How to use social media to promote a network marketing business (Forever Living, Green World, Phyto Science, AIM Global etc ?

 


Are you one of multi level or network marketing entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe and Africa affiliated to companies like Forever Living, AIM Global, Green World, PhytoScience, Fortune, Super Life, Avon etc who are struggling to use in their network marketing businesses powerful and game changing technologies like Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter and LinkedIn ? 

This can cause you to leg behind, have poor sales, recruit less and indeed fail to achieve your goals like investing into a stand or car of your dreams. Fortunately, this blog post is going to help you out so that you plug knowledge gaps, perform better, sell more and eventually realize your dreams.


Last time I checked Facebook alone had over 2.7 billion active users. This means you have access to a vast market from the comfort of your home. Social media has gotten a lot of importance in recent years because of the emergency of Covid 19 lockdowns that prohibited physical movement of people. Considering that social media marketing doesn’t have printing expenses you will be able to run campaigns at low costs and this will in turn lead to higher profits.

Here are other important considerations;

(1) Audience

Online marketing – infinite

With digital media the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks  can  help you to literally ensure that someone across the world sees the AD depending with how you target it .

Offline marketing – limited

Geographically speaking only people who drive past the bill board will be affected by it.

(2) Targeting

Online marketing – specific

Social media help you with buyer persona so that you are able to target the right audience.

Offline marketing – approximate

You can’t really determine who is to see the bill board but estimate based on e.g how affluent or not is the area .

(3) Customer interaction

Online marketing – feedback

Social media gives customers a voice and allows interaction which is something valuable because it helps to mold your campaign making it more customer centric.

Offline marketing – delayed communication

If your customers don’t like the AD they can’t tell you through the bill board but they have to put a lot of effort in contacting you or they just stop buying your product.

Common benefits of social media – Social proof

Social proof isn’t new to social media. It happens when we influence our friends to buy certain products that we recommend to them. The implementation of this powerful concept online is facilitated by such tools as likes and follow buttons. The likes and followers on your brand helps to influence others into eventually becoming your customers. Even online humans when they see others doing something they are usually influenced to do it as well. This is the power of social proof.

So that social media marketing is important is not a dispute. What you only need to do now is figuring out how to tap into the billions of people on the networks. So keep reading because Iam going to teach you how to.

But before I do that let me introduce myself first. Iam Cain Ndhlovu the founder of Sunrise Digital Marketing Agency in Harare, creator of a free online training titled From ConceptTo Profit: A New Product Digital Marketing Blueprint, a blogger and I help startups and entrepreneurs launch new products online so that they stimulate sales, become successful and be able to live the life of their dreams.

Iam proud to teach about digital marketing because its something I learnt on my own through experience. They say life is the best teacher. You know how I got started it was after experiencing poor sales results as an estate agent. I moved from one agency to another hoping to find a change of fortune but thinks appeared like they were getting worse. I tried this, I tried that but nothing worked until a friend introduced me to a blog.

 A turning point 

The year 2014 was a turning point because I managed to attract a client who would later pay me USD 1 000.00 commission after she read a blog article titled;

 Financial consequences of purchasing property from a seriously-ill seller and other purchases to avoid ”.

 

This article resonated with the lady because she had purchased a Harare house in Msasa from a seriously ill seller. There was an outstanding balance. She decided to clear the balance by selling a piece of land in Madokero.

I was very excited about this. I continued to build my knowledge of a blog. I got better and better until I begun getting clients who would want me do digital marketing on their behalf.

In my years of learning about digital marketing I discovered that social media has a certain way of doing things you have to follow to be successful. Simply put it has rules. Many people fail to get results from these digital platforms because they do not follow the rules. To follow the rules you need to know them first. Fortunately these are what Iam going to share with you below.

(1) Relevancy (know your audience)

Relevancy is all about knowing your audience which is your ideal customer. Your ideal customer is that person who has purchased something from you. A person asking for prices or expressing some interest is not your ideal customer but is called a prospective customer.

It is important to know the difference between the two. You should create a detailed description of your ideal customer and this description is called a buyer persona. Amongst many other things a detailed knowledge about the buyer persona will help you know about the social channels your ideal customer hang out on. Is it Facebook ? Is it LinkedIn ? Is it both ? Is it something else ? This knowledge advises you to launch your marketing only on those platforms where your customers can be found.

