Do you ever feel like you’re stuck on a deserted island when it comes to growing your direct sales business?
How exactly do you grow a direct sales business if you have a small circle?
Is it really possible to build a network marketing business quickly when there is no one around?
Maybe you’ve already burnt through your warm market of friends and family, or you live in a small town where there just aren’t enough potential customers or team members.
How network marketers feel after prospecting all of their friends and family and having no one left...
Or maybe those you know just don’t have extra room in their budget to buy your product, as awesome as it may be.
Sure, you could do what some direct sellers do and drive two hours to the largest city nearby to sell and recruit, or spam strangers on social media…
But what if you don’t want to constantly be leaving your family, or if recruiting in general makes you feel icky?
How To Succeed In Network Marketing Fast
The good news is that there is a MUCH better way to grow your business…
And it can be done without leaving home, or selling your soul to become a human-spam-bot online.
But before I tackle what this amazing strategy is, let’s contemplate a hypothetical scenario together...
Imagine waking up tomorrow and discovering you are now a millionaire.
You would probably think that you were still dreaming.
After all…
There is no such thing as an overnight success. And anything that promises you that you can get rich quick is a scam…
Right?
Well that is generally true, but there are exceptions:
- 1Winning the lottery
- 2Influencer Marketing
The lottery we’re all familiar with, but what is influencer marketing?
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Well, influencer marketing is the brilliant strategy I was referring to in the beginning.
I’ll get to what exactly it is in a second, but let’s get back to our waking-up-as-a-millionaire-overnight thought experiment.
This is entirely possible…
If you can go back in time and somehow manage to get on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Her endorsements were so powerful that a term was coined to describe the profound boost in sales that followed a recommendation from her:
What made her endorsements so powerful were not just the sheer size of her audience, but also the fact that she chose to feature products she was genuinely interested in and loved recommending.
This is the power of Influencer Marketing
According to InfluencerMarketingHub.com, Influencer Marketing,
“is like a hybrid of old and new marketing tools, taking the idea of the celebrity endorsement and placing it into a modern day content-driven marketing campaign. The main difference is that the results of the campaign are usually collaborations between brands and influencers.”If you want to see some notable examples of influencer marketing, check out this post by hubspot.
Now you may be thinking…
“But I could never get someone like Oprah to promote my products!”And you’d probably be right.
Most people have the idea that Influencer Marketing involves getting some Instagram or YouTube celebrity to create a post or make a casual remark about their product in order to generate sales.
As a result, Influencer Marketing seems far too unobtainable to even bother trying.
But what if you could just tap into a small fraction of the Oprah Effect? Would it be worth it? Definitely!
Influencer Marketing Is Accessible!
I’m here to tell you that Influencer Marketing is VERY much something you can implement NOW to grow your business, especially if you’re small and just starting out.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Influencer Marketing is the ultimate network marketing strategy for beginners!
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that Influencer Marketing is the ultimate network marketing strategy for beginners! #InfluencerMarketing #NetworkMarketing
I implemented Influencer Marketing when I was just starting out in direct sales, and used it exclusively to build a team of over 7,000 members.
You may not become an overnight millionaire, but it can generate you leads and sales if you’re willing to put in the work and be persistent.
If you’re ready, let’s dive into how to get started with Influencer Marketing, and exponentially expand your network, even if you have a small circle.
1. Know Your Avatar
Since you probably have a small network like I did when I started, you’re going to have be a little bit more strategic with your influencer marketing.
Large companies can afford to spend bucket-loads on getting celebrities to endorse their products to the masses, but you and I can’t.
Therefore, we’re not going to be able to reach the masses, but that’s okay. We don’t want to, anyway!
After all, no matter how much you think your product is for everyone, it’s not.
So instead of trying to sell our products to EVERYONE, we want to focus on ONLY a small niche of people who are going to be the MOST LIKELY to buy.
This is what marketers call your “Target Audience”.
However, what is even MORE powerful is drilling down even deeper and creating a “Customer Avatar”.
CLICK HERE to download the Avatar Worksheet
Your customer avatar is one person (real or fictitious) who represents your entire target audience as a whole.
In other words, it’s taking your entire target audience and melting it down into one person, whom you give a name, age, interests, etc. that match what the majority of your target audience would have.
