As one of the first employees at Going.com (originally HeyLetsGo.com), an events based social networking site, I had the unique opportunity to build a community from the bottom up. I still remember my first day at Going.com – I was confused, lost and unsure of my new found profession. I had just finished graduate school and was previously working for the New England Patriots in their corporate sales department. I was well versed in the online space being that I had just spent two years in Emerson’s integrated marketing communication program. I had also picked up some awesome sales experiences during my time with the Patriots. Nonetheless, I still felt unprepared to tackle the initial challenges I was faced with at Going.com.

When I arrived at Going.com the site was solely Boston-based and the community had about fifteen thousand members. Later down the road, I would help launch their first major market – New York. However, my initial task was to focus on developing the Boston market. It seemed like a gigantic task granted the fact I had not the slightest clue on how to acquire members to a new networking site. My first instinct was to invite all of my friends that were currently on Facebook. But then I thought to myself, “well I could invite all of my friends, but it’s definitely not going to be a sustainable model.” In addition, I was unsure if my friends would even find the site valuable. At the advise of our CEO I decided to speak with the founders of Going.com to learn about their past successes. They had recently ran HeyLetsGo Fenway Fest, a popular event that drew just about 5,000 users to the website.

Video created by Roy (Co-Founder of Going.com)

After meeting with each founder for about two hours I had more information than I knew what to do with. They told me how the site started and how they initially got their friends to sign up. More importantly they told me how they got their friends of friends to sign up. My mission was starting to become clear. I now had a game plan to work from and understood how the offline to online acquisition strategy worked. I would have to create dozens of events and have people RSVP on Going.com. The HeyLetsGo Fenway Fest was only one single event. How was I going to duplicate this model over and over again? Creating and managing dozens of events at once would be almost impossible. Don’t forget I would also be on the hook to promote them. We had to create a strategy that would allow us to scale not only in Boston but in our upcoming markets.

Coming Together

We all knew that in order to be successful we were going to have to create a network of promoters (aka partners). Leveraging their events was going to be  a huge asset from both an online content and member acquisition standpoint. But, how in the world were we going to convince them to post their events on our site? We had to develop a pitch that promoters could relate to and see value in. The company was very excited to launch in New York. New York is without a doubt one of the nation’s most popular event-going cities. For our opening party we booked Albert Hammond Jr. to play at Hiro Ballroom.

If I remember correctly, this was the key event that allowed us to figure out our go-to-market strategy. Our newly hired New York city manager had been in the club business for years. He had managed multiple venues in both Boston and New York and had a reputation throughout the country for being a top club promoter. He was and still is today one of the smartest and most creative people I know. He brought to Going.com a wealth of knowledge that all of us respected and appreciated. When we all gathered for a meeting to discuss the promotion of the Albert Hammond Jr. event he had already materialized in his head how it was going to play out. He was going to give each promoter (aka partner) a certain dollar amount for each RSVP they drove to the event page. Once a person RSVP’d on our website they became a member and began to receive our weekly email updates. We were able to track the success rate of each promoter by providing them with unique URL’s that accrued the amount of RSVP’s they brought back to the site. As you can see from the event flyer above we worked with popular New York promoters Filter and GBH to promote the event which received 3,382 members for Going.com.

Integrating Our Efforts

Not to long after this event our amazing engineering team built a back end email system for our partners to use. This made our job’s as city managers a whole lot easier. Anyone who has managed a large email list will understand the costs associated with sending out emails through service providers. We built a system for our partners that allowed them to blast out their emails for free. It’s important to note that we never took the email lists they uploaded into our system. We would only acquire a member from their list when a person on the list RSVP’d to one of their events posted on Going.com. The email system was fantastic from a member acquisition standpoint because it provided a huge value add for our partners and allowed us to effectively control how much we wanted to pay for members (CPA model). It is important to note that we did use unique URL’s for those partners who preferred to use their own email systems.

Instead of worrying about throwing my own events I now had to figure out a way to grow a network of promoters in Boston. Lucky for me I was already close friends with one of the largest promotions groups in Boston – 6one7 Productions. I knew they had thousands of emails and were probably the most influential group when it came to Boston nightlife. After a few meetings 6one7 joined up with Going.com and started to promote their events on our website. In addition, we worked with 6one7 to throw some pretty awesome parties in the city.

As word spread of our parties and our site became more popular, promoters of all sorts started to outreach to us. I was fielding calls from charities, restaurant groups and music halls to name a few. It was important to us to have a wide array of events – not just nightlife. Either way, I was able to effectively manage dozens of events without even having to leave the office. Promoters would call me and ask if Going.com wanted to sponsor an event. They knew that we would only pay per RSVP so my risk of “sponsoring” any given event was low as it was directly ROI based. If they did a good job driving RSVP’s to the event they would be highly rewarded. For example, if we paid 4 dollars per RSVP and they drove 400 RSVP’s they would get $1,200 dollars. The Going.com team became very good at figuring out what type of promoters and events pulled best. I must note that we did not work with every promoter you see on the site. By working with leading influencers in each market it also attracted other promoters ( we had no prior relationship with) to use the site to host their events and manage their RSVP’s. It was starting to become cool to have your event sposted on Going.com!

Business Development

As the site grew my role eventually developed into more of a business development/sales role. Our go-to-market strategy and our growing knowledge of what worked and what did not helped us launch our next three cities: San Fransisco, Chicago and Los Angeles. We were becoming very popular and were attracting major press with all of our high profile events.

I had the opportunity to meet with leading interactive agencies throughout the country and work with nationally recognized brands including JetBlue, Stoli Vodka, Miller Lite, Malibu and Heineken. Below is a video highlight of some of our marquee events.

6 Tips: Formulate A Member Acquisition Strategy

I have five bits of advice to anyone out there looking to formulate a member acquisition strategy.

1. Figure out exactly who you want to target – keeping a narrow focus is always good.
2. Identify who the movers and shakers are within your core audience. Who are the influencers?
3. Understand your influencers. What are their strenths, pains, and weaknesses? How can you help them achieve their goals while accomplishing your own?
4. Develop a cost per acquisition model. It’s important to understand how much you are willing to pay for each member. This will allow you to control your costs and lower your risks.
5. It’s ALWAYS important to make sure when acquiring members you walk them through the front door of your site. Make sure your acquisition strategy some how relates to what you are about. For example, at Going.com having people RSVP to events made sense since we were an events social network.
6. Have a retention strategy in place to draw users back to your site after they have signed up.

Conclusion

My time at Going.com was truly amazing. The management team at Going.com was absolutely fantastic. It was a true entrepreneurial atmosphere that sparked excitement and encouraged innovation. Not many people get to experience the process of building a social network from the bottom up. I feel very fortunate to have been a part of the Going.com story and to have worked with some incredible people. Of course, I can’t include every single aspect of my tail here in this post. This is just a high-level recap of what I experienced from the early stages forward. I hope that sharing my story interested you and that my tips on developing a member acquisition strategy helped. If you have any additional questions please feel free to outreach to me here. Thanks!