Laura Hand's Home Business Blog » Internet Marketing 101

5 Free Online MLM Marketing Resources You Should Be Using For Your MLM Home Based Business

Laura Hand — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:41:14 +0000

Want The Best Online MLM Marketing Resources?

Here’s a list of the Five Best FREE online mlm marketing Resources that every marketer should be using!

Prospects are the life blood of your MLM home based business. Online marketing is a great way to get more prospects and accelerate your growth and success. The problem is not knowing the tools that are available to market online.

That’s why I’ve created a list of the top 5 FREE Online MLM Marketing Resources that all home business owners should be using to explode their business’ growth.

Online MLM Marketing Resource #1: Facebook

By far the best place to start your online mlm marketing journey is on Facebook. Facebook is not just for kids and teens anymore. Now people of all ages of working and playing on Facebook. So if you have a home based business, Facebook is a my favorite of these online MLM marketing resources.

I have found Facebook to be very user friendly and easy to set up and it is relatively marketer friendly. Which means you can reach more people that you may not have been able to without it!

A couple of words of caution though, it is highly addictive so you have to manage your time wisely. You can easily get sucked into the world of chatting with friends, browsing other people’s profiles and playing games.

The other thing is you must understand your audience and how to market to Facebook users. People who are on Facebook are there to connect with other people. They are not thinking of buying something. You should think in terms of first connecting with them and building trust and a relationship. If you want to know how to learn how to market like a pro on Facebook, check out

Online MLM Marketing Resource #2: YouTube

One of the best ways to spread the news about your business is video marketing. YouTube is the best site to use for video marketing. The videos range from silly to informative. There are millions of new videos and millions of new subscribers each month. If you can garner if just a small fraction of that traffic, you can easily generate a five to six figure income.

Despite all of the videos on YouTube, you can still stand out in the crowd and make yourself and your MLM business get noticed! You can check out my YouTube channel to see how I market with videos:

www.Youtube.com/LRHand

Another good thing about online video marketing is that it doesn’t have to be super high quality. You just need a computer and a regular old video camera and you’re all set.

Online MLM Marketing Resource #3: Ezine Articles

Article marketing is the best way to become the leader that people want to follow. It brands you as the expert so start submitting articles about your home based business and the products you market. Ezine Articles is by far the biggest and most successful article directory online. Think of it as the 800 pound gorilla in the room!

You don’t have to be a professional writer to submit articles to online directories. If you feel you are not good at writing or having writers block, there several places online where you can have good quality articles written for you at a fair price. Either way, all home business owners should be publishing on Ezine Articles.

Online MLM Marketing Resource #4: Digg.com

Another great way to get more people to see your websites, your articles, videos, blogs and more is social bookmarking. Social bookmarking works just like bookmarking a site you really like on your computer but you are opening up your bookmarks for all of the internet to see.

These social bookmarking sites are easy to use and best of all they are FREE. So if you don’t like a site you are using, you didn’t waste any money on trying it out. The biggest social bookmarking site is Digg.com. It gets millions of views every single month. Using Digg to bookmark your websites, articles, blogs and videos, increases the chances of people seeing them dramatically.

Online MLM Marketing Resource #5: WordPress

A weblog or Blog is like an online journal or at least that’s how they started out. But these days everyone who owns their own business should have a blog that helps them market online. WordPress is what most professional bloggers use and like the other sites I’ve talked about, it is very easy to set up and user friendly.

It will literally take you just a few minutes to get everything set up so you can start blogging right away. When you’re ready to blog, you will want to post once every couple of days. As people read your blog, they will become more and more interested in you and your business.

Online marketing is the next generation for marketing your MLM home based business. It is cost effective and very productive in terms of your return on investment. Best of all, these 5 Free Online MLM Marketing Resources are just the beginning. As technology changes, there will be more and more ways to brand yourself online!

If you enjoyed this Online MLM Marketing Resources post, please leave me a comment below and tweet it!

To your success,

P.S. If you are ready for a real change in your business, I can show you how to generate free leads! Click here TODAY to discover my MLM Lead Formula!

Your Internet Marketing Strategy Is Like Playing A Game Of Monopoly

Laura Hand — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:20:16 +0000

internet marketing Strategy" src="http://giventhechoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/monopoly-150x150.jpg" alt="internet marketing" width="135" height="135" />Just about everyone has played Monopoly at one time or another. When it comes to your network marketing business’ internet marketing strategy, it’s a lot like a giant Monopoly board. If you know how to play the game, you will do very well. But if you don’t, you just might miss out on a lot of money.

