How Can A Private Facebook Group Benefit A Running Store

In this episode we give you ways a Facebook Group can benefit a running store by: 

• Creating personal engagement and one-on-one conversations with potential clients. 
• Announcing exclusive offers to give that VIP feel. 
• Building trust! Sharing first-hand experience, answering questions or simply providing the community a way to help each other.
• Getting feedback. You can run Facebook Polls or simply ask questions about upcoming events, products or specials. 

Aaron: [00:00:15] Hey,guys. Welcome to another exciting episode of the Marketing Natives. Thanks forgiving us your ear. Hope you're enjoying your what would be a car ride or a lotof people listen to this on the treadmill or out for a run. So if you're doingthat, hope you're enjoying it. Today's episode is about Facebook groups andspecifically for running stores. So how can a Facebook group benefit a runningstore? This is not just for running stores. So Facebook groups are verybeneficial for all businesses. So if you are- If you have a Facebook businesspage, you may think about using a group now. So a couple of things we're goingto cover are engagement, announcing offers exclusive to the group, buildingtrust, and getting valuable feedback.

Christian: [00:01:03] Yeah.Just a side note, I feel like lately on my Facebook feed I've noticed moregroup conversations than page posts. So I believe that Facebook definitelyfavors Facebook groups over Facebook pages because if you think about it's justpeople having conversations. That's a majority of what's going on inside ofFacebook groups is people who are part of that group having conversations whichis what Facebook wants to share.

Aaron: [00:01:33] Right.It's not a Facebook page talking back to an individual. It's individuals havingconversations back and forth with business owners. So.

Christian: [00:01:41] Abouta specific topic, you know. So.

Aaron: [00:01:44] Absolutely.

Christian: [00:01:45] AndI mean, that's really our number one thing here on how you can benefit is thatpersonal engagement. People definitely have those one-on-one conversations.Potential customers will definitely want to join that group and start havingthose meaningful conversations inside that group. I mean, and that's a, like Isaid, great way for you as a Facebook page. You own the Facebook group soyou're able to monitor and chime in whenever someone's asking, you know- Ifit's a running store and they're asking, you know, what are the best type ofshoes for this type of running? Then you can definitely chime in and maybe givespecific or personalized discounts to that specific person.

Aaron: [00:02:27] Right.There may be questions about hey, this is my- So they get inside of theFacebook group, never ran before, and they have a question about hey, what's agood place to start for my first run or where my first place to meet up withsomebody? And there's- Runners are very known for giving their own advice aboutrunning. So you could have a lot of community engagement, and the page wouldalmost run itself because people have questions all the time. And then there'salways-

Christian: [00:02:54] Thegroup.

Aaron: [00:02:55] Thegroup. Sorry. They would run themselves the whole time because there's enoughpeople inside of there that they can respond too. It's not like a page whereonly the page can do the responses if something's initiated, but if a usercomes in in the middle of the night and leaves a comment and asks forsomething, somebody else can jump in on a conversation. And you can get aconversation started at any point.

Christian: [00:03:16] Yeah,exactly. So that's our number one. You get a lot more personal engagement, moreone on one conversations with those potential customers, and the second one,which I kind of touched a little bit on number one, it's, you know, announcingor giving out exclusive offers to members of that group. They will get thatsort of VIP feel because you're only offering this type of discount or offer tothat Facebook group. So customers are much more likely to purchase or use thatdeal because they feel like, you know, it's more exclusive.

Aaron: [00:03:53] AndI think that that works for me as well where you think that you're alreadygetting a deal, plus nobody else really knows about it yet, or say, forexample, a pair of shoes are coming on sale and you're going to get first dibsat them so nobody else knows that they're going to go on sale. They're normallya hundred fifty dollars, and you can get them for 100. And you guys get to knowabout them before anyone else. You're going to jump on that, and this will helpthe business get a lot more sales because you're going to get a lot more upfront and then whenever it goes back onto the website if there's limitedquantity, the people who are buying outside the group they're going to be kindof rush to purchase it as well. So it kind of works both ways.

Christian: [00:04:33] Andalso I remember you had the idea about a VIP sale, and that's, I mean, doing itinside a Facebook group is a great idea as well. So you can announce that, youknow, you're about to have a blowout sale this weekend, but, you know, you cando maybe even like a little raffle inside the Facebook group. Well, the firstten people to do this or just, you know, comment in here on this thread, andwe'll put you in this raffle. And we'll pick 10 people to come in before weopen the store to get sort of first dibs on products.

Aaron: [00:05:06] AndI think that, yes. So if you did something like that on your Facebook page, itwouldn't be as effective because Facebook is really cracking down on people whosay like, comment, and share to join this contest, but on the Facebook group,you could have them do certain things. And you wouldn't be as affected becauseit's more like a, you know- You're not walking out on the street. You're kindof exclusive inside of this building. So it's a building that you're inclusivewith, and then you're allowed to do whatever. There's a little bit less rulesthat are going on inside of there.

