Do you promote the product or the opportunity?

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Love the distinction between Marketing and Advertising.
So many fail to realize these differences.
Success is almost assured when marketing designs the platform (through research and Testing) to present the solution to a problem shared by a an audience.
Advertising is nothing more than a vehicle to spread the word to that target..
It's goal is CLOSE the sale right NOW or move the prospect to another level of information so they can make a Conscious Decision NOW

Haha love the word play.

If you placed an ad on the radio, or a newspaper, or on a billboard, then logically you are gong to be promoting a product. Why is that logical? Because you are talking about advertising. ;)

However you could equally not advertise at all and instead use the radio to market yourself or your business (you advertise a product, you market a name).

Then of course the best will do both at the same time. For example when we were running ads for the local pet waste removal

and if I placed an ad on the radio or in the national newspaper or on a billborad... do you think I would be promoting me or the product

Good point from Bruce;
"either figuring out search engines, or through personal branding. Mix that with the reality that most people who try any form of marketing other than personal branding fail - this includes search engine marketing."
Search engines seem to be constantly in a state of flux...
WE (our own Brand) can offer consistency and when traffic begins to believe YOUR Brand the opportunity for long term repeat relationships is assured
Following this principle has allowed some of my endea

nice reply but I must add...personal branding is a marketing strategy spread across many portfolios.. the deep personal branding should never change in social circles we move about in.. yet personal branding may just fail for popularity... at the end of the day we are talking numbers... the product may be popular and all you have to do is catch the wave regardless of who you are. Then that product may also provide opportunity (residual income)
Mastering optimisation is the key to any PPC any Org

Trev if there is one thing my experience has shown me its that mastering google is a whole lot more than organic search results and inbound marketing. Its more than link counts and relevant content. See the real problem is most people online fail at getting traffic. The reason they fail is because they focus on the wrong things.

All the organic results in the world won't help if you are targeting all the wrong things. So before a person can even bother to learn about getting results first they

Bruce i'm a little amazed at your response.Being a master of google is not hard (if you know how and what to do) especially in Organic SERPS. I say if you focus more on personal branding your missing out on a full strategical marketing plan. To me a marketing plan encompasses all avenues. PPC can be scary and needs to be done correctly or you will lose money...yet in saying that most of the big players use PPC only for testing purposes not a full advertising campaign.
In summary I can only say

Um I would never suggest promoting either. Don't take this wrong, but this is the kind of question that leads to a lot of people setting up for failure.

Ensure there is a product to promote but don't promote the product or the business - promote yourself. Never promote anything but yourself unless you are a master of google or PPC advertising and then promote the product :)

Great responses from all of you I see we have some great marketers here in Apsense. I am open to all of your advice as there are people that fit into many categories that we have discussed and while one method may work on some people, it may not work on others.

Totally agree with Joachim Pettersson, "people join people not companies." is very true in my opinion too.

I must say that everything comes down to marketing yourself. If people do not have trust in you, it does not really matter what opportunity you have. It may be the best in the whole universe. People will not join you anyway.

From my 13 years in marketing, I have learned one thing people join people not companies. So according to me are key to branding yourself and building relationships with people and let people find you. And eventually ask yourself what you're doing. Then you tell Them about

Yes Robson I agree without the product there could never be opportunity. So the consideration is what is the opportunity? If you have a product to market then market it and make your commission sales...whether one off or recurring. If you have a product plus opportunity you have a way to expand your income base by having multiple advertising campaign strategies to work with. Your biggest challenge is to recognise what you have and just how to market what you have in all the areas you can reach

But, let's keep in mind that "A great opportunity Begins with a great product (or service)".

thats the idea Scot... take advantage of every marketing avenue you can utilize.

I think it also depends on what you market is. If you have a great product that people want, you target part of your marketing for Customers that will buy the product for personal use and they may just realize they can make money introducing it to others. On the other side, you can market the opp to the marketers and leaders that are looking for a new opportunity and a way to enhance their business.

Great question and responses, I brand myself first, then the opportunity based on my experience with the opportunity. As to product, it has to be something I have confidence in or would use before I consider the opp

I agree somewhat with Trev because we all have different ways to do business. I promote the produce first because I believe in our product and it will help build strong, long term relationships. 2nd, some I just share the product because that is what interest them more.

To me Scot I would plan my marketing strategy from at least three different approaches. 1 the all included.product + opportunity, 2 the product, 3 the opportunity. option 4 would be an inclusion in my personal profile.