Marketing Plan Case Study: Growing a community from 100 to 1000 Members

Jf Brou — BecomeYourBestVersion

32 min readNov 16, 2020

In-depth 50 pages plan that can be replicated to any small B2C businesses

Marketing Plan Cover

Preface

Dear Laura and C100 team,

I am honored to have been tasked to analyze and come up with detailed advice for such a successful brand as C100. After a decade of reuniting “la crème de la crème” of Tech Canadian Entrepreneur living in the San Francisco bay, the tech center of the world, it is time to expand our community to new heights helping the next generation of Canadian entrepreneurs building 10 new “Shopify like” Canadian business success stories.

The main objective of this marketing plan is to push the C100 brand to the next level via a full stack of marketing dimension to reach 1000 members and expand to a new chapter in New York while bringing to the mass the awareness of this great initiative.

The plan is structured as a step by step analysis gathering all marketing dimensions. I bring points of awareness, then enumerate a solution if needed and finalize with a step by a step action plan for most projects.

This plan will help answer these key questions:

What is the “current” state of C100 marketing & communications?
What opportunities exist to improve key marketing metrics?
Who is the target member and what do they care about?
How would you calendar marketing activities to drive the best results?
How else should C100 measure our marketing & communications effectiveness?

And hopefully, you’ll realize that I focused on delivering on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) below:

# number of subscribers to C100’s bi-weekly newsletter addressed to the Canadian tech community
# of followers we have across social media channels
“Engagement” in our media channels (i.e. Slack, Social Media, and email open/click metrics)
Website traffic and engagement
Membership “applications” are also a key metric, though are “co-owned” by the Director of Membership.

Step by step we’ll reach new heights together.

Let’s go.
Jf

Chapter 1: Social Proof

1.1) Google Search

Research outside of Canada

Need to work on

Twitter, Youtube Page and reviews (Trustpilot) to be visible on the 1st page
Creating a Google business account for a digital business to have the business page appearing on the right side
Adding 50+ community and C100 team culture photos and videos on the Google business page
Posting once a week on the google business page

Example of google business post:

1.2) Case Studies

Would be highly beneficial to create 3 case studies article interviews of our most successful members. If the budget allows, create also a 1-minute video. Each written interview will have their own page and we’ll link them all on the home page and members page with a list of our top members.

Examples of good case studies:
https://slack.com/intl/fr-fr/customer-stories
https://www.upwork.com/ppc/video-portal/
https://stripe.com/en-ca/customers
https://slack.com/intl/fr-fr/customer-stories
https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/6-ways-dashlane-realized-roi-from-reviews
https://monday.com/lang/fr/enterprise/ (video testimonial)

Things to look for in a member testimonial page:

Intimate showing the face and happiness of our members
At least 1 video
A big number of reviews link to something like Trustpilot
Logos/faces of our biggest clients
Great visuals
Written testimonials
Small scenario of member using a specific feature of our service

Steps of our work:

1 — Select 3 of our best members that would be open to do a case study

2 — Build the interview questions and a reach out email

3 — Send the member email and follow up on the phone to book an interview time to do a recorded video call

4 — Transcribe the interview

5 — Work with a Web Designer to create and customize a customer page with the key points needed above

1.3) Building Online reviews

We now live in a world of online reviews. Usually, the 2nd biggest google research of a brand is “the brand name” reviews. As we want to expand to 1000 members, we have no choice to start playing the game of online reviews to improve our social proof. For this type of target market, our members would prefer something more private like Trustpilot.

Members can decide to be anonymous or not and they can make many reviews on different events or services. With it, you gain a lot of reviews and it would appear on our Google Business page and the first page on our Google research.

Finally, they have the trust box widget to embed easily on our website home page.

Steps of our work:

1 — Create a Trustpilot account

2 — Ask for reviews from friends, family, employees of C100

3 — Write a pitch email reach out to our clients to ask for reviews

4 — Execute on the Best Practice to ask and collect reviews to reach our objective of 100 reviews

Here’s an example of a printed client feedback form I have implemented in the past given at the end of each event and trip. The objective was to yes get clients true insight because they do it right there on the spot but also to remind them to support us by giving an online review as listed in question 9. We were also reminding them 1–2 days after the event and trip via a post-event thank-you communication.

InterStude Trip/Event Client Feedback

Thank you for joining our trip/event. We hope you had a lot of fun attending and were able to create priceless memories! We want to hear your feedback so we can keep growing.

