What to Put in a Free Facebook Group vs. a Paid Facebook Group

Hey Friend!

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a free Facebook group and a paid one?  Do you wonder how to structure them?  Or if you even need both?  Are you confused or even over Facebook groups that haven’t worked for you in the past?  This post comes out of a conversation with Podcast to Profit graduate Juliana Page, the host of the God’s Vibes podcast.  In her groups, she wants to support her members while keeping engagement high. So in this conversation, I offer Juliana an outline of the customer journey when it comes to our Facebook groups and what we offer in them.

Step 1: The Beginning of the Customer Journey – The Free Facebook Group

When we think about what we are offering in our groups, we have to remember where someone is on their journey.  At what point do they land in these different places and why are they there? 

In the free group, we think of someone who is cold to hot. They have probably never purchased from us before.  Our first job in the free community is to engage.  We want them to feel seen and cared about.  They must believe that we have the solutions that they need.  In this first group, the goal is to create enough trust and engagement for them to take the leap over to the paid offers. 

What we focus on in the free community is value that is already free.  It is putting up posts that help them get rid of confusion. We post offers of help with certain things knowing that they haven’t bought from us yet.  We are saying ‘If we can get you over your excuses and into the right belief that this is going to be the answer for you, and we can get you to engage, you will end up buying’. This part of the customer journey goes on all the way until they pull out the wallet. 

You are not doing things that should be paid in this free group.  What you are doing here is pointing to the free stuff you already have. You are inviting them to look at this free episode or that free workshop.  You’re offering them a conversation around something that is already free. It’s a lot of whys, it’s a lot of whats, but it’s not the how. 

The first goal of this group is to transfer belief.  You are telling them ‘You can do this. It’s time to do this. Let’s take the leap together. Here’s why you should do this. Here’s what you are going to do.’ This is the first step to getting them to say ‘Whoop, I’m in!’

Step 2: Keeping Them on the Journey – Strategically Sell in Your Free Facebook Groups

I love the idea of offers like workshops and challenges in Facebook groups. But we want to use these strategically, as a sales tool.  We use them to convert members over to the paid stuff. Instead of being a constant that you are doing in a free group all the time, these become something that you do to drive traffic into for a couple of months.  Something like this is where they see you, they experience working with you, they get a taste of what it’s like.

In our business, we do two live launches a year and we have urgency offers too.  From here, we nurture and engage to get them into either the workshops or the paid offers. Something like this might take place in its own little entity, separate from your main group. I tried running our launches and urgency offers for years in the big group and then tried a pop-up group.  When we started the pop-up, we realized that everyone was so highly engaged that the conversion rate skyrocketed.

The truth is that our listeners need to be teased.  One cool thing my team and I are doing is taking snippets of my Podcast to Profit coaching and teasing people with the experience of what it’s like to be a part of the Podcast to Profit spotlights. It’s a fun strategy. But the truth is you need to make the leap, and if we are giving you all the stuff over here, you won’t make the leap and you won’t do the work.

You will sit in consumption mode forever dreaming about what it will be like when. And the reality is the time is now. We have to get you to believe you can, to make an investment in yourself, to decide that you are going to make the time.  That’s our entire job in the free communities. And when you finally come over into the paid community, we are going to say ‘We’ve got you. Let’s go together’ and that becomes our job. 

Step 3: Continuing the Journey – Get Them the Outcome in Your Paid Facebook Group

In the paid community, instead of getting them to say yes and come into the program, the goal is different. The goal is now about getting them the outcome. Accordingly, the posts and the strategy that we have here are all-around accountability. It’s around getting them unstuck.  It is about getting them in community with each other. It’s about power coaching, if need be, to get someone through the program.

Where I think people get it wrong is that they think that in the paid groups, you give more, new, more, more, more. It’s less about new stuff in here but more about pointing back to what is already available and getting them to do the work. It’s where you are giving them less but getting them into the weeds of what you have already given them. 

Once they are in this group, you are saying ‘Here’s how we are going to do it. Here’s the support you need to do it. Here is the group you are going to do it in. Here is everything you need to get the outcome’. We are less about content creation over here and more a supporting group pointing back to what has already been created.    

