Personal Blog of Forest Marie

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Were you looking for modern advertising methods?

You’re not alone. Thousands are searching for modern advertising methods everyday, so let’s talk about some.

I’m not sure if you know it or not, but most companies just use Google Adwords. And make no mistake, Google Adwords is phenomenal.

However, there are some other modern advertising methods you should be aware of if you are selling any product or service. Here’s a list of them:

Buying Media

Buying media can be powerful, but when you buy media, there’s some terminology to be aware of and here’s quick list:

CPM

CPM is the golden standard of buying media and represents the “cost per thousand” views. The M is Latin. So for example, if the CPM is $5, you’ll pay $5 for 1000 views of your advertising banner. The cheaper you go, the less targeted it is.

CPC

CPC stands for cost-per-click. Simple enough.

CPA Networks

CPA Networks are the preferred method of media and focuses on lead generation. In fact, it’s what most lead vendors are doing, so why not cut out the middle man?

CPA networks use a “cost per action” or “cost per acquisition” model where the action is the site visitor filling out a form on your Web Site. So if you have a crash course e-book (hint, hint) or E-Mail mini-series that promotes you, your product or your service, a CPA network can be very powerful.

On a side note, most CPA Networks give you the option to be a publisher yourself where you get paid to drive traffic or create leads for others. Sometimes it’s good to play both sides.

NOTE: When you talk to a CPA sales agent, always negotiate and get the best price. Be careful, though, sometimes they will give you a lot of leads on your first “test purchase” and on the second time, they will take you to the cleaners. So never show emotion a CPA sales agent – your answer should always be “it was OK, but I was expecting better results” or something along those lines.

Blog Sponsorships And Reviews

With blog sponsorships and reviews, high traffic blogs can write a review about you, your product or your service. Find out the bloggers in related areas and work contact them to work out the terms. Not all bloggers will do this, but many will.

E-Mail Sponsorships And Buying Subscribers

Buying subscribers works! Period. In the area of Network and Internet Marketing, you should average about $1 a month per subscriber provided you have good promotions. So this is a worthwhile investment.

Other PPC engines

No doubt Google Adwords is the absolute kind of pay-per-click. However, there are other PPC services out there that can be tapped into. Of course, it’s best to find out what works on Google and then move them over to other PPC services.

Videos Ads

Video advertisements will be the next wave in modern advertising methods. Some would say they already are. One thing is certain, though. Video is going to be extremely huge. You’ve probably seen video advertisements already watching videos online. There’s typically two types:

• Pre-roll: Sit through an ad for X number of seconds before the video starts.
• Post-roll: Watch the advertisement after the video is finished.

Buying Web Sites

Here’s a very underrated method, especially in Network and Internet Marketing. I would say 95% of Network and Internet Marketers are not buying existing Web Sites related to their market. This is a great, underrated method.

Internet Marketing Advertising, Internet Marketing, marketing

It’s the first of the month and only a few more days until Independence Day. So today, I’m going to give you some blogging advice that can help you become independent (financially) one day.

So let’s get to it…

Recall that a blog is one of the most effective methods to get a lot of traffic and more importantly, a lot of leads for your Network and Internet Marketing businesses very fast.

But to get that traffic and those leads, you have to write about something and bring value to the marketplace. In my experience, it seems one of the most effective ways to get paid big money is to bring value to the marketplace.

The best blogging advice I can give you on choosing a topic to write about as it relates to your Network and Internet Marketing business is to first decide on who you wish to attract:

Are you going to use your blog to attract individuals looking to buy a solution to a problem that your product or service solves?

OR…

Are you going to use your blog to attract individuals interested in building a profitable Network and/or Internet Marketing business?

Here’s some blogging advice for you: choose only one per blog.

Why? Because your blog should be dedicated to a specific topic or a lot of closely related topics. It makes for a better user experience when your blog is specifically dedicated to a topic.

And you can (HINT: and SHOULD) have two blogs as well (one focused on providing a lot of value on a problem that your product or service solves and one focused on how to build a profitable business with your company and more importantly, yourself). But do one first to understand the entire process.

If you have multiple blogs (one dedicated to educating customers and one dedicated to training and training individuals how to build a profitable Network and Internet Marketing business), you can link your blogs back and fourth to each other which will assert you as not only an expert in a problem your product or service solves but as someone who knows how to build a profitable Network and Internet Marketing business as well.

When you have both of these going, it tells prospects some very attractive things about you:

• You really understand your product or service and the problem(s) they solve.
• You really know how to build a profitable Network and Internet Marketing business (a fantastic selling point).
• You treat your business like a business and not like a hobby.
• You provide real value and are not someone who just pitches an opportunity all day long without knowing what their product or service is really about. This gives you more of a feel as a consultant instead of salesman.

