Episode 12 – Growing Facebook Groups with Drew Griffin
Drew Griffin joins Gary to talk about Facebook Groups. Drew talks about his strategy for highly engaged groups of 5, 10, even 15,000 members and how you can use the same strategy to build your own profitable Facebook Group.
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Transcript
00:00:53 Gary Ruplinger
Welcome everybody to another episode of Pipelineology, I’m your host, Gary Ruplinger, and today I am pleased to be joined by Drew Griffin, that co-founder of group X.io, EverLinks.io, Delicious marketing and Delicious marketing hacks, Drew, welcome to the show.
00:01:10 Drew Griffin
Gary, it’s really a privilege to be hanging out today, and thanks for the opportunity to come out and hang out with you on your podcast here. Congratulations on the launch and I see that you’re gaining momentum and the shows have been fantastic. So, congratulations on that.
00:01:28 Gary Ruplinger
Well, thank you my pleasure to have you so I’m definitely excited for today’s topic, as we’re going to be talking about Facebook groups. But before we jump into that for anybody at home who’s not familiar with you.
Drew, can you just share a little bit of your background? Kind of how you got your story.
00:01:44 Drew Griffin
Sure, so it’s kind of a weird story. I spent about 20 seven years in health care as a hyperbaric wound care nurse, which has absolutely nothing to do with marketing or anything like that other than towards the end of my health care career, I saw an opportunity to help the population that I was working with in in a little bit of a different way.
It was around the advent of the iPhone and so, this is 2007, 2009 something? And somewhere along those lines and I started to get the entrepreneur bug of trying to come up with something that would serve the population that I was working with, which were primarily people that suffer from diabetes diabetic wounds, gunshot wounds pretty chronic disgusting things, right?
The unfortunate situations and people’s lives where they were just having a hard time healing and that sort of thing, and I saw an opportunity with the advent of the iPhone where there was a convergence of information and medicine and I’ve decided to develop an app to specifically help diabetics manage their diabetes specifically managed.
And track their blood glucose is and their blood values and their wound status and all that other kind of stuff and ended up developing and launching an application that serve that population at the same time served a lot of physicians and people that were in healthcare to better transfer and translate information back and forth between the provider.
As well as the patient and within the first couple of weeks we experienced about 30,000 downloads of that app and this is a time when there weren’t that many apps on the App Store.
So, I saw pretty much the end of my healthcare career happen right before my eyes as I realized my time in the clinic. The clinic aspect where you know we were spending; you know 10 to 16 hours a day working with patients and it was very taxing on the body as well as the mind. Psychologically, you see people at their worst every single day, right? And I was very good at that. But you know, it’s a dirty job and it was rewarding to see people heal and sometimes get the comfort that they need.
But then when I saw the opportunity to help people and touch people in a little bit different way, there was no way that I would be able to see 30,000 patients in a week to two weeks period of time. However, through technology, I was able to transverse that and start to touch more people’s lives by way of this technology.
And that was pretty cool.
So, I realized my time in the clinic was over and that transitioned into more emergent technologies, and marketing and learning to, you know, touch even more people’s lives by using this little thing called the Internet and mobile devices and that sort of thing.
And so, began my career in marketing and software development and that sort of thing. And you know, here we are a number of years later and things were thriving. And I couldn’t have been more pleased with the direction of my business and being able to really connect with people, develop relationships and make a difference in their lives through technology and marketing.
00:05:31 Gary Ruplinger
Oh wow, so you are a self-taught developer then. Or is that something you also OK?
00:05:37 Drew Griffin
Yeah, so self-taught developer always been a tinkerer, always messing around with new emerging technology, testing things and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. And I think sometimes that’s the best way. The best way to learn is to dive in and.
You know, testing to see what things are going to you see how things work for you and your business.
00:05:58 Gary Ruplinger
That’s a really cool story. So, so how did how did this all kind of then? I guess you kind of shared how the pivot worked then. What was it that drew you to like the kind of marketing side of things?
00:06:13 Drew Griffin
Yeah, I’ve always been interested in in in entrepreneurship. My father was an entrepreneur did all kinds of different things and I guess had a had a great teacher that way and learning about how to bring value to communities and to your customers and your clientele and that sort of thing and.
I just learned from, I think, pretty much the core that I learned from my father.
00:06:44 Drew Griffin
Anne.
00:06:45 Drew Griffin
You know, getting into healthcare, I was really interested in just helping people and then the emergence of this type of technology. I’ve always been, you know, a nerd or geek. You know, always you know, messing around with gaming and computers in general and you know way back when learning to, you know, do a little bit of programming here and there.
00:07:06 Drew Griffin
And then.