1. Student’s name:___________________________

2. Date:________________

3. Trip/event name: ____________________________

4. Name of Trip Leaders: _____________________________________

5. Name of the Bus Driver: _____________________________________

6. How satisfied are you with the trip/event on these specific features?

7. What’s the best part of the trip/event? ___________________________________________________________________

8. What’s the worst part about the trip/event?

___________________________________________________________________

9. Where did you do your online reviews? And how many stars did you give us?

10. Are you thinking of coming back to any InterStude trip or event?

11. How much did you give in total service fees to the trip leaders and bus drivers? _______________

12. Do you have any extra suggestions/feedback for InterStude?

___________________________________________________________________

1.4) Social Media

Our main social media channels are Twitter and Linkedin for our market type. We’ll use them as part of our main communication channel as discussed in chapter 6. Here’s below social proof adjustment for Linkedin, Twitter, and other social media.

Twitter

Need to work on

Create scheduled posts on autopilot that could display the Twitter section on the Google first page when searching C100 Canada. Options: Later, Buffer, Hootsuite.
Google twitter display example:

Linkedin

Need to work on

Create a “Life” section displaying C100 video trailer, community photos, and a pinned post

Instagram

Need to work on

Seems that all feed photos have been deleted, I would repost 20–30 community photos to have a nice portfolio page look of our community
Clean up the highlight and create highlight feature images

Facebook

Even though Facebook is not our main focus, it doesn’t hurt to repost the same content and announcement posted from Linkedin.

Youtube

It would be beneficial to upload the full Zoom roundtable videos on Youtube, the 2nd biggest search engine, and the internet will consume 70%+ video in 2020. We could build a keyword strategy with them and when people search C100 Canada on google those videos would appear on the 1st page.

Need to work on

Improve the SEO title of current videos and add the roundtable videos
Add attention seeking feature images
Clean up the youtube page displaying the videos and playlist we want
Create a new youtube top banner with catchy text and image

Good Youtube video thumbnails example:

1.5) Public Relation

C100 as a good presence on the google news page and media website but things could be improved.

Here’s a list of top C100 features in the media:

Need to work on

Go on Podcast interviews and get featured on new media/blogs in our industry.

Here are examples of potential media or blog to be a feature on:

Techcrunch
Startup Canada
Startup here Toronto
Wired
Entrepreneur Magazine
Venture Beat
Startup Grind

Steps of our work:

1 — We’ll gather a database of potential podcast and media we want to be featured on

2 — Scrap emails and LinkedIn profile of the podcast host and media journalist

3 — Build a nice press room page on our website featuring our press releases, past media coverage, and our press kit

4 — Reach out by email and Linkedin to the podcast host and media journalist

5 — Follow up and get referrals

1.6) Medium & C100 Blog

Our Medium has great content and received a lot of articles views as we can see from the data provided. Our last article “Canada transformed itself as a global tech player over the past decade. How can Canadians everywhere help sustain momentum now? received more than 4000 views with more than 833 reads. It shows the power of a great well-done content, we should definitely plan content like this every month if not every 2 weeks.

Need to work on

Uploading our articles on our website in a brand new blog section
For future articles, posting half of the article content on Medium and Linkedin article while redirecting to our website to have access to the end of the content

1.7) Other 2nd levels Social Media website

Need to work on

Create a profile on Unsplash with Canadian Startup photos for our clients to use for free
Create a profile on Reddit and start a conversation with Canadian startup entrepreneurs abroad
Create a profile on Quora and go answer questions related to Canadian startup entrepreneurs abroad

Chapter 2: Branding

2.1) C100 Official Video Trailer

Goal:

Have a 1 minutes kickass B-roll video trailer of C100, scripted with a beautiful voice over. We could include stock video shots of innovation, technology but also videos of passed 48H in the valley and C100 growth summit.