There are VERY FEW Network and Internet Marketers doing this. It’s highly effective and attractive , but it’s rarely being taught…

So TAKE ADVANTAGE!

Now let’s talk about some ideas for both approaches.

Blogging To Attract Customers To Your Product Or Service:

The best way to attract customers to your product or service is to write about the problem your product or service solves or mitigates. For example, if you are in a travel company, here are some ideas you may find it very valuable to blog about:

• A Specific Destination: You can become a destination expert and provide vacation planning tips for that destination telling your readers about the best attractions, restaurants, etc. This will show your readers that you are an expert of this area and they will feel comfortable letting you put together vacation packages for them or booking their vacation on your travel portal. (TIP: Do not forget to consider destinations that no one else is blogging about – the right niche can make you rich)
• Cruising: This will require you to stay on top of the cruise industry and you can blog about the latest and greatest news in the cruise world. You may also find it very valuable to write about the pros and cons of different cruise lines.

On the other hand, if you are in health and wellness, you can blog about a medical condition your product mitigates. Learn the medical problems, become a student of a certain condition (or multiple conditions so you can have multiple blogs addressing medical conditions your product solves).

Also post about new advances in certain conditions and provide lifestyle tips for individuals suffering with certain conditions. Do that properly and then professionally recommend your product as a possible solution.

Whatever you choose to blog about to attract customers to your product or service, just remember to bring value to the marketplace (lots of it) and DO NOT use your blog as an advertising billboard.

Over time, you may just find that people are buying your products and using your services without you even talking to you on the phone first (TIP: If they do, be a professional and call them up and thank them). To find out why this works, see this blog: Understand The Psychology Of Why People Buy

Blogging To Attract Business Builders (Your Money Makers):

When you are blogging to attract business builders, the best blogging advice I can give would be to blog about the strategies you are personally using to build your Network and Internet Marketing business.

If you have your own prospecting and closing style, blog about it. If you are know how to generate leads through various Internet Marketing strategies, blog about it.

Now if you don’t know how to generate leads or market online but you want to learn how, then mastermind with someone who does, especially if what you are doing is simply not working and not making you any money. See my post on Funded proposals to see why learning these skills are ridiculously effectively.

In the next blogging tip, I will offer you blogging advice on understanding blogging platforms by looking at the pros and cons of the two best blogging platforms available to you so you will be able to determine which blogging platform is the best fit for you so you can get your blog up and start dominating online with your Network and Internet Marketing businesses.

Blogging, Internet Marketing Blogging, finance, Internet Marketing, marketing, sales

One of the most important tips to succeed in Network and Internet Marketing (or business in general) is to understand the psychology of why people buy.

Human psychology is a fascinating subject and if you ever master it, you can, as the rich do, “create money.” Just make sure you do it with a rock solid product, service or idea that delivers a lot of value or entertainment to your customer.

That being said, there are psychological triggers that make people buy products and services with little or no hesitation. You want to know what they are, so lets begin with some questions…

Why do you buy products or services?

Why do I buy products or services?

People are very different and buy for different reasons.

But there is one central theme driving those reasons and that is this:

People buy a solution to a problem.

Really, it is that easy.

But lets expand a little further and talk about some of the most popular and appealing problems people buy solutions for.

Ready? OK, lets do it…

People buy to save time:

Time. We only have 24 hours of it a day! (isn’t that scary) We seem to always need more of it.

Understand this: In our fast-paced environment, the market for products and services that can give us some of our time back to do other things will never go out of fashion. If you can really save people time, you can make money. And lots of it too!

People buy to gain more security:

In our society, the mainstream media constantly pitches fear at us. You can turn on your 5 o’clock news almost every night and watch something that injects fear and worry into most of us whether it be high gas prices, the crashing real estate market, rising crime in your local area, or some new virus in the air.

With that said, it becomes instinctive for most people to buy products or services that gives them more security.

People buy to reduce or eliminate repetitive or hard work:

Repetitive and hard work? Yuck!

You probably enjoy keeping things fresh and interesting, right? And if you are like me, you like to keep things as easy as possible. Have you ever had a job or a business task where you had to do the same thing over and over or something extremely repetitive or physically or mentally draining that ruins the rest of your evening because you’re so dang exhausted?

Well, people will definitely buy anything that can reduce or eliminate repetitive or hard work.

We’ve all heard the statement “There’s got to be an easier way of doing this.” And if you can show people that way with your product or service, money will chase you down. And that’s a good problem to have!

People buy to save money and make money:

Hey we all need money to survive. If you have a product or service that saves people money or makes people money (or even better, does both), people will consider your product or service.

People buy to feed their curiosity:

Some things sound really good to us or really odd to us, but in a lot of cases, we don’t really know until we try.

