Meetup - How Meetup Groups Present Good Business Potential

Meetup - How Meetup Groups Present Good Business Potential

In my role as Outreach Chair at the San Francisco American Marketing Association, I am tasked with generating word of mouth for the association in non-traditional methods leading to two key elements of growth: business development and lead generation.

One method for word of mouth that has been under-utilized at the SFAMA in the past has been the Meetup community.

Meetup, since it was first launched in June 2012, has been really the go-to place to socialize and meet with people in groups. However, it also had a huge impact on matters bigger than just group meetings. If any of you remember the 2004 Presidential campaign season, back in the 2003 Democratic Primary race, Howard Dean's campaign used Meetup effectively even if the company had barely been just two years in business.

Ignoring what your views of Dean, his presidential campaign or what your political persuasion, the fact is, his campaign got additional supporters, donations, and traction as a result of the many meetups for people who were either Dean supporters, wanted to know more about Howard Dean or were of the liberal, Democratic persuasion (which can be argued was most of Dean's base during his run in the primary race). Meetup therefore generated a lot of word-of-mouth for Dean's campaign in the primaries. That's ultimately what the most effective marketing can be.

Since 2003, Meetup has expanded significantly and continues to grow in members, depending on what groups you're apart of. It's also being used not just by groups but by associations, non-profits and even tech organizations these days in the age of the new tech revolution where meetups are not simply small group gatherings but elaborate industry events and professional networking mixers. SF New Tech, one of the largest tech communities in the Bay Area, CA, is an example of this.

Currently, the SFAMA is one of the organizations that’s utilizing Meetup as a means of growth. However, prior me taking on the role as group manager of the SFAMA Meetup, the Meetup group was not managed well by the previous manager. Key reasons for this were as follows:

  • Little to no communication with members. If there was communication, it was mainly to answer questions but even so, the answers weren't always given in a timely manner.
  • Some members complained of the lack of transparency with what was being announced on Meetup vs. what was told in person. For example, in the Fall 2012 there was an event where a Meetup member attended the event and was told he had to pay for the event when the Meetup page didn't mention anything about paying.
  • The SFAMA Meetup Group to some of its members was just about events and having members pay, not about establishing a community of marketing professionals and making people feel welcome. One member complained at an event in the summer of last year that the SFAMA Meetup Group was about making money more than about its members. Speaking on behalf of the SFAMA, I know this isn't the case but from the perspective of the member, it's likely he thought that because our events were higher priced than most meetups (typically low to no cost) we were nickle and diming members. Like all non-profit business associations, our goals are 1) To grow our community and 2) To make them feel welcome. But on Meetup, this complaint illustrated that not enough effective management and community building was being done in in the SFAMA Meetup Group.

When I took over the SFAMA Meetup on October 2013, I made sure the following would be changed about the group:

  • Open and fluid communication would be present. This meant members would be able to ask any questions and get them addressed in a timely manner.
  • Full transparency. The SFAMA President wanted to make sure that information presented to the meetup community about SFAMA events and other announcements would be consistent with the information the SFAMA provides on such events & other announcements via marketing communication and social media methods, particularly the website. Like a website, for any business, you need to make sure that whenever a potential customer wants to learn about you that the information you mention is accurate. Meetup members, like customers, don't like to be duped over inaccurate information.
  • The group became more of a community than simply just another Meetup group. As I made the SFAMA Meetup Group more communicative overtime, more word-of-mouth started to spread where at SFAMA events we would see more Meetup members than before.
  • More pictures of SFAMA events would be available for members to get a preview, as well as a refined and straight-to-the-point "About Us" section. I also took the liberty to add the SFAMA intro video (shot at the July 2013 Shining the Spotlight Mixer at Lewis PR event we organized) to the "About Us"section. All this was to make the SFAMA Meetup Group more visually appealing and expressive to members and potential members to get a closer idea as to what the SFAMA is all about.

