How to Grow and Scale Your Network Marketing Business with Sales Funnels

Are you one of those who was invited by a friend for a coffee, only to find out that your coffee date was going to be an orientation of some sort of business? Can you still remember how you felt then? If I am not mistaken, I guess you were pissed-off during that time, confused why your friend did not tell you the truth at once.

But after the presentation, you felt that the product or business is good and useful to you, and after some days of prodding and encouragement from your friend, you signed up, thinking that it could be a good side hustle for yourself.

Welcome to Network Marketing

This is the type of business where consumers could sign-up as distributors of the products of a certain MLM company for a certain amount of investment. They could start to run their own business using the system of the company they chose to join.

In addition to the mark-up that they will earn for the products that they could sell, they will also earn residual income, depending on the benefits given by the company.

This type of business is called network marketing, multi-level marketing, or referral marketing.

Besides the selling of products, this also involves recruiting people to do the business. Members would get referral commissions for every member that they could recruit. The recruiters are called uplines and the recruits are called downlines.

Network Marketing’s Bad Reputation

This is why network marketing or multi-level marketing acquired a bad reputation and sometimes referred to as a pyramid scheme, even though it is not.

The company expands through the efforts of all the members. Much of the marketing is done by the members.

Benefits of Network Marketing Business

Despite its bad reputation, network marketing has its benefits.

1. It’s less risky.

Unlike when you start a traditional business where you need to set-up a brick and mortar store with all the documents and paper works you need to do to register it as a legitimate business, starting with network marketing, whose products you love to use, entails only a small amount of capital.

A $200 cash outlay could already give you a business to start with.

2. Quality products

Many network marketing companies offer quality products that have great demands for them.

3. Residual income

In addition to the income that comes from direct selling, network marketing offers residual income also to all the members. You get additional income for every successful referral.

The beauty of doing a network marketing business is that you get paid for helping others make sales and developing them to be like the best in making sales.

The potential for earnings is high depending on how much effort you give to the business. Through a residual income, you will have the chance to reach the dream life you had always imagined.

4. Support from group

Another good thing about MLM is that you have a team that gives you full support. Everybody is cheering you on and ensures that you’ll be successful in your business too. Your success is their success. Everybody is being encouraged to reach each one’s full potential.

5. Free Training and rewards

Network marketing companies provide training to its members or distributors at no additional cost. You will be trained on how to manage your business and will teach you the strategies that they implement so you could be successful. Your growth is also the growth of the company, thus, your upline up to the owners of the company are concerned about you, too.

Also, there are rewards that you can get like free cars, free trips abroad, and other incentives when you reach certain levels in MLM. All your efforts are properly compensated in this kind of business.

6. Freedom from 9-5 job

When you can duplicate the success of those who are on top of the ladder, network marketing can give you the chance to move from an employee to an entrepreneur and give yourself more freedom. You can enjoy a lifestyle that you can’t achieve while working on a full-time day job.

How do network marketers get leads?

In previous years, when there was no social media, getting leads and making sales was a hard part of network marketing. Here are some of the marketing strategies that you were told to do.

1. The first thing you need to do after signing-up is to list at least a hundred people, more is better, and call them one by one and invite them to attend the business presentation.

Of course, not all will come. You will be lucky to see one or two of your invites come to the orientation. To pacify and keep your morale high, they will always tell you that you’ll receive a lot of rejections in this line of business.

2. Those who came will not decide at once to buy the product or sign-up. You have to do some follow-ups with them until they finally buy and if you’re lucky enough, one or two will sign and do the business as well. They will be your downlines.

3. After you have exhausted your first list of at least a hundred people, you need to think again of another batch for you to invite. You need to also help your downlines if any, to get members under their name. They’re going to do what you did also, prospect all the people they know. The cycle goes on and on.

At this point, you might be already thinking if this is worth keeping.

Help from social media

This old way of recruiting people has been somewhat made easy by social media. But, it still needs a lot of tasks to gain mileage.

You can now reach more people, through Facebook and Instagram, but you need to post several times or at least once a day on social media platforms. Your friends could now see what you’re up to lately. If they become interested, they’re now the ones who will message you and ask you about your business.

This somehow lessens the hardship of inviting and talking to people one by one. But the postings that you need to do several times a day or at least once a day could be tedious and time-consuming.

There’s hope in multi-level marketing

When you’re already losing hope if you’re gonna continue with your internet marketing business, don’t give up yet. Today, you can promote your business online using automated tools.

Now, it’s easier to make sales and grow your team without sending friend requests and messages every day.

