How to Use Facebook Groups for Lead Nurturing: Complete Guide!

Facebook groups are more than just spaces for people with the same interests to chill in.

They can do more.

So, so much more.

We’ve seen them used for lead generation and nurturing, as an integral part of omnichannel marketing.

In this guide, we’ll show you how you can use Facebook groups for lead nurturing and as part of a multidimensional approach to bringing in more clients and crazy growth.

We’ll show you how to set everything up, get people to join, and of course, nurture!

Creating a Facebook Group

The Theme of Your Group

It all starts with theming your Facebook group.

We always advise that you make it a group that is dedicated to learning, and this is especially true if you have high-ticket solutions.

Nobody wants to join a group where products and selling will be constantly thrown at their face.

Learning groups also make it easier for people to connect with you and build real connections that are centered on mutual growth.

Your prospects get a chance to judge the value that you bring to the table and you get a chance to help them before you even invite them to work with you.

Nothing makes you more valuable than teaching, posting resources, and helping people get ahead on your Facebook group.

Based on our experience, we’ve found that a lot of the clients that we were bringing in using lead nurturing (and lead generation) using Facebook groups reached out to us voluntarily.

Here’s the thing.

People that find value in what you have to offer don’t really have to be sold anything.

The moment that they find themselves in need of a solution that you offer, they’ll immediately want to do business with you.

Name

This is probably the most critical aspect of your Facebook group.

Your name allows you to do a couple of things with a Facebook group:

• It helps with getting people to find you
• Improves organic SEO
• It allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition
• It gives people a quick overview of what your group does (since Facebook group headlines aren’t really a thing)
• Lastly, it also serves as a great branding tool.

You might think that coming up with a group name could be as simple as putting in your brand name + what it’s catering to.

But, I beg to disagree.

Here’s what you need to consider when choosing out words for your Facebook group name:

• Type of audience – Who are you catering to? Founders? Marketers? Entrepreneurs? You can use the audience types in your name.
• Subject-matter being discussed – This is an important factor. What is the main point of your group? Is it to discuss lead generation? Put it in your group name! This makes it easier for people to search for you using keywords.
• Industry – If you’re catering to a larger audience, consider just putting in the name of your idnustry to encourage inclusivity.
• Brand – Don’t forget the brand, it helps set you apart from the rest of the competition.
• Actionable Issues you’re going to fix – A better way to put in your subect-matter is to put in the exact problem you’re trying to fix e.g. “How to Use Facebook Groups for Lead Nurturing”.

Make sure you take your time crafting the name of your group.

Group Description

Next up you want a group description.

You want one that’s easy to read and lays out all of the rules of the group, but beyond that, it has to encourage people to want to join the group.

We don’t really recommend a certain limitation so feel free to write. However, don’t make it too text-heavy.

Here’s what you need:

• You need a two or three paragraphs that are two to three lines long discussing what the group is about, this is your intro.
• Follow that up with a bullet-point list of exactly what the group member is going to get if they decide to join. Keep this to a maximum of 6 points. You can’t bore your reader.
• Add in the group rules, you want to make sure that you have someone on your team that can keep an eye on offenders. Normal rules are no links, no spam, etc.
• Lastly, add a CTA at the to keep it fun.

Cover Photo

This is a valuable piece of visual real estate because this is what your group members are going to see every time they enter the group.

The same optimization strategies that we use with LinkedIn cover photos apply here.

You want to make sure that you have a Facebook cover photo that converts well, so include CTA, real photos of you or the company, and if you want, your products.

Feel free to add your social media handles while you’re at it.

Settings

You want to keep things private.

Why?

It adds to the allure and the exclusivity of the group.

You want people to want to join the “special” club.

Next, you want to make sure that your group type is set to social learning. This helps foster a spirit of cooperation within the group itself and that helps stimulate conversations.

Fill out the rest of the little details, too, while you’re at it.

Decide on a Content Plan

Now, that you’re done, you need content.

This helps keep the group alive with conversation.

You want to post things there that are highly relevant and valuable.

So, it needs to be things that are actionable.

Think of guides that only apply to the people who have joined the group.

The exact subject matter will depend on you and as much as possible you don’t want to sell using that content.

The goal is to facilitate the group’s learning because they already know that they can buy a solution from you.

Getting Prospects to Join Your Group

1. Retarget Current Prospects

If you have new prospects then there’s a chance that you might already have their email addresses.

This makes it easy for you to create a custom audience on Facebook and get them to join the group (also works for brand awareness.)

All you have to do is go to Facebook Ads Manager and throw everyone’s emails into a custom audience promoting the group.

The process is relatively easy to do and Facebook provides tracking tools that can help you.

2. Add Them as a Friend on Facebook and Invite Them From There

Use Facebook to get your prospects on Facebook groups!

Here’s a subtle way of getting them to your group AND starting a conversation with them on a different platform.

Add them on Facebook and strike up a casual conversation with them.

You can then subtly mention that you have a group that they can join.

3. Turn It Into An Opt-In

If you have forms or the like, you can always add your group as either a CTA or an actual option in them.

Here’s why we like this approach.

If the “joins” are coming in from these forms, you know they’re already prequalified to have buy intent.

You can also bind special links with UTM tracking to find out who’s coming through with these CTAs, so it helps with monitoring your campaign.