Everybody knows that in the game of Monopoly you can’t start to really build on your property until you have all of the same color. If you own Boardwalk and Park Place, you’ll make a lot of money, but if you only own Park Place, you won’t make as much. So what does that have to do with your network marketing business?

Well, when you are deciding on the name of your website and you’re trying to brand yourself on the internet, you want to make sure that you are using something that you can “monopolize”. That doesn’t mean that you have to be 100% totally innovative, it just means that you need to find a name and a niche that you can make your own.

Say that you want the domain name HomeBasedBusiness.com (just as an example because that domain has been taken since 1998) you would then want to find every place possible for you to use Home Based Business on the internet. You want to name your Youtube channel youtube.com/homebasedbusiness. You want your Twitter name to be HomeBasedBusiness. You want your blog to be homebasedbusiness.blogspot.com. You get the idea!

Just remember, whatever you go with, you need to brand yourself with it as much as humanly possible. You want to make sure that whenever people type in home based business into their search bar, they get you and not someone else. By picking a name and niche that can be almost totally yours, you will be able to dominate and brand yourself in a much more effective way.

When you are buying a new domain name or when you are thinking of the name of a new product promote, you need to think about all the different ways that you can use that name on the internet. Just the .com site by itself isn’t enough anymore. With so many social networking sites out there and keywords playing such a big part in your success on the internet, you can’t afford to just have a great domain name. You need to brand yourself completely on the internet.

Building a successful network marketing business online is just like a game of Monopoly and when you have all the right pieces in place, you can’t lose!

If you enjoy this post, please do me a favor and share with others and retweet and comment.

To your continued success,

Laura Hand

PS: If Your Upline Does Not Have a Step-By-Step Blueprint For Success, Check This Out (Unless You Already Have Too Many Leads) – Click Here For Instant Access

Home Business Internet Explosion

Steps To Monetize Your Prospecting List

Laura Hand — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:22:57 +0000

You’ve probably heard before that “the money is in the list.” But what does that really mean? It means that the more people you have on your marketing list, the better chance you have of signing up more people and therefore making more money in your home based business.

It is true that the money is in the list. So how do you build a giant prospecting list when you’re just getting started in your home based business? Or perhaps you’re not new to MLM, you’re just new to the idea of list building. Either way, this article is designed to show you how to build the largest list possible in the shortest amount of time. Because the money really is in the list!

The first thing you’re going to want to do is set up a squeeze page. Squeeze pages are used by almost all serious internet marketers and they allow people to take a look at your website and business only after they give you their name and email address.

Some squeeze pages have lots of information the prospect needs to enter but really all you need is the first name and email. Many people aren’t comfortable putting in their phone number, address, or anything else and if you ask for it you won’t get as many opt-ins.

Once you get an opt-in they should be allowed to access your website and get the information they need. They will also be put into an auto-responder. An auto-responder is a program that sends out emails for you. This allows you to be doing other things for your business while the auto-responder markets to your prospects for you!

When a prospect is ready to talk to you personally, they will pick up the phone and call you! This is the best thing in the world because you know they are really serious about working from home!

If you aren’t currently using a squeeze page you need to get one, it’s the best thing that can happen to your online business. Many marketers use multiple squeeze pages in order to get the most opt-ins possible.

Another way to grow your list in a big, big way is by giving something away for free. People love free stuff! Don’t you? By creating your own product (usually like a free report or an E-book) and setting up a website to give it away for free, your opt-in list will grow by leaps and bounds! You’ll also, of course, have to make sure the product you give away is something that has something to do with working from home. That way your prospects will be targeted!

Don’t worry about bugging people with your emails because at the bottom of every email your auto-responder sends out there will be an opt-out link. That way the only people who stay on your list are the people who are really interested.

Finally, once you’ve set up your free product page and your business squeeze pages you’ll need to promote, promote, promote! If you don’t promote your websites, nobody (or very few) will ever find them. Use free sites like network marketing forums, Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook, You Tube and article websites to get the word out about your pages and you’ll have tons of free prospects in no time!

Follow these easy steps and you’ll have more prospects than you’ll have time to talk to in a day! Remember, your list won’t grow overnight or without some serious promotion. But if you’re looking for a cost effective way to have lots and lots of people to talk to, this the best method out there.