00:07:08 Drew Griffin
Realizing having a family and the amount of time that I was spending away from the family that maybe there was something there, right? So, you know, developing and putting that application out there wasn’t necessarily for the money at first it was really to see if I can create a tool that could truly help the people solve a problem that I was,
00:07:29 Drew Griffin
You know the population, so then I guess just the emergence of the technology and just being fascinated by being able to communicate with people over a computer and over this new Internet technology on a mobile device, I realized very quickly that.
00:07:48 Drew Griffin
These devices were going to be in almost everyone’s pocket and they are, you know. Thank goodness to you know the Pioneers of the world of Steve Jobs and all you know, the people that came before him with mobile technology, whatever.
00:08:04 Drew Griffin
Just finding ways to leverage that technology and being able to communicate more effectively. If there’s a way to actually help local businesses, if there’s a way to help businesses in general get a better result from, you know, trying to communicate with their constituency and their customers, that seemed.
00:08:24 Drew Griffin
Very intriguing and very appealing.
00:08:28 Drew Griffin
And I guess it’s part of the back story is also a little bit of sense of humor and the stories not unlike a lot of people who work in nine to five or work jobs and stuff like that and just don’t enjoy what they’re doing. I did enjoy what I was doing for a number of years, but it caught up to me and compounded by that there was.
00:08:48 Drew Griffin
Unfortunately, a supervisor of mine who is just not very nice to me. She was a manager and ended up really just riding me pretty hard. In terms of you know, you know getting reports and things of that nature done and it was a tumultuous relationship, to say the least.
00:09:08 Drew Griffin
But the humor is part of it, and I guess this is kind of the fantasy that a lot of people have when they want to quit their job, and that sort of thing. I actually did. That was kind of fun. I went into the to the job and this was after successfully launching the application and having some companies interested in acquiring.
00:09:28 Drew Griffin
The application and the software I realized you know that again, that time was pretty much over and having a deal and punch the Clock and all that kind of stuff. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s just it wasn’t for me anymore and the opportunity to move on and really see if I could do it. You know, see if I can do it beyond a one hit wonder.
00:09:50 Drew Griffin
Was always something that in the back of my mind and see the opportunity to go out and serve even more people with some of the things that I’ve learned and make them that much stronger inside the community was prevalent. So, I took the shot, and you know, I walked into work and I said, hey, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. And then.
00:10:10 Drew Griffin
Typically, when you get something like that, the manager or the boss typically knows that you’re resigning, and I, I think the realization that a lot of the heavy lifting that was being done at work was suddenly going to become the burden of the manager. So, we ended up going into the medical loungewear.
00:10:30 Drew Griffin
You know the physicians and my colleagues and whatnot were there and she said, oh, so you’re leaving, right? And I said, yeah, I’m resigning. And you know everybody kind of turned around. So, a lot of my colleagues and friends and people that I worked with for a number of years were kind of stunned by it.
00:10:50 Drew Griffin
And then she asked what the good news when I said good news was, and I say, well, I just saved $500 on my car insurance by switching to GEICO.
00:11:00 Drew Griffin
Then yeah, I mean the jaws dropped and you know I just picked up my stuff and left it was. It was pretty much at the end of the day, but it was mic drop moment that you know I had to take the moment I didn’t mean to embarrass her, but she had really made the tolerance of my job that much less than in that. It really had to be and.
00:11:22 Drew Griffin
So yeah, moved on and started working in marketing. And you know emerging technologies leveraging some of the things that are out there just to do what we all want to do. And that’s provide value to our customers. And you know, do a better job of connecting with customers and clients and then ultimately making sales and growing businesses.
00:11:43 Drew Griffin
So that’s kind of what we transitioned into an and number of years later by my business partner and I David Calle Fiori is my business partner at Delicious Marketing and pretty much everything that you’ve mentioned, Group X and EverLinks and we’ve got some other software development projects in the works right now.
00:12:02 Drew Griffin
We were we.
00:12:04 Drew Griffin
We were kind of competitors in Pennsylvania. He’s in the western part of Pennsylvania, in Pitts Burg. I’m like near the Philadelphia region and we crossed paths alive. We said, look, you know we’re having the same challenges. What now? Why don’t we see if we can tackle this and we started to put our heads together starting to come up with,
00:12:26 Drew Griffin
Processes that helped us connect with even more customers and clients’ kind of get past the gatekeeper leveraging, you know, platforms like Facebook, Facebook groups and Facebook pages to do it in a little bit of a different way that doesn’t have a lot of friction and it just allows us to.
00:12:48 Drew Griffin
Create what we call asset-based businesses. So yeah, Fast forward. This is where we are today.
00:12:56 Gary Ruplinger
Nice, so I guess that kind of leads right into the next part. Then what is it about Facebook groups that I guess? What kind of benefits of them are they? Are they still relevant right now?