4. Add Them To Your Group Directly

There are two ways of doing this:

1. You don’t tell them you’re going to add them
2. You tell them you’re going to add them

Now, personally, I’d go with the second option because it’s non-invasive and requires consent.

You can do this over the phone in a sales discovery/triage call:

…before I leave, I wanted to give you a quick invite to join our group of *industry name*, it’s a great place for you to get a couple more resources in fixing the pain points that we discussed earlier…

Through email with a CTA:

Join other *occupation name* in getting the best results

Through email with a personal piece of text:

We’ve got an exclusive Facebook Group that caters to professionals from your field, I’m personally inviting to join so that you can get updates on all the latest trends.

Through a LinkedIn chat:

Get in touch with us on Facebook by joining our group!

5. Add it To Your Website

Add your Facebook Group to your website and pair it with some great marketing copy to get people to join.

On BAMF, we make sure that it’s in the footer so that prospects and learners can have the option to join before they leave the website.

We’ve also seen people use an invitation to join as an exit popup on their website.

Sometimes this is a great alternative or complement to using Facebook Pixel for ads after someone has visited your website.

I would also go as far as to suggest that you have specific CTAs in your articles that are dedicated to growing your group.

You can see that we made sure that we told our potential “joiners” that joining this group will allow them to interact with our audience which is “growth marketers”.

How Do I Nurture?

Using Content

Content is what’s going to keep your Facebook group alive.

People are naturally attracted to content that is:

• Relevant to their needs
• Actionable and usable at the current moment
• Solves their problems
• Written in their tone of voice

And, most importantly:

• Valuable

Before you start bombarding your Facebook group with random pieces of content, you want to make sure that you find out what customer types are currently on the group.

After taking stock of this, aim to create and curate specific content types that will appeal the most to them.

Know this.

Not everyone is going to like everything that you post on the group, so keep it varied.

But, everyone is going to like the fact that you’re trying to keep them informed.

Directly Engaging With Them on The Group

The moment that they start commenting on your posts, you want to interact with them.

This keeps things as organic as possible.

They’re talking to you, so you want to acknowledge their presence and make them feel special.

Single them out, tell them that you like the way they think, and point out which of their thoughts make sense to them.

You still don’t want to sell to them using a comment.

The mere fact that you’re interacting with them is enough to make sure you’re on the top of their heads.

And also, they’re reminded of the offer you may have for them in another medium.

Directly Contacting the People on The Group

If you’re running an omnichannel campaign – which you should, contacting them on Facebook should be part of their buyer journey with you.

Now there are different ways of engaging in contact with them in the funnel.

• You can include them in the Facebook group before or after the sales triage call.
• You can use Facebook as a casual way to communicate with them.
• Or, better yet, you can use Facebook as the sole medium to interact with them regarding what they’ve learned so far.

All of these factors are highly dependent on what your funnel looks like.

So, a funnel that starts with a call could have Facebook as their secondary method of reaching out, but one that has both calls and LinkedIn, could use Facebook groups as their tertiary and be more subtle with their direct communications.

The trick is to have the right balance between selling and nurturing.

If you’re selling through phone calls and nurturing through LinkedIn, use Facebook as a backup to lightly tip the scales with nurturing through learning, etc.

You Can Have More Than One Facebook Group

Wait, what?

Yeah, you read that right.

Remember, not all of your potential prospects come from the same demographic or target customer profile.

You’ll have solutions and product lines intended for different customers, and you can use groups to target more than one ideal customer persona.

You can also have a separate private Facebook group for your students or special customers.

The trick is to make sure that each Facebook group you maintain has a very unique voice and audience. Most of the time, you can do two, one for your brand and one for select prospects and customers.

Three is also fine.

Just don’t go nuts and put up five groups.

However, there is one problem with doing this.

You still need to be able to maintain all of the Facebook groups that you have active.

If you leave your audience hanging, they might lose interest in what you have to offer.

Or worse, you risk having a “dead” group and that’s just terrible.

Turnover rates on Facebook groups are usually low as long as you don’t annoy people in the group with constant updates. This is because most people often forget they’re in a Facebook group.

How About Using Other Facebook Groups?

Yes, you lead nurture using other Facebook groups and even run lead generation campaigns off of it.

I know what you’re thinking.

And, no, this doesn’t mean we should start posting links to our landing pages on other Facebook groups.

The way to do it is subtle.

Like the BAMF LinkedIn marketing way.

For lead generation:

• Be active on other groups
• Answer questions
• Be a thought leader

For lead nurturing:

• Join groups that you know prospects (and potential prospects) are already on
• Answer questions
• Be a thought leader

Sounds the same right?

There is one catch.

Try to avoid engaging with them directly on a Facebook group.

That’s not subtle.

You want them to notice that you’re really who you say you are.

Takeaways

Facebook groups are one of the best ways to make sure that you get people the subtle and organic lead nurturing that they need to finally make a decision.

But, beyond that, they’re a source of real connections.

Because that’s the reason they were built in the first place.

Using Facebook groups you actually have the chance to inspire real growth, and make a difference the lives other your prospects.

It’s a noble pespective.

But, that’s how it should be.

Put people first, and you’ll soon feel growth trickling in.