Home Business Success For People In Their 20’s

Laura Hand — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:23:23 +0000

If you’re under the age of 25 you are in an amazing position! Did you know that you can build a home based business in well under 5 years? That means you can be set for life by the time you’re 30! I told you… you’re in an amazing position!

When you are in your early 20’s you are setting yourself up for the rest of your life. Most men and women under 25 are in college trying to earn a degree that will help them lead a better life. However, did you know that by the time you get that degree you could have been earning 5, 6 or even 7 figures working from home?

I’m not telling you not to go to college, but you deserve to know that there are other options for young adults like you out there.

What I have found is that most people don’t even consider a home based business until they are much older. Until maybe they’ve been laid off or their life just isn’t going as planned, but what would happen if they started their own business when they were younger? Well they’d be in a much different position now that’s for sure.

Even if you’re excited about going to college a home based business can be the perfect part time job. Why? Because you can mold your work schedule to fit into your life. If you have classes in the mornings you can work at night and if you’re busy on the weekends you can work during the week only… it really is completely up to you!

One thing to look out for if you’re a young adult thinking about joining a home based business. Be prepared for people to tell you that you can’t do it. Many people are simply misinformed when it comes to home based businesses. They hear the words and they automatically think it’s a scam. This is just not true. There are many wonderful and completely legal home based businesses out there. So just get use to ignoring the haters.

If you do decide to start working from home you should know a few things:

1. All home based businesses cost money to start (the amount of money will vary from company to company)

2. All home based businesses are different

3. The home based business of today is not the same as your parents MLM company from 15 years ago

4. Building a home based business isn’t an overnight thing and it will take work

If you feel that a home business might be right for you start getting more information today, you could very well be set for life before the age of 30!

To Explore Your Options

CLICK HERE

Answering Your Calls Live Or Sending Them To A Voicemail… Which Is Better?

Laura Hand — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:38:23 +0000

There are a lot of different theories as to what to do with your prospects when they call you. Many people believe it’s best to answer your calls live and let them talk to a real person. While many others believe sending them to an automated voicemail is best. It’s hard to know which is really better. In this article I will be going over the differences as well as the pro’s and con’s of each method so that you can discover what is best for you!

Let’s start with answering your calls live:

There are a lot of pro’s to picking up the phone and answering your calls live. For one it’s just more personal. Fewer and fewer businesses are answering their calls live these days and it’s something that people like. It makes them feel like they are important and it just makes them feel good. Another pro to answering your calls live is that you can answer their questions right away. Sometimes just answering one or two questions can help them decide if they’re in or out and taking the calls live allows you to get the answers right away. The final pro to answering your calls live is that it gives you the upper hand in the conversation.

If you let them leave a voicemail ,you’ll have to call them back and whoever is answering the phone is automatically in a better position. By answering your calls live you will probably talk to nicer people because after all… They called you!

Now the con’s of answering your calls live:

Often when you are new to the business you might be a little nervous talking to someone about it. That is completely normal. You never get a second chance to make a first impression and many times if you answer the call live and don’t know what to say you may not represent your company in the best way possible. Another con is that if you answer it live you might not be able to fully focus, even if you know what to say. You may be driving or doing something with your kids or cooking or whatever and so you might not give the best impression because of that. Calling them back later allows you to fit it into your schedule and get in the right frame of mind before calling someone you’d like to be in your business.

Here are the pro’s for sending your calls to voicemail:

When you send them to voicemail you can give them a little bit of information without you actually having to do it live. This also allows you to call your prospects back at a time that is convenient for you. Also when you call them back you can be more prepared with a script or whatever you need to feel comfortable right in front of you.

The con’s of sending them to voicemail:

People might be put off that you are sending them to a machine instead of speaking to them live. Another reason is that they may be calling multiple people and if you don’t answer but someone else does they might end up signing up with the other person.

The choice of what to do with your prospects is really up to you. I hope you found this article helpful and that you make the best choice for your business. If you still don’t know what is best try out both methods for a short period of time and see what gets you the best results. Good luck to you and your business!

Home Based Business Success: Stop Throwing Your Money Away On Leads!

Laura Hand — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:25:07 +0000

If you’ve been involved in a home based business for any significant length of time, chances are you’ve spent money buying leads. With all the tools available to a home business owner today, there is absolutely no reason to spend money on lead lists ever again! It’s just simply a waste of money and here is why.

