Social Media and Direct Selling
Back in elementary and middle school, I remember being told to sell cookie dough and magazine subscriptions to raise money for the school district I was in. The belief then was to go door-to-door, pitch the product and hopefully get a signature or two from someone who would be interested. By selling a certain amount of cookies, students would be able to receive rewards, whether they be trips somewhere or gift certificates.
Fast forward about thirteen years later and you have this: Girl scout cookies being sold through channels such as Facebook instead of door-to-door; and the results are absolutely astounding. 400 cookies were reported sold per hour, which is definitely more doors that you can knock as a troop in that time.
What girl scouts do on a yearly basis is sell cookies to raise funds for their troop as well as the organization. Much like the same way, multi-level marketing companies do the same through recruitment and asking people to come to functions that promote the product, namely in my personal experience, USANA Health Sciences, Nu Skin and Cutco (Vector Marketing). None of these three however, despite being million and near billion dollar companies, have found ways to harness the power of social media because they still rely on one thing: person-to-person contact
Like girl scout cookies, these three companies rely on similar door-to-door models that look to fostering a relationship with another individual, whether selling kitchen knives at a table, an all-in-one skin solution or health products. As far as technology is concerned, all three of these companies rely heavily on word of mouth marketing, direct mailing fliers or as the companies like to call themselves, “network marketing”. When it comes to social media and social networking however, beyond corporate existence there is nothing to be found.
How can social media change direct selling
It’s well known that direct selling methods have not changed in the past. USANA Health Sciences requires word of mouth marketing through conversation, Cutco through the mass mailing of fliers asking students to consider work, and Nu Skin through recruitment meetings where people are introduced to the product. More often than not, those introduced are led to one thing they think they are seeing and may come out annoyed that its not an actual desk job but rather something focused more on direct selling methods. Social media I believe, can change this.
I’ve spoken here on this blog on multiple occasions that social media is a conversation between two individuals through a communications platform such as Facebook or Twitter, where value is created. The unfortunate case of today’s social media and direct selling to consumers through the three companies mentioned above is that outside of corporate messages and inside association, there is little social media that is directed to the non-user through SEO, Facebook ads or Twitter following. In a world where time is of the essence and direct selling heralds very little return value when done in real time to prospective customers, I think social media would provide a much higher conversion rate for those who actually want to do direct sales over everything else.
Let’s look at some examples of where social media could change direct selling:
1) Twitter can be used to garner a conversation starting point. Find people who want to sell directly and cut through the early parts and really hit at the industry and why the industry makes sense.
2) Facebook can be used for both SEO (ads) as well as community building through the active promotion of the product through prosumership. From showing how the health product works to knives cutting rope (yes, Cutco does do that), it creates a demonstration right in someone’s living room in a much more comfortable manner.
3) YouTube is video-centric, engaging and really sells the product as well in addition to the association to those directly interested in joining a company like that.
As technology changes, I expect habits and methods of selling and marketing to evolve as well. Yes, I’m well aware that direct marketing will still focus on the personable aspect of understanding a person’s wants, their goals and their wishes, but I also believe that the Internet has evolved to truly handle the needs and wipe out the pitfalls of having people flake out because of one reason or another. If people were given more of a chance to express the business through an online medium with content to back their claims up (as opposed to just straight and sometimes very vague talk), you would probably see a greater participation rate than what currently exists.
What do you think? How do you think social media can change direct selling? Share your comments below or Tweet back at me.
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