What are the real, measurable results?

  • 73% increase in new Meetup members in just over a year, totaling 1,042 members today (2/22/15) vs. 279 on 10/24/13
  • At the beginning of 2014, for the first time at the SFAMA, Meetup attributed to a considerable amount of paid attendee growth at a content discussion event. Typically, most Meetup members are not inclined to register for the association's content discussion events as they are more expensive than the general networking events we organize. However, our January 23rd 2014 Multicultural Marketing event received more than 10 confirmed paid attendees who paid their admission through Meetup, not something that has happened very well in previous events. It's been argued that the event topic drove meetup members to register but on the other hand, most people typically attend Meetup not to pay but to be apart of a group to meet and greet like-minded people of their own kind.
  • More inquiries are being made to the SFAMA Meetup Group from potential business partners within the community whereas in October 2013 such potential business partners had no concept of what the SFAMA was outside of Meetup. For example, one of our food sponsors for our April 25th, 2014 networking event at Duncan/Channon was Buyer's Best Friend (BBF) and they reached out to us on Meetup. Several other related inquiries have come to the SFAMA's attention within Meetup within the past year but this also has to do with the fact that our meetup group is active and our base is growing very well.
  • To address the issue of the SFAMA being known on the Meetup community as just about having people pay to register, we've promoted to our Meetup group free webinars organized apart of our parent company, American Marketing Association (AMA) that provide relevant topics and discussion pertinent to marketing professionals as a means of enabling them to do better in their profession. Quite a lot of people (typically anywhere from 20-52 attendees) RSVP for the webinars on Meetup and some have commented on the quality of them in a positive way. And if that's not saying something, we've had a few Meetup members register for both last month's Digital Media Trends event and this month's mixer after attending an AMA webinar or so.

Looking at this in simple business terms:

Lead generation increased by 73% in just over a year, more business development opportunities generated, increase in revenue (ticket revenue).

If you are a business and are looking to generate revenue using Meetup as a tool, my suggestion is this:

  • Don't just post events as Meetups and hope for the best. Make the group more welcoming, communicative, and open. The reason why new members join your group isn't just because it has people of like-minded interests. The reason they stay is because the group is very involving and presents itself in a positive way. In the SFAMA Meetup Group's case, a lot of members are first timers who join the group because they think it's a meetup group and they like marketing or have an interest in it, not necessarily because the group is run by the SF chapter of a nationwide marketing association.
  • Like a website, a Meetup group cannot be static. It needs to be continue active on a regular basis and member base needs to continue to be engaged and grown. After all, business doesn't come to you through the process of osmosis. You need to be proactive but also transparent. This goes a long way in the Meetup community.

I should mention that the SFAMA still has its challenges with the Meetup community. We are still working to bring more meetup members to events and make them be aware of our association as not all in the Bay Area marketing community know who we are.

However, Meetup continues to be apart of our overall strategy to engage marketers and involve them as the community typically doesn't do a Google search for "marketing associations" or "marketing groups," unless they search for "marketing under "groups on Meetup. Also, not enough Meetup groups for marketers in the Bay Area are staying active, which presents another opportunity for the SFAMA to reach out and involve marketers.

Have you used Meetup before in a business sense? Any successes or challenges?

Christopher E.

Results driven Technology Consultant spearheading project management, systems management, design, development and implementation

5y

Informative!!!

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Mark Daugherty

VP Business Development @ DesignMind WE'RE HIRING!! -- designmind.com/jobs

9y

Thanks for sharing Mike! Very well put together article.

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Great Read Michael! One pre-requiuste is to choose a potential Meetup Group!

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Kris Chang, Ph.D.

Creative Writer (LION Open Networker)

9y

Very interesting discussion with statistical results as back up info! Well done, Michael!

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Marc Moglen

Business Development + Thought Leadership, Music x Web3

9y

Thanks Mike. Great article.

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