Direct Sales Without Parties

Direct Sales Without Parties

To succeed in direct sales without parties is doable. The entrepreneurial journey can be pretty tough. However, one of the greatest joys anyone can find is successfully launching their very own home-based business. It can be an exciting time as much as it is scary.

Launching a direct sales business could mean buying into an existing program or starting a whole new entity from scratch, and this isn’t as easy as you might think. Most people recommend launch parties, and you probably might have had your news feed inundated with friends sharing their new business products and inviting you to one of such parties.

While having a launch party in itself is not bad, it can sometimes be an unnecessary waste of resources when you can get your business off the ground with other novel ideas. These parties can be awkward as friends and families are usually the ones in attendance and having to order products they probably don’t like but have to get to keep you encouraged. These parties are sometimes big pity parties and could damage your esteem before you get started. Besides, not everyone is cool with having friends and family around for a product launch, and some people don’t even have a lot of friends, let alone host a party for them.

Truth is while people are caught up in the party planning process, you should be exploring different strategies for your direct sales business. In a very competitive industry like this, you should aim to make a difference. In these days of online marketing, there are more innovative ways of marketing your products to consumers faster. In this article, you will discover modern-day approaches to engage in direct sales without throwing silly parties.

Email marketing for Direct Sales

You must have heard it said somewhere that the “the money is in the list.” Well, this is so true for building an email list, but you haven’t even created one before.

An email list is basically a list of subscribers who will provide their email to you to learn more about your service or product through newsletters, access your offers, or receive direct messages to their email address from you.

Building an email list is necessary as any audience you create belongs to you rather than a third party. After all, consider that you build a broad audience on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on, and you wake up one morning, and all is gone because they really aren’t truly your audience as these platforms don’t belong to you. A solid email marketing strategy is important.

So how do you start building an email list?

1. Start A Blog Page
Blog pages offer great resources for everything from DIYs to the news online, but they can also be a great way to build your direct sales business online. The first thing to do to get started is to set up your blog, and this is quite easy.

Setting up your blog

Don’t worry. You don’t have to be “techy” or exceptionally good with computers to do this. I am going to cover a few simple steps, and you will be good to go.

⦁Decide on a platform for your blog. WordPress is a great one. You must have heard of it. WordPress offers a flexible content marketing system and is used by over 70 million people all over the world.

⦁Get a web address. Your web address is your domain name. Just like a real-life home with its own address, your web address indicates the location of your web home.

⦁Host your blog. Now you have a platform and a domain name. You put all of this in one place by hosting. Hosting helps to store all of the files and content on your blog. Some good ones include Bluehost, Hostgator, Siteground, iPage, etc. You will find many options out there. Do your research to get one.

⦁Design your blog. WordPress has a bucket load of theme options for you to choose from. Look for a good one that works for what you want and install the theme in an easy click-to-install format.

⦁Start adding content. Now, your shiny blog is up and running, and you have to start updating it with content that will drive interest in your direct sales business and get prospects joining your email list. Encourage them to subscribe to your blog.

⦁Build your email list
Building an email list is important to help follow up customers and prospects and remind them of your products. No matter how the direct sale is made, always encourage the customer or prospects to join your mailing list. They can become paying customers tomorrow.

There are several ways to do this.
1. Make your subscription open; don’t hide it under links.
2. Use pop-up forms.
3. Offer subscriber-only offers.
4. Ensure your email is easy on the eye and can be shared.

A blog offers so much to your direct sales business. If your blog is well optimized, search engines will pick it up, and you receive new visitors that you couldn’t have met at home parties. Not only that, if you consistently blog as an expert, you will quickly establish trust as people can confidently recommend you.

2. Social Media For Direct Sales Consultants

Social media is a extremely powerful marketing tool. Social media can be used to drive traffic to your blog and email autoresponder. To do this, always share your new blog posts to the social media platforms you are active on and on places where your audience hangs out. Each post should be customized to different platforms.

Also, remember to add social sharing buttons to your blog as studies have shown that this can lead to more mentions, likes, comments, and shares of your blog posts. When readers find your product extremely helpful, they are more likely to share your posts with others who might be interested, as well. Include social sharing buttons for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other major social networks to expand your audience. As more people visit your blog and sign up for email service, your direct sales business keeps getting better and better.

3. Set Up A Referral Program For Direct Sales

Successful businesses are built on relationships, and if you want to take your direct sales to another level, then you should start a referral program to build your email list. Every year, email marketing is producing consistent levels of return on investment, and referral programs encourage new customers to bring in even more prospects who sign up to an email list for an incentive, usually a discount on their next order or a gift. When your customers enjoy your product and the way you handle your business, they are more inclined to refer their friends.

One of the most best forms of advertising are recommendations from people customers know. A referral program can massively grow your list and sky-rocket sales. When your new subscriber refers friends for an incentive and that new subscriber who is incentivized to become a customer refers more for an incentive, the possibilities are endless.

When using a referral to drive direct sales and build your list, it is important to use reminders. Many new customers may like your product but are not ready to refer their friends right away. Some just want to test out your product for a bit longer to see if it meets their needs and if it’s worth telling a friend. Others can be so busy; they don’t even have the time to check your email. The last thing on their mind is the network. This is why follow up emails are important to provide them an opportunity to refer their friends about the benefits of your offering and earn a reward when they take action and also to remind others who have forgotten.
Set up a schedule for sending follow-up emails. A good schedule is to send them out every two weeks or monthly.

When sending follow-up emails, don’t send the same email as the one you sent before. Send entirely new emails to keep your campaign fresh and exciting. Do not forget to mention your referral program in the text.

4. List Building For Sales

This article does not seek to rubbish the idea of hosting parties because this is still very useful. However, whatever method you use should be directed to building your list for later, to follow up through autoresponder. List building for sales is probably the best thing you can ever do for your direct sales business. If you had a customer buy from you at a party, you hosted, direct them to your landing page and ask that they sign up for future newsletters, future sales offers, etc. Even if the potential customer is not ready to commit to a purchase today, still direct them to your landing page. This will start the warm-marketing strategy. As far as they are on the list, they may become customers someday. You can automate the follow-up process with your email autoresponder.

For the traditional direct sales agents who still want to host parties, that is fine. It shouldn’t end there. It is advisable to look at adding an email autoresponder and automating your follow-up efforts.

Conclusion

If the whole party idea for your direct sales business is giving you the jitters, you should start considering using email marketing as the top direct sales consultants are using it to grow their business. Belly-to-belly tactics are great, but they are not enough. There is a bigger market out there, and you should start thinking of breaking through to expand your reach with these strategies.

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