See Factor #1

Factor #2: Automatic Lead Generation + Follow-Up

The most time-consuming part of any business is in the process of collecting leads and following up with them.  In off-line marketing, you are forced to do this manually (e.g., returning phone calls, meeting one-on-one, etc.). It is a lot to manage and you’re forced to make your presentation over and over again.  In on-line marketing, this is a thing of the past.  By setting up your own web site and e-mail ‘opt-in’ list and using a magic tool called an ‘autoresponder’ that can collect leads directly from your web site, and follow-up with them by e-mail automatically, you take the pain of lead generation and follow-up out of the business.

If you’re already familiar with autoresponders, you can skip ahead a few paragraphs. If this is totally new to you, though, read on…

Have you ever sent an e-mail to someone and, in a few minutes, gotten back one of those: “I am currently out of the office” type replies? You can tell right away that the recipient didn’t type this e-mail to you personally. It is a pre-written message they created before “stepping out of the office”, and they set their e-mail account to send this “auto-reply” to everyone who sends e-mail to that address.

This is an autoresponder at its most basic.

The type of autoresponder services available today (and these are the kind you’ll want to use) are far more advanced and can be used to manage full-fledged mailing lists.  I recommend you check out GetResponse, as its a prime example of the type of advanced autoresponder we’re talking about here.

What Can You Do With An Autoresponder?

Well, as the name suggests, your autoresponder will play a starring role in automating most of your business.  Your autoresponder will handle the subscription requests from visitors who want to opt-in to your e-mail list. It will also manage your follow-up e-mails.

The follow-up e-mails are the most important part in this equation.

Just think for a moment about everything you need to convey to your prospects when marketing an MLM off-line. You’ve got to tell them about the opportunity, about the company, about the payment structure, about the products and you’ve got to do it persuasively in a short amount of time.

Now, imagine if you had a captive audience? And imagine if you had as much time as you needed to explain the opportunity in detail?  Well, that’s exactly what you get when you create an autoresponder series.  An autoresponder series is just a collection of pre-written e-mails. You store each of these e-mails as separate messages in your autoresponder. You can then schedule these messages to be sent out however and whenever you want.

Let’s say you want to tell your prospects about your MLM program over the course of 7 days. No problem! All you have to do is create 7 messages – one for each day – and tell your autoresponder to delay each message one day relative to the previous.

A sample series done this way might look like the following::

Day 0/1 (Send immediately upon subscription):

Subject: Thank You! Here’s the information you requested about MLM….

Day 2:

Subject: How Much Can You Earn with XYZ MLM?

Day 3:

Subject: A Success Story from One of XYZ’s members…..

And so on, and so forth or until you’ve covered everything you think you need to cover in order to sell your prospects on the program.

Ideally, you’ll be working in a program that allows you to refer people to the company’s web site using a unique referral link to credit you with sales and sign-ups of new downline members.  If that’s not the case with the program you’re in, you can still include the necessary referral information in each message – be it a telephone number, a physical address, etc.

After that, it’s pretty much smooth sailing. You only need to write your series once, load it into the program and you’re all set. All the work is done upfront, and after that – ’set it and forget it’. All of your carefully crafted sales material will go out like clockwork to each new lead who joins your list, and you don’t have to lift a finger.  Meanwhile, you can spend your time on generating additional traffic and leads, or even setting up a second web site for a new program.