These days people are not so anxious to join an opportunity. They want to be romanced first. They want the opportunity to check you out.

Most prospects are looking for leadership. Training. Someone who can, and will, help them. And truth be known, they also expect to be entertained at the same time. If you can't entertain them, you lose.

Good quality content will help you with lead generation, branding yourself as someone in the know, following up and relationship building.

These things are all essential to building a network marketing organization. And this article will cover three ways you can use content to do all the above.

1. Lead Generation by Writing and Submitting Articles

Writing and submitting articles is an excellent way to brand yourself as knowledgeable in your field. Done correctly, article marketing can also help with search engine rankings and be used to get people to take action. Opting into your newsletter for example.

I run two article directories. One that is very general with categories covering just about every topic you can think of. And a new one just for articles for network marketers.

Running these directories has given me a bird's eye view of article marketing and I see some very common mistakes. Ones I hope that you will avoid.

One of the most common things I see is people will submit a poorly written article. The title will be keyword rich, for the search engines, but actually lack the ability to grab anyone's attention. Usually added at the bottom is a resource box with a link to a website of course, but without any call to action.

The reason they do this is to get incoming links to their websites, trying to raise their ranking in the search engines. That might be OK for Adsense sites, but not if you want to be a big dog network marketer.

With that strategy, nobody is reading your articles. Nobody is downloading your articles to publish on other websites and in newsletters. Your not getting leads because you have no Call to Action. So you're not getting the subscribers to follow up with. The short of it is, nobody knows who the heck you are.

What your goal needs to be with article marketing is getting readers. Not just links. You want to look past the article directories with publishers in mind. You want people to share your article with other people. That makes it viral. That's a very cool thing about article marketing.

2. Blogging for Dollars Anyone?

Not long ago Blogging was the big thing. You just had to have a blog. And how easy it was to get ranked well in the search engines with a blog. And everyone was teaching you how to do that.

And I suppose that did work. And it still does to some extent. The problem is, like everything, everyone and his brother is now blogging. So just getting search engine traffic is still very possible but less likely than before.

So is blogging still a good idea?

Yes it is. A blog is a good business tool. One reason is because your prospects are spying on you. Mine are spying on me. They want to know who you are, are you for real, do you know, do you care, are you honest, and probably what color underwear you have on RIGHT NOW.

So if you want them to know what color Underoo's you have on before they join your mlm opportunity than you have to tell them. You have to feed them the information they are looking for, so they will feel safe, and having a blog is a good way to do that.

And here's another situation where having your own blog might help you. Let's say you've been working this lead. You follow up with them with a phone call or email. Now you get them on your opportunity call. Well while they are on that call they hear BIG SHOT GURU on the phone and decide to Google the guru. Now they found the guru's link and joins YOUR deal under Mr. Big Shot.

Doesn't that just tick you off? It sure does me! But by you having a blog you stand a better chance to give people a reason to join YOU instead of Mr (or MRS) Big Shot. You know, show off your charming personality or something.

Having a blog about your mlm business will give you a chance to show what YOU have to offer. I mean, what's so special about you? I don't know what it is. But there is something. I guarantee it. So be brave and strut your stuff.

The third advantage about blogging is credibility. I am a direct response kind of guy usually. That means I would normally use a one page website, capture their info, and then show my goods, so to speak.

But I have noticed over the past year or so that when you recommend a product or service on a blog the response rate can be much higher. It's less pushy. Especially if you can get people coming back to your blog. It's a relationship builder. So when you are recommending something, even show how you use it, a blog can be quite effective.

Plus as your blog becomes more and more popular (and this usually takes time) you will start getting people to comment. Your readers will comment and often leave a link. Sometimes that's the only reason they do comment. But it's still worth it. The extra content helps with search engines and also gives a community atmosphere.

3. Good Old Fashioned Email Marketing.

When R.S.S. (Real Simple Syndication) started to become popular there was a lot of noise about the death of email marketing. Have you checked your email lately? Email marketing still alive and well. No, it is not as effective as it used to be. But what online still is?

The thing you need to understand about content is people want to read it. They really do. And your content can be interchanged. So you can use all or part of the same content in an article, on a blog, and also in your email marketing. It just has to be interesting to the people that are reading it.

For network marketers you can use email marketing content to ask people to join your opportunity. You can use it to create a relationship. The best use of it is to show your prospects what you bring to the table. In bite size pieces you can show them why you would be the person they should join. And that is what you want, correct?

So there you have it. Just three of the many ways you can use and combine good quality content to build your downline.