If you could have 1000 prospects who might be interested in your business or 5 prospects who definitely were interested in your business, which would be more valuable to you? If you said the 1000 prospects, you’d be dead wrong!

When looking for people to join your home based business, the people who are “ready to buy” are always better than the ones who are “just looking”. When you call a long list of leads, you can be sure that almost all of them are just looking. Sure maybe some of them are serious about it but most of them are probably just kicking tires. That means you have to go through a lot of people just to find the few that are interested.

So what’s the solution? Well, instead of contacting a ton of people who might be interested, why not just get the people who are interested to contact you? That means you’re only spending your time talking to people who are already interested in working with you.

Besides the time and money you’ll be saving, having people contact you gives you the upper hand in your home based business. You see, people’s posture is completely different when they call you vs. when you call them.

When you call a prospect, they are usually grumpy or annoyed or make you feel like you’re wasting their time. However, when they call you it’s a whole different ball game.

So how do you get people to pick up the phone and call you? Easy, with internet marketing.

The internet is a truly amazing tool that is changing the way home businesses are run all over the world. If you have yet to discover the power of the internet, then it’s time to learn!

When you market properly on the internet, you are able to find more people from all over who want what you have without actually having to talk to any of them. They find you, they get the information and then they call you when they are ready (or very close) to getting started!

People who know how to use the power of the internet will never go back to traditional forms of marketing… it’s just not worth it!

Find someone who can teach you how to marketing your business online and you’ve found the key to huge success working from home! So stop wasting time, money and energy on leads and start changing your business in 2009 with the power of internet marketing!

CLICK BELOW TO SEE HOW YOU CAN MARKET ONLINE FOR FREE

Is your MLM company living in ancient times?

Laura Hand — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:54:18 +0000

There is nothing like a network marketing company to help you live the life of your dreams. However, if you want to get the most success possible in the shortest amount of time, you’re going to have to jump out of the stone age that most companies are living in and start living in the age of internet marketing!

All companies mean well and want their business owners to succeed, but in the decades from the birth of MLM until now they really haven’t changed much at all.

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, right? Make a list, talk to your friends, buy leads, call leads, use the 3 foot rule, etc. Now maybe these methods worked a long time ago but today there are so many more and interesting ways to market your business, that it makes these methods look just plain archaic.

The internet age is here and it’s not going anywhere! If you’re not familiar with internet marketing, now is the time to get familiar because once you do your MLM business will never be the same.

In fact many MLM business owners don’t even feel the need to go to their weekly local meetings anymore, instead they opt for conference calls or webinars to get their information in the comfort of their own homes!

If your MLM business is one of the many that are still living in the stone age don’t worry. You can still have a lot of success with that particular company just know that there are other methods out there that you can employ, even if your company doesn’t necessarily promote them.

There are teams of people popping up in different companies that are dedicated to marketing 100% online. So if you have yet to join a company, you should look into finding a team of people who can teach you all about the wonders of internet marketing.

If you are unable to find a team within your chosen company that will teach you how to market online, you can still find a wealth of information on the internet. Many leaders have created products and there are free resources to help people learn how to build their MLM business using internet marketing.

If you want to bring your business into the new millennium, don’t let anything stop you! Once you start building your business online, you will never want to do anything else ever again. Marketing on the internet truly is the best way to build your home based business!

Online marketing pitfalls: Avoiding these time wasters at all costs!

Laura Hand — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:22:05 +0000

If you’re a fan of Internet Marketing congratulations, there truly is nothing like the internet to help you grow your home based business business and reach your goals even faster.

However, if you’re going to spend several hours a day on internet marketing, you’ll want to look out for these time wasters so that you’re getting the most of your time online.

Time Waster: Browsing videos

I love video marketing and I highly, highly recommend it for anyone who is involved in a home based business. However, try not to get sucked into watching videos online instead of actually publishing your own. I’m sure that every single online marketer has been guilty of this at least once or twice. You’re on YouTube or Revver or any other free video site and you see one video that peaks your interest. Then another video pops up and you watch that one, then another and then another.

I know watching videos is fun but it’s not going to help your home business so get in, upload and edit your videos and get out.

