Hi everyone,

Frequent readers of this blog know that my company was featured in Success from Home magazine in October 2008.  I’ve written about marketing ideas for the magazine several times in the past: See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

One of the marketing ideas I had was to create a lead capture page offering free copies of Success from Home as a way to generate prospects for my business.  I’d send them the issue featuring my magazine.  I’d be building my “list” and I’d be able to show off the magazine which offers me a ton of credibility.

At first it looked like this would be really successful.  I almost immediately began to get prospects for my business.  Unfortunately many of them were not qualified.  I ran into quite a few problems:

1. People looking for the magazine featuring their company, not mine.  They thought they could simply request free copies from me.  They didn’t even bother to read the web page that clearly said they were ordering copies of the October 2008 issue featuring my company.
2. People who just wanted to get a free copy of a magazine but weren’t interested in the business.
3. People who were already talking to someone else in my business, but the time my follow up system kicked in they had joined someone else!

As you can see there have been quite a few obstacles.  Several times I’ve run into people that were already talking to someone else in my company.  By the time the magazine and follow up cards reached them… and by the time my email and phone call follow up system is in place they’re signed up.

Not to mention the people who are requesting copies of the magazine from other companies.  Many of them didn’t bother to tell me that. So I wasted $8 on each of those.

Needless to say I have decided to stop leading with free copies of the magazine. I’d rather lead with something else like the free Robert Kiyosaki CD.  That CD is free for me to send them, they just pay for shipping and because I have referred more than 3 people, I’m getting my stuff for free. This helps me qualify the prospect and even if they have another business perhaps they’ll want to join the free Richdad CD through me…

I’m going to keep leading with the free cd for awhile and see if my results get any better than leading with Success from Home magazine.

As always I’ll keep you posted of my success.

- Ben

MLM Training > marketing ideas

My sister sent me this list.  She was worried about gift cards at the holidays…

BUT it got me thinking… Look at all these people out of work.

Not just retail employees but also the managers and people who run the stores, run the districts, buy the products, create the artwork and sales materials, etc.

1. Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
2. Ann Taylor 117 stores nationwide closing
3. Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide
4. Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
5. Cache will close all stores
6. Talbots closing down specialty stores
7. J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots) Pacific Sunwear (also owned
by Talbots)
8. GAP closing 85 stores
9. Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
10.Wickes Furniture closing down
11. Levitz closing down remaining stores
12. Bombay closing remaining stores
13. Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
14. Whitehall closing all stores
15. Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
16. Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
17. Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
18. Macys to close 9 stores after January
19. Linens and Things closing all stores
20. Movie Galley Closing all stores
21. Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
22. Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
23. JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
24. Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
25. Wilson Leather closing down all stores
26. Sharper Image closing down all stores
27. K B Toys closing 356 stores
28. Lowes to close down some stores
29. Dillard’s to close some stores

I just heard today that Bitten is also closing all stores.

How could you reach out to these people? Could you advertise for them?  Could you go to facebook or other social networking sites and look for disenfranchised employees?

How can you use the economic downturn to help you grow your business AND help these people who need to replace their income?

- Ben Fitts

MLM Training > marketing ideas

Hi everyone,

I wanted to follow up with you to give you a status report on using Success from Home magazine to market my business.

As you know my company was featured in the October 2008 issue of Success from Home.  We’ve had copies available since mid August.  So we immediately started promoting them.  You can see previous discussions here and here.

One of the things I did was I created a simple lead capture page to promote free copies of Success from Home magazine.

So far I’ve had 13 requests for the magazine.

3 were requests from Mona Vie distributors that were confused.  They thought they could order any issue. One was from a prepaid rep that was confused.

9 legitimate requests have so far lead to 1 new customer and 1 distributor.

My cost for sending out those 9 copies was $72.  My commissions from the new customer and distributor have been so far $231.  This means I’m making a profit of $159 so far.

I have NOT promoted this other than mentioning it on my blog, in one forum, and putting it on my web site.  I think the next step is to promote it via PPC and see what happens. Also I am going to make this lead capture page available to everyone on my team for them to use in promoting the magazine as well.

Pretty cool, right? Have you guys come up with any new methods to market Success from Home magazine for your businesses?

- Ben

Click here to request your copy of October 2008 issue of Success from Home magazine featuring our custom greeting card company and 5 members of my team.

MLM Training > marketing ideas

Last week I wrote about how our company was featured in the October 2008 issue of Success from Home magazine. (click here to read that article).

I’ve been working on ideas and have been using the magazine myself for the past couple of weeks. (The magazine came out in September even though the “cover” says October.)

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing:

1. I found the magazine was on bookshelves in Barnes and Noble bookstores. Since I live in a heavily populated part of the country I’ve been traveling to the bookstores to place my business cards inside. These are my standard company card with the company logo on them. That way if someone buys a copy and wants to talk to someone they have my info and don’t have to call the company directly!

So far I’ve been to 8 Barnes and Nobles and found 30 copies of the magazine on the bookshelf. That’s a little less than 4 per store. One store actually had zero copies left and a couple had 9 or 10. Most had 2 or 3. I put a few business cards in other “business opportunity” related magazines as well while I was there and sometimes books like 4 Hour Work Week, Rich Dad Poor Dad, etc. Sizzle cards would probably have worked better in those magazines.

2. I gave several copies to friends and family. Some of my family wants to help in the business but don’t know how. They aren’t distributors and they don’t know MLM so they have a tendancy to try and talk to much. The great thing about the magazine is they can help just by passing them out. They don’t need to know anything!

3. I gave copies to all my front line distributors to make sure they were aware of this great resource/tool.

4. I gave copies to several of my hot prospects that were sitting on the fence and trying to decide what to do.

5. I got “packing list enclosed” envelopes from the office supply store and used them to put my business cards in the front of some magazines. I put labels on the outside and am leaving them at places like doctor’s offices.

Some other people gave some great feedback on how to market the Success from Home magazine.

• Ask people to read a specific article and look at a specific distributor spotlight. Preferably someone from your team.
• Ask one of those companies that passes out the real estate newspapers in grocery stores if they’d be willing to distributor your magazine. (I haven’t done this yet but am going to try it.)
• Run advertisements specific to the magazine. Call those prospects FIRST to find out if they are qualified. Then send them a copy of the magazine.

Pretty much everyone has said just leaving them around is not very effective or just sending them to people without pre-qualifying them.

If you have more ideas I’d love to hear them!

Thanks for sharing!
- Ben Fitts
PS. Click here if you want to request a copy of the magazine featuring my company (and 5 members of my downline including one I personally sposnored?)

MLM Training > marketing ideas

My company was featured in the October 2008 issue of Success from Home magazine. (that actually means the issue that hits newsstands in September)

I know MANY of you are involved in companies that have been featured in the past.  Usana, ACN, Prepaid Legal, Zrii, Nouveau Riche, YTB, and many other companies have previously been featured.

I wanted to discuss some ideas.  How have you used the magazine to promote your business?  Obviously getting it into the hands of existing prospects so  you get the credibility boost of being featured in a magazine.  BUT What else have you done?  What innovative techniques have you used to promote it?

Leave a comment and let me know.

I’ll discuss some of my ideas and strategies I’ve been using in one of next week’s blog posts.

- Ben Fitts

PS. Click here if you want to request a copy of the magazine featuring my company (and 5 members of my downline including one I personally sposnored?)

MLM Training > marketing ideas