Network marketing involves a business network of manufacturers and distributors who earn commission from sales and recruiting. Network marketing tools can be legitimate or illegal, and it’s important to review their use to avoid violations. Email and contact management programs are common tools, while web scraping and unsolicited commercial email can be illegal. Other tools include social media, forums, and telephone calls.
A network is a related and interconnected group. Network marketing is another name for multilevel marketing and the network usually referred to is a business network consisting of a manufacturer of goods or services and distributors who generally earn a commission from the sales of goods and services as well as to recruit others to become distributors. Network marketing tools are any type of software application, metric or other device that aids network marketing.
There are two main categories of network marketing tools. The first pair of categories distinguish those network marketing tools that are legitimate from those that are illegal. The second pair of categories distinguishes those that have only legitimate uses from those that can be transformed into illegal use. Because the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) identifies some network marketing plans and some sales techniques as prohibited, it is essential that you review all network marketing tools and the use to which they will be subjected to ensure no violations occur.
An example of an illegal network marketing tool is a software program that creates a web page by scraping and reposting information from other sites to a network operator’s website. This is also called web collection. In some cases this plagiarizes information only, usually without credit. In other cases, it also violates the terms of use of the originating website.
One of the main network marketing tools is email. It’s worth stopping and thinking about the system to make sure the features – which might be good enough for personal email – meet the needs of network marketing. How email addresses are obtained, the use to which they are put, and the content of the emails that are sent all have the potential to put the network marketer on one side of the law or the other. All commercial email must comply with the terms of the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Onslaught of Pornography and Unsolicited Marketing of 2003).
There’s nothing wrong with commercial email per se. Unless the subject and header information is accurate, the message is accurately identified as an advertisement, the sender’s physical mailing address is provided, and an opt-out message is provided with clear steps to prevent future e- mail, commercial email may violate the law. This is an example of a legitimate or illegal tool depending on how it is used.
Another of the network marketing tools, the contact management program, by itself, presents no problems. It could be misused just by filling it with information that was not obtained correctly. Beyond that, it’s simply a useful way to keep valuable information organized in accessible ways.
Other tools used by network marketers include the various ways of making contacts on the Internet. These include websites, forums, chat rooms, blogs, instant messengers, Twitter and Facebook. Also, some network operators use telephone calls and snail mail.
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