Direct sales is an exciting business to be in. It appeals to those who wish to combine their social nature and motivation for making money with their desire to work independently. And because a direct sales representative generally has support from their parent company, it can be a fairly risk free venture. If you’re considering direct sales as a business opportunity or you’ve started selling, knowing how to market your business will generate more profits.
Let’s take a look at how to market your direct sales business:
Read your manual. Before you start laying out your marketing plan, read your consultant manual. Most companies have rules and regulations when it comes to marketing. For example, you may not be allowed to advertise online. While others provide full scale websites, customizable templates and online ordering systems already in place.
Get Your Website up and running. Online marketing is a great way to attract new customers and there are many ways to accomplish this however before you can do any online marketing you’ll need a website.
Hopefully, your company provides the tools to either create a website or they’ve provided a website for you. You may even have a few customization options, however the majority of the work will be taken care of for you.
If your company doesn’t offer website services they will still likely offer logos, graphics and recommendations. There are a few options if you don’t want to build your website yourself. They include:
* Hiring or outsourcing the job to a designer, consider a freelance designer or a college student specializing in graphic and/or website design.
* Use a pre-designed template provided by your hosting company.
* Blog instead and install WordPress on your domain. WordPress is easy to use and can be customized to look and feel just like a website.
Market Your Website. There are a number of ways to market your website. Before you try all of them, consider your audience, your budget and your goals. Here are a few marketing tactics to consider:
- Offer a free newsletter that lists products, promotions, and valuable information. For example if you sell jewelry, your newsletter could include fashion tips.
- Advertising. There are a number of advertising options including: Classified ads, Banner ads, and PPC ads.
- Social networking. Become active on social networking sites where your audience hangs out.
- Article marketing. Write and publish articles for online article directories like ezinearticles.com. Make sure they’re relevant to your topic. For example, if you sell skin care products, you could write articles about health and beauty.
Don’t forget to market offline too. Because the majority of customers will be people in your community, offline marketing is essential to your success. Develop an offline marketing plan to include:
- Flyers, brochures, postcards
- Partnering with other direct sales consultants
- Charity drives or fundraisers (PTA or church groups are a great place to market)
- Word of mouth
- Referrals
- Parties
- Networking Groups
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By embracing both offline marketing tactics and online marketing tactics, you’ll see your direct sales business grow quickly. And while it may seem that direct sales is generally an offline business, that’s not true anymore. With technology today, you can throw online parties so people never have to leave their homes. Find your audience and market to them, wherever they are, for more direct sales profits.
About Kelli Claypool
Outsourcing your website design, blogging, and even your social media is def the way to go when getting your direct sales business going but I am a firm believer that Direct Sales is still exactly what it says, Direct. You’re going to be most successful by getting out of your comfort zone and meeting people directly. But of course, you must do all the online things now too and you must have your own blog/ website aside from the one provided by the company if you are allowed to do so.
Like I tell people all the time, a CEO of a company has an assistant, so as the CEO of your own business in Direct Sales you need an assistant too, thankfully you can find excellent help these days with a good Virtual Assistant who specializes in social media. Secret: You can even have a VA make calls for you if you hire someone who specializes in phone sales.
Great Read!
Stephanie