00:13:10 Drew Griffin
Oh yeah, I think there are even more relevant than they were when they first came out and what we have to understand on Facebook is that.
00:13:19 Drew Griffin
You know it’s a pay to play game, or at least it’s everything that is introduced initially. That’s kind of open and available for everyone to try as you adopt it and becomes that much more of a profit Center for Facebook. Or at least it’s.
00:13:41 Drew Griffin
At least it’s a benefit to those users Facebook users. Eventually the ad space starts to run out, and that’s where Facebook groups are going. You’re going to start to see things where the availability to communicate and advertise in front of certain groups and things of that nature.
00:14:03 Drew Griffin
Is going to be a great opportunity? I guess it really depends on how you look at it, but in our opinion a lot of activity, a lot of communication, a lot of learning happens within groups, and if you haven’t been affected by.
00:14:19 Drew Griffin
You know the organic reach on Facebook even on personal profiles as well as Facebook pages. That’s coming to groups as well, so learning how to navigate, learning how to get your group to be engaged in the content that’s being provided there can be a huge advantage.
00:14:41 Drew Griffin
To those that run groups as well as people that are participating inside of groups, I find the opportunity for discovery, research and development.
00:14:53 Drew Griffin
Developing interesting relationship strategic relationships with people who are,
00:15:00 Drew Griffin
Fantastic, you know. In their own markets, in their own worlds. It’s a. It’s an incredible discovery location that has a lot of hidden benefits and you know, for us as a business, it’s really powered revenue. It’s powered relationships. JV opportunities? JV meaning joint venture.
00:15:21 Drew Griffin
And the ability to discover and celebrate members that are in our group that are doing interesting things and
00:15:29 Drew Griffin
That’s been that’s been a very big game changer in our business.
00:15:35 Gary Ruplinger
Well, that’s great. So is somebody’s. I guess looking at listening to this and saying OK, that’s cool but is this, I guess,
00:15:43 Gary Ruplinger
Where do I start? How do you start from zero? So how do I go from nothing to you know opportunities and revenue growth from a group and also kind of a big question to tackle. So, I guess pick and choose where you want to start with that one.
00:15:59 Drew Griffin
Sure, so we’ll start with.
00:16:03 Drew Griffin
Working outside of the group at first.
00:16:06 Drew Griffin
And I think this is a huge opportunity and maybe the Golden nugget that a lot of your listeners may look at in an interesting way.
00:16:16 Drew Griffin
Facebook pages are an amazing way to grow an audience rapidly.
00:16:23 Drew Griffin
David and I teach a course called local attention engine.
00:16:29 Drew Griffin
And the premise behind local attention engine is, you know, let’s just say we’re speaking to local marketers or any type of business that has a local presence. Could be chiropractors. It could be an auto dealership. It could be, you know, a local mom and pop shop, right? When we think local, we’re thinking businesses that.
00:16:51 Drew Griffin
Typically, or attracting local customers and clients to their brick-and-mortar business. Or they conduct business most of the time locally. But they also have a regional or national presence. Or they can have a regional or national presence because of the Internet, right?
00:17:11 Drew Griffin
What we had experienced in our agency was a challenge that we were competing with. A lot of, I guess the old terminology is like Me 2 businesses, right? Or pretty much anybody that could get a business card made up can hang a shingle out. They can call themselves a social media.
00:17:31 Drew Griffin
Agency or a direct digital marketing agency or anything like that. Those were our competitors, right? The ability for us to help local businesses get more customers, get more leads and generate more sales from the Internet was basically what our agency was doing and,
00:17:51 Drew Griffin
You don’t particularly need to have a degree. You don’t need to have a license to do any of this kind of stuff yet. The market was flooded, and even though we were working with local clients, we actually experienced people walking through the door and pitching their services while we’re in the meeting with the customer and the client going over statistics, going over campaigns. All that kind of stuff.
00:18:14 Drew Griffin
Only to be interrupted several times throughout the day, and we realized that if this was happening with this one client who’s actually happening with several or all of our clients right, it was just there was a fierce competition. Nothing wrong with that at all. You know, people need to sell. People need to connect with businesses, they need to get past the gate.
00:18:35 Drew Griffin
Gatekeeper and that sort of thing. But we also realized that there was a threat to our business, so we decided to kind of work in a little bit different way and we realized that, hey, what if we had businesses coming to us instead of us having to go to them all the time to actually go out there and sell?
00:18:53 Drew Griffin
Of course, you know sell is a two-way St. and you know you can have people coming to you and still pick up your services and you know subscribe to your software and subscribe to your agency services and all that sort of stuff. But if you were able to really own the attention, if you were able to own the entire area,
00:19:14 Drew Griffin
You wouldn’t have to work as hard, so here’s the long and or the short version of this. Essentially what we do is we create a local Facebook page that serves a local area, right? So, in my case we’ll call it Potts Town Pennsylvania, right? Which is a suburb of Philadelphia has about.