I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials advertising some psychic you can call that can tell you your future, etc. Most people call psychics because they’re “curious” as to what the psychic really knows (or doesn’t know).

Always create curiosity when you can. It’s a great psychological trigger that will help your sales improve dramatically. Think about how many times you’ve purchased a product or service out of curiosity.

People buy to acquire pleasure:

Unloading $5,000 on the latest and greatest 60″ high definition TV (HDTV) and another $500 on a BluRay DVD player is simply buying pleasure. The big TV looks great in your living room and you’ll be a hero on gameday when all of the guys come over to watch the game on your 60″ big screen. It’s great entertainment and entertainment is one of the best pleasures in life.

And your Network and Internet Marketing business allows you to make a lot of money from home and live life in a big way once you figure the game out. How do you feel about that for acquiring pleasure? After all, do you really want to stay in the rat race your entire life living paycheck to paycheck? If you do, you are on the wrong blog!

And since we’re talking about pleasure, let’s shift our focus to pain…

People buy to avoid pain:

Listen, I don’t like pain. You don’t like pain. It can be physical pain, emotional pain, or financial pain…nobody likes pain. Period.

If something hurts bad enough and you can buy something to mitigate or better yet eliminate the pain, you will buy it hands down.

And there they are – the biggest problems people will buy solutions to.

There are other reasons why people buy, but these are some of the biggest and most important, especially in the Network and Internet Marketing arena.

This is an extremely crucial tip and I recommend you bookmark this particular blog and print it out.

Whenever you are putting together any marketing piece such as your own blog (which you definitely need), a sales letter (again, something you definitely need), a Web Site presentation, a Webinar, a conference call, etc., pull out this blog and make sure you understand why people buy.

When you do, include as many psychological buying triggers as possible by talking about a problem and presenting your solution. If you can present the solution indirectly and from the perspective of a consultant rather than a sales professional, you will probably have a very profitable marketing piece.

General Network Marketing Business, Internet Marketing, marketing, Network Marketing, psychology, sales

Let’s shift focus a little on this blog…

This tip may not exactly fit under prospecting tips or closing tips (aka sales closing techniques), but I want to talk about who is attracted to network marketing because when you understand it, it will help you prospect and close better if you start communicating with individuals who possess some qualities that make them open to network marketing.

First, understand this: There is a difference between someone who is attracted to it versus someone who will give it a try.

Early on in my career, I used to get excited about crossing paths with minimum age workers at local grocery stores, restaurants, etc. I mistakenly thought since they were making little money, something such as network marketing would definitely appeal to them.

I thought I would save them from the pains of minimum wage! Until I learned some very vital lessons:

Success is voluntary.
Success requires sacrifice.
Success requires commitment.
Success requires mental toughness (mindset).

I found most minimum wage workers simply did not possess these traits nor did they want to.

So WHO exactly is attracted to the sacrifices, commitment and mental toughness that network marketing requires?

If you just said not a whole lot of people, you would be right. But that’s a mystery of life, so just accept it.

Interestingly, most network marketing companies and uplines will tell you everyone will love network marketing. I mean, really, who doesn’t want to make money while they sleep and leverage out the efforts of hundreds or thousands of peoples efforts, right?

I have found that nothing is further from the truth. To discover who was really attracted to network marketing, I looked looked at my own personal profile.

And here’s my profile:

• B.S. in Computer Science with a 3.9 GPA
• Member of several honor societies
• Ridiculously outside the box thinker
• I love mastermind groups
• Young (I haven’t hit 30 YET…)
• Extremely optimistic
• Spiritual

Since then I have talked to many people that are successful in network marketing and discovered many things in common, and I’m going to list them now:

College Graduates/Professionals:

Most of my Network and Internet Marketing friends and business partners are college graduates.

Also, a few months back I went to a seminar for my own network marketing company and they asked all the college graduates to stand up. 70% of the room stood up.

Don’t let this surprise you like it surprised me. Graduating colleges takes commitment and work. It takes investing into YOURSELF. Period. It takes sacrifices and going through a tough process to arrive at an end goal.

The same is true of Network Marketing (it is another profession and will likely take years for you to really understand). And it requires you to invest in YOURSELF.

Outside the box thinkers:

Network Marketing is an outside the box profession, so it is a natural fit that outside the box thinkers are all over in network marketing.

If you can think outside the box, you can grasp the concept of money working for you instead of you working for money. When you can grasp that, network marketing is typically very easy to grasp.

Young people (under 30):

Now I’m not saying the 30+ crowd is not or cannot be attracted to network marketing. They certainly are and can be!

I’m stating this here because I see more and more young people coming into network marketing and flourishing. And this trend will continue.

Why is this? It seems to me that younger people are more open to learning new skills, ideas and thinking outside the box and it seems the older we get, the more prudent we become making us close-minded to new ideas and learning new skills.