Most importantly, you zero in on what the pains, struggles, and desires of your avatar are.
Once you have a clear picture of who your customer avatar is, it becomes much easier to find out where they are hanging out online…
And what influencers they are following!
This step is SUPER key. If you don’t get this foundation set, then you’ll probably struggle with influencer marketing.
But we know that creating a customer avatar can be a little tricky, so we put together a free guide to help you out which you can download here.
Once you have your avatar figured out, it’s time to go find the influencers they trust.
2. Identify The Influencers Your Avatar Trusts
Who do your ideal customers know, like, and trust? Start with yourself!
What blogs do you follow, what social media personalities do you trust, what books do you read?
From here, you're going to have to do a little...
- Market Research -
Look up your current customers and/or team members on Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram.
What can you learn about their likes, who they follow, and what else they are interested in?
From here, you want to identify TRENDS. What interests or influencers do they have in common?
Once you've identified some trends, you can go and look for influencers that cater to those niches.
Note: If you don't have any customers yet, that's totally fine! Just think about who you DO know that would be your ideal customer, or even fellow team members in your company, and research them!
For more help with researching your ideal audience, check out this post.
Influencer Marketing Secret #1
Don't necessarily look for the most obviously related topics to your products.
For example, if you were selling hair accessories, you might think someone in the fashion world might be the best influencer to reach out to, but this might not be the case!
My avatar is a busy homeschooling mom, who doesn't have the time to follow the influencers who teach how to do elaborate, trendy hairstyles.
They just want a quick way to do their hair in the morning, and yet still look pretty and put together.
My avatar would be hanging out on mom blogs, or homeschooling blogs, and other weird, unrelated niches that I found...such as cat blogs.
So you might want to start with the obvious, but don't stay there.
Really do your market research, and think of it like a game, because this can actually be a ton of fun!
By doing your research, you can find some very interesting, and unexpected, threads that tie your customers together.
3. Research & Evaluate The Influencers
Once you've identified some influencers your avatar follows, you now need to evaluate them to see if they would be effective influencers to work with.
For example, as a general rule, you wouldn't want to work with someone who is too small, because it can be difficult to get any sales if they just don't have the audience size.
On the other hand, you also don't necessarily want an influencer with a gigantic audience either.
This is because there is a law of diminishing returns where, at a certain point, the influencer doesn't have the same connection with their audience as a smaller influencer would.
So you want to look for that sweet spot, or "Goldilocks Zone." For a blog this is usually between about 60,000 and 600,000 page views per month.
Now, that's just a rule of thumb that worked for me, but that might not necessarily be the case for you.
There are no hard and fast rules here, so you really have to do your research, and experiment as well.
So how do you get the stats to begin to evaluate the potential influencers you'd like to collaborate with?
Some influencers will have a media kit on their website where you can see their stats at a glance.
Or, you might have to send them an email and ask for it.
However, the influencer's stats are just a starting point.
"Monthly page views" is the statistic most everyone starts with to assess a particular website or blog, but there are other stats that will help you refine your evaluation and hone in on the influencers who will offer the most potential, such as unique pageviews, social media followers, and demographics.
BUT... A much bigger key to a particular influencer's potential is ENGAGEMENT.
Engagement trumps numbers anyday.
So you can get away with partnering with an influencer with a smaller audience if they have a really engaged and loyal following.
If you need help finding the ideal influencers who can sell your products for you, then check out my course where I show you exactly what I do to find influencers, step-by-step.
Free Online Marketing Quickstart Guide
Discover how to get hundreds of leads for your network marketing business, increase sales and grow your team online without social media, Facebook parties, messaging strangers, or bugging friends and family.
4. Connect With Those Who Make The Cut
In years past, it was really easy to send an email to an influencer and get a response...
But today, everything has grown so much that a lot of influencers are flooded with so many inquiries that they may not even respond back.
So...
Influencer Marketing Secret #2
The secret to getting an influencer to respond back to your inquiry is to build a relationship with them first.
That might sound kinda scary, and difficult at first, but it really isn't.
Here are some ideas for establishing that relationship:
This way, they get to know your name, and you're a little bit more familiar to them, so when you do contact them, you're not really starting a conversation from scratch.
