("How To Get An Unlimited Amount Of Leads For Your MLM Business With Card Decks!" : MLM Network marketing secrets - is another great article about mlm, network marketing and a little about home based business on mlm network marketing "How To Get An Unlimited Amount Of Leads For Your MLM Business With Card Decks!" Let me say this ... all leads are suspects until they request specific information from you about whatever it is that you are offering! Then & only then will they become a prospect!)
"How To Get An Unlimited Amount Of Leads For Your MLM Business With Card Decks!"
By Robert Blackman
Let me say this ... all leads are suspects until they request specific information from you about whatever it is that you are offering! Then & only then will they become a prospect!
Leads that are generated from your own advertising are prospects! Leads from mailing list or leads that you get from other people mailing you stuff (Bounce backs) are suspects!
NEVER! And I Mean Never - Mail full information packages, videos, & audio tapes to suspects! It is too costly! You'll go broke before you make any money!
What is the BEST & most economical way to handle mailing lists & bounce backs?
Simple...drop them a post card in the mail! It's simple, cheap, efficient, & direct to the point! Post Cards have been or are the most powerful marketing tool in the direct marketer's arsenal!
Email is the "King" of On-line marketing & a Post Card is the "King" of off-line marketing!
I am not going to get into "How To Design An Effective Post Card" right now!
Why? Because I have to show you how to write headlines, ad copy, and BPUSP's first! So...hold your horses...amigo!
By the way -- - BPUSP stands for "Benefit Packed Unique Selling Propositions"!
Using the BPUSP focus a potential prospect's attention immediately on whatever it is that you have to offer! If used correctly, your business will explode in no time flat!
I am getting ahead of myself! Let's get on with lead generation! We'll come back to advertising, writing & developing BPUSP's later!
A card deck or card pack are a cellophane wrapped set of post-cards (usually 70 to 80 cards in a deck) that are mailed directly to your home or office. A card deck is a co-op of advertisers that have paid to be placed in the deck. Most advertisers pay around $1800, or $18 per thousand, to have your post-card designed, printed and mailed to 100,000 prospects.
This is a tremendous savings compared to mailing 100,000 post-cards on your own -- which would cost in excess of $25,000!
You'll find that the average card deck consists of about 70 to 80 advertisers. Any more than that and you'll find that your response to your offer will be lower because your offer gets lost in the deck.
You should anticipate anywhere from 1/4% to a 2% response rate to your card. This depends, of course on the following:
** How well the card is written. Free sample, etc.
** What mailing list your card is mailed to.
** Where your card is positioned in the deck!
** How many other competing offers are in the same deck.
** If you have an 800# on your ad.
** Do you have a highly demanded and consumed product or
service and is it easily marketed through MLM.
Asking for money in a card deck that mails to 100,000 prospects will bring you about 25 to 75 orders. But, if you offer FREE information you should experience anywhere from 250 to 2,000 inquiries, or requests for your offer. The real advantage of offering FREE information is that you get to capture the names, address and phone numbers of your prospects. This is important for three reasons:
* You can mail them multiple times for maximum response.
* You can sell your database of names to other MLM'ers.
* You can swap or trade your database of names with other MLM'ers.
In my very first experience advertising in a card deck I received over 1900 responses! It was the first time anyone had seen my Mail Order Printing Dealership. My ad had two offers on it. The first was to inquire about making money with my printing dealer program and the second was to get my FREE printing catalog. I had an 800# and a picture of the dealer kit for them to see.
Note: Use photos anytime you can to increase your response rate by 10% to 25%!
Once you've placed your ad in a card deck you usually have 4 to 8 weeks before you start getting responses to your ad. Use this time to have plenty of your mailing literature or samples ready to go once your leads come flooding in. Have at least 500 of your mailing packets prepared and sitting on a shelf before your ad hits. This way, you'll be able to mail your offer within 24 hours of your prospects request.
The average prospect answers 7 different ads in a card deck. I've always been of the opinion that if my offer gets to them first that I have a greater chance of getting them to join.