We have to transition people from ‘Oh, I’m so excited because there is so much that is new’ to ‘Do the work. Change your life. Get on it!’  It is less about how they feel in this second over here in the paid groups. It’s about getting them the result. And the only way they are going to get the result is if they are not too confused to move forward, they make the time to do the work and they stop being distracted.  So that is our entire job in the paid groups!

Step 4: Support on the Journey – Cultivate the Team Helping You in Your Facebook Groups

When it comes to finding people to help you in your Facebook groups, and in your business as a whole, start by giving them something simple to do. We have interns who we give one thing to do. I pay super close attention to how they do that one thing. Are they going above and beyond? Am I having to micromanage? What does their work ethic look like?

Over time, we then start to give people a little bit more and we start to see their natural skill set coming through. We follow where they light up and we put them there. For example, they might crush admin-style work, killing every task they are given. Or they might be gifted at interpersonal skills and encouragement.

I had created a role where one person was doing a hundred things, and this was fine for a while. But we have found little pockets where somebody of this skill set or that personality type shines. Now we’ll build that as its own position for an intern or a volunteer. As people do our six-month internship, we start to notice the people who might be part of the team because they have something that we need for that one role. 

It’s been an evolution of just watching people carefully with what one of my friends calls ‘delighted detachment’. There is no forcing it and it’s such a beautiful process. Before, when people would leave, I would freak out but I didn’t need to. God already had the right person coming in. 

What I have discovered is that we used to have too many paid people on the team. We have learned that we only need four people that are paid. The other roles are learning opportunities for interns to come into. They do one part of the job and learn a beautiful skill set. Then, because we have built it so cleanly and so clearly, the next person can step in and run that same job again. They can learn and grow and be challenged. It allows us to cultivate people and help people.  But we don’t need so many permanent people.  

Have fun with this. But keep an open heart and open eyes and delightful detachment around who God is trying to hand you to come into the team. Don’t hire too fast. Hire slowly and intentionally. Hire them for a smaller position and let them show you that they can grow with you and be cultivated. As I have shown, it’s better to bring one person on and get them where they need to be and then bring the next than having two or three people all at once and it’s a mess!

Step 5: Throughout the Journey, Borrow Our Mantra: How Do We Eliminate Confusion?

Lately one of our mantras is ‘How do we eliminate confusion?’ 

If we can eliminate confusion in our team, with our students, and for anybody that follows us, we have cleared a pathway for people to move into what’s possible for them. Eliminate confusion and they are going to have results.  They are going to believe in themselves.  They are going to step into confidence because confusion is what is keeping them from doing the work. 

Come on a Journey with Me

If you have started your podcasting journey and want to get your questions answered as Juliana did, you can get coached just like that when you take the leap into my six-month group coaching mastermind program, Podcast to Profit. 

If you have a podcast or are super close to bringing a podcast into the world, you can apply at www.podcasttoprofitmastermind.com. We do power coaching and sit in a beautiful space where you get strategy, are able to get unstuck, and get super clear so that you can do the work.  You can start to make progress on monetizing your podcast, learning how to implement podcast SEO as well as podcast pitching.

We teach you everything inside Podcast to Profit and I want you to join me!

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY | GOOGLE PODCAST

Before you go, be sure to watch the free workshop!

This free workshop is for you if you want to grow an online business in less time.

It will teach you how to explode your audience without the social media hustle, make consistent sales using a podcast, and plan, record, and launch a podcast with ease!

RELATED EPISODES:

Should You Start a Facebook Group to Build Community & Where Else Could You Host a Group?

Easy Social Media Strategy to Boost Facebook Group Engagement

How I Grew My FB Community to 7K Members & Exploded Engagement. 10 FACEBOOK GROUP GROWTH HACKS!

EXPLODE Your Facebook Group! Organic Growth & Engagement

Advanced Scaling Strategies, Hiring a Team, and Paid Challenges with Stacy Tuschl

Join our Facebook Community!

Online Business for Christian Women with Stefanie Gass