Christian: [00:05:40] Yes,exactly. Oh snap. All right. So this is our- We're halfway through the showright now, and we just want to invite you to check us out online. You can findus anywhere on social media @bitbranding, or you can go to our website, bitbranding.co.If you're a small business owner and you're having problems with social media,maybe your website, maybe some marketing. You want to start advertising onlineon social media. We're definitely the guys for you. You can contact us athello@bitbranding.co.

Aaron: [00:06:23] Allright. And now we are back. Well, what we thought we were back. All right, andwe are back now with our next tip for you to a Facebook group or about Facebookgroups rather. And another benefit for having one of them, having a group, isbuilding trust. Inside of there you get to go deeper into the conversations.You build more of a relationship. You can ask questions. Inside of a grouppeople feel a little bit more comfortable about going in-depth with theirquestions. If somebody- If this is their first time like, for example, goingback to their first time running, they may not say this is my first timerunning and I, you know, I'm afraid to take GU or I don't know how to stop atthe restrooms. Like maybe that's something that you don't post on the wallbecause- Or on the Facebook page because you don't want their 5000 followers tosee that you have a problem with this, but inside of a group it's more closed.It's more intimate, and you may get a lot of people who are going back andforth and answering those questions.

Christian: [00:07:23] Yeah.Yeah, definitely. I think it gives you an opportunity, like Aaron said, to, youknow, answer those questions, share those firsthand experiences, and you know,strengthen that relationship between you, the members, and your business.

Aaron: [00:07:39] Andit also gives you a chance to - I don't know - find out more about them. So youcould use this a little bit later. Has nothing to necessarily do with thegroups but for advertising to be thinking about this. Groups are a great placeto figure out what your audience is asking questions about, and you could usethat as your copy. So if they're asking a bunch of questions about what are thebest shoes for 2018 for running, you can use that, write an article, write ablog, do a video or whatever, and use that to run an ad because you know youraudience is already interested in it and take that copy. You just basicallycopy and paste what they've been saying and use that as an ad because the bestads are ones that don't look like them. So a group when you have that trust andthat relationship, they talk about those things, and you could use that fromyour other marketing pieces.

Christian: [00:08:29] Yeah.And last one but not the worst one. Actually I think this a really cool. Youcan get a lot of good feedback off of your Facebook group members. Think of itas your little marketing group research right there where you can actually runpolls inside the Facebook group. Maybe you have some new ideas for thebusiness. Maybe new deals or offers or products. You want to get, you know, afeel for what your base group of people are thinking about that, and doing itright there inside your Facebook group, it's a great way to get it started, getthe ball rolling. And you know, you yourself ask questions. Get better in orderto, you know, run better advertising, run better marketing, have betterproducts, and overall have a better business.

Aaron: [00:09:14] Yes.And I think the one thing that just really adds to it is if you're about toroll out something in a store and say, for example, you want people to be ableto purchase like nutrition or like GU or protein shakes, and you think that's agreat idea to add supplements to your running adn clothing store, and you askpeople about it, and they say oh, that's a great idea. I would definitelypurchase it from you guys. Or no, I come to you only for this. I get most of myGU and nutrition from, say, Sprouts or something like that. These are hypothetical.Obviously, that would make a really smart move for you to put that stuff in thestore, but if everyone on your group said no, you shouldn't do that, maybe notmake the investment to buy all the protein and all of the, you know, theupfront cost for those items if they're not going to sell. So the group canhelp you kind of keep your costs low and figure out if it's going to be a smartmove for me to move that direction in the business.

Christian: [00:10:12] Yeah,absolutely. And I mean, I have maybe an extra one, and it's to- If you do anykind of events, definitely use the Facebook group as a platform to launch theseevents. Talk about the events beforehand. You know, even start with the idea.You know, use number 4. Use the feedback. Run some polls, and get some eventsgoing that way and promote your events through your Facebook groups which is alot better than going through your pages.

Aaron: [00:10:42] Yes,and they are a lot more likely to see them that way too. So you could create iton your business page and share it to the group, and inside the group, youcould pin it or- But it just allows you to be seen a lot more. People who aremore likely to see something in the group, which we kind of mentioned earlier,than they are to see it on the page. So just having it in front of them is alot easier. So that was a very good bonus.

Christian: [00:11:06] Yeah.

Aaron: [00:11:08] Allright. So the- Christian's face right now. It was a good bonus. All right. Sothe best thing for you to do right now is that if you are a business owner whohas a Facebook page and if you're running store, absolutely please share thisepisode with other running sore owners, or if you're a friend of somebody whohas a running store, make sure you share this with them. And if you found valuein this and you don't even have a running store but you have a business pageand you're thinking about getting a Facebook group, absolutely take up thesetactics. And if you guys have any questions, just shoot us over a message eitheron Instagram or our e-mails. Again hello@bitbranding.co. But main thing is toshare. Please leave us a rating and review so we know what to improve on, andif we're already adding a ton of value, we'd love to share this with morepeople. And doing that allows us to spread it.

Christian: [00:12:02] Yep.Bye.