You already have that connection, and you're much more likely to get a response.
To get more responses to your influencer inquires, establish a relationship first!
5. Collaborate with the influencers to open the door to your avatar
There are many different ways to collaborate with influencers, such as Facebook Live interviews, creating content for each other's platforms, and much more.
However, one of the best ways (and the way I got started) is running a "Review & Giveaway". The way this works is...
1
You send the influencer one or two of your products, ideally from your company's flagship/most popular product line.
2
Have her try it out, but make sure you give her clear instructions on how to use your product if it isn't obvious.
3
If your company has a great product, and you've picked the right niche, then the influencer should fall in love with it. You really want the influencer to love it, as then she will gush about it to her followers!
4
From there, the influencer would set up a Review & Giveaway for you on her blog or other social media platform, and it's just what it sounds like.
5
She reviews the product, gushing about how much she loves it, and why her audience should definitely give it a try.
In the post, the influencer also mentions that you're giving away some product for free, and the influencer's readers can enter to win.
Having a giveaway tied to the review is going to make people pay much more attention, since everyone wants to win something, whereas not everyone is interested in a product review.
- Grant Extra Entries To Encourage Sharing -
When you run the giveaway, you'll give entrants the ability to increase their total number of entries by doing things such as:
Of course, the most important thing you want is a way to build a relationship with entrants, even after the giveaway is over.
So no matter what you do...
Influencer Marketing Secret #3
Always, always, ALWAYS capture the contact information of those who enter your giveaways.
And here, "contact information" means EMAIL at the very least.
This is essential to get WAY more value out of your giveaways, because you are able to follow up with those who enter to generate sales long after the giveaway ends.
The #2 thing you'd like to have entrants do, is join your VIP Facebook group (if you have one), since this allows you to build a relationship as well.
But #1, by a long shot, is getting their email address.
Now when we run giveaways, we ALWAYS get the email addresses of those who enter, and this allows us to stay in the forefront of their minds.
This is key because people generally aren't ready to buy your product the first time they hear about it, even if it's being endorsed by someone they know, like, and trust, like the influencer.
Being on your email list allows them to get to know you better, hear more about your product, and not just forget about you after the giveaway ends.
The fortune is in the follow-up!
The easiest method we have found so far for capturing email addresses and running giveaways is by using the viral platform Upviral (affiliate), but KingSumo is also a great free option as well.
They both incentivize sharing, so that the most people possible see your giveaway and learn about your product.
If you are just starting out and not ready for either of those options, then Google Forms is a simple way to collect emails and entries.
6. Offer A Special Deal
After the review and giveaway is over, you should have a list of very warm leads, and maybe even a few sales.
However, don’t be discouraged if you don’t get a lot of sales right away.
As you’ve probably heard a million times…
The fortune is in the follow-up.
The good news is you now have a list of people who have raised their hand and said they are interested in your product!
AND! They have given you their permission to market to them!
But the more time that passes, the less interested these hot leads will become.
Which is why it’s good to strike while the iron is hot by offering them a special deal if they buy your product within the next 1 to 2 days.
Maybe this could be a rebate, or free shipping, or a BOGO offer.
You’ll have to experiment with this, and of course, always follow the rules of your specific company.
Offering a special time-limited deal right after the giveaway ends is a great way generate some sales with that “urgency to buy” while your product is fresh in the minds of your new leads.
But the follow-up doesn’t end there!
You’re going to want to consistently deliver valuable content to your list (or VIP Facebook group.)
And this doesn’t mean spamming them about your product!
Remember, these people fit the profile of your customer avatar, so you know what their pains, struggles, and desires are!
So craft an email or group content that helps solve their problems, and moves them closer to their desires!
If you do this, they will grow to know, like, and trust you, and you’ll be on the path to becoming an influencer yourself!
If you really go all out on giving your followers value, rather than just selling all the time, then when you do mention your product or opportunity, they will be much more likely to take action.
The Hidden Treasures of Influencer Marketing
One of the coolest aspects of influencer marketing is the unforeseen and unexpected perks that will often come your way as a result of working with influencers.
They're a result of what I like to call, "The Ripple Effect".
