The current state of network marketing today is centered on the “pre-launch” or what I like to call “the ground floor syndrome”. This syndrome hinges on the idea that you must get in NOW before everyone else does. In my 10 years experience in this industry I would run away from any company that says they are “still in pre-launch” or “hurry up and get in now”. Avoid people or companies that promise you will make a ton of money from spillover.

This pre launch stuff is just another way the company owners separate you from your money, so don’t fall for it. The people who make money in this industry do it because they work at it.

This fear of loss technique is used as a scare tactic to get you to take action right away on doing something you may not be ready to do. These folks know they must get you in while you are vulnerable and still confused by their marketing hype speak.

The bottom line is that most of these companies won’t last more than a year. A person can start a network marketing company in their basement if they want to. Before you get involved in any network marketing, MLM or direct sales company, it’s wise to do your due diligence and research the background of the company. Ask to speak to the company president or CEO before you join, if you can’t, then don’t join.

[This is an excerpt from our daily internet network marketing newsletter. If you like what you read you'll find out how to get free daily network marketing secrets delivered straight to your email inbox daily below.]

It’s a beautiful morning here in Washington DC. I woke up
and went out side and just sat there for a few minutes to
listen. There’s a light breeze and just hearing the rustling
of the leaves as gentle wind blows on them is a powerfully
calming feeling.

As I sat there I thought about the internet and how we use
it. As I watched the leaves blow from one direction to the
next an extremely important principle popped into my mind.
Something I’ve never thought about directly, but just as
that gentle wind blew the leaves from direction so does this
affect your business, maybe without you even knowing about
it.

This may be one of the most important emails that I ever
send to you. If you can understand what I am about to say
you’ll understand the true fabric of both the internet and
using the internet to grow your network marketing business.

Understand this . . .

Just as there are two sides to everything, a ying and yang
to say, so are there two sides to your internet business and
many make the mistake by not taking note of this.

There are several things that you can do to generate
targeted traffic to your site and for each and every single
one of them there are about 50 guys with products telling
you and me how to do them the best. That’s fine and it’s
actually a good sign because it means there truly is more
than one way to skin a cat with any given traffic generation
technique, but unless you realize what you’re doing you can
put a great deal of undue stress on yourself.

I don’t mean know what you’re doing in terms of being an
expert in any of this stuff, I mean a goal, a vision of what
your business is going to look like one year from now, and
then 5 and 10 years from now.

Without this you can easily put yourself in a position where
you’re doing far too much for little to no appreciable
result
and a mind full of mixed emotions and fear.

Quite a few of the people that email me fall into this trap.
(It’s not their fault, it just happens to us a people if
we’re not aware of what’s going on in our mind and let our
emotions lead us.)

Their emails go something like this . . .

“Daegan I’ve been doing xyz and I’ve generated some traffic,
but no one is buying anything I’m scared, frustrated, and I
think I’m going to quite.”

What you think is what generally happens so when I read
these words I can literally see the little spark that
started their business start to flutter out.

Further . . .

Even putting things like this into writing is the wrong idea
because it creates and transmits the wrong mental vibe for
success, and mostly likely will send you on a downward
spiral towards a negative outlook on your business. And if
you’re not positive about your business you’re on the way
out.

It’s reactionary in nature. Entrepreneurs don’t react they
create.

And all this happens because most don’t really know what
they are doing. They have a vague idea that they want more
money right now and they’ve found a business with an
opportunity to fulfill that, but they don’t think past it.

This happened to me when I began and it left me open to self
victimization. Anything that promised me money now I bought

and subsequently failed.

Understand this about the internet . . .

There are things that you can do that are quick fixes and
others that will build a foundation so that your business
continues to grow for years to come.

I chose to do the later, after trying the other way.

The strategies and the mental focus differ significantly.

If you think I need to set up a PPC campaign so that I can
get people into my business today because I need money right
now then you’ll most likely do the following.

You’ll find the quickest and easiest way to put up a vaguely
targeted Google AdWords campaign and just throw it out
there to see what sticks.

Most of the stuff won’t. And you’ll say I generated some
traffic but nothing is happening.

