S2E5 | Membership drives
Episode Description:
Membership drives are an effective—and fun!—way to grow your group, and to bring your community together for a common goal. In this episode, Sandra dives into the ins and outs of creating a successful member drive.
Show notes
“There’s something about a community working together with the same goal that gets people so lit up and so excited, and you feel part of the community.”
Remember Season 1, Episode 4 when I sat down with Dr. Dre Cleveland and she talked about how she ran a successful member drive? I’m going to dive into how to do exactly that!
So to start off…what is a member drive? It’s when you go to your Facebook group members and ask them to help you grow the group. Member drives are perfect for groups under 1,000 members. Now, you may think that it’s going to sound like it’s all about you. But when you ask your group members for help, let them know that you’re doing this to grow the community so you can bring in fresh questions, challenges, perspectives, and experiences. Then, let them know what the goal for your member drive is. How many people are you trying to bring in?
Member drives can be super effective, because the people in your group already know the community and its values, so they’ll only invite people who will also share these values, and who have the same community mindset.
When announcing your member drive, you’ll want to set some dates. I suggest that you don’t hold a member drive for longer than 5 days, anything longer and you’ll lose momentum. Another key to a member drive is to make it fun! Tell your group that this drive is a contest, and that there are prizes to be won!
When announcing, be sure to create an image to promote your drive, since everything online is so visual. Canva is a great program that can help you to create these types of images.
So when you announce your member drive you’ll want to:
- Tell your group what the membership drive is, and explain that the purpose is to bring in fresh perspectives, questions, and experiences
- Tell them what’s in it for them…talk prizes!
A simplistic version of how to track who is leading in the member drive is to use a spreadsheet.
Each person that comes into the group and fills in the three questions before joining is worth one point. (Note, one of these three questions should be ‘how did you hear about this group,’ and they can fill in the name of the person who recruited them.) Calculating this can be a bit manual, so be prepared for that.
This is also super important: when you give instructions to your group, make it very clear how to invite people. Don’t invite people by using the ‘invite’ button, I talked in previous episodes about how it doesn’t feel warm and fuzzy.
It’s much better for them to take a link to someone and say ‘Hey, I’m in this group, it’s amazing, they’re holding a member drive and thought of you immediately. Here’s why…” It’s always nicer to get a personal invite!
Throughout the drive, you can put out a leaderboard to show who has brought in the most new members. I’d recommend doing a leaderboard on day 2 and 3 of the drive, and then one on day 5 before you close out the contest.
You’ll also want to make a post welcoming all new members, and let them know that you’re in the midst of a member drive, and they’re welcome to join in!
As for the prizes, I recommend staying away from shipping anything. Shipping costs are outrageous and can take a very long time. Instead, give a gift card from your favorite sponsors, your store, or let them pick the type of gift card! You can also offer things like a half hour coaching call with you, or a past bundle or workshop. P.S: the gift cards don’t have to cost you a lot of money! When Dre held her successful member drive, $50 was the highest gift card amount. You’re going to have competitive people who don’t even need the prize, they just love the excitement, and want to see you succeed!
You can even do a whole group prize if you reach your member drive goal! Offer a special live workshop, template, or training to get everyone motivated.
Once your member drive is over, do something for all of the new people in your group! Let them know you’ll be doing a call next week, or a special bonus. You want to give them that warm feeling so they’ll continue to stay. This will also help to warm up your entire group, so you can do a launch later. (Too many people launch right after a member drive, but you should give new members time to get to know you and your values.)
Member drives are super fun, and if you’d like to learn more about them I go into further detail in the Engaged Group Membership. It’s also a part of our Engaged and Profitable Groups Program, which gives you coaching as well!
Thanks for tuning in…have fun with your member drives!