00:19:35 Drew Griffin
20 to 25,000 people that live in that particular area. So, what we did is we created a Facebook page that served the local area with news and events and things that were happening locally. If you think about it psychologically, when you live in a certain area, people are selfish, right? They are interested in what affects them.
00:19:55 Drew Griffin
Immediately that means local news, local weather, local traffic, local sports, all that kind of stuff. They’re typically genuinely interested in what’s happening. That’s going to affect them. What’s happening in the schools, what’s happening in the University? The local University, that sort of stuff, what’s happening with local government?
00:20:13 Drew Griffin
So, if we were able to serve up that news and serve that information in such a way that curated a bunch of content, the best content from the local area and provided all within one location, right, unbiased, you’ve got news from the left, got news from the right, you’ve got things going right down the middle. Everything is happening at the local school, that sort of thing.
00:20:35 Drew Griffin
What would happen? So, what we found is by leveraging Facebook, we can basically pay Facebook to build out these pages and capture the very local attention that we were trying to attract in the first place.
00:20:50 Drew Griffin
Strategically, what we’re doing here is, if we build up a local attention engine, this Facebook page, right?
00:20:56 Drew Griffin
That has,
00:20:58 Drew Griffin
5, 10, 15,000 local eyeballs that are on our page all the time.
00:21:06 Drew Griffin
Wouldn’t that be the same audience that local businesses are trying to attract?
00:21:11 Drew Griffin
Well, the answer is absolutely yes. And what happened was we started building out these little pieces of real estate digital real estate on Facebook called local attention engines or local media assets and effectively competed with local news outlets in such a way that we served up really good information.
00:21:32 Drew Griffin
We serve up a bunch of memes, right? So, memes are new. The new Sunday Funnies and people just loved it, so our growth was very, very quick and we built up an audience. You know, 2 three 4000 people within a week, right? So that’s essentially 25% of our local area and then we would just continuously stimulate building out that audience.
00:21:52 Drew Griffin
Well.
00:21:53 Drew Griffin
Along came Facebook live right? So then what we started to do is we connected with the local Chamber of Commerce and we offered them to do a show on our page, right? Basically said, hey, why don’t you bring your guests your constituency from the Chamber of Commerce, interview them and give that as a benefit so they get the attention of our local audience.
00:22:16 Drew Griffin
Right back on their business by doing a show right on our Facebook page which then translated into us having a great relationship with the Chamber of Commerce and then we transition into.
00:22:30 Drew Griffin
Facebook groups, right? So now we have all this attention. What are we going to do with it? Well, we want to serve up information with a local group. So, a group around business in general, not necessarily our business and our vertical like just marketing. We want to learn about people who are doing advertising. People that are doing other,
00:22:50 Drew Griffin
Interesting things in the community. We want to feature them and as psychology you know, the psychological aspect of this is they don’t really care about you. They care about themselves. They care about getting more information about themselves and their business out there. So, leveraging a Facebook group in order to do that gives us that permission. It gives us that opportunity to deliver results in advance.
00:23:13 Drew Griffin
By bringing them into the group featuring them amongst their peers, other big people that are inside the business at the same time, being able to develop relationships. And of course, there’s some technical things that are happening behind the scenes. We’ve got a tool that helps us connect with them that much better. You know grabbing email addresses and the follow up process and all that kind of stuff.
00:23:34 Drew Griffin
So, the Facebook group does something pretty amazing. It allows them to market themselves. It allows us to network with these individuals inside this group. Learn about these businesses and be a referral source to them. At the same time. Well, once you start once they start to see that hey, you’re putting thousands and thousands and thousands of people in front of them.
00:23:58 Drew Griffin
Where you’re syndicating that content to your pages and that sort of thing. Having opportunity to secure that relationship inside of a group and then take it outside the group onto a page? Well now you’ve got something that is truly valuable to them where you’ve got the ability to capture leads, you’ve got the ability to kind of stimulate the community with contests and that sort of thing.
00:24:21 Drew Griffin
There are some strategic things that you can do tactically that makes it very, very appealing and expediate San amplifies the results that people are looking to. You know, social media like LinkedIn and Facebook for those types of results. They want referrals. They want to be able to do business, they just don’t know how to do it in.
00:24:41 Drew Griffin
The most efficacious way that’s tasteful and actually delivers results.
00:24:48 Gary Ruplinger
OK, well there’s a lot to unpack in that. Thanks for sharing all those. So, I guess would you mind getting into maybe some of the maybe some of the strategic or tactical side of actually growing a group? I’ve got a group and I need more people in it. It’s I’ve got 100 people or something maybe.