Time Waster: Chatting on forums

Marketing on forums is another great way to get people interested in your business or product. Just don’t spend all day talking on forums when you could be doing other forms of marketing. Trust me, it’s easy to let time get out of your hands when on a forum. Try setting a timer or an alarm for Twenty or Thirty minutes; only allowing yourself that much time per day to market on forums. This will stop you from chatting on forums all day and allow you to get more done.

Time Waster: Spending too much time on a blog

Look, you’re not writing for the New York Times so don’t spend forever trying to come up with the perfect blog post. Just keep it simple and never spend more than 10 – 15 minutes a day updating your blog– It doesn’t have to be perfect!

Time Waster: Organizing

It’s good to be organized, but let’s be honest- organizing your home office or your desktop on your computer can hardly be called internet marketing. Try getting all that out of the way beforehand and spend your time marketing doing just that- marketing. A prospect doesn’t care if your file cabinet is neat and tidy.

Stay away from these easy to avoid time wasters and you’ll be getting the most out of your marketing time and best of all success will be right around the corner!

MLM: Should I attend local meetings?

Laura Hand — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:48:48 +0000

No matter what multi-level marketing company you’re part of, chances are there is some sort of local meeting system set up to help you succeed. However, with the introduction of the internet and online marketing, fewer and fewer people are willing to get dressed up and go to their local meetings every week. So the question is, should you?

In the old days of MLM, everyone went to local meetings, well at least everyone who was successful. However, today that’s just not so. Internet marketers are popping up in almost every company and these master marketers often shy away from the traditional meeting system and opt for conference calls or webinars.

I believe the question of whether to go to your local meetings or not is a personal thing and it really comes down to how you plan on marketing your business.

If you are the type of person who prefers to marketing locally and in the 3D realm (i.e. passing out flyers or using the 3-foot rule) meetings might be very beneficial for you. The type of people who prefer these type of methods are usually very outgoing people, the type of people who could sell ice to an Eskimo.

However, if you prefer to marketing online through social networking sites, articles, blogs, videos or pod casts, then local meetings might now be the best option for you. After all, you could be dealing with people from all over the country or the world, in some cases.

If you are an internet marketer but you still enjoy going to meetings for motivation or just to talk to your peers, then by all means do it! However, don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t be successful if you don’t plug into a meeting system. It’s just not for everyone.

The final thing to ask yourself when deciding if you should go to your local meetings or not is, “How good are my meetings”. For many people who are new to a multi-level marketing business, sending their prospects to a great meeting can be really helpful. This is because they don’t have to say anything, they just let the meeting do the selling for them. However, if your meetings system isn’t strong, it can sometimes do more harm than good. So really think about it before you send a valued prospect there because you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

The choice of going to meetings or not is a personal one. I hope that you will do what is best for you and your MLM business.

Marketing your business: Avoid Puking on your Prospect!

Laura Hand — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:58:34 +0000

In the movie “Mean Girls” starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams the main character Cady talks about something called “word vomit”. That’s when you start saying things that you really don’t need to be saying but you can’t help it.

So what on earth does that have to do with your home based business? Well I believe that when almost all new home based business owners are talking to people about their business, they have a severe case of “word vomit”.

It’s really not your fault, you actually think you’re doing the right thing. After all, if someone wants to know about your home based business you should give them as much information as possible right? Wrong.

When talking to someone about your home based business opportunity, less is always, always, always more. This is not to say that you should keep important information a secret or act like you’re ashamed of your business. Does a prospect need to know the type of business you’re in? Yes. Do they need to know what they’ll be doing if they become involved? Yes. Do they need to know how much money they make on their 3rd level? NO!

I know that it’s super easy to get excited about your new business but don’t say too much and risk overwhelming a prospect.

Try to answer only the questions that you are asked in an honest and professional way without giving people too many details that they don’t need.

This is especially true when it comes to internet marketing. I can’t tell you how many times I see people advertising their home based business and giving way too many details. Think about the way big fortune 500 companies advertise. They talk about their product, service, store whatever and then stop. They don’t tell you the starting salary for their employees, the directions to get to their nearest location and the name of the college their CEO when to school. It’s just too much information!

Are you starting to see what I’m saying? Less really is more when it comes to your home based business! So the next time you’re talking to someone about your business remember to:

- Answer the questions they ask you honestly and then stop
- Don’t get bogged down in the little details
- Don’t assume prospects want to know something wait for them to ask

Follow these tips and avoid the “word vomit” that can kill your business.