Some customers are business people who prefer business oriented sites like LinkedIn more than social oriented ones like Facebook. In fact you may never find some of these people on Facebook despite its popularity. This is your customer’s choice and it dictate your marketing. You will now have to focus on LinkedIn for example and don’t worst time on Facebook because you will not find even a single buyer there.(Or vice versa)

So this is what the issue of relevance and knowing your audience is all about. Please know your ideal customer or audience first so that you create a relevant campaign that will reach your customer where they are, resonate with them and translate into sales.

 (2) Consistency

Consistency revolves around the concept of content marketing. Content marketing dictates that before asking a client to buy you should give them value first. This helps to educate the prospective customer about your product especially in terms of benefits and preemptively addressing objections. Two of the key reasons why people do not buy.

Free value or content that you share ranges from e-books to videos. In my free training From Concept To Profit : A New Product Digital Marketing Blueprint I teach how to create these e-books and do content marketing. If you are interested click here to register.

This content is shared on social media and email. It should be of high quality and should be done consistently. High quality demonstrate that you are not a second-rate outfit and consistency builds expectancy. People should build the habit to look forward to your content. Not every piece of content you share will resonate with a customer but he may find one that resonate in the future. This is expectancy and you satisfy it by sharing free content consistently.

(3) Timeliness

What ever you share on social media in the name of marketing requires that you do it only during times when most people are online. For example you cant share content at 2 am in the morning when everybody is asleep. You must  know the times when your target audience is online. The times people go online differs for example with time zones. If your customer is in another part of the globe its probably midnight there when its day light where you are. Some people are busy with work certain times of the day and even if they are active social network members on Twitter or Whatsapp they are not available when busy. You must know all about this so that you know the right time to post content so that you get engagement.

Common Mistakes

(1) Selling without sharing value first

On social media people are there to be educated and connect with friends not to be sold unto. It is therefore, wrong to initially think of your connections as a vast market ready for immediately exploitation. I strongly advise that you consider being tactful in your approach. The best tactic known so far is the one I have already talked about which is sharing value first before selling.

Create or find educational and relevant materials like e-books, videos, blog posts etc that your audience can consume, enjoy and benefit from. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs bombard their network with product catalogues and similar sales material without first giving value. This is a serious error.  

If writing is your calling then you can consider setting up your own blog from which you share articles thereby fulfilling the principle of sharing value first before selling. My free training From Concept To Profit : A New Product Digital Marketing Blueprint also teaches how to create a free blog using Blogger. If you are interested please click here to register.

(2) Zero conversion

Selling is process in which leads are converted to customers. You must bear this in mind when you are promoting your products on social channels so that you give due attention to conversion in your efforts.

To do this there should be a link within your campaigns so that people are directed to an opt in page. An opt in page is a digital marketing tool specifically designed for conversion. Sometimes it is called a lead capture page, sometimes its called a squeeze page its still the same thing its an opt in page. It’s a page where your website visitors see a promise that says “Hey enter your name and e-mail right here and you are going to get access to this free thing.”

An opt in page helps you pre-qualify leads so that you create a mailing list with only those people who are likely to buy from you. People think to close you need to be manipulative but the truth is to close you need to close first by having an opt in page in your digital marketing.

Many sales people waste time with bad prospects whilst good prospects passes by. You can effectively deal with the problem of time wasters by creating an opt in page.

(3) Traditional marketing mindset

Traditional marketing is about trying to sell to everyone hoping to find success through numbers. When it comes to digital marketing this mindset does not apply because you need only those people who can convert to customers. Its important to first purge the traditional marketing mindset when you are using digital platforms for the promotion of your business in order to succeed.

(4)  Having unrealistic expectations

Sometimes this is caused by the assumption that online initiatives have overnight results. Yes there are cases of exceptional success but these are rare at best. If you are wise you don’t base strategy on exception but on the rule. That rule is online success is built upon hard work and patience.

Conclusion

This article has touched on various terms like blogs, an opt in page, mailing lists, e-books which might be knew to you. Maybe you have heard about them but you do not know how to create them in order to have a digital marketing campaign that has a positive impact. So how do you create them ? If you want a more detailed understanding about these various aspects of digital marketing you can register for my free training titled From Concept To Profit : A New Product Digital Marketing Blueprint .

Course Details

Tuition   =   Free

Method of delivery = E-Mail

Number of courses = x3 PDFs

Duration  = Each PDF Is Less 45 mins read

 

To register click register below.

 

REGISTER

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This site is made available for educational purposes only as well as to give you general information and a general understanding of issues herein covered, not to provide specific advice. Its content should not be used as a substitute for competent advice from licensed practitioners.