First of all it's clear that branding is used with MLM because you've likely heard of the brands Avon, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and even Herbal Life. These have been household names. People recognize those names, but that doesn't always help for the individual distributor. It rarely leads directly to a sell, or to someone joining your business. This is exactly why brand building isn't the best way to market.
You've got to look past the type of marketing that email list you recognize, and more toward the type of marketing that gets direct results for you MLM marketing efforts. Small businesses who operate in the business-to-business space do a lot of things right, but marketing is not one of them. This article will explain why this is the case and explore associated pitfalls and opportunities, as well as give you a definition of b-to-b (business-to-business) marketing and suggest some effective solutions to the problem.
Typically, companies with 20 to 100 employees or so who are in manufacturing, distribution, professional services and the like do not have a marketing manager, and rightly so; these firms are simply too small to justify that position. So the president or general manager is responsible for marketing. This doesn't work very well because that person has more important things to do such as keeping the place running and keeping the doors open.