Mike Klingler and Jonathan Budd
By · CommentsJonathan Budd just released his Traffic 3.0 product which is a Facebook PPC training program. Mike Klingler has stirred up some controversy by calling for an awakening and change in how the MLM / Internet marketer’s operate.
Mike’s point is marketing channel after marketing channel becomes saturated very quickly once the herd discovers it and how time and time again is the channel is destroyed. It is destroyed by to much competition or by the channel getting fed up with the spammy techniques being employed and shutting down their channel to the MLM / Internet Marketing Space. We have seen this on Youtube, Myspace and most recently Google.
It is Mike’s contention, which I concur with, that Facebook will quickly follow suit and shut down the MLM / Internet marketers who follow the herd. Mike contends the way the industry is being taught and heading is unsustainable and he is 100% correct.
In the early days of Youtube for example some smart kids generated thousands and thousands of leads by just posting lots of videos. Videos that got many views simply because they were easily targeted through the meta data. That was never sustainable because it was just a matter of time until their was to much competition and it would certainly become harder and harder to get views. The saturation time was decreased by those same smart kids deciding to teach what they were doing. Youtube and Myspace were both also affected by black hat techniques being taught and sold. The use of automated friend finders for example resulted in a lot of spam and people getting their accounts shut down.
In the past year many in the MLM and Internet Marketing space had their Google Adwords accounts shut down. Google likes original content and to often ads right next to each led to the same replicated landing pages so a few years ago Google started making changes to try and prevent duplicate content from appearing. They have continued to tighten up and this year they just shut most of the space down.
These two men have been providing incredible content for years and much of it for free. But they both are part of the problem. What I mean by that is they have both played a big part in creating the “herd” or should I say at the speed at which the herd has moved into the different channels.
I am not knocking Mike or Jonathan as they are both brilliant and both have gone above and beyond providing valuable and quality content. But Mike has now hit the nail in the head pointing out what is being done and taught now is unsustainable.
Mike has identified a direction he thinks the industry needs to go. Some of which I agree with but I have my own ideas.
I will be providing a series of posts over the coming weeks on mainly the MLM space and how “systems” and lots of other topics this controversy has brought attention to affect the space and what I think needs to be done and what I am doing about it.
Stay tuned!
Fran OKeefe
Online Network Marketing
By · CommentsOnline Network Marketing is the building of a Network Marketing business, primarily on the internet. I often referred to it as “New School Network Marketing.”
Prior to the internet, Network Marketing was much more difficult. You were taught to make a list of your friends and family, to recruit some of them and then to go teach them how to do what you were doing. There was a limit to the number of people you could share your business with and once you ran out of people to talk to, for many it was difficult and expensive to keep finding new prospects. Despite being difficult many people still got rich doing it.
Online Network Marketing makes it much easier to solve the biggest problem people have in this business and that is having enough people to share their business with and never running out of them.
I started my first Online Network Marketing business back in 2003 and in eight months had recruited 150 distributors and over 15000 personal customers, all online.
How Can Online Network Marketing Help You?
The great thing about using the internet to market your business is you can reach far more people with far less effort and expense! There are free ways to promote yourself and your business and there are ways that cost money. It is much easier to laser target your market online both in the free and paid ways.
Online network marketing enables you to meet others involved in similar businesses and share resources, skills and marketing methods and to do it people from all over the world.
Online network marketing can be accomplished for free through social networking using free sites like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. and through other methods like article marketing, blogging and forums. Online Network Marketing can also be accomplished using paid methods like pay per click advertising, ezines, banners and contextual advertising.
While Network Marketing is easier than it was prior to the internet, it is not easy. All forms of internet marketing require knowledge and skill so it is wise to educate yourself before you waste alot of time and money.
What is Leverage in an MLM Business
By · CommentsThe term “leverage” is often used when explaining the benefits of the MLM business model.
In traditional sales, one person only has so many hours in a day to sell their products or services. This obviously puts limits on potential income.
In MLM you can get paid for all the sales your team makes based on the rules that define your companies compensation plan. Income is usually shared by the person who makes the sale and their upline. There are a variety of MLM compensation plans. How compensation is shared and how many levels up it is shared varies from one company or compensation plan to the next.
Since the compensation is shared in MLM the commision to the person making the sale is generally going to be considerably less than a similar sale in the traditional sales model. So one would ask why would I want to share my commission and make less?
The answer is “Leverage”. By building a team (downline) you will get paid small amounts on the efforts of many. Those small amounts can add up to many times what you could earn by yourself. Remember your time limits you to how many people YOU can touch in a day. A growing team can reach an unlimited number of people.
The top income earners in most companies don’t sponsor that many people or have that many personal customers. For example it there are leaders making over 6 figures a month in an MLM’ with less than 20 personally sponsored distributors. Those 20 turn into thousands down x levels. That is Leverage!
The other advantage of creating leverage by building a team is that your team will continue to work when you don’t or can’t! If you are in a traditional sales position and get sick, go on vacation or retire you are no longer making sales or earning commissions. If you have built an MLM team and get sick, go on vacation or retire your team will continue to make sales and you will continue to earn.
Drive Traffic With Article Marketing
By · CommentsThere is all kinds of excitement over the new ways to drive traffic to your website using new technologies and applications. Blogging, Twitter Squidoo, Social Networks and Social Bookmarking are all terrific but don’t forget about good old fashion Article Marketing.
Google still loves good content. Do some keyword research and identify some good 3, 4 or 5 word, keyword phrases in your niche. Using the Google Keyword tool try to find phrases that get over 1000 searches a month and are not too competitive. Write a good keyword rich article of about 400 words with a link to your website, offer or blog in the resource box at the bottom of the article. Then submit the article to at least the top 5 article directories.