One R&G is like dropping a stone into a pond. You're expecting a splash, but you also get ripples.
In plain English, you get bonus benefits on the side that you didn't even expect.
The more stones you're throwing into the pond, the more ripples you're going to see!
One of our Influencer Discovery Formula students, Myra, experienced this first-hand.
After completing an R&G on a collaborative author blog, she ended up being able to go out to lunch with her favorite author! Wow!
Since then, her favorite author has become a loyal lifetime customer.
How would you like to be able to meet someone you've always wanted to meet as a result of your influencer marketing?
I'm not saying you'll get to meet your favorite author...but I'm also not saying you won't.
And that brings me to one of my favorite parts of Influencer Marketing...It's an adventure!
You really don't know what you're going to run into, both good and bad.See yourself as the captain of a ship looking for buried treasure.
You're going to face unexpected obstacles. Things will go wrong. But you have to keep your eye on the treasure.
The longer you stick with it and the more action you take, the more treasures you'll find, and the more unexpected "hidden treasures" you'll discover as well.
Embrace the adventure!
Of course, a captain is only as good as her crew supporting her!
If you're looking for more support, feedback, tips, and encouragement on your Influencer voyage, then definitely grab my free Influencer Marketing Quickstart Guide!
It will give you a nice condensed version of this post that you can keep on hand, and you'll also get an invite to our supportive Facebook group
If you ever get stuck, or find your ship is stuck in the doldrums, this is the place to go to get yourself moving again! See you in the group!
Free Online Marketing Quickstart Guide
Discover how to get hundreds of leads for your network marketing business, increase sales and grow your team online without social media, Facebook parties, messaging strangers, or bugging friends and family.
This will be especially beneficial if you never want to bug friends and family, or people on social media ever again, and want to generate more sales and team members!
I hope you found this post on, How To Grow Your Network, Leads, And Sales Fast With Influencer Marketing, helpful!
Please feel free to share if you got value, and let me know in the comments below...
Which of these 6 steps would you like more help with?
Have a beautiful day!
Hi, I'm Paula Ramm
I’m a homeschooling mom of 7 (and grandma of 3!), living in the sunny state of Florida. I’ve been in direct sales for 10 years and have been blessed with a multi-million dollar revenue-generating team of almost 8,000 amazing consultants.
I love to help other ladies build their own thriving businesses from home, so they can spend more time with their families and be able to focus on the truly important things in life.
Thank you for this VALUABLE help!!! Can’t wait to implement this process!
You’re welcome! Let us know if you have any questions!
Blog on how to grow your followers and networks by doing influencer marketing is too good
thank u Digital Marketing company in mp
Blog on how to grow your network by doing influencer marketing is too good
thank u Digital Marketing company in mp
Hi, would this and the email hunting strategy work for members of big network marketing companies?
Hello Jake! Thank you for your comment.
As a general response, our courses are oriented primarily around how to go about reaching new markets/new audiences who would love the products or services you have to offer. So, the strategies taught in these courses work to the extent that members of a big network marketing company have a valuable product or service to offer a market that needs it.
With specific regard to the Stealth Marketing Formula course, stealth marketing is really just an effective way to translate what is often referred to as Influencer Marketing to direct sales and network marketing. How do we utilize and leverage what we all commonly see and experience across all industries in terms of marketing to our network marketing and direct sales businesses? That is question that Stealth Marketing Formula provides the answer to. The “recruiting” or “team-building” aspect of network marketing is part of the vision of what we do, but it is not the focus. Team-building is much more of a by-product, as the customers and influencers we collaborate with find our methods much more accessible when compared with traditional network marketing practices. These are typically people who would normally not be attracted to network marketing.
With regard to the Email Treasure Hunt course, that method originated out of a need to find a low-pressure alternative to Facebook parties. The Email Treasure Hunt course provides all the steps, checklists, and scripts to quickly set up and execute what are essentially email-based vehicles to identify and inform/educate those interested in your product or service so that they have all the information they need to know why your particular product or service is something that want and are ready to buy. And because it is an adaptation of Facebook parties and other forms of that particular direct sales model, we also view it as a bridge to online Influencer Marketing.
If you have more questions, feel free to send us an email and let us know more about your particular business and maybe we can provide a more helpful response.