One quick note: You will receive approximately 50% of all your inquires within 45 days of your first phone call. That means if your card is pulling 1,000 leads per 100,000 run, you'll get around 500 calls or post-cards back in the mail during a 45 day period! Needless to say, you're going to have a difficult time mailing, calling and following through on all 500 of those leads.
What I recommend is that you and your upline or a few of your key downline share these leads. Get 10 people to call 50 each or 5 people to call 100 each. The important thing isn't that YOU call all 1,000 of your leads. Rather,that they get mailed and called within a 7 to 10 day period for maximum results!
One other trick of the trade. Get your hands on every card deck you can find. Comb through the decks and pull out every MLM or competing offer you find. Call them and offer to swap or trade names with them. Or, you can go a step further. Find someone you like and trust and have them run in one card deck and you run in another. Share the names that don't join from your deck with the names that didn't get in from their deck. This way, you're paying for one ad, but getting leads from two! This can be done with multiple decks.
The most I've done this with at one time was 3 different decks. I got $9,000 worth of advertising for only $4,500! Leveraging your money in this manner is essential once you have a winning card, mailing campaign, phone script and closing skills. If it works in one card deck, it will work in 20 of them! How Much Is It Costing You To Recruit Using Card Decks?
Sure, you can generate upwards of 1,000 leads in a 3 month period using card decks, but how many of these leads actually convert into distributors? The key to making money in MLM using card decks is finding out how much it costs to sign somebody up using them! Let's say that your card pulls a whopping 1,000 leads from a 100,000 mailing. Your cost to advertise was $1,800.
You convert 3% of these leads (or 30 people) into distributors from your direct mail campaign.
Cost of postage would be $320 (assuming you have a one-ounce mailing piece and the cost of a first-class stamp hasn't gone up -- AGAIN!). And, 1,000 mailing pieces cost you $300 to print. Your total cost for your mailing and follow-up would be $2420. When you divide that by the number of distributors you recruited you have a recruiting cost of $80.66 per distributor!
Although your mailing may have pulled a 3% response, you should make follow-up calls to your 1,000 prospects for maximum response. Let's say you did a cracker-jack job of using the phone and called and talked to 500 people (that's assuming you have phone numbers from 800 of the 1,000 inquires and that you TALK to 500 out of the 800 you call).
If you have decent follow-up skills and are knowledgeable about your company and offer any kind of assistance in getting your prospect started off quickly (free leads, post-cards, mailers, etc.) then you should expect to convert at least 5% of those 500 into distributors, or another 25 sponsored.
If you call and talk to 500 people (assuming you talk for 5 minutes each at 10 cents per minute) then you add another $250 in long-distance calls to your $2420 cost above you come up with a grand total of $2670! But, you sponsored another 25 through your phone efforts to raise your total sponsored through your card deck to 55 people. Or, a cost of only $48.54 per sign up! Yes, you had to spend an extra $250 on the phone, but you lowered your cost per distributor from $80.66 to $48.54 -- a $32.12 savings per distributor!
Now, here's the clincher to making money using card decks: How many months does your 55 people need to stay active and buy product before you make a profit? Let's say that all 55 buy at least $50 a month in product and you get a 10% commission on their purchases. 55 x $50 = $2750. $2750 x 10% = $275.
Using these projections your first month's commission would be $275. If you spent $2670 total in your recruiting efforts then it would take you 10 months to make $2750 (assuming none of these 55 recruited anyone else and that they continued just to buy $50 a month in product).
The key to remember is that in MLM you make your maximum dollars once you teach your downline the ropes and find people who are willing to duplicate your efforts. Out of your 55 sponsored you should be able to find 10 to 20 who would be willing to co-op with you in the next card deck.
Let's assume your deck is going to cost you another $1800. You'd need 18 people to participate at $100 each. You'd spend NOTHING, yet you have 18 people doing exactly what you did in the last card deck: receiving leads, mailing literature and following up on the phone.
