Network Marketing

An age old business model, network marketing is now taking on the online world.

Network Marketing is a familiar marketing strategy that involves direct recruitment of salespeople, who then sell the product and recruits more salespeople, building an extensive network. It is similar to other multi-level marketing such as affiliate marketing. Its image has been tainted by many illegitimate organizations that employ similar strategies, known as pyramid schemes. One of the main differences between a pyramid scheme and a legitimate network marketing franchise is that through a pyramid scheme money can be earned by recruiting alone, while a legitimate franchise will emphasize the actual selling of products. The door-to-door method of generating leads is not as popular as before because of this image problem; but this marketing model has transformed with the advancement of technology, and many companies are now combining network marketing techniques with the Internet.

The Internet offers a channel of communication that transcends geographical boundaries, which is an obvious advantage when building the network of recruits that are necessary for a successful network marketing business. And since the Internet is capable of instant, two-way communication, it is a great tool to not only reach the recruits, but to have potential recruits come to you looking for a chance to join the franchise. One other distinct advantage of online network marketing is that all the leads generated online can be considered "pre-qualified" - since the users are likely led to the web site because they are already looking for relevant information. Therefore, the chances of web users to follow up and consider becoming part of the business are much greater than traditional form of multilevel marketing.

The strength of online network marketing is that it can be combined with a plethora of other online marketing techniques. By submitting websites to search engines, and optimizing the website, you increase the chance for casual web users to actually find your website; once they become interested enough to visit the website, they are instantly warm leads that can become your next recruits in your marketing network. Therefore, it is possible to run a successful network business almost entirely online, without doing a lot of the legwork normally associated with this type of direct marketing.