Best B-Roll video inspirations online (I actually know the founder of Goalcast):

If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed — William McRaven, US Navy Admiral

Dr. Bruce Lipton Explains HOW WE ARE PROGRAMMED AT BIRTH (an eye-opening video)

Here’s an amazing example B-Roll video trailer from our partners at MaRS

Example of Jf Brou B-Roll:

Entrepreneur Accelerator // Banned From Universities by Jf Brou

Steps of our work:

Plan the video trailer shot per shot with the script.
Send the script to our voice over artist found on Fiverr
Send the files to our video editor
Back and forth improvement Marketing Manager & Video editor
Launch the video, share with network and boost in ads to get it rolling

Benefits:

Boost Social Proof on every channel: Google SEO, Youtube SEO, Email signature, Website homepage, Social Media
Have a video branding for every public relation feature

Estimated extra cost = 300$
Stock video = 100$
Voice over artist = 150$
My video editor = 50$

2.2) Modernize Website

In my opinion, the website needs to be modernized in colors, style, photos, dynamism and clean up of all the menu options. A website is the ultimate image of a brand and one-stop-shop for all its services, media features, and company culture excitement.

Here’s examples of a great modern website:

Personally, I would transfer the website to Shopify with the Shogun App for these reasons:

Using Shopify is promoting a Canadian success story and we should give the example
We could get Shopify for free as a non-profit for Canadian Tech startup and having them as an exchange of visibility partner
Working with Shopify would allow us to integrate with all our social media accounts, paid marketing platforms, access to top apps helping social proof and management
Working with Shopify would push us to develop new paid offering and bring more revenue as the Shopify analytics is very engaging
Connecting Shopify with Shogun would allow us to have a high class 10 000$ website for a minimum monthly fee.
The Home Page

We need to make sure that the homepage always looks neat and easy to navigate. The focus is maximizing the social proof with reviews, case studies, media features, best community photos, listing the core offerings of C100 and a kick-ass video trailer.

The Web Design

We use Shogun to keep things with a lot of visuals, images, videos, gradients, and trendy colors.

Need to work on

Modernizing the colors, photos and clean up the top menu
Create a footer to link all 2nd need menu options
Add our video trailer and community photos on the homepage
Add 3–6 reviews of members customers link to a review page like that
Add 3 top press article with a link to a newsroom/press page like that
Add our 3 new case study link to our case study page
Create new 48H in the valley landing page (chapter 5)
Create new C100 Growth Summit landing page (chapter 5)
Create a new membership landing page (chapter 3)
Create a new company culture landing page (chapter 2.3)

2.3) C100 Ambassadors

Even though the past ambassador program launch in 2016 was a failed attempt, I strongly believe we need at least 8 ambassadors to strengthen the community.

Here’s how we could do it differently:

Choose ambassadors that are less famous and have more time. Have them go through a vigorous recruitment process like listed in chapter 2.4 to make sure they will be happy highly committed ambassadors.
Have ambassadors commit to a 6 months period
Give an ambassador gear kit (C100 ambassador shirt, hat, computer sticker, etc) to enhance the sense of belonging
Have ambassadors manage by the Director of Membership with their own internal Slack channel and weekly ambassadors 30 minutes calls

Responsibilities of ambassadors:

Help us keep the Slack community highly active
Attend local startup event and C100 event discussion
Share our new content on their social media accounts

Benefits of being an ambassador:

Free C100 membership for life
Free or discounted future offerings (events, mastermind, book, online course, etc)
Recognition to a network of successful Canadian entrepreneurs
Being part of an impacting team and having a sense of belonging to something bigger

2.4) Company Culture / HR marketing

Building a strong company culture starts by setting a visual vision of it and why not be fully accountable to it by portraying it publicly on our website. The current page is listing photos with descriptions of the staff and board members.

Here’s an example of a career page from a company culture advocate, Gsoft (Montreal Startup).

A great human resource landing page should have:

A small video trailer with interviews of employees
Team and office photos showing the company culture
Testimonials of employees
Listing core value and mission
Enumeration of the perks of working for C100 (travel, network, working hours, office, salary, etc)
List of job offers available and volunteering opportunities like our ambassadors’ program
Button for the general application form as listed below

Here the sample of an application form gathering all kinds of applicants. An ambassador’s offer should be constantly live on Linkedin, Indeed, and our website, it will bring social proof to our human resource marketing and might bring new opportunities.

Be part of InterStude’s DREAM TEAM!

TIME ESTIMATE OF COMPLETION = 20–30 minutes

We are recruiting AWESOME team players to join our growing team and push forward the InterStude brand and mission! If you think you’re awesome enough, this is the opportunity that will lift you off to the NEXT LEVEL! Unfortunately, we cannot answer all applications, but we would like to Thank You for your interest in InterStude!

Shortlisted candidates will be called in for an interview with our HR Manager and then a final interview with InterStude’s founder, serial entrepreneur, Jf Brou. Your training and the final assessment will follow shortly after. All the best!