THIS IS THE KEY TO ROLLING OUT YOUR EFFORTS IN CARD DECK ADVERTISING!
You must capitalize upon the first 55 you sponsor and turn them into recruiting machines right along with you!
After you've successful co-op'd your second card deck it's time to get in multiple card decks at one time. You should have over 100 people in your organization by now, assuming you've properly duplicated yourself, and you're going to need more leads.
A word of caution: Card deck advertising is a easy way to generate a lot of leads. But, it is also an easy way to loose your hard earned money -- and fast! I can't tell you how many people I've spoken with who thought placing their ad in a card deck would solve all their problems in MLM.
They didn't realize the expense, effort and expertise that were required to make a success of card deck advertising. Before you spend a small fortune on a card deck ad, speak with your profitable upline in your MLM and find out what camera ready ads they have used successfully in the past and where they placed these ads.
How to reach 100,000 opportunity seekers by using Card Decks (Without Spending A Lot Of Money!)
Within most every card deck in the industry you'll find what I call a bingo card. This is a co-op card that has small classified or display ads on one card. Kind of a co-op within a co-op . The advantage of a bingo card advertising is that you can get your ad in a card deck for only a fraction of what it costs to run a full card.
The cost varies from card deck to card deck ($70 - $100) for your 70 character ad to be printed and mailed to 100,000 prospects. Your listing should generate anywhere from 25 to 200 leads depending upon your offer, how well you write the ad, etc.
I recommend that you sample as many bingo cards as your budget allows until you find the best bingo card that pulls for you!
Co-op your ads and get free leads for yourself
Now that you know how to run a profitable card deck for yourself, what's the next step? Co-op your efforts with your downline! One of the most discouraging things you'll find in MLM is the apparent lack of action your downline will take when it comes to generating prospects to talk to. You'll find that over 75% of your downline will NOT take the initiative and place their own ads! I started my own ad co-ops in self-defense.
First, I couldn't handle all the leads I was getting in efficiently. Second, I was the only one in my entire organization that was sponsoring more than one person a month! I'd sign them up, and they'd haul off and do NOTHING! I had a MAJOR problem in my group -- nobody was duplicating my efforts!
By organizing a card deck co-op I was able to subtlely force my downline to make a decision; become active or do nothing. Before my ad co-ops everyone seemed to be running in different directions doing their own thing . Now, my top people identify themselves each month by participating in my card deck co-ops. Here's what you need to do to get yours off the ground and running successfully.
If you don't have any downline and you've never run in a card deck before I suggest one of two paths of action. Either get your upline to run with you, or try a small run of 25,000 cards to start by yourself. Check to see if anyone in your upline has run an ad in a card deck and ask these questions:
* What did the card look like?
* How many leads did it generate?
* How many people signed up?
* Where did you run the ad?
* How long ago?
* Was the ad professionally written and was it approved by the company?
* What kind of follow-up literature and phone script was used?
Investigate and learn from their past mistakes. The reason I can write a successful ad in a card deck, regardless of what the product or service I promote, is because of my past experience. Card deck advertising is a SCIENCE. If you treat it like one, you'll find it to be very, very profitable.
If no one in your upline has ever run in a card deck before check with your upline and find out what kind of post-card they re using to mail. A post-card that has worked well being mailed by itself, will work just as well when run in a card deck. Then, I recommend running a small test run of either 25,000 or 50,000 cards.
Why? Because you want to test the effectiveness of your offer before you go out and spend $2,500! Instead of $2,500, you can spend around $750 to $1,000 and gain valuable information before you roll out to a larger quantity.
If you can't find a successful post-card or card deck ad, then I suggest you check with your company and see what they have. Or, have a professional copywriter develop one for you. Cost should range from $50 to $500 depending upon the quality of the writer. Most card deck companies will also write and design your card for you if you're placing an ad with them.
Check with them and see if you can get any type of discount before using an outside service. Another reason to use the card deck company is because they have a "vested interest" in seeing you succeed. If they help you write good ad and it works well you'll run with them again and again.