On the other hand, if you think with a long term perspective
in mind on your business when you approach your marketing,
even with that same exact PPC campaign you’ll do things
totally differently.

You’ll say I want this campaign to still produce targeted
traffic a year from now and I don’t want to have to keep
updating it all the time so let me make sure when I do my
research I do it thoroughly so I won’t have to do it again.

It will take longer to do, but the results are much much
better both in the short and long term.

Do you see what I’m saying here?

It’s where you focus you mind in your marketing that will
dictate your results.

Think first of what you want and then create your internet
advertising campaign around that, and what you want has to
be more specific than just some targeted traffic and some
leads and some people in my business so that I make money
now.

Have a real defined end in mind before the game begins.

And don’t think this faulty mindset is something that only
happens to us as marketers. It happens to owners of network
marketing companies that go out of business in just a few
short years and those guys launching product after product
just to see what we will buy.

These people also have a frantic “now now now” frame of
mind.

Think about the type of people and companies you are dealing
with just as much as yourself when doing your marketing.

Stay as far away from those with vaguely defined goals and
visions of what they want no matter if they are your upline
leader, company owner, or the guy you’re thinking about
buying an eBook from.

Why?

Well remember how I said I was listening and watching the
leaves blow in the wind?

If you or you follow the advice of a person who
only thinks about right now well then you become just like
those leaves. You leave yourself open to whatever weather
blows you’re way.

If you plan and set out only to do those things that fit
your plan you root yourself deep into the ground like a
sturdy oak tree that ain’t movin.

Because there is a much easier way of marketing your products and services.

Please consider this piece of evidence:

P & G wished to evaluate an advertising technique and asked that Dr. N.Roberto, Coca-Cola Foundation Professor of International Marketing, to evaluate over $10 million of independent research examining the effectiveness of this technique, that claimed to make advertising more effective and accountable.

His conclusion:

“The interactive programme and the participating products generated recall scores that are more than 50% more productive than normal advertising. The effect on purchase intention is just as impressive if not much more.

All these productivity increments are attainable at a reasonably inexpensive budget with one client revealing that for its participating brand, its quarter television expenditure was $5.7 million as compared to its budget for this technique of $0.5 million. This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in a number of countries.”
Source: AGB: Gallup: Martyn Research: Bourke: NOP. City Insights & more.

This technique creates a personal dialogue between your brand(s) and your customer and is truly interactive. One of the many benefits that this interaction brings to you is that you can use existing media to create really effective and accountable programmes.

This would then allow you to generate the sort of results demonstrated above and, at the same time, make your existing reach and frequency model on television work that much harder! Demonstrably so!

And you don’t have to change a thing…you can continue your current advertising, with the additional advantage of positively developing it as a result of the feedback you generate, making it even more effective.

So, ten times more effective, without changing anything. Don’t you think that that’s an opportunity to good to be missed?

When interactive “events” have been prepared together with a direct request for the viewer to pay particular attention to participating TV commercials, there is a substantial and measurable lift in brand awareness and message comprehension, which always lead to increases in sales.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of interactive programmes linked to terrestrial TV here are just some examples of the increases recorded by independent research.

Sources: AGB, NOP, Gallup

According to Gallup the four participating brands, Birds Eye Fish Fingers, Sara Lee, Sunsilk Shampoo, Duracell Batteries experienced an average increase in awareness of television advertising of 231%.

These results are just the tip of the iceberg in demonstrating that terrestrial TV aligned with interactive events can produce staggering increases in all key measurements, including sales.

The first rule of your advertising, obviously, is to get noticed but that is easier said than done. In the advertising arena everyone is trying to get noticed and as is clearly accepted these days, this results in substantial levels of clutter.

However, link terrestrial TV to interactive “events” in print and you will discover, that your job of creating additional sales becomes much, much, easier. And isn’t that what you want, an easier job with less hassle?

The one problem facing interactive advertising is the fact that it has become a cliché in recent years, without any very clear or consistent definition of what the word means or how it is supposed to work.

Properly executed it has none of the theorising that lies behind the arguments about various forms of so-called interactive communication using direct marketing and electronic media (most of which involves at best the minimum of true interactivity).