The recruitment process is made in 4 steps:
1 — Filling this screening form
2 — Answering in a video a 3 questions assignment specific on the position
3 — First 30 minutes interview with the Human Resource manager
4 — Reverse 30 minutes interview with Jf Brou, InterStude’s founder

Position applied for*
Full name*
Date of Birth*
Nationality*
Languages you speak*
Facebook URL*
Email*
Skype Username*
How many hours are you available in a week?*
What is your internet speed at your workplace?*
What are your computer specs?*
What is the best rate in $USD/hour you can offer us to start the trial period?*
Tell us what makes you unique?*
Why do you want to work for InterStude?*
Why do you think you’re the perfect fit for the position?*
How long do you see yourself working for InterStude?*
What’s your most relevant experience that’s similar to the position you’re applying for? What made you thrive on that journey? What have you learned in that experience?*
From the lineup of responsibilities listed under the job post, which appears most challenging to you and why?*
Do you confirm that you can carry out ALL the responsibilities enumerated on the job post?
Are there any other skills you would like to tell us about?
Describe your Ideal work environment*
What keeps you motivated?*
How do you see yourself a year from now? 5 years from now?*
If you can ask one question to JF Brou, Interstude’s founder, what would that be?*
How did you find out about this opportunity?*

How we color code applicants and decide who we take in interviews.

Green: Very good, we request for an interview with our Operations manager.
Orange: Average, we send them our 2nd form with 3 questions to be answered in a 1-minute video. The goal is to test their abilities and commitment without losing our time.
Red: Poor, we let them know that they don’t pass the initial screening and ask them to reapply after 6months.

2.5) New Branding Ideas

The C100 book library

The idea is to build a digital library of about 100 books related to entrepreneurship, startup, Canada, San Francisco, etc. Something like this or like this embedded on our website with book covers

The Most Popular Tech Entrepreneur in the World

The idea comes from the 2009 campaign of the Australian Tourist Office The Best Job in the World. An all-inclusive 3-month lifestyle package for an extroverted and enthusiastic Canadian tech entrepreneur. We would need to gather perks and gifts from multiple partners to gather a nice package giveaway.

Video Promoting C100 Legends

Showing off the benefits and selling the dream to reach that level for every member.

University Scholarship for 1 tech entrepreneur student in Canada

We could finance 1000$ worth of gifts, membership fees and events access to one promising student in Canada that has joined the entrepreneurship club of its university.

The Tech Canadian ex-pat annual magazine

The magazine will be distributed on demo days in Canada, during our events, and in the offices of our partners. To do this, the magazine must give back to the community as much as possible. Interview with top members, bucket list, contests, tips, reports, etc. Gathering all of our best content of the year.

The C100 San Francisco Postcard

Make a C100 postcard that would be distributed at the end of the events in San Francisco that participants could send to their families in Canada.

Chapter 3: Members

3.1) The target market

With around 3 million Candian ex-pats worldwide and 250 000 alone living in the north of California, our mission is to gather into one community the tech-savvy senior-level entrepreneurship mindset Canadian ex-pats. Our target audience as 35 to 55 years old, is successful in his domain, most likely as a good network of influential contacts and work in the startup industry in a metropolitan area like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles.

3.2) Membership package

Currently, the Membership landing page has the core ingredients but should be more visually appealing with a table listing all the benefits of being a member, another table for the requirements and another one for the price payment plan options.

Here’s currently the membership benefits announced with my recommendation in italic:

Access to Opportunity: Be close to career opportunities and investment or board positions that arise within the network. (we should have an internal private database of services, contacts, investments, etc)
Expand professional network: Connect with an engaged group of impact-driven fellow professionals. (We should mention our Slack community and the channels of it)
Attend high-value Member Events: Check out the program schedule here, including a complimentary ticket to Growth Summit. (we should offer new services like the mastermind, the book, the online course, etc.)
Give back to Canada and its tech community: Lend expertise, mentor, advise, and invest. (We should give a certificate and Linkedin recommendations, also each member should receive a membership welcome pack they would be proud to share on social media)
Access to Exclusive Content: Whether it’s an expert-led webinar or panel discussion, members get first access to the best content C100 creates. (we should mention here private event example)

The C100 membership registration form is very essential and well done. Here’s the questions we could add:

Would you be interested to participate in those services or events: (List down all-new service ideas and events we have as multiple choice)
Would you like to become a C100 Ambassador promoting the services/events in exchange for perks and discounts.
Why do you think you would be a great fit for the C100 community?

