The Future of Network Marketing
A Peek Inside My Marketing Crystal Ball
by David Ledoux
The scruffy looking fellow sauntered up to me at the back of the
meeting room. His gaze was shifty, his manner nervous. He cleared
his throat, stammered an introduction and stuck out his hand.
That's how I met one of the largest internet lead brokers in the
world recently in Houston, Texas.
The dialogue with him was worth the entire price of the plane
ticket to the seminar. He introduced me to two other huge lead
brokers. And what they shared with me blew my mind. Kind of. In
retrospect, it confirmed for me what my intuition had been
telling me.
Email marketing is dead. (nearly).
The three huge lead brokers confided in me that they were
planning to quit the online lead business. They moaned about the
changes in spam laws by the states, the vicious ISP mail filters,
the bounces, the general malaise of prospects, low conversion
rates and the weather. They were lower than a snake's belly.
These 3 millionaires had all watched their gold mine tapped to
near empty. Problem was they had bought cars, homes, and toys
hoping the gold rush would continue...
When I got home from Texas, I got a call from one of the largest
fax blasters in the world. They used to call him the Junk Fax
King. This guy had made as much as a million a year generating
leads via blast fax. The transition to the web hadn't gone quite
so smoothly when new laws killed his fax business overnight.
He offered to sell me his database. He was getting out of the
industry entirely and was going into real estate.
Hmmmm...
I spoke with 2 more online marketers of e-books and newsletters.
They both told me that they have stopped all online marketing and
are returning to mail order. They sold their existing web
businesses and are going back to the 20th century....
The synchronicities kept coming. That night a huge lead vendor
called to pitch me on some penny leads. As much as I wanted, 30
days old, 8 cents each. I wasn't particularly interested. I told
him about the other guys.
"More for me, excellent!" was his response. He owns his own
server bank, has 2 full time staff to make sure his email somehow
gets through, and mails 15 million emails a week. A week!
"This business is for the big dogs now, David!" he chortled.
When the masses zig, the smart money zags....
You know what I'm talking about. If you do any kind of email
marketing, you know that response rates are dropping through the
floor. I remember when 1000 leads in a 10 series email would
generate 90 leads. Now you're lucky if you get 9.
Here's my advice:
1) If you currently rely on bulk email, you need HUGE numbers.
Get your list over the half million email mark as soon as you
can. You can compensate for filtering and dropping conversions
with bigger numbers. Our office can help you in this regard.
Contact Chris for details.
2) Wean the smaller players on your team off dependence on bulk
email. Move them towards generating their own leads through
pay-per-click engines like Google and Overture.
3) Experiment with "Offline-to-Online" lead generation. I am
using drop cards, flyers, posters, signs, car lettering, inserts,
and small ads with some great success. I drive the lead into my
online marketing machine for education and follow-up, without the
reliance on email marketing.
4) Plan for the worst. Imagine that legislators kill email
marketing the same way they did fax blasting. What will you do?
What will your team do? It could happen within 12-18 months!
I look at the reliance on email marketing the same way as the
tape wars of the mid-nineties. Remember Dead Doctors Don't Lie
and the Ray Cassanno tape? The bulk mailing of audios died a
gruesome death. So will bulk emailing.
For 56 years, network marketing has been a people building
business. My crystal ball tells me that those that are best in
being in front of emerging trends (or RE-emerging trends!) will
prosper.
Good luck in your marketing adventures!
David Ledoux
Author: The Ultimate MLM Blueprint For Massive Success
David Ledoux has been involved in the network marketing industry
for 15 years. He is an author, speaker and million dollar earner.
To discover more jealously-guarded secrets of making $100,000.00
or more every year through MLM check out his new book, The
Ultimate MLM Blueprint for Massive Success. The book and a FREE
MLM Training ezine are available online at I Love MLM
Discover how to generate more cash in any MLM business. Even if
you're a seasoned veteran or a rookie, you will be motivated and
moved by this free training.
To start getting the training please Go Here.
http://www.choosetoprosper.com/ilovemlm
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