Internet marketing

Through the internet and social media, you can automate the marketing of your business. No more direct prospecting, no more rejection from people you know, and acquaintances. You can have a wider reach of your target market with online automation.

You’ll be able to scale up your network marketing business without having to post several times a day on social media. This will give you back your time and freedom to do other things that you love to do.

You can create a process that you can pass to your downlines and be able to escalate their network marketing too.

Difference between passive and active marketing

Blogs, videos, and SEO are methods used in doing passive marketing. This is how your business or products can be found online. Without directly messaging certain persons to look for your posts, you will be found by anybody looking for answers to their questions. This would happen repeatedly even after years of posting your content. Your blogs and videos will be available as long as there is the internet.

On the other hand, active marketing is when you do postings to social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram multiple times a day for your products to be visible on your friends’ feeds. This type of marketing is quite burdensome because it takes a lot of time and effort to post and produce content you’ll upload in social media. Also, people who look for solutions to their problems don’t turn to social media.

Traffic sources

When you do the marketing of your business online, there are three different types of traffic sources. This is how to get more leads.

1. Traffic you don’t control

When you post on Facebook, not all of your friends can see all of your posts. Facebook has its own algorithm that controls what would appear in each of your friends’ Facebook walls. The same with website visitors. If a website is not on the first page, the chance of getting visitors on your site is slim.

Depending on the algorithm and SEO of each platform, you don’t have control over the number of visitors who would see and click your content.

2. Traffic you control

When you do Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads, it’s where you will have control over the traffic to your page or site. You will be able to set your target market. Your post would be shown to many more people unlike when your post is free.

But, this will all depend on the amount of money you are willing to spend on advertisements.

3. Traffic you own

The traffic you own is your email list. These are the emails that you have collected in exchange for some freebies that you’re giving away for every reader who visited your site.

When you have an email list, you can market to all the people who have subscribed to your list, whenever you want, and for years. You can email them as often as you want regarding the products that you are selling. 

But, for the majority of the readers, the decision to buy does not come immediately. That’s why you need their emails. This is the way you can get their trust by sending them information that could help them with their problems. The fact that they decided to join your email list, they saw something useful to them. It’s up to you how you could upgrade their trust and convert them into buying customers.

Sales funnels

Sales funnels also called a revenue funnel or sales process is a series of processes or steps that lead your audience with the decision to buy your products.

Here are the stages of a sales funnel with the acronym AIDA – Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action.

• Awareness

This is the first time people become aware of your products. This could be because of your posts on social media, blogs, videos, or through word of mouth.

• Interest

This is when a website visitor, after reading or seeing your contents, becomes interested in what you are offering, like the free ebook, or free training and decides to subscribe in the opt-in form, where email addresses are being collected.

That is why your social media posts, blogs, or videos should be relevant enough to get the attention of your readers and read further about your products.

• Decision

This is the time when a customer is ready to buy. Affecting a buyer’s decision will all depend on the kind of marketing you did from the time that person subscribed to your email list.

In this process, you need to be more creative. Offer more than what your competitors are giving. It could be free shipping, discount, promo packages, or giving additional products as a bonus. Make your offer so appealing that they can’t resist and would take advantage of it.

• Action

When the customer finally bought from you, it is not the end of your relationship with that customer. Your next action should be how to keep them and become a repeat customer.

After the purchase, send a thank you email to your customer for trying the product. Offer him after sales service and request feedback.

There are two types of sales funnels. There is a backend sales funnel and a front end sales funnel.

A front end sales funnel is a series of web pages that usually collect and email address as well as make sales and upsells. Sales funnels can be created on ClickFunnels if you do not have an existing website already or with Thrive Themes if you already have a WordPress website. For more on sales funnels, check out this blog post.

Sales funnels are always paired with an email marketing platform like ActiveCampaign. The email part of a sales funnel tends to be the backend of the funnel.

3 Types of offline marketing that you can automate online

Bridge Funnel or 3-way call

This method is the one wherein your upline helps you demonstrate the product or the business side of your network marketing business to one of your prospects.

Here’s how it will look like when it is automated:

This funnel requires only 2 pages.

The first page is about the desire and the pain your visitors would want to get rid of. You’ll create a form on the first page, where you’ll collect the email addresses of your readers. After this, they will be directed to the second page.

The second page contains a video that you will make with the so-called Epiphany Bridge script.  Epiphany is telling your own story about how you became interested in the product you are selling. What and how did you feel the first time you saw the products and the business opportunity. You have to show the readers your sincerity to earn their trust.

Include also in the video, how to fill up the order form so they won’t be confused when they are directed to the company’s sales page.

From this page, you need to place a call-to-action button (CTA) where your readers would click and be directed to the website of your network marketing company. When your readers click your link and at the same time register to avail of the products or the business, they would be listed under your name.

Home party selling funnel

With the help of your upline, you are going to present your products and business to a group of people.

In this type of presentation, many of the attendees decide to buy your products, some could also end up signing with the company and would like to do the business also. Being in a big group, everybody seems to be excited where the FOMO attitude “fear of missing out” was in the air.

This is how it will look when automated:

The Home Party Funnel consists of the following pages:

• First page – The Party Invite Page

Just like the Bridge Funnel, the first page would be the welcome page where you have a great headline that would entice your readers to sign-up and give their email addresses.

• Second Page – The Confirmation Ticket Page

After signing-up by giving their email addresses, the readers would be directed to the next page where it would confirm their attendance to the event.

• Third Page – The Party Hang-out Page

This page contains three sections.

• First section –  contains the headline, date, and the time of event.

• Second section – will be the live stream where the event would take place

• Third section – would include the images of the featured products and buttons where they could order and join the opportunity.

What you do in the Home Party Funnel is just the same as you would do offline. This is a live stream of the usual orientation or a pre recorded event..

But, before the event proper, since you have the email list, you can remind them through sending emails about the party that they joined in. This could also be automated with the help of ActiveCampaign.

You can create and send an email campaign to all of your subscribers in just one go, scheduling one email after the other automatically.

People could forget your invitation due to their daily routines, and they would welcome your constant reminders before the event. You can make an email sequence that contains the following:

• Confirmation Email
• Day-Before Email
• One-Hour-Before Email
• Party’s Live Email

ClickFunnels has an e-book that you could use as a guide as you start thinking of automating your network marketing business. You can download the Network Marketing Secrets e-book for free here.

Are you getting overwhelmed with all of this information? Join the One Funnel Away Challenge and let the experts guide you in doing these automation. Leveling-up your network marketing business is just a few clicks with One Funnel Away Challenge.

This is a 30-day course designed to help new and established entrepreneurs to create profitable offers, to better know what their market wants, how to tell stories, create compelling headlines, and many more. It will teach you the strategies on how you could scale-up your business and make more sales.

Hotel Meeting Funnel

In this event, you accompany those who agreed to see the product and business presentation in a hotel that is going to be presented by a representative of the network marketing company. Normally, the president and all the toplines of the company are present.

This diagram shows how it is when automated:

Just like the Home Party Funnel, you’ll need to set-up three pages with ClickFunnels or Thrive Themes – the registration page, the countdown page, and the webinar page. You can use a live webinar or pre-recorded video so it works even while you sleep.

The first page would be similar to the Home Meeting Funnel. It should show the headline, tagline, input fields, date, and time. But, it should contain three secrets that you would unleash in the webinar to be strategically placed just under the sign-up button.

When your page visitors register, they will be directed to the second page, the Countdown Page. This is like the Thank You page of a Home Funnel. This will show a simple page with the phrase “You’re registered” or “Invite a friend” with social media buttons so you could share this on your personal FB or Ig accounts.

The Third page is the Webinar Page containing the title of the webinar, the elements of your video, and a button leading to a form, email address, or other contact information.

While waiting for the event to come, you need to set-up an email sequence, just like with the home meeting funnel process. The emails should include:

• Confirmation email
• Day-before email
• One-hour before email

In creating the automated sales funnels, you eliminate prospecting for the people who are not interested in your products and business.

A sales funnel can build your downline and make sales passively. You can even get picky and require people to hit certain criteria to join your team. After all, there are barely any people in your network marketing business using sales funnels to grow their business.

Sales funnels allow for the whole process to be automated and scaled. It only needs to be built once and you just need the traffic to go to it. With a funnel created on ClickFunnels, you are able to share the funnel you’ve created within your downline. This allows for the duplication process in the business not to get lost. It’s already pre-done for everyone on your team! They just have to load it on to their ClickFunnels account.

With the help of email marketing, you can email your subscribers and market your products periodically. Your email should be relevant to what you are offering and should contain helpful tips or information that could finally persuade your subscribers to avail your products or join you in your team.

Thinking of how you can do this? The One Funnel Away Challenge by ClickFunnels could help you. If you find yourself having a hard time leveling-up your network marketing business, don’t surrender your dreams yet. You have all the chance to be successful in network marketing.