Examples of What's Possible

Help Someone Discover a New Hobby

A friend asked me a hard question “Do you feel right supporting an industry that sells people shit they don’t need, making them even more consumerist?” While that’s a much deeper conversation, it got me thinking, what non-consumerist things would FB Ads be perfect for? Then I thought of something -- helping people discover hobbies. What makes people truly happy are the experiences and hobbies they have, and the people they meet in the process.

I am a big fan of acro yoga. I do it almost every day for 3-4 hours a day. But recently I discovered jiu jitsu, which is a really great compliment to my acro yoga practice. So I thought...how could Facebook Ads have helped me discover jiu jitsu.

Let’s say I own a Jiu Jitsu Dojo. The first step is prospecting. I need to find an audience that potentially might be interested in Jiu Jitsu. I could target people who are already interested in Jiu Jitsu...but they probably already go to a dojo. Instead I can target people with tangential interests. There is a lot of cross-over between the acro-yoga community and jiu jitsu communities. If I like muy thai, I might be a good fit. If I do wresting, rock climbing, another great fit. The key is finding someone who doesn’t use your product now...but could be convinced to do so. But then you don’t want to blast your message to the entire world. You’re not a worldwide studio, yes, you just have one location in NY. So target people who live or work within 2 miles of your studio. You can also target friends of existing clients (saved as custom audiences). You can even let FB do the work for you, and try out “lookalike audiences” to your existing customers. What makes someone like jiu jitsu? A million things. Facebook will actually go out and find people who have similar profiles to your existing customers and find what works.

Once I find my target audience, I don’t target them with “Go to Mr. Miyagi’s dojo now!!” ads immediately. Instead, I start the conversation. I tell them a story about why jiu jitsu is right for them. Because I have so much data about my users I can hand-tailor a message that would appeal to each one. I’d appeal to an acro yogi differently than I would appeal to a rock climber. I will engage them with videos, articles, photos. Make them really interested in the sport as a whole.

How do I know they’re ready for the next step? They engage with my content! They view my videos, they click on my articles, they reply or like my posts, they visit my dojo’s website and linger on the classes page. Now the prospect is a lead. He’s sold on how cool jiu jitsu could be. So, we start marketing to them slightly differently. I might throw him a special offer “Try a Jiu Jitsu class for free!”. Great offer, a lot of people will click on it. But you’re not advertising this offer to every FB user, just the ones that are already primed to take it. This will actually drive down the cost of your ads significantly, because the relevance score to your custom audience is enormous!

So they take your free class. And FB knows it, because they’re tracking the checkout event with a pixel. And they love the class! But...then they don’t buy any more classes for 2 weeks. Now it’s time for a re-targeting offer. People get busy, they forget. They’re ADD. Remind them of how much they enjoyed BJJ! And target them with a new offer, this time geared towards them staying longer. Maybe a deeply discounted 10 class pack for $75.

They take your offer. Great, now they’re coming to your dojo on the regular. Time to upsell them. Make them buy a more profitable product for you, a monthly membership to your dojo. Since you’ve qualified them this far, again, they are far more likely to take this offer.

But it doesn’t stop there. Again, even if people are locked into a membership, they tend to forget, life gets in the way. They fade out of going to your dojo. That’s why you should proactively target them with brand recognition campaigns. Make sure that every few days they are reminded of how fun jiu jitsu is, and just how much fun they have when they visit your dojo. The pennies it cost to keep this ongoing relationship is worth keeping your customers engaged.