Set aside some time each week to do this over and over and you will get results. Results that will bring you traffic over and over again and that may last for years!
Get Your Facebook User Name
By · CommentsFacebook has made a huge change and now is allowing you to create a user name. Until now if you wanted to send someone to your profile there really was no easy way to tell them how to get there other than searching for you. What this change means is your friends will be able to find you at your own URL like http://facebook.com/yourusername.
I would advise most people to go secure their real name as their user name ASAP. There are hundreds of millions of users on Facebook and unless you have a really unusual name there are probably other members with the same name who will want to use it. If you wait you will be left with a user name like yourname1967 etc.
Likewise, if you prefer to use something other than your real name all the short popular phrases will be gone quickly too.
Facebook is not allowing you to change your user name once you select one so put pick one you know you will want to keep.
Here is how to get your username.
- Log into your Facebook account
- once logged in go to to www.Facebook.com/username
- check to see if if the user name of your choice is available and select it. It must be at least 5 characters long and consist of alphanumeric characters. Periods are allowed.
While you’re there add me as a friend!
Network Marketing “Old School” vs. “New School”
By · CommentsThe internet has changed the Network Marketing industry dramatically in many ways. None bigger than how It has provided a place for Networkers to recruit beyond their warm market and to do it without leaving their home.
One problem I see is that many people have drawn a line in the sand between “Old School” networking and the “New School” internet model. Many people promoting the “New School” model make it sound like it is an either or choice, when it is not. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard or read “old school is dead.” The facts are “Old School” is not dead. Many and probably most of the biggest whales in MLM built their businesses “Old School”. Many and probably most of the biggest MLM companies, with real products that will be here 20 years from now, were built “Old School”.
I have built very large organizations with thousands of personally sponsored reps and almost all done online. I also built a personal customer base of over 15,000 for a nutritional product online. These large organizations included many warm market and other “Old School” recruits and customers in my down line and I my bank account has been far better off because of it.
So I am not an old time “Old School” networker trying to hold on to the past. I believe the future of networking certainly moves further and further to the internet but it is a mistake to just write off “Old School”.
MLM organizations need people and not every future networker can be found online. People get loyal buyers and recruit low hanging fruit out of their warm market and that is not going to stop. The internet is great for networking and where I choose to market myself and my business but there are many, many Top networkers who barely no how to turn on a computer who I would love to have on my team.
What Is Twitter?
By · CommentsTwitter has become one huge global chat room and it is growing leaps and bounds everyday. It has totally changed the way that people communicate on line and it should be an indispensable part of your overall marketing plan for your website and or blog.
Twitter is often called a “microblog” but in reality it is very different than a blog. Blogs can be designed with a similar look and functionality of a website but with the added benefit of being a content management system. Blogs can also be hosted on the writers own web server. Twitter however, can not be hosted on your own server. A Twitter account is free and comes with your own space (your profile) on the Twitter website similar to the way you get space on a social network. A Twitter account is nothing like having a website it is just a messaging system. The only thing that can be done in terms of design is the user’s profile page background and font colors.
Twitter is a very easy and efficient way to communicate with people around the world. On everyones Twitter page there is 1 question on the top of the page. “What are you doing?” Users answer that question through short messages, Twitter calls “updates”. In the Twitter community these updates are referred to as “Tweets”. Messages are limited just to 140 characters, which is why some people call it a “microblog”. An account can be set to private so the users updates are not on the public time line but that is rare. Updates are usually out there on the open web for the world to see. There is a built in search function so you can find and monitor updates on topics you are interested in.
Similar to social networking users can attract new friends called “followers”. In Twitter people can usually “follow” anybody they want and see their updates. When you follow somebody and they follow you back they’ll receive your updates and you’ll receive theirs. Also, when people follow each other they can send each other private messages.
Here are a few of the ways you can use Twitter in your marketing:
1. Getting traffic to a website or blog – a simple post to Twitter can drive many readers to site or blog.
2. Connecting with your readership – When you blog, you’re speaking to your readership from a distance. You write your post, edit it and then post it. During all of these activities, you’re removed from your audience. But when you use Twitter to communicate, it becomes a conversation.
3. Building your brand – By providing quality information you will become an authority in your niche and the laws of attraction will reward you with loyal followers.
4. Research – With Twitter, your target market can be at your be at your fingertips. You can spy on their interests, ask them about their needs and automatically get ideas for your blog posts, articles or Squidoo lens.
Google Adwords – Grouping Keywords in Ad Groups
By · CommentsThere is a right way to setup a campaign and wrong way. Years ago you could run a campaign with 1 Ad Group with a long list of keywords and many people still do. This is a huge mistake! You really need to break those long Keyword lists into smaller Ad Groups.
How you group your keywords into these smaller Ad Groups is critical to your success. You click through rate, cost per click and you quality score are affected by how you do this.
I create many small Ad Groups with each group consisting of keyword phrases very closely related and usually containing the same core keyword or 2 word phrase. I then create a separate ad for each Ad Group with the core keyword or 2 word phrase in the title of the ad. I almost always use broad match, phrase match and exact match on all my keywords. Usually the exception is I may not use the broad match on a 1 word keyword if it is to broad and will attract clicks I don’t want and negative keywords won’t solve the problem.
Perry Marshall
Like everything else Adwords is constantly changing and you need to adapt with the changes. I use many different marketing strategies online and even though I am an expert I always find time to continue to learn and stay on top of things. I seek out the best to learn from and I look to Perry Marshall to keep me up to speed on Adwords. Perry Marshall is the best Google Adwords coach on the planet. If you don’t have it already I highly recommend his book the Definitive Guide To Google Adwords.