S2E8 | how to use a challenge to grow your group
Episode Description:
This week, Sandra discusses how to use a challenge to grow your group! Hear recommendations from someone who’s been there, done that, and learn how you can get awesome results for yourself and your challenge members.
Show notes
Running a challenge, although it’s a lot of work and planning, the results are so fantastic.”
It’s no secret that I LOVE challenges. I love the growth and engagement they provide, and I get to see challenge members get excited and get results. I’ve run several challenges over the years, and I even had so many questions about how to create challenges that I made a Challenge Workshop that’s included in my Engaged Groups Membership.
In one of my first challenges, I used a strategy to help challenge members grow their group. Eventually, I learned that this strategy drove engagement, which helped them to monetize, so I updated the Grow Your Group Challenge to the Grow, Engage, and Monetize Your Group Challenge. But at first it wasn’t all wild successes, I learned some lessons along the way.
I once tried to run a challenge in November, the week before American Thanksgiving. I’m not an American, but I quickly learned how chaotic that week is. I tried to open my membership during Thanksgiving week, and my results could’ve been much better if I had scheduled my launch during a different time.
The key part of a challenge is to have a promise. What will people get from your challenge? At first, my promise was that their group engagement would increase by 20%. I kept the number low because I hadn’t run the challenge before, but I was pretty sure I could get them to 20%.
In my challenges, some people’s engagement went up by 1,900% or even 3,900%…so a bit more than 20%! Though if I tried to market a promise that I could increase engagement by 3,900%, it’s likely people wouldn’t believe me, or would peg me as a “bro marketer.” So I promised that I could increase a group’s engagement by 50% or more, and the “more” was key, because I knew they could do more. It was an amount that was really attainable, and the extra is a bonus surprise for them.
What did challenge participants have to do to get these engagement numbers? They just had to follow the steps that I laid out every day, which took them less than 15 minutes a day. You don’t want to give “homework” that’s too long, nobody wants something that complicates their life. With just 15 minutes a day, I was able to offer amazing results.
In Summer 2020, I held the Engage and Grow Your Facebook Group Challenge. 998 people joined the challenge, a number I was so excited about! From that challenge, 740 people joined my free Facebook Group.
In the middle of the challenge, I opened enrollment for my Engaged Group Membership, and had 142 new members join. I was able to make 5 figures from this challenge that I didn’t have before, all from low cost membership!
This challenge wasn’t just a success for me, it was a success for the challenge participants too. People were able to wake up their dead groups, monetize, and increase their confidence.
After this, people really wanted to know how I created this challenge, and I created the Challenge Workshop soon after.
When creating your own challenge, you want to think about the promise you’re making. What will people gain from this challenge? Then, map out those steps from A to B, and those are the tasks you’ll hand out each day.
You’ll have people who will do the complete challenge, and those who start and then fade away. Something I recommend is adding a training component to your challenge.
For my challenges, I had a Facebook Live kickoff call the day before the challenge. It included housekeeping, how to get the emails, and it made sure everyone was ready. Then, each day of the challenge, I ran a bit of training on relevant topics like how to monetize your group, how to increase engagement, and more. At the end of the challenge, I let everyone know that these trainings would soon go behind my membership. That led people to join my group because they wanted to view the trainings before the deadline.
I also really wanted to get the numbers of people’s progress throughout the challenge. When the biggest part of the challenge was over, I ran a live training to help them figure out their statistics. I had them share, if they were comfortable, where their engagement went, and I was able to use that to promote my next challenge.
You’ll be able to learn a lot about your audience through a challenge, and give them something that they didn’t have before. Running a challenge is a lot of work and planning (and sometimes a challenge!) but the results are awesome!