Now that you have a successful ad and you know where you're going to place it the next thing you need to determine is who's going to participate with you in the co-op?. Before you make any kind of financial commitment to a card deck company I suggest you get on the phone and call your downline and get as many members as possible to participate with you.
What do you say? Simple. Call your downline and say, Hey, Joe, this is Robert. Listen, I'm organizing a co-op for my entire downline in the next 30 days. The ad is going to cost $1,800 and there will be 18 shares at $100 each. From our past experience we know that each share should generate around 50 leads. What I'd like to know is if you d want to participate?
Don't worry about collecting the money just yet. Instead, call everyone within a 3 day period and write down the names of everyone who is interested.
When you're done calling you'll have a good idea how many participants you'll have. Call those who you know will do it. Then go down the list until you've sold 18 shares.
You'll be in charge of collecting the money from your downline and sending payment to the card deck company. So be organized and give your downline a deadline one week before you need to get your ad and money to the card deck company. This will give you more time to tie up any "loose ends" that might pop-up -- which they always do!
You'll also be in charge of dispersing the leads to your downline once they come to your office. The only exception is if you can get a card deck company to give you a split run of 25,000 cards. In a 100,000 card deck that would give you 4 shares. The cost of the shares would be higher than the previous example of $100, but the advantage is that all responses go directly to your downline, not you! More on this later.
Once the leads come flooding in your office I recommend you mail them out to your downline at least once a week. If you have 18 people in your downline and 15 leads come in one day, it doesn't make sense to send them out daily. Instead, mail them out weekly, or fax them to your downline.
Make sure that your downline members know how to properly follow-up on these leads. Don't expect them to know the proper way to make the best of their leads. It's your job to TELL them. Give them a written outline of how to best follow-up on these co-op leads.
If you don't, you'll find that they won't get maximum results. I've had several people in my downline who NEVER even mailed our self-mailer to their co-op leads! How did I find this out? Because the prospects I sent to them starting calling me and asked where the information they had requested was.
When I looked them up in the computer and found who I sent the leads to I called them. One person had already dropped out of my program and was using the leads for ANOTHER PROGRAM! Another wouldn't ever return my calls -- so I mailed out the literature on their behalf from my office with their ID# on them. The bottom line is, if you're in MLM be prepared for ANYTHING!
Another reason to equip your downline with the proper follow-up and follow-through techniques is that if they don't, they'll fail. And the next time you call to get them to participate in your co-op they'll say, that doesn't work -- I already tried it and wasted $100! You're going to get one or two who say that anyway -- so get ready.
It's not your job to think for people -- but it is your job to inform them. Ultimately, it's their business. If they want to be short-sighted, you can't keep them from it.
Robert Blackman is President of Diversified Enterprises Inc. A printing and Direct marketing company. He is also President of The Profit Network, a Voice Mail & Fax-On-Demand MLM company. Not only is Robert successfully making money in 7 different network marketing ventures, he also provides a discount printing, writing, designing and ad placement service to all his readers.
Want to know how to make money in any MLM? Now you can. Robert's first book entitled, "How To Sit Back And Get Rich In Any MLM" has 20 chapters and 158 pages of information on how to start and run your own profitable home-based MLM business. Robert's second book and two cassettes entitled, "How To 100% Absolutely Guarantee That You Make Money In Network Marketing" is NOW available. Cost of each book is only $29.95 post-paid with check by fax or Visa, Mastercard, Discover and AMEX from: Robert Blackman at (918) 335-3726 or by email: Robert1MLM@aol.com For more information, rates & advertising schedule for Cutting Edge Opportunity Card Deck, visit: http://www.cuttingedgemedia.com This is a good place to get started with Card-Decks! Your best source for all Business Opportunity Card Decks is the Standard Rate & Date Service Book located in your local library! http://www.srds.com Here are some good ones to look at: Wealth Interests Trump Opportunity Seekers First Wall Streeter
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