The REAL Difference Between Internet Marketing and Network Marketing

The REAL Difference between Internet Marketing and Network Marketing is RELATIONSHIPS. Internet Marketing is a form of Direct Marketing. Direct Marketing is a numbers game, Network Marketing is not - it is a relationships game.

There is nothing wrong with Internet Marketing or Direct Marketing. They are perfectly good business models where you can build a handsome "from home" income. But there is a big difference between Internet Marketing and Network Marketing and it's important for you, as a network marketer to understand that difference.

The reason is if you apply the direct response marketing principles of internet marketing to a network marketing business, you are trading long term stability for short term profits. The one and only key to a lifetime of walk away residual income is the retention of people in your downline organisation. Direct marketing can't do this for you.

Direct marketing is a numbers game. It is a sales business. The most brilliant minds in the direct marketing field are always testing their marketing pieces.

They may have a direct mail salesletter that converts at 8% (which means for every 100 mailings, 8 people would buy the product). One month later they write a different salesletter for the same product and mail it to a similar demographic and the new salesletter converts at 10%. Another month later they may write one that converts at 11%. They are always trying to maximise their conversion rates to get as much juice from their marketing as possible.

They are constantly trying different offers and prices to "close" more sales. They use one time offers, time limited offers, special bonuses, "buy one, get one free", "if you call in the next 10 minutes, we'll give you an extra Magic Duster absolutely FREE", and so on...

Internet Marketers are always split testing their pay-per-click ads to drive more traffic to their landing pages. They are always measuring email subject headlines to see which of their email newsletters get more "opens".

Direct marketers value relationships too. But their relationships have direct bottom line value - they make most of their profits selling to people who have already bought products from them. They look for the most efficient ways to establish "automatic" relationships through newsletters and autoresponders.

Again, I must emphasise, there is nothing wrong with direct marketing. It is a perfectly good business model and many people have become millionaires doing it. It's just not the same as network marketing, but a lot of network marketers are trying to build their businesses "direct marketing style".

Network marketing businesses are built on geniune relationships. It's a coaching and mentoring business. Sponsor people into a team and make them feel loved and they will stick with you forever.

In time, products come and go. Companies come and go. Technology changes. Direct marketers (at least the smart ones) know that, and they adapt their businesses to new products that come along.

As a networker, if you build your relationships right, you'll never have to worry about your company closing its doors because the relationships you have built are permanent.

See, a lot of internet affiliate marketers, even some of the very top guys, are "underground". They are making all this money selling other people's stuff and you don't even know who they are. You can't build a network marketing organisation by hiding behind an "internet identity". It's a coaching and mentoring business. People need to know who you really are.

By the way, I'm a big fan of copywriting and using internet marketing strategies. I use them as tools for building my business. There's no quicker, more efficient and more cost effective medium in which to put yourself and your message in front of the right people.

But you've got to pick up the phone and call the people who trusted you enough to give you their phone number. That's how you build relationships.

To Your MLM Success,

Wayne Wu

The REAL Difference Between Internet Marketing and Network Marketing was originally posted at The Profitable Networker, where you'll find information that could save you years of failure and frustration in MLM.