00:25:07 Gary Ruplinger
Let’s say and I, but I want more of my audience in there. What are some of the things that on a day-to-day basis I should be doing that will contribute to its growth?
00:25:18 Drew Griffin
Yeah, well consistency and being transparent, right? So, you did it as part of this introduction process of bringing me on to your podcast. You’re actually doing that.
00:25:28 Drew Griffin
You’re actually doing the very tactic. The very thing that actually works right, getting into sliding into their direct message by way of Facebook Messenger has been an incredible way to connect with people.
00:25:43 Drew Griffin
We recommend using the microphone or the voicemail feature inside of direct message when you go in there on your mobile device, you just hit that microphone button and you can leave a 62nd voice message right. It’s and the reason I suggest this is.
00:26:02 Drew Griffin
Going about it the way that you did, reaching out, and you know asking to be a part of something into being able to feature somebody is an incredible tactic. It’s actually the tactic that we use all the time on these Facebook pages.
00:26:18 Drew Griffin
So, as I mentioned before, building up a page, you know somebody came to you and said, hey, you know Gary, we we’ve got. You know I’m the editor of GQ magazine or ESPN Entrepreneur Magazine or Forbes. We love what you’re doing with your podcasts. We would love to feature you on the cover of our magazine.
00:26:39 Drew Griffin
What are you going to say?
00:26:41 Gary Ruplinger
Or heck yes, can we do it tomorrow?
00:26:44 Drew Griffin
Exactly right? So be very complimentary in your approach to people. If you’re looking to build a group of business minded individuals, a local group of businesses, a fantastic way to do that is simply going to go to their Facebook page.
00:27:02 Drew Griffin
And send them a voice message.
00:27:04 Drew Griffin
Here’s the thing about the voice message. It’s different, it’s different, it’s just different enough than most of the messages that they receive on a consistent basis. You know people’s spamming them and sending it. It’s technically spans that we’re sending as well, but if you go about it in a way that’s a just a little bit different, sending a video or sending an audio message is just a.
00:27:26 Drew Griffin
Different enough that they’re going to tap play right, and they’re going to listen to that message, and if the message elates them, and an endears them to what you’re trying to do, trying to be inclusive and invite them to be a part of your group.
00:27:42 Drew Griffin
There’s nothing particularly frightening or fearful about a Facebook group, and if you come about it in such a way as like, hey, I want to learn more about your business, I think you’d be a great fit for a group. I would love to feature you with an interview inside this group so more people get to know you get to like you get to trust you, learn more about your business. I love to feature you inside our group.
00:28:04 Drew Griffin
Once you start to develop that relationship, most of the time that’s going to work. You know I’d say 80 to 90% of the time you’re going to get a favorable response, and then the other 10 to 20% typically come around later on down the road when they see that you’re serious, they show that you’re consistent and that you’re building up a business or building up a business group that isn’t.
00:28:25 Drew Griffin
Just pitch, pitch, pitch it’s about hey, how can we serve our community? How can we grow our businesses collectively? And how can? How can we leverage each other’s ideas to promote each other, right? There’s no reason that you have to be competitive all the time. You can be very supportive and find common ground inside these Facebook groups.
00:28:45 Drew Griffin
So that’s the benefit to them, right? An on the other side of running one of these Facebook groups as an admin, as the leader inside this group you get all the favor. You get. The attention effectively become a Chamber of Commerce, right? You get to be the connector inside your community. You got to introduce people you got to.
00:29:05 Drew Griffin
Because you get all the authority, the celebrity, the credibility, the recognition because you’re engaged inside this group, the more consistent you are with that and the more giving of yourself to promote other people, the more recognition they’re going to come back to you. It comes back to you tenfold. Pretty much every single time. At least that’s what we have found in our groups.
00:29:26 Drew Griffin
That we’re running and it’s just. It’s just a fantastic way to build out an amazing rolodex of people that will eventually do business with you in some capacity.
00:29:38 Gary Ruplinger
I think that’s a brilliant strategy. There is to bring people in, but,
00:29:43 Gary Ruplinger
Don’t make him feel like this is where they’re gonna get pitched and actually make it a real place of community where information is shared freely and build up people who are in similar industries to you to give more value to everybody in the group. I think that’s I think that’s brilliant because like you said, you know
00:30:04 Gary Ruplinger
It builds up everybody, including you, even if you are not.
00:30:09 Gary Ruplinger
The one doing, you know, saying everything and posting everything. If you let other people do it and you’re the leader of the group or the admin as you said
00:30:17 Gary Ruplinger
Now you know that some of that just kind of naturally trickles over to you, since it’s, you know, since you’re in there.
