Alert #219: 4/3/2013

Health Product Claims

The subject of Part 5 of my Inside Network Marketing video blog series deals with what we can and can’t say about dietary supplement products, and why. This is likely going to be upsetting to some, and shocking to most. Please remember, I’m just the messenger.

Once again the trends are a mixture of good and bad news. The “M.L.M. Index” (top 12 public M.L.M. companies by market cap) beat the S&P in March for the third straight month, rising 4.63% to the S&P’s 1.24%. For the past three months the M.L.M. Index has risen 17.83% while the S&P has increased 7.22%. Although the S&P beat the M.L.M. Index over the past 12 months, 10.49% to 1.87%, this period includes Herbalife’s 46.12% drop (induced by a bogus short seller attack), and Nu Skin’s 23.52% drop (due to a Wall Street perceived guilt-by-association). Thanks mainly to Mannatech (+76.34), Tupperware (+52.67%), Medifast (+31.34%), Primerica (+30.13%), and USANA (+28.41%), with a little help from LifeVantage (+6.65%), the overall trend was up. Keep in mind, stock market investors are primarily trend analysts who are voting on what companies they believe will be more valuable in the future, not based on their present value.

Google search results for the acronym “M.L.M.” (without the periods – I’m adding them only to avoid spam filters which don’t like to see M and L and M together), are not heading in the right direction. Of the top 100 results, 35 are pro-M.L.M., 7 are con. This is down from 69 pro-sites at the end of February. Over the last several years such a search routinely displayed at least 80 pro-sites. The drop to 35 is not due to an increase in the number of con-sites, which actually dropped from 13 to 7, but rather a recent, massive increase in the number of sites having nothing to do with our industry. For example, Martin Marietta Materials (which has the ticker symbol M and L and M), Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry, and MLM-Martin Architects.

Based on a propriety algorithm, the ratio of online pro-vs-con M.L.M terms and phrases has dropped slightly from 1.83 to 1.80, which continues a slow downward trend from it’s peak of 2.39 in September of 2010.

The number of visitors to the Wikipedia page for “[the industry that shall not be named]” continued its rapid accent to 92,128 in March (another record), up from 82,392 in February, and it’s all time low of 32,263 in January of 2008. Although this Wiki page has become somewhat more balanced in recent month, it’s still predominantly a con-site due to it’s largely disproportionate references to anti-M.L.M. critics and their portrayal of them as credible information sources.

Here’s the updated Trends page:  http://www.insidenm.com/mlm-trends/

This Monday, April 8th, John Fogg will begin an 8 part training series titled “The InterNetwork Marketing on Facebook Intensive”.

Facebook has been a popular tool for networkers, but is often abused. Facebook has strict rules about how their platform can be used by marketers, and what they define as right and wrong are sometimes separated by very fine lines. Even if you follow the rules it doesn’t mean you’ve mastered the rules of good marketing. For example, Facebook has no rule against being obnoxious.

John has had a lot of success marketing on Facebook and knows how to do it right.

As you can see HERE, this course is normally $397. That’s not an arbitrary “list price”, its the actual price that most participants are actually paying. However, John is offering a “$300 scholarship” to all MarketWave Alert subscribers! That means your cost is $97.

For more information, or to enroll, go here: