1 Simple Feature to Make Your Product “Sticky” (And Convert Up To 230% More Sales)
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- Offering a Facebook community option with one of our products brought higher conversion rates than when we removed it
- A community feature with your products will allow for networking opportunities, similar to a college community, and will ensure your customers keep coming back
Hey guys, how are you? Matt Ackerson here, the founder of AutoGrow.co, as you may already know. I hope that you're having a wonderful and productive day. In this video, I want to talk about the question, should you consider entering a community as a feature to your existing product or service? What are the benefits? And what are the drawbacks? And what do I recommend?
Offering A Community Feature
I've been against the idea of adding a community to some of our products up until recently. I was in Colombia, as some of you might know, the other month, and I sat down with an entrepreneur, a friend of mine who I had gone to college with. We both went to Cornell University, one of the top universities in the world. I was very lucky to attend there. And I can't say that as a student there I really learned a whole lot.
I think that's probably true of a lot of what we learn in school. I mean, think about how much you use from your first 12 years of grade school today, other than the basics like addition, subtraction, basic knowledge of history, that sort of thing.
When I was talking to my friend Lawrence, it reminded me of the biggest benefit that I got out of being there: the network and sense of community of being on campus. It reminded me what it was like to be on campus at Cornell because part of what made that experience special to me was meeting people like Lawrence, fellow entrepreneurs, future entrepreneurs and people who are really passionate about doing something. About making something happen in their careers, in their lives, in their research; whatever it might be.
And that's really powerful because on a fundamental emotional human level, relating to one another is magnetic, it's something that is enjoyable. I'm not a psychologist, but perhaps it fits some sort of a psychological need that many of us have.
Anyway, I've been considering whether or not to add a community, and you might be wondering, is this something for your business that can help increase your profit, increase your sales, increase your conversion rate? I believe the answer is yes, and here's why.
Benefits of a Community
As I related, community is powerful for that reason. When I was talking about relating to my friend Lawrence, it reminded me of what it was like to be back on campus at Cornell. But it's potentially great for your bottom line. For example, when we initially launched the six-figure sales funnel last summer, I advertised it, offering it with a Facebook community option, and the conversion rate was actually really good. But fast forward a few months when we didn't offer that feature as advertised. The conversion rate was substantially lower by comparison.
I think the reason is this idea of being connected with other people who are in a similar position in life or pursuing similar things to you. In this case, building a sales funnel that's profitable, that's growing, and that’s going to take your business to six figures and beyond.
So, I’m really excited to announce that we are putting that feature back in place for the six-figure sales for all. If you're interested in learning more about that, make sure you're on our email list and make sure to subscribe to our next upcoming training launch for that. Just go to our homepage or look over on the sidebar.
On a final note, communities work well as a feature for products, or if you're doing software as a service for example. And I'm excited to use it for that purpose because, as we begin to launch our own software experience, this will help us get faster feedback from the community itself and learn more about them and their needs. Then we can constantly evolve and adapt the product to give the most value and the most benefits for our customers. So it's useful for that reason as well.
However, I don't believe that for a strictly done-for-you type of service that you should consider offering a community because it might be a nice add-on. But the whole point of a done-for-you type of service is that the business owner or whoever you're selling to is too busy to get the task done in the first place, so why would they want a community of people they can relate to about a task that they don't want to do? They're trying to save time, and getting the benefit from a community is going to take time.
I don't recommend using it in that instance, but in many product situations, whether you're charging a monthly or an annual fee, or if it's an info product where you want a one-time payment, just make sure the economics of managing that community makes sense. I encourage you to offer it because it's going to give you that additional feedback. It's going to give you that interaction with your customers, and you're going to get more testimonials and more case studies as a result of that more personal connection. You're going to learn, in the case of an info product, how to make it better and even get ideas for future products, if you're going to be developing additional products. There are many benefits to it. I encourage you to do it for those reasons.
And finally, it makes your product stickier. Especially if there's a monthly fee attached, that community aspect makes people want to keep coming back, and they will be able to keep extracting benefits from it. Therefore, they can justify continuing to pay the monthly dollar amount.
Do you use a community with your product or service right now? Let me know in the comments. And if not, are you considering adding one after watching this video?
Until next time, my name is Matt Ack in the Matt Hat, delivering you your daily dose of Matt Hacks. And if you'd like me to consider answering your question about sales funnels or digital marketing in general in a future video like this, leave a comment and I'll be happy to take a look at it. Take care, and have a great day.