00:30:24 Drew Griffin
Sure, thing it’s been. It’s been fantastic. You’ll identify people who could be moderators for your group and essentially run the whole thing for you and
00:30:32 Drew Griffin
You end up getting all the benefits anyway.
00:30:35 Gary Ruplinger
That’s, uh, I mean, that’s some good stuff, true, what? What else should I? What else should I be asking you about this, I’m just kind of I’m fascinated. I’m learning here. I’m jotting down notes so.
00:30:44 Drew Griffin
Yeah, so I’ll be a little bit selfish here and I’ll. I’ll say one of the advantages and one of the cool things that that Facebook provides you and this kind of dovetails into you know,
00:30:55 Drew Griffin
One of our products is called Group X. It’s a Google Chrome extension.
00:31:01 Drew Griffin
That works along in the background and your Facebook groups, so the whole idea of leveraging a Facebook group.
00:31:11 Drew Griffin
Is to build relationships with those members that become part of your group. And if you’ve got business interests, it’s probably the number one goal that you should have outside of those relationships is to develop contact information, right? So, build an email list from your group. Well, Facebook.
00:31:32 Drew Griffin
Is a feature in there where you can filter people out while at the same time really building out data about your group in the 1st place and Facebook gives you the ability to ask three questions of anyone that joins your group. Now you’re not required to answer or ask these questions.
00:31:54 Drew Griffin
At all you know for you know to run a Facebook group. However, it’s our recommendation that you do that you ask these ask you basically get the three Genie questions. You have the ability to ask three questions of people that join your group and at least one of those questions. Our recommendation is that you ask for an email address.
00:32:14 Drew Griffin
Well, think of it is all these software’s out there. You’ve got some amazing software out there. You know our good friend Russell Brunson who runs click funnels. You’ve got all these other major amazing things and opportunities that you’ve got. You know word press; you know you’ve got landing pages and one of the strategies. A lot of businesses use a lead magnet right they.
00:32:36 Drew Griffin
They have a landing page where people land on the page and they’re trying to promote themselves in their business.
00:32:42 Drew Griffin
They typically use a landing page type of software, whether it’s you know one that we just mentioned or another one that’s out there, and they’ll typically give away a free white paper or chapter of a book or an infographic, or maybe access to a free course or something like that in exchange for a name and an email address, or at the very least an email address.
00:33:02 Drew Griffin
Well, that technology in that experience has been so pervasive that a lot of people they make that decision on whether or not that group with that that that particular that particular lead magnet, is going to be enough for them to become a conversion, right? A conversion meeting, they hand over their email address. The email address is heavily guarded by a lot of people these days. They, just don’t they?
00:33:25 Drew Griffin
They are inundated by emails every single day. I look down at my mobile device. Here I’ve got it’s great. I mean it’s kind of crazy. I’ve got, you know, nearly 60,000 unread emails across all these different. You know, I’m probably one of the worst offenders.
00:33:44 Drew Griffin
They’re out there, but I hear there’s a lot of other people that just can’t get to Inbox 0, so you know they’re always opting in for things and they’re being spanned by people you know lists are being shared and all that kind of stuff.
00:33:55 Drew Griffin
Well, Facebook allows you to ask these three questions and again, as we mentioned, there’s nothing particularly frightening about a Facebook group. You can also do the exact same thing without having the expense of hosting a website, or you know one of these funnel builders or something like that. These can be very expensive, hundreds of dollars a month, thousands of dollars a year.
00:34:18 Drew Griffin
In expense while Facebook is free and a Facebook group is free to run well if you ask these three questions you can say hey well if you give me your email address, I’m not only going to get access to this amazing group filled with local businesses or filled with whatever the group is filled with, right? Those types of members? Well, we’re also going to give you this free paper. We’re going to give you a free course or something like something along those lines.
00:34:42 Drew Griffin
Well, the whole idea behind the Facebook group is to develop those relationships. You can ask other questions like for example in the local group that we that we run we run. We ask, you know, not only for their email address but we ask them specifically about them and their business. So where is your business located and who is your ideal customer and client? So, if we come across.
00:35:04 Drew Griffin
A referral, we know how you know who the best fit is for you and then what we do is we actually created directory out of everybody that comes into our group and now we’ve got this resource say hey somebody, somebody just asked me about you know who provides group insurance or something like that. I can go down my list and see who that is and give them a referral.
00:35:26 Drew Griffin
When was the last time your business got a referral? You probably felt pretty good, so the intrinsic benefit of using this extension well they’re using those three questions is that you’re getting. You’re gaining a bunch of data from people that are joining your group. So not only were getting their Facebook user ID there when they joined.
