Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations

Introduction to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizatoins The way businesses interact with consumers has changed. The Digital Age is the Information Age, a time when the consumer is armed with knowledge, and, more importantly, choice: A choice to dismiss one option with a click of a mouse, or to act on a different option s behalf with a glowing endorsement on social media. Direct Selling in the Digital Age No business model is immune to the Digital Age. For Direct Selling Organizations, change may seem difficult. Online engagement is antithetical to the DSO business model -- which is predicated on face-to-face sales. Regardless, DSOs must take a proactive approach and address the digital age. To start, DSOs should look to develop their presence around two primary ideas: 1. Why your products are (still) best in class. 2. Why sales consultants should join your organization. The two messaging goals are not mutually exclusive to one another in terms of overall success. Understanding the importance of the first message is obvious. You know your product catalog s value add. However, the second message is where change needs to happen within the entire Direct Selling Organization industry. This starts with using a distributed microsite model that gives each individual salesperson access to their own website that they can use to represent their business. The counter argument to deploying a robust website for each salesperson makes sense on the surface: Your corporate marketing team wants to control the brand and organizational messaging. But from both a technical and customer engagement perspective, relying on one webpage to represent your entire organization fails to take advantage of key elements and resources that maximize the effectiveness of a digital marketing strategy. With a centralized distribution model, content publishing on each of your organization s distributed websites is managed through work flow approval, giving corporate marketing control of the message. Typically included are customizable options which allow syndicates to easily infuse a local appeal in order to cater to specific communities and audiences, all while preserving the corporate brand. The distributed model is your starting point. But in this whitepaper, we ll get one step further and examine what the leading organizations are doing right (and wrong!) and outline the technology, strategies, and best practices that position and arm your Sales Team with resources that help find, engage, and grow their customer-base. 1. Find: How Customizable Microsites Maximize Sales Leads 2. Engage: Why Content is King For Your Salespeople 3. Grow: Ways Corporate Can Easily Grow the Bottom Line Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper 2014 - Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations Connect with Us: 2

Find: How Customizable Microsites Maximize Sales Leads Inbound Marketing, sometimes referred to as Permission Marketing, refers to marketing activities that attracts visitors to an organization, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects attention. Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes an organization easy to be found and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content. Basics of SEO The basis behind inbound marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of enhancing the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine s natural or un-paid ( organic ) search results to reach a mass audience. Google s recommendation goes back to our distributed model. By hiding their salesforce behind forms, right now, DSOs are unknowingly sabotaging their bottom line. Even the below example from JAFRA fails to take advantage of huge opportunities in terms of engagement. How well an organization leverages pivotal Search Engine Optimization strategies directly determines the size of its megaphone on popular search engines. So, how can your Direct Selling Organization take advantage of SEO? If you have a [Multi-Unit Organization], consider it a best practice to: 1. Make a web page for each store that lists the store s address, phone number, business hours, etc. 2. Make a HTML sitemap to point to those pages with regular HTML links, not a search form or POST requests. If you want your store pages to be found, it s best to have a unique, easily crawlable URL for each [Salesperson]. - Matt Cutts, Head of Webspam, Google Source: Search Engine Journal LIMITED CUSTOMIZATION REPLICATED CONTENT. NO SEO VALUE Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper 2014 - Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations Connect with Us: 3

Find: How Customizable Microsites Maximize Sales Leads (cont.) Many DSOs are taking a half step in the right direction offering their Salespeople a limited, replicated page. On the surface, these pages seem fine, but any SEO expert will quickly point to the fact that the replicated sites offer no value due to their lack of customization. This is why, in turn, consultants are currently turning to third-party listing sites to help increase their visibility. Unfortunately, this unregulated marketing initiative can waste money, create poor customer experiences, and ultimately hurt your brand. A popular third-party site is FindASalesRep.com. Check out what happens when a user looks for a representative in Boston, and the results come back with a consultant located in Austin. 1 2 Searching for a rep in Boston. The Search Result that appears. 3 When the user arrives to the Amway site, it says the consultant is located in Austin, TX. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper 2014 - Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations Connect with Us: 4