3.3) C100 Legends — our Loyalty Plan

The members who participate the most in our events, engage the most on our Slack and share our content are inaugurated C100 Legends every month.

Here are all the benefits of a C100 Legend:

Free C100 membership for life
Free or discounted future offerings (events, mastermind, book, online course, etc)
Recognition to our network of successful Canadian entrepreneur
Private C100 Legends channel on our slack
Get a C100 legend trophy and shirt
Affiliate link to make a 5–10% commission on every referral.
Special announcement and service launch priority
Monthly physical gift giveaway
Opportunities for exposure on our site & social media

3.4) New Chapter in New York

Our next level is to expand with a new community chapter in New York. To do this effectively we should structure a plan with the Director of Membership gathering steps of the official launch and ways of managing this new chapter. I highly recommend inaugurating a New York Chapter with a part time chapter coordinator living in the city that would be our spokesperson and would attend most of the local New York events.

To successfully do this expansion, we should have gathered at least 50 New York members before the launch. The way we could focus on that is by identifying New York based Canadian entrepreneurs via an Angel.co research or our members’ referral and then contact the potential New York members directly to schedule a call and explain to them our expansion plan.

Another great way to start this expansion is to have our Partnership Manager reach out to New York based startup initiatives, accelerator programs, and venture capitalists.

Chapter 4: Content

4.1) Video snippets

From the Zoom video of the roundtables, taking in the example: THE INFLECTION POINT FOR E-COMMERCE: MANAGING FOR HOCKEY STICK GROWTH

Create a 1-minute video from the discussion with a 4:5 frame to get attention with a clickbait title. I just produced one with my video editor, it took me 1 hour to produce and 20$ to pay the editor. We could easily produce 1 video like this every day with all the roundtable videos you have while redirecting traffic to our website.

Here the video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hx4YEEL2vdfM3fI4a-WwIzlbsL4KYQf5/view?usp=sharing

4.2) Articles

Create an article for Medium and our Blog gathering the core insights and tips from the roundtables. Here’s an example I could produce in 4–5 hours or hire a ghostwriter for 40$.

(I deleted the post after taking the screenshot)

Here’s other articles ideas link to a special day or a C100 service:

Special day:

Start of the school year
Labor’s day
Halloween
Canadian Thanksgiving
Start of Fall, Canadian colors
Christmas
New Years Eve
St-Valentin day
Spring Break
South by Southwest conference
Easter Break
Canada National Day
Collision Conference Toronto
Canada National Day
USA Independence Day
Quebec moving day
Startupfest Montreal

C100 Offerings:

48H in the valley
C100 Growth Summit
Starting our Mastermind
Launching our new Amazon book
Launching our new Online Course

Articles idea base on the above:

How Canadian startups are helping thousands of kids facilitate their entrance at school
7 reason why you need to join a mastermind group
Canada’s Labor Day, the break before a big innovation push
5 memorable moments for our startups at 2020 48H in the valley
Canadian Startup bringing their staff on a day trip to see the fall colors
10 awesome things to do with your tech colleagues for Thanksgiving Canada
The 5 top stops to do in San Francisco as a Canadian Startup Entrepreneur
Why you NEED to visit San Francisco as a Canadian startup entrepreneur
The event you wish you were there, C100 Growth Summit 2020. Here’s what you missed
How Canadian in the valley celebrate USA Independence Day on the 4th of July
10 bars and coffee shop in SF you’ll stumble on famous startup entrepreneurs
Your Ultimate Guide To Survive your 1st year as a Canadian entrepreneur
7 Quebec tech entrepreneur facts you didn’t know

4.3) Self-Publish Book

Here’s another beautiful project I could manage from producing with cheap contractors, interviewing the entrepreneurs, self-publishing on Amazon (print on demands) with proven keywords (using the KDProcket tool) and maximizing the Amazon algorithm with a launch strategy (30 days subcategories bestseller list).

The book idea:

Title: Oui Are Canadian Entrepreneurs,

Sub-title 50 Successful Startup founders share their deepest secrets in this business bible

(here’s a cover proposition, I’ve just asked my graphic designer to do)

I’ve started that project in the past where I gathered 50 Quebec entrepreneurs, the project failed because I’ve asked everyone to create their part on their own. But since they were all busy entrepreneurs, only a few delivered it on time and we lost the momentum.

