In my opinion, email is a better communication tool than the telephone. Especially, when communicating with your downline. With email, you don�t have to play phone tag. When you use email, you can better formulate an answer to someone�s question because you can answer your email when it�s more convenient for you. Your downline members can send you a series of questions Monday morning and by Tuesday morning they can wake up to find a detailed response by you.

And, think of all the long distance charges you save by using email to communicate with your group. As Internet phones become more reliable, even the cost of a long distance call will be free.

Whenever you have news to tell your downline, you can transmit your message to all of your members instantly by using a tool called a listserver. Cost? Negligible. A listserver is a tool that allows you to manage your email list of members. If you pay $19.95 per month for your Internet access, whether you transmit 100 messages to your downline by email or 10,000 � the cost to you is just $19.95. Just try going to your local postoffice and asking them if you can mail 10,000 five page newsletters for $19.95.

If you develop a new follow-up letter, a new ad, find an informative website, you can easily let your group know about your new findings in seconds by using your listserver.

What you�ll like about advertising your online versus print publications is that online advertising is far less expensive and you get results must faster. With print publications, you have to wait up to 3 months before your ad appears and it could cost you over $100. You might get 5 or 6 leads, if you�re lucky. Then you have to follow-up by mail�more of an expense�and more time consuming. One more thing before we dive right into advertising online.

Don�t just place one or two small ads and expect a miracle. The same way you can�t expect to mail 100 postcards and cash in big time, you can�t place one or two ads and expect HUNDREDS of new leads. You must test ads, and then test them again in different locations. Writing ads is an art. I�ve written some pretty bad ads. However, I still keep writing ads, placing ads, and testing what works and what doesn�t. You must do the same.

If your Internet connection is with one of the major online services: AOL, COMPUSERVE, MSN, PRODIGY � you�re in luck. These services have their own classified areas that people actually read and browse. Meaning, people will respond to your ads. The process is simple. You create a short classified ad the way I�ve discussed previously. Then you place that ad in as many classified categories as reasonable. You should have all responses directed to your "smart auto-responder" or to a special webpage that contains a form connected to your "smart auto-responder."

The "smart auto-responder" will automatically send your sales letter to your prospect and do the follow-up for you. If you use a "smart auto-responders" it will follow-up automatically for up to 90 days. Better yet, the auto-responder will save the email addresses of everyone who hasn�t asked to be removed. You can then add these people to your newsletter list so they see the great support you give your group. Hopefully, this will motivate them to join your program.

What I like about people who use an online service to connect to the Internet is that they have an above average income and are more educated. These people are buyers. They are much better prospects than what you�ll find in newsgroups, or through direct mail. The fact that they have money to spend and are more educated means they will have better business habits, and therefore, will make a better business partner in your MLM program.

One thing that always bothered me about using direct mail was that many of my prospects didn�t have money. And of course, without money, you�re finished before you can get started.

When you create your classified ad, make sure you pay attention to the headline you use because when someone is browsing through the classified section, they will only see headlines. They decide which ad to read based on the headline. So if your headline is weak, it won�t get any attention.

In your ad, simply ask the prospect to send a message to your "smart auto-responder" or visit the special webpage you�ve setup to get more information. This is a great way to get your sales message in your prospects hand fast. Actually they will have your sales letter in their email box in seconds while they are online. It�s also a good idea to place the same ad in many different categories that you believe will give you good prospects. Don�t place your MLM ads in categories like legal or medical. Stick with small business/entreprenuerial categories. To test which category is best for your ad, you could use different auto-responders for each category. The cost effective way would be to setup different email accounts with AOL to have your reply�s directed there.

For each category, simply ask the prospect to send a message to that email address to get more information. Then you will manually have to cut and paste the sales letter as a reply. Of course, don�t forget to follow-up with each prospect and add them to your ezine list. Better yet, manually add the prospect to your "smart auto-responder" so you know they will be followed-up with appropriately. This frees you to do other things.

After your ad expires, you could count the number of responses you received from each category. Which ever category gave you the most responses, you can continue to place ads there and use your "smart auto-responder" to send your initial sales letter and to do follow-up.

There are some Internet businesses that only use ezines to promote their website and sell their goods. Why? Because ezine advertising is inexpensive and results are generated quickly. You should place your ads in "small business/home business/entreprenuerial" type ezines. There are a few MLM related ezines on the Internet. However, I think it�s better to stay away from them. You should use the Internet to bring "fresh blood" into the MLM industry. Concentrate your efforts on people who know a little about MLM, but really haven�t found the right program yet.

Using direct mail, it�s difficult and expensive to find "fresh blood". But on the Internet, it�s possible. What you�ll like about placing ads in ezines is the immediacy of which your ads are placed and results are seen. You can place your order on Monday and by Friday your ad is being seen by thousands. Placing ads in ezines is a little bit more expensive then placing a classified ad through one of the online services. If you�re connected to the Internet by an online service like AOL, you should first test your ads using their classified section. Once you are satisfied that you have a powerful ad, you can roll it out to the ezines.

If your Internet access is through a regular ISP, then go to Yahoo�s Classified section. They have a free classified area where you can test your ad in 10 different categories. If your ads do well on Yahoo, then roll out to the ezines.

Before you start placing ads in the ezines, first subscribe to the ezine you�re thinking about running ads with. You should read a few issues of each. Check out how many ads are in each issue. You should only run your ads in ezines that have lots of content and only a few ads. If an ezine has lots of ads (over 10), I suggest you find another ezine to place ads with.

If an ezine has too many ads, the subscribers probably don�t read the ezine. People don�t subscribe to ezines to read ads. They subscribe to get information that can solve their problems. Only place ads in ezines that have lots of useful content, but few ads.

After reading an ezine, decide if it�s an ezine that you would subscribe to. If not, find another ezine to advertising with. When you place your ads in ezines, make sure you use your "smart auto-responder" to respond to requests or direct prospects to your special webpage. This will make your follow-up much easier. What type of ad is best for ezines? Any good classified ad. Typically, ads in ezines are about 40 words in length.

It�s very important to TEST ezines and ads for effectiveness. For this you�ll need a way to track responses you get from the ads you place in ezines. One good way of tracking ads is to have each ad linked to a different email address and to then count the number of leads generated from each ad. For example, if you decided to run one ad in 3 different ezines, you should have the responses to each ad request your sales letter from a different email account.

This is easily done by having several different free email accounts. Of course, you should manually add each new prospect to your "smart auto-responder" for continuous follow-up. Or you could apply for several different free auto-responders and count the number of responses from each ad that way.

Remember, that free auto-responders don�t allow you to schedule your follow-up. They are only good for one-shot responses. And, you already know that one-shot anything is a bad thing when you�re marketing. Plus, free auto-responders have a sales message attached to the top or bottom of your message. This is bad because it let�s your prospect know that you have a free auto-responder. Your prospect won�t take you or your MLM program as seriously. So, always make sure you have one "smart auto-responder" ready to be used.

Another way to track responses from different ads is to setup a different webpage on your site for each ad. Then use your traffic stats program to count the number of visitors to each page. You would have each page collect the prospects follow-up information: name and email address. This information would go directly to the "smart auto-responder" you have setup. You can ask your web hosting company to install a stats program onto your website.

When testing which ads and ezines are best, you should always run the same ad in different ezines to be published around the same time. You always want to have ONE variable. Only ONE thing should be different, otherwise you won�t know which item caused a poor or good result. Once you�ve determined which ad is best and which ezine gives you the most prospects, it�s time to roll out big time and place ads in as many ezines as you can find that you believe will have MLMers subscribed. Watch as the prospects roll in.