The Indirect Approach to Network Marketing on the Internet With the indirect approach you do not mention your Internet marketing program at all to your leads in the initial stages of your relationship. Instead, you offer your prospects some other product that appeals to a similar niche in the market as your network marketing program is appealing to. The product should offer high-value at a relatively low price that will nevertheless generate a small profit for you. It will be even more effective if you can offer a unique product, something that you create yourself, such as the report, or an e-book, or an audio or video training course. Whenever somebody purchases the product, they will have to opt in to your mailing list in order to receive the download link. Tell your customers that they will also gain access to your business newsletter. When you write your newsletter, be sure to fill it with valuable information and advice about your niche market. Keep it friendly and entertaining. Focus on informing and entertaining your subscribers rather than on selling your network marketing business. Talk about your successes and failures, about what works and what doesn't work in Internet marketing. It will then be enough simply to post a link to your network marketing website in the postscript of your newsletter. This indirect method of promoting your Internet marketing business is often referred to as a "funded proposal" because it offers a way for you to generate "funds" and then to "propose" your business program to your customers. It is a softer approach that has several benefits. In the first place, by selling a one-off product on the "front-end" you will be able to generate the funds that you need in order to promote your business from the outset. Meanwhile, you will be quietly promoting your Internet marketing business on the backend through your e-mail newsletter series. Selling a value packed product on the front-end will also set you on a good footing with your subscribers before you have even mentioned your network marketing business. They will have done business with you, and they will be receiving useful information from you and so they will be more inclined to trust you when you recommend other products and services, especially if you do not constantly try to sell to them. The key to Internet marketing success is to build strong personal relationships, and this method set you off on the right foot from the beginning with your new customers. Since your advice is useful to them, they will be much more likely to continue reading your newsletters. When you consider that most people only buy a product after they have been exposed to it several times over, you are going to stand a much greater chance of recruiting prospects to your network marketing business if you can get them to read several of your newsletters. Both the direct and indirect approach are viable models for promoting an Internet network marketing business. There is no reason why you could not run parallel direct and indirect campaigns, and split test each campaign so that you can gradually improve your results over time. Nevertheless, if you are starting out on a low budget, then I would recommend that you master the indirect approach first as a way to fund your business on the front-end or selling your network marketing program on the backend.