation Mechanism
1) Low Competition: There isn’t much competition in the network marketing industry when you compare it to the millions of competitors on YouTube and the blogosphere.
I just searched for MLM podcasts and my devise gave me 48 options. 48! Really?…
When you consider 3 of them were from other countries and in other languages, that brings the total number down to 45.
When I have time to do a podcast, it will probably be the 2nd channel that I really build out.
2) Connection Factor: Like video, podcasting builds trust faster.
Your listeners can get a feeling for your personality and for who you are so they feel much more comfortable reaching out to you.
It’s a lot faster than the written word.
3) Positioning: Podcasting positions you as an expert in the industry.
Learn something and then teach it.
I used to teach an advanced placement literature class and trust me, I was only ever 1 or 2 days ahead of the class.
But just being a few steps ahead positions you to teach somebody something they don’t yet know.
4) Additional Revenue: If you grow a large enough audience you can create additional revenue by selling ad space or promoting your own products and services.
Drawback of Podcasting as a
Lead Generation Mechanism
- It can be difficult to get people from the podcast to your website, especially since many may be listening while driving in their car.
- Like vlogging, you’ll need to invest in some equipment to do it correctly and also have a good place to record so your sound quality is decent.
- There are lots of moving pieces such as lining up and scheduling interviews. You’ve got to make sure all the equipment works correctly so you don’t do the entire episode and then find out the recording was botched.
- It takes time to build up an audience, much like it takes time for blog posts to rank.
- You need to be extremely consistent or you’ll lose some of your audience.
Using Paid Advertising to Get MLM Leads
If you have the budget, there are a plethora of options for paid advertising.
It’s also a great way to scale because you can get your marketing in front more people quickly.
Benefits of Paid Marketing and Advertising
- You can reach a ton of hyper targeted people quickly with your marketing message.
- You can capitalize on content or an ad that is performing exceptionally well.
- You can digitally stalk people with the use of re-targeting (basically, everywhere they go, they see an ad for you).
- If you get good, you can offer this as a service to small businesses and generate additional revenue
Drawbacks of Paying to Generate MLM Leads
- It’s one and done. Once the ad campaign is over, it’s over.
- It costs money, obviously. But it can get really expensive really quickly.
- In addition, if you can’t eventually get a campaign to convert you are out that money forever with just your lessons learned.
- Getting a positive ROI (Return on Investment) can be difficult because of the low commission you receive from a single sale. The big money in this industry happens to be reserved for those who help others succeed, not for those who are good at big ticket sales.
- You can get into trouble and your ad account shut down (Facebook is notorious for this) if you violate their terms of service, which is constantly changing by the way.
Offline MLM Lead Generation Methods
The drawback to most of the offline options I’m about to describe is that they’re time intensive and/or expensive.
The first time I was in network marketing though, I used a lot of these methods and had success.
However, with the advances in technology and social media, you can get bigger results with less money by spending your marketing budget online.
So I recommend focusing on the other methods I’ve already outlined.
Regardless, here are some ways you can generate leads offline through some traditional lead generation methods.
- Person to person (aka belly to belly) prospecting.
- Going to networking events.
- Cold calling.
- Inbound phone calls (advertise in different areas and try to get people calling you).
- Direct Mail (postcards are cheapest but not always the most effective).
- Guerrilla marketing – this is outlandish marketing that gets people’s attention.
- Published ads in magazines and newspapers.
- Car signage on your car.
- Referrals.
- Branded merchandise.
Converting Traffic to Actual MLM Leads
It’s been said that it’s not how much you make that matters, but how much you keep.
The same is true of any traffic to any of the options mentioned above.
It’s not how much traffic you get that matters, but how much you convert.
Your goal is to convert your traffic into a lead of some sort, whether they become an email lead, phone lead, or an opt-in lead requesting you to contact them.
So let’s suppose you’ve implemented some of these ideas (or implemented one really, really well) and you’ve cast a wide worldwide net.
Now you have some traffic coming to your lead capture page and some of it’s converting, but…
How do you Increase the Conversion
Percentage of Your Visitors and Leads?
Lead Conversion Tip #1: Never stop testing.
You should always be testing different ideas, methods, and strategies.
Different wording, different pictures, different colors, etc. and tracking what’s working and what’s not.
Lead Conversion Tip #2: Set up your google analytics.
Google Analytics will allow you to see how leads are funneling into your lead capture pages and which ones are converting.
Then you can drive traffic to that source.
For example, if you see that 50% of your lead conversions are coming from your “about us” page, then you should focus your energy on getting people to the “about us” page.
You don’t necessarily need to know why that page is converting (it would be helpful if you did), but you do need to know your stats indicate that for some reason, that page causes people to go all the way through the conversion process.
So send people to your conversion page!
Lead Conversion Tip #3: Actually follow up.
If you take the time to set up systems that generate some leads and you’re not following up, then something is wrong with the six inches between your ears, i.e. your mindset.
Either you don’t want it bad enough, you have confidence problems, your thinking about success is off, or some other issue is going on in your head.
You must fix your mindset or 1,000 leads won’t make one bit of difference to your ultimate success.
If you took your business online because you’re afraid to talk to people, all you did was postpone the inevitable… you have to talk to people if you want success in this (or any other) industry.
Lead Conversion Tip #4: Have a strong CTA (call to action) and make sure you’re a student of marketing and copywriting.
Humans respond in certain ways to certain things.
This is called psychology, but in the sales world it’s called copywriting.
You should study copywriting.
Don’t discount the study of human psychology when it comes to lead conversions.
Let’s do a quick recap. In this Ultimate Guide about How to Generate MLM Leads we’ve covered:
- Why people quit and why you should generate your own network marketing leads
- How to generate those leads
- The difference between active and passive marketing
- What a lead funnel is and how to set up a basic lead funnel
- Using content and attraction marketing for organic traffic
- The importance of mastering one lead generation method at a time
- How to generate leads from all kinds of sources and the benefits and drawbacks of each source.
- Those sources are:
- Blogging
- Social Media
- Youtube (or Vlogging)
- Podcasting
- Paid Advertising
- Offline lead generation methods
- Finally, we covered how to take all those sources of traffic and increase your lead conversion rates.
I hope this was useful to you in your network marketing, mlm, or direct sales journey.
Please comment below which method you think you’ll try to implement next or share some successes you’ve had using one of these strategies.
We wish you total and absolute success in your business!
If you’d like to work with us, please visit our work with us page and we’ll be in contact.
“If Nothing Changes… Nothing Changes.”
Got Salvation?
John 3:16
Jason and Daniele