The idea is to build a business bible going over each section of creating, managing, and exiting a tech company. Each sub-section of a chapter is offered by one of our entrepreneurs through a Zoom video interview that we could also turn it into a podcast and social media video content.

Benefits of this project:

- Helping the social proof of the C100 brand
- A potential new source of revenue
- Helping the Google search result from Amazon being the #1 marketplace in the world
- Giving massive exposure to 50 of our most loyal members
- A nice gift to giveaways to all new members, conference attendees and even for social media contest
- Helping all the new Canadian startup founders with this perfect tool

Cost:

- 2 months at 10h/week for the Marketing manager
- ISBN registration = 30$
- Transcriber of the video interviews = 150$
- 1st proofreader & editor = 50$
- 2nd editor = 50$
- Interior & exterior design = 250$
- Paid ad boost for the 30-day launch = 500$ (optional)
Total = around 1000$ with a paid ad budget for the launch

Why I can deliver this project:

- Experience writing, self-publishing and launching 3 books on Amazon
- Did 3 online courses on Amazon self-publishing with top secrets techniques
- Started 50% of a similar project 4 years ago

Here’s in the joint file:

- The old table of content with all the subsection per entrepreneur
- The old Plan guidelines of a subsection. Each entrepreneur had 7 pages.
- One entrepreneur section that got delivered (sorry its in French)

Resources:
https://theurbanwriters.com/
https://hotghostwriter.com/
https://kdp.amazon.com/
https://www.fiverr.com/
https://www.merchantwords.com/

Chapter 5 : C100 Services

5.1) 48H in the Valley

48H in the valley is the most impactful initiative and most popular offering. Even from the last 12 months of website analytics, it’s our 6th most visited page.

Sadly, I think the current landing page is not fully portraying the spirit and impact of this event. There’s also a second-page link to this event for the 48h alumni, personally I wouldn’t link it in the About Us page. One of the ideas of modernizing the website is to light it up, there’s too many options.

The current landing page (the desktop version top banner photo is cut)

New landing page options

Here’s a Lookbook of Landing Pages from Leadpages but I would rather look into the companies in the events and tours industries to get some inspiration for the 48H in the valley.

Here’s Top Deck Tours California trip landing page gathering a detailed itinerary, overview map, clients’ Instagram photos of the trip, reviews, what’s included and not included and trip notes document with everything to bring. Personally I would add photos of the bus charter, of the hotel, professional photo of the destination, and finally a video trailer. Here’s an old New York trip landing page we used once at InterStude.

Need to work on

Build a full-width page with photos showing the human connection, visits to San Francisco top offices, new partnerships created, passed bus and hotel used, etc.
A 1-minute video trailer, here’s a California trip trailer I’ve produced,
Adding a general itinerary of the 2 days
Listing top feature experiences with visuals
Getting at least 6 reviews (3 written and 3 videos)

5.2) C100 Growth Summit

For the growth summit, I would create a similar landing page then 48H in the valley instead of having a whole external website for it. The goal is to keep members and potential members all in the one stop shop while cross-promoting offers with sidebars or bottom page image announcements.

Need to work on

Copy pasting the landing in C100 main website
Adding on the same one-pager the photos showing the human connection, presentations, new partnerships created, etc.
A 1-minute video trailer, here’s a workshop trailer I’ve produced
Adding a button on the same page for the last year recap, while including its top content on the page for example stories from participants, written reviews,
Listing top feature experiences with visuals
Getting at least 6 reviews (3 written and 3 videos)

5.3) Mastermind Programs

Mastermind has always been the secret of riches as explained in the self-development bible Think and Grow Rich. Nowadays we have seen an explosion of mastermind service offers using the power of Zoom + Slack and adapting to different niche markets.

A mastermind can be big groups, small groups, 1-day, 1-month, or more but after testing different offerings I’ve realized that the best size group is 35 people committing to each other for 3 months with at least a weekly virtual meeting.