Engage: Why Content is King For Your Salespeople Content is the fuel behind good SEO. We get that it s weird and somewhat antithetical to think about online content for your salespeople. most of your consultant s engagement happens in person, either while hosting parties, at conventions, or other meetings But with an easy-to-use distributed web platform, your consultants can upload compelling web content to drive massive marketing success. Basics of Web Engagement Whether it s simply uploading a gallery of a party they hosted, showcasing before and after beauty or health and wellness results, or even descriptions of why they like a certain product, arming your consultants with the option to engage their audiences will only help secure future business. How do we know this? 78% of customers say custom content builds better relationships with brands, per InboundWriter. Below is another example of how DSOs have the right idea, but find themselves falling short in terms of execution. Mary Kay, like JAFRA, is using a replicated website, one that provides little to no SEO value. But imagine if this consultant had a Best of section, testimonials, galleries, or maybe even a blog! Their non-branded web traffic, meaning phrases like Beauty supply or Make-up consultant, would increase. More traffic means more sales leads... and a stronger bottom line. The New Word-of-Mouth Of course, a huge part of engagement lives online but outside of a representative s website on prominent social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The problem is that your consultants are busy, and likely don t have the appropriate amount of time to post special promotions or interesting content to their pages. To help out, your corporate team should take advantage of social media management tools to curate and even publish content to your salesforces individual social pages. 78% of customers say custom content builds better relationships with brands, per InboundWriter. Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper 2014 - Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations Connect with Us: 5

Grow: Ways Corporate Can Easily Grow the Bottom Line Numbers never lie, and total retail sales in the US topped $4.53 trillion in 2013, and ecommerce accounted for a significant portion of that growth, up 16.9% in 2013 or nearly $40 billion according to new figures from emarketer. Suffice to say that ecommerce has transformed from a convenient, cutting-edge transactional space to a NECESSARY form of commerce that is a key driver across businesses everywhere. Pairing Direct Selling With ecommerce By giving your sales consultants an engaging, yet easy-tomanage web presence, their network will grow. The microsite will also convert more business through the web store. Having a unique home is important when you consider that, by 2018, over 47% of global Internet users will have purchased something online -- that s over 1 BILLION shoppers. 85% More than that, if powered by the right platform, the microsite can seamlessly grow your organization s bottom line with marketing automation tools that trigger post-conversion up-selling and cross-selling opportunities, both directly on the website or via email. These capabilities are no longer considered bells and whistles nope they are requirements of the digital age. $263.3 According to Experian Marketing Services, 85% of customers would no longer buy from an organization that failed to take account of their preferences and purchasing history. $225.3 TOTAL SALES Direct Sales $31.63 $32.67 ecommerce 2012 2013 Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper 2014 - Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations Connect with Us: 6

Empower Your Direct Selling Organization Through A Centralized Digital Marketing Platform There is an actionable solution that can help your Direct Selling Organization meet all these initiatives: iappsds, a mobile-friendly, award-winning web platform created specifically for multi-unit organizations that contains superior SEO functionality and capabilities in content management, ecommerce, social media, email marketing, and web analytics. THE PREMIER AWARD-WINNING DISTRIBUTED MICROSITE WEB PLATFORM FOR MULTI-UNIT ORGANIZATIONS Easily manage your local content Integrated emarketing & analytics Powerful ecommerce capabilities Optimized for smart phones and tablets Corporate maintains brand control Corporate can distribute unified content Not only does the iappsds distributed model fall in line with recommendations from Google ensuring that your sales consultants appear highly on search results but it empowers individuals to develop content that speaks to their local clientele, while all corporate maintains branding guidelines and standards. To learn more about how iappsds can help your franchise deliver the power of a national brand at a local level, either call 1-800-603-9936, visit Bridgeline.com, or email us at info@bridgeline.com! Stay up-to-date with trends blog.bridgeline.com bridgeline.com Contact Bridgeline Digital info@bridgeline.com 1-800-603-9936 Bridgeline Digital Whitepaper 2014 - Definitive Guide to Online Marketing for Direct Selling Organizations Connect with Us: 7