00:35:46 Drew Griffin
If you’re able to connect with these individuals, you know as friends they get to see more of your stuff, and you know more of your post inside your group if you connect with them as friends inside the group. So that’s basically a feature with inside groups that not a lot of people understand and realize that’s there. So, what our extension does Group X.
00:36:08 Drew Griffin
Is it takes that and puts it, it securely grabs that information of everyone that you approve into your group, puts it into a dashboard, and then automates the follow up process by whatever auto responder that you might use. So, for example, if you join my group and I approved you, it will take that information, put it into a dashboard.
00:36:28 Drew Griffin
And then start the follow up process by active campaign, right? We would do is follow up and say hey Gary, welcome to the group and then sets out a sequence where you start to get indoctrinated and we start to communicate with you. Let you know about the cool things that are happening inside the group, how to best take advantage of it. Here’s the opportunity for you to promote your business and what you’re doing inside the group.
00:36:48 Drew Griffin
And that’s all done automatically. We tie into a software out there. It’s called Bonjour oh, which is really, really cool if you’re not familiar with it or your listeners aren’t familiar with it. This software allows you to send video messages to people that you capture email addresses from. So, the way that we used to use it in the past is if we went to like a local networking event.
00:37:11 Drew Griffin
And we met at, say, a Chamber of Commerce Chamber of Commerce event or something like that. I got your business card. I would take that information put into Bonjorno. I would hold up my mobile device. I would record a brief message. Hey Gary, it’s true. We met at the Chamber of Commerce. I just wanted to see if we could schedule a time to connect for coffee. Learn more about your business and how I can.
00:37:31 Drew Griffin
Prefer more business to you as opposed to most people where they take a stack of business cards from the local event and it, they plop it down into your desk and they’d never do anything with it again. Well, we integrate with this and it sets in a chain of events where we are actually,
00:37:49 Drew Griffin
Send out one of these messages to everybody that joins our group that gets approved into inside the group, which is a different experience than what most people experience when they join a Facebook group. Imagine getting a message a video message, you know, a series of message in in your email address, and then also a video message in the background from me saying hey, it’s true.
00:38:10 Drew Griffin
From such and such Facebook group, just want to welcome you to the group and less I want you to feel privileged to go out there and introduce yourself inside the group. Promote whatever it is that you want. We’ve got perfect, you know, some, we’ve got me Mondays and promotional Tuesdays and stuff like that. Feel free to go while listen. I’m going to be reaching out to you. I would love to feature you,
00:38:31 Drew Griffin
Inside the group with an interview, let’s get on this on the calendar for next week or two weeks from now, right?
00:38:37 Drew Griffin
Wow, like you get that inside your email inside an email. When you get that inside a Facebook Messenger and you get inside your email, now all of a sudden you really, really feel welcome inside this group. You’re probably going to start that relationship off a little bit better than what most people do where they just hit approve and you’re a new member and your left to your own voice. You know Vice is to go out and.
00:38:58 Drew Griffin
Try to figure out what this group is all about and how to. Most you know, provide value to it or what you can extract from the group and that sort of thing. Group backs in the background more or less facilitates and automates the ability for group owners to build email lists and then follow up with them in such a such a way that it’s almost impossible not to have a relationship, even if it’s not transactional at first.
00:39:20 Drew Griffin
At least you become very, very keenly aware of who that group owner is very quickly. And yeah, the relationships start to flourish thereafter.
00:39:32 Gary Ruplinger
That’s a really clever one. I want to join your group now just to see what that’s like. What do you mind sharing with the name of your group is, yeah?
00:39:41 Drew Griffin
It’s called delicious local marketing hacks.
Delicious local marketing hacks. We will put that in the show notes for anyone who wants to check that out. So, you said this extension, this is.
00:39:52 Gary Ruplinger
At groupX.io, if somebody wanted to take a look at what that was like as well.
00:39:56 Drew Griffin
Yeah, we’ve got a dollar trial. They can go out there and try it out and I think for the cost of it just transparently, you know, for the unlimited version of, it’s $99 a year. Very cheap in in a in the terms of software world, but.
00:40:12 Drew Griffin
On the other side, if you start to leverage this strategically, you can develop relationships very, very quickly. If you’re looking for a strategy, we’re looking at a way to really launch something and be able to connect with businesses. You might as well automate the process in the background. Of course, all this stuff that we just talked about can be done manually, but what we have found is.
00:40:33 Drew Griffin
As you start to build groups up, you know to 1000 two 1003 some of these groups get to 30 forty 50,000 people. 100,000 people copying and pasting that into a spreadsheet is maddening.
