This is a guest post from Steve Forrester. Steve Forrester is the lead trainer at The Subscription Accelerator Program, a membership community teaching entrepreneurs and businesses to start, launch and grow profitable subscription box businesses.
Facebook Groups + Subscription Economy = Profits
“How do I get more customers” This is the same question asked by every subscription business that I speak to.
• Do I use Facebook Ads?
• Are Adwords the magic bullet?
• Or maybe SEO?
There are plenty of options for dumping your marketing budgets and those are the most common.
However given that companies are seeing rising costs on all these platforms as well as increased competition it begs the question:
“So what can leaders within the Subscription Economy do to reduce customer acquisition costs in 2018?”
My answer is for Subscription companies to get down and dirty with Relationship Marketing. Namely start using one of the most engaged, viral and active parts of the Internet – Facebook Groups.
Facebook Groups have exploded in popularity over the last 3 years with over 1 Billion Active users on the platform plus Facebook actively promoting group on the sidebar.
This provides brands with the opportunity to tap into their most engaged users, email subscribers and customers where they hang out.
Marketers all know that to get a sale we need three key ingredients: For customers to know, like and trust the organisation. This is especially true for any form of subscription or continuity product where having a strong relationship between the organisation and the customer can directly impact LTV and long term profitability.
Facebook Groups provide a free tool to achieve all three of these key ingredients and cause a significant boost in customer acquisition and retention for subscription economy businesses.
Who should we invite to the groups?
Given that large Facebook Groups will require some form of community management and interaction I would suggest initially focussing on inviting a cohort of your existing subscribers to form the core fans of your Group.
With this core group you can start to determine what content your ideal users respond to, introduce the staff and brand in a more casual fashion and start establishing the group dynamics.
When these are bedded down, you should then start to invite segments of your email list and forming an ongoing strategy for attracting and retaining group members.
It’s important to note that interaction within the group will not be a one sided relationship like it is with Facebook Pages. You need to be prepared to manage this and ideally implement a Community Manager to manage this.
Their role should be twofold:
1. To keep a positive balance and vibe within the community by ensuring that topics are appropriate (e.g.; support requests are handled by the best channel) and that member behaviour standards are upheld.
2. To spark and promote group discussions and ensure that member’s posts are also being interacted with.
So how can we use these groups? The good thing about Facebook Groups is that the list is almost endless as to how you can use it.
For Brands looking to attract new customers I suggest the following activities
• Unboxing Videos using Facebook Live
• Teasing future products prior to release
• Webinars with product creators so users can find out more about the brands they love
• Competitions based on User Generated Content
• Behind the scenes of the company (eg: Who packs the good, what does the warehouse look like, who are the product curators)
• Customer Spotlights – Share their wins and yours (reviews are a great source of social proof)
• Q&A Sessions as a Facebook Live
• Feedback requests & Fan requests
In addition to all this you can schedule regular “Theme Days” where users are encouraged to interact and provide UGC.
All these activities help a brand to establish genuine rapport, credibility and trust with potential and existing customers. Breaking down the barriers leading towards a sale.
Best of all – once you have a potential customer in your group they are significantly more likely to see posts within the group and from your brand.
Conclusion
As you can see, Facebook Groups present a great opportunity for brands to connect and engage with their audience in a way that is both cost effective and meaningful.
Next time you are looking to engage your customers consider starting a group, it might just be your best marketing channel.
Want to learn more about the psychology of subscriptions? Download our psychology of subscriptions whitepaper today to discover even more ways to connect with your subscribers.
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