If you’re looking for a new way to make extra money from home, you’ve probably considered trying your hand at network marketing. The industry has grown substantially over the past few years, and with the right strategy, products, and training, it’s possible to become a successful entrepreneur in this field. In this article, we’ll cover the steps necessary to develop your business concept, identify the target audience, and create the appropriate sales funnel.

The Basics

Before you begin your network marketing journey, it’s important to establish the basics. What is network marketing? What are the main components of a successful business plan? What are your earnings expectations? What are your competition’s pricing and strategies? It’s also essential to define your target audience. What are they looking for? What do they need? This step will help you figure out who the heck you’re trying to sell your products to. Don’t rush it, because you’ll have plenty of time to refine this later on during the business planning process.

The Product

With a growing number of products available for purchase online, many businesses can succeed without having an actual product. However, if you want to play it safe, you can launch a product line that already has mass appeal. This is still very much a viable option, as long as you can prove that there’s a demand for your product. For example, if you want to create a women’s lifestyle clothing brand, it’s likely that most women either already have a wardrobe full of clothing or are actively shopping for clothing.

If you can’t produce a physical product and don’t want to play it safe, you can launch a digital product. These can be anything from a simple e-book to a complete training program. If you’re looking for additional clarification, the internet is filled with entrepreneurs who’ve gone before you and started their own successful businesses. If you need inspiration, you can also look to established network marketing businesses for ideas.

The Sales Funnel

The sales funnel is a step-by-step guide that leads potential customers from initial interest to a committed action, such as a purchase or a sign-up for a mailing list. When you develop your sales funnel, you’ll want to start with a solid foundation, so here are a few suggestions.

• Consumers should easily discover your products
• The path to conversion should be clear
• You should have the ability to track and analyze ROI (return on investment)
• Your conversion rates should be rising
• Your products should be complementary or supplemental to what your target audience is already using
• Your products should have a high average sale

If you want to create a women’s lifestyle clothing brand, your initial interest may come from reading about the topic on a blog or social media channels. Once you’re convinced that this is a worthwhile venture, you can use online marketplaces like Amazon or Shopify to discover the products that compliment your clothing line. From there, you can move onto the sales funnel and begin to build your audience.

Get Inspired

If you’re looking for inspiration, several successful entrepreneurs have established themselves as leaders in their industry. You can access their websites, learn from their blogs, and find out how they went about establishing their company. You can also reach out to those who’ve worked with them directly and get a sense of the challenges they faced and how they overcame them.

Who Am I Selling To?

Another fundamental question You need to ask yourself before you begin your network marketing journey is: Who am I trying to sell this to? What do I hope to achieve by creating this business?

If you’re just entering the industry, it’s important to establish a business identity. One way to do this is to create buyer personas. These are individualized representations of the people you’re attempting to attract with your product. If you want to appeal to millennials, you might create a buyer persona named “Jack” who is a millennial male seeking an outdoor adventure. He has a full-time job supporting his wife and child, but has the desire to achieve financial independence and create a legacy. He follows outdoor adventure brands on Instagram and has a desire to purchase a pair of bear spray sunglasses. He is also an ideal prospect for an outdoor adventure tour guide company, which could become your first product offering once your network marketing business is established.

Although you may not yet know it, you’ve already begun the process of developing your network marketing business, and it’s time to take a closer look.

Now that you have a clear idea of what a successful Network Marketing business looks like, where do you start?