If you like automation, you just want the easy button Group X is the way to go about doing so. We do have like a dollar. Trials gives you 7 or 14 days or something like that. You’ll very quickly understand where the value is of the Facebook group and the data that this extracts out of it for you. We made it purposefully, we made it cheap, unlimited version, essentially 100 bucks a year and you’re done.
00:41:13 Gary Ruplinger
That’s great, well, this is sounds like a great kind of Trojan horse strategy to kind of sneak below the radar of all the other kind of noise out there to really build relationships with people and be the DeFacto expert in whatever community you’re trying to build with whatever business owner you’re trying to connect with instead of.
00:41:34 Gary Ruplinger
You know, we, I think a lot of our episodes. Up until now I’ve talked about well, that very straightforward go for the jugular prospecting of cold calling outreach. You know LinkedIn, those types of things. I really like this one as a way to sneak under the radar there and come in and well, just be the expert for them that they reach out to instead and say,
00:41:55 Gary Ruplinger
Can you help me please?
00:41:56 Drew Griffin
Guys, the goal that is the goal and hopefully you know the tactic. This strategy you know positions you and your listeners a little bit differently.
00:42:06 Drew Griffin
Control and an own. The asset of the attention as well as the list that you’re building from that attention. And when you got that it becomes very interesting you’ve got the list of people that are in the local area. Those are the customers that go to the restaurants. Those are the customers that go to the doctors’ offices and the attorneys and accountants and,
00:42:27 Drew Griffin
All the local whatever business industry that you’re in. If you’re looking for the local attention and you can run one of these as a local business like you know it’s kind of, you know a little bit challenging sometimes for like a chiropractor or something along those lines. The whole concept of running one of these attention engines is that.
00:42:45 Drew Griffin
You can still drip your information in and run information about the local area without it having to always be so clinical and so pushy with our information, control the attention and then drip your stuff in as a quote, unquote sponsor or are layer of information around that industry at an audience of.
00:43:05 Drew Griffin
You know 5 ten 15,000 people in your local area. That’s more than enough business for most people.
00:43:12 Gary Ruplinger
That’s, uh, I, I love it. I love it. Drew thanks, thanks so much for sharing before we wrap up here. Is there anything else I should you want to leave? You want to leave people with before we wrap this one up?
00:43:23 Drew Griffin
Yeah, so a cool thing that we’ve recently put together and this is a completely free thing for your audience to check out as we put a little newsletter together.
00:43:33 Drew Griffin
And we recognize a lot of this local information. We go through some information that might be very timely and very interesting for people. So, we put a newsletter together. If your audience wants to jump on that, they’re more than welcome and we’re always looking for contributors. So, if you’re listening to this and you want to submit your content to the newsletter itself.
00:43:54 Drew Griffin
We will absolutely feature your content on there. So, the best way to find out more information about that is to head over to
00:44:03 Drew Griffin
Localmarketingweekly.com, sign up for that experience it it’s a bunch of curated information, but we’re also putting unique information in there, so we’re looking for your stuff, whether about LinkedIn or any type of marketing whatsoever. If you’re podcasting or business in general, we would love to feature your information, including your podcast. In fact, I’ve actually,
00:44:25 Drew Griffin
Queued up a couple of your episodes to be featured in a few of our weekly newsletters coming out over the next couple of weeks comes out every single Friday. So yeah, go over to localmarketingweekly.com. Check that out, and if you want to join our group, it’s completely free. It’s filled with a bunch of people that are super smart, probably smarter than we are.
00:44:48 Drew Griffin
You know, by my business partner and I and we’re always talking about interesting things that are getting results for businesses. You actually see us with videos going out to local businesses, not talking theory. We actually go into pizza shops. We actually go into gyms and interview these people and we have. We have a lot of fun with it and it’s really just about results. Getting results for people. So, go check that out and join the group.
00:45:11 Drew Griffin
I’d love to see you guys in there, you know. Just introduce yourself and we’ll. We’ll put you in front of group.
00:45:17 Gary Ruplinger
Sounds great, so localmarketingweekly.com and the name of your Group One more time was.
00:45:22 Drew Griffin
Yeah, it’s delicious local marketing hacks.
00:45:24 Gary Ruplinger
Delicious local marketing hacks. All of that will be in the show notes if you’re driving and can’t write that down right now, but.
00:45:32 Gary Ruplinger
True, thanks so much for coming and really appreciate it was a pleasure having you and I love this strategy. I think we’re gonna. We’re definitely you know, for us at least, we’re going to start implementing some of this stuff too internally so.
00:45:43 Drew Griffin
Yeah, it’s been a privilege. Thanks for having me on.
00:45:45 Gary Ruplinger
True, thanks so much. Appreciate you coming on.
00:45:49 Brad Mielke
Thanks for listening to the Pipelineology podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s episode and look forward to seeing you on the next one. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a review on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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