It is both practical and down-to-earth and uses a readily comprehensible and verified mechanism to expand the relevance and salience of advertising and other forms of marketing communications. You can apply it to all of the major media and to various other forms of communication, including new media. There is no theoretical reason why it should not also be applied to packaging designs or product literature.

So why the need for interactive “Events”?

There is a clear understanding nowadays, that your customers want to be taken account of; to affect change; to learn about your products that they buy and to personalise their relationships with you and your messages. There are a phenomenal number of reasons that cause people to interact, which go far beyond just giving them things.

To feel part of the process of developing products and services that they want and are willing to buy has much more value and allowing your customers to do so, builds their trust.

When people participate in your interactive advertising they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to you and, therefore, to them. Moreover, by participating, they then learn and understand the message from you and personalise their relationship with you and your products or services by becoming involved. And it could be said that involvement is the parent of trust.

Consumers tend to filter out information they do not want to hear and this alters the effectiveness of your advertising in quite a dramatic way. The purchaser’s decision is invariably a compromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety. They worry that perhaps the purchase decision was not the best or right one. In order to minimise this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce his choice and begins to take more notice of his chosen product’s advertising. And, at the same time, the purchaser deliberately suppresses data, which might challenge his decision by ignoring the advertising of your brands.

People are often loyal to a brand simply because they do not want to readdress a decision. The opportunity to screen out undesired data always exists when media advertisements have to stand on there own and fight for attention.

Interactive Communication takes the consumer through the barrier of not wanting to address change; and this is certainly a market your will want to influence and capture – the people who use your competitors’ products.

Now the consumer can say ‘Yes, I will change my behaviour and I have a very good reason or series of reasons why”, and have a well-informed opinion or image in mind.
If someone enters into a product purchase decision with a very specific image of the product and its reason to exist and why they have decided those reasons are worth its purchase, the test is, in reality; the use of the product. If the product delivers, this will confirm that premise and, therefore, conversion will be enormously enhanced.
Interactive Marketing Communication turns your passive one way advertising into active advertising and actually alters behaviour during the communication and learning process.

Paul Ashby pioneered interactive communication to the advertising and marketing communities some twenty-five years ago. The communication issues he addresses have been neglected during the explosive grown of advertising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these are Cognitive Dissonance, Selective Retention and Selective Exposure.

In this article I will attempt to make all the new affiliate marketers out there that are just getting their start avoid the failure that so many in this business do.

You see all these sites all over the internet day in and day out when it comes to affiliate marketing. When you see them it looks so easy to be successful that you wonder why everyone isn’t doing it. Well in reality while affiliate marketing can be a great way to subsidize or replace your income it can also be a bit tricky. The main reason people fail when it comes to the affiliate marketing business is because of lack of dedication. I’m sorry but even affiliate marketing is real world and no matter what you do in the real world you have to be dedicated and work very hard to get ahead and become successful.

Lack of promoting is another one of the main reasons for failure in the affiliate marketing gig. The basis to successful affiliate marketing careers is getting lots of traffic to your site. With out traffic you will get no sales. When most affiliates get started they don’t have a clue as to what kind of work it will take to get the amount of traffic that they need to make their site successful.

Another huge mistake is not having your own website. By not having your own site you are giving up a lot of leverage. It prevents you from having your own promotions or capturing email addresses of your visitors. By using your sponsor’s site you’re only helping to build their business and not your own. This in turn will decrease your sales conversions.

It is so important to know where to advertise and know where you should be doing your direct marketing. You have to remember that your advertising has to be directed directly to your site and not to unrelated topics.

You also have to try and sell your customers on their first click. If all you’re doing is sending them from your page to your sponsor’s page then the buyers are going to lose interest very quickly when they realize they are in essence being double sold. If you pre sell them and get them ready for your sponsors page you will see an increase in your sales and conversion rates.

Remember you need to be learning everyday. I personally commit to at least one hour of reading or learning of some sort everyday. I make it my commitment to learn something new everyday and by doing this I have seen my numbers slowly grow over the last two years.