I recently wrapped a 5-day challenge with a client and have been blown away by the engagement and energy in the pop up Facebook group we ran.
She’s delivered such valuable content to her audience in a really relatable, digestible, and implementable way we’re both wondering why we haven’t done it sooner.
But as with all things, there’s a ton of work involved in hosting a successful challenge.
So, let’s talk prep:
Step One: Promotion & Sign Up Period
As with most opt-ins or lead magnets, you’ll need a landing page where people can sign up as well as a thank you page for after they sign up.
You may want to include a welcome video on the thank you page and some easy ways people can share your challenge. As for getting sign ups…if you have an existing list, you’ll definitely want to share the challenge with them several times in your general newsletter posts. It’s also a good idea to send a few emails dedicated to the upcoming challenge to encourage sign ups.
You can also promote your sign up page via regular social and paid advertising, like Facebook ads.
Consider asking your friends or colleagues to share the challenge as well, especially if they have an audience that would be interested in it.
And, depending on your bandwidth and lead time, consider exploring guest posting, podcasts, or media opportunities as ways to promote your challenge.
Step Two: The Content
Be sure to have your welcome email ready to go once you start promoting your sign up page. You want to be sure people feel taken care of even before the challenge starts.
Once that’s wrapped, consider how you want to deliver the content.
Using a pop-up FB group can be a very effective way of engaging your audience. And bonus, it gives you a really easy way to deliver video content, whether you want to do live or pre-recorded content.
You’ll also need at least one email per day and some action steps for your participants. These can come in the form of a workbook or as part of each email or video. Plan ahead for each day so you know exactly what you want to deliver and have time to properly create it.
Step Three: The Delivery
Automate as much of the delivery as you can! Start by creating an email sequence to deliver the written content.
Use a social media scheduler to schedule a few core posts each day inside the pop-up FB group.
Spend focused time engaging your participants multiple times per day. Encourage engagement by asking questions, and giving feedback or advice widely throughout the group.
Step Four: The Wrap Up
Be sure to have a clear plan for what happens after the challenge.
A great bridge between the challenge and any offer can be a wrap up email or two providing additional value to your participants. This could be original content or it could be a compilation of everything you already provided during the challenge.
If you are planning to pitch your participants on a product, course, or service, be sure you have a clear plan for doing so. Prepare a sequence for people to follow after the challenge to convert them from prospects to customers.
Using the challenge to grow your audience but not ready to sell yet? That’s ok too!
Consider sending your participants a survey to find out how you could serve them more in the future. This could be great info for building an offer down the road.
Pulling off a successful challenge can help you add hundreds or even thousands of people to your audience.
But, be sure to plan ahead so you can successfully prepare and execute your own 5-day challenge.