Consider this quote by Pearl S. Buck:

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.”

Sales professionals:

Everyone’s favorite bad guys also known as sales professionals are typically optimistic, outside the box, very personable, full of charisma and DO NOT have a problem getting paid what they are worth versus an hourly or salary-based pay.

By the way, sales is the highest paid professional in the world. And network marketing allows you to put a sales team together and leverage the efforts of others into a residual model. This becomes quite powerful over time. And, by the way, most sales jobs do not have any residual based pay built in, which is typically very attractive to sales professionals.

People with a mentally tough mindset coupled burning desire to design their life instead of earning a living:

Quite simply, the most important element. Just about every successful network marketer I know has a mentally tough mindset coupled with a burning desire to live life in big way instead of working hard for money their entire life and tip-toeing quietly to their grave. This is the group of individuals willing to sacrifice the 7 (yes, SEVEN) hours of television being watched everyday by the average American.

On this idea, I’ll leave you with a quote from the absolutely awesome Jim Rohn:

“When the end of your life comes, let the end of your life record your wins and your loses, don’t the end of your life record I didn’t try.”

Spiritual Individuals

Just about every successful network marketer I know including myself possesses a certain level of spirituality.

And there it is – a quick list of the type of people I feel are attracted to network marketing.

By the way, I am NOT saying everyone you know that fits these categories will be attracted to network marketing. I’m simply stating most of network marketers I work possess many of what was discussed in this blog.

Prospecting and Closing marketing, Network Marketing, Prospecting and Closing, sales

So let’s move forward with some prospecting tips and closing tips that are somewhat controversial, but effective.

Well here we go…

Do you ever feel like you are talking to a prospect who just keeps making excuses or avoids you all together?

Do you ever wonder what you should say when prospects say ….

1.) I don’t have the money.
2.) I don’t have the time.
3.) I need to think about it.
4.) I need to run it by the spouse or a friend who is just in the same financial boat as me.
5.) I’m not a salesman.

We have all heard these when talking to prospects at some point in our network marketing career.

But does this challenge you? If so, keep reading…

Here’s an epiphany that hit me within a year of network marketing:

Enrolling for the sake of enrolling is NOT the objective.

Enrolling the RIGHT person IS the objective.

So who is the RIGHT person you may wonder?

Well, the RIGHT person is different for everyone, which is one of the greatest things about network marketing that most people don’t take advantage of:

Enrolling ONLY the people you WANT to partner with! You decide the RIGHT person for you, period.

For me, the RIGHT person:

• has a deep desire to start making money via network marketing
• understands the power of building a network instead of simply working for one.
• understands it takes money to make money
• understands they will need to spend $100 to $1000 a month in training and advertising
• understands it takes time to learn a business
• understands it takes a little more time to be successful
• understands there are absolutely NO guarantees except that their success will be limited only by them!
• understands residual income
• does not make up silly excuses and throw out silly objections

Once you figure out who is RIGHT for you, your network marketing career gets easier…much easier.

So here’s my advice: If you are NOT talking to your RIGHT person, let them go!

WHAT?!?!

That’s right – LET THEM GO!

Tell them no. Do it politely, do it with integrity, but tell them no. You can simply say:

I appreciate your time, but you’re not the person I’m looking for. Have a great day.

In fact, you may even want to send them an article or an e-book you have written explaining what network marketing is and tell them that upon completion of that e-book, they may call you up and schedule an appointment with you again once they understand the industry.

At that point, they can ask real questions inside of giving silly objections (excuses).

If my RIGHT person is similar to your RIGHT person, let me take the opportunity to mention two things now to help you…

1.) Find social network and networking forums, get in and look around and see if it’s something you can use to bring value to your business and return that value to other networkers or people looking to get started in our industry. Build rapport with networkers and people looking to learn about our industry.

ALWAYS provide value to them and never just pitch your deal in their face! Most of them do not care about how great your compensation plan is (or even understand it for that matter – chances are you may not even fully understand your compensation plan) or how your product has this special ingredient from the tropical rain forest that allows you to jog to work everyday.

What they care about is what you (and to a lesser extent, your company) can do for them.

Can you help them get what they NEED or WANT? If you can, they will probably lock hands with you and do business together! If not, they won’t. It’s quite simple!

2.) If prospecting is a roadblock for you, I suggest you pick up a copy of Surefire Sponsoring because it will definitely give you a totally different perspective on enrolling people into your network marketing business as long as you are not afraid to tell someone no and let them go. It has some of the best prospecting tips and closing tips (more commonly referred to as sales closing techniques) I have ever read period.

In the next prospecting and closing tip, you’ll learn what questions to askto help you determine if they are your right person or not!

Prospecting and Closing marketing, Network Marketing, Prospecting and Closing, sales