Here’s a list of potential offering that we could include:
- Goal setting session, for the 90 days and every 1st of the month for 1h, vision board creation

- Bi-Weekly 1h30 recorded coaching call, facilitating conversation & doing exercises on a topic.
- Monday check-in, Friday check-out, Wednesday Challenge
- Book Club, 1 book per month we discuss from the free resources we find you
- Virtual Coworking Sessions for total productivity using the Pomodoro technique
- Speed Meeting Networking events & Growing a group database referring our contacts
- Sub-community channels run by our Ambassadors: CEO, CFO, CMO, etc.
- Open Mic, host a virtual private workshop or event
- An accountable buddy matching your personality, timezone, and goals to follow up with daily

Need to work on

Asking our top members what they think of this potential paid offering
Establishing a price for the first test mastermind, I think 100$/month for 3 months
Establishing our first niche marketing mastermind. Maybe, young CEO under 40?
Building a landing page similar to this one I’ve produced for a similar offering. The page should include a niche market description, list of features, a general game plan for the 3-month price with options of payment plan. Here’s another offering example.
A small 30-second B-Roll video introduction from our Executive Director

5.4) Free Roundtables & Event Discussion

Free online roundtable or in-person talks once a month are a great way to maintain our community while doing in-person marketing for potential new members. C100 has been doing an incredible job at it. Here’s the tiny improvement I would like to add.

Marketing ideas to promote our smaller events:

Create unique social media visuals per guest speaker. They are the star of our event, let them share their pride. For example:

Another adjustment would be to create unique visual per events but also cleaning the post description with enumeration and emojis to get straight to the point and get the attention of social media followers.

Here’s our current post:

Here’s what it should look like:

Need to work on

Create a unique thumbnail image for each event base on a canva.com template we set
Set the template for unique social media visuals per guest speaker. They are the star of our event, let them share their pride.
Email confirmation of their registration should also be more visually appealing and unique for the event
Create micro-content to share after the event on social media like mentioned in Chapter 4 on Content
I would use those events to gather more video reviews and quick social media stories

5.5) C100 Online Course

Following up the new remote trend and the steps of our partner MaRS, we could offer an online course to our database. But yes there’s so much online course out there, the goal would be to offer something unique, based on our expertise. I’m thinking of an online course that would title “Discover the in and out of the SF Bay from the eye of Canadian successful startup entrepreneurs”. The plan would be to interview in video a few of our top members giving us their tips for networking in the bay, meeting the right contacts, who are the main VCs, main event to attend, etc. To make it more professional we could go film 1–2 weeks in San Francisco following up those members in their daily life gathering unique video shots to use in B-Roll over their interviews.

Personally, I would upload and sell the course on Udemy, the biggest marketplace of online courses, instead of driving all the traffic to a unique course landing page. This way we would build a new type of social proof because it is so easy to build reviews on Udemy and we would have exposure to a new audience via the right keywords. I’ve recently uploaded my first 2.5 hours video course, so I have the experience needed.

Chapter 6 : Communication Channels

6.1) Campaign Monitor (Newsletter)

Campaign Monitor is our main communication channel. We send 2 newsletter per week, 1 to our 100 Charter members which get an average 70% opening rate and 1 general newsletter to all passed event attendees, leads generated and other members type for a total of 7686 subscribers which get an average 30% opening rate, which is quite good.

Here’s the top 3 best recent general newsletter based on the click rate from the April-June 2020 data provided:

226 clicks // Expats in Immigration “limbo” | Entrepreneurs fighting COVID | Fundraising in a “Zoom world”
186 clicks // Future of Higher Ed with Martin Basiri, Mike Silagadze, Kristen Hamilton | M&A and funding announcements
167 clicks // Just Released: C100’s 2019–2020 Impact Report | Virtual Roundtables on M&A + Cybercrime

6.2) Slack

Slack is our internal direct communication with members where members can interact on different topics. From the C100 Slack data provided, approximately a bit less than a quarter of our 200 members are active weekly but only 5% are proactive by posting on some channels.

I think the engagement could be improved using different community management tricks listed below and if done well could straighten the community to new heights.

Here’s a list of Slack community management ideas:

Monday Check-in answer a different question weekly
Having a weekly Slack Ambassador member sharing content and asking questions
Blocking a time table during the week where most members are live to interact. Ex: Friday from 3–5 pm
Creating a new channel with a member in charge of that channel making sure it stays active. Ex: #venturecapital

Need to work on

Establishing our community management strategy from the ideas above
Finding 5 community moderator (top engaged members) to help us get social proof on our communication
Announce to the members our new Slack communication features

6.3) Social Media

C100 Twitter — 84 900 followers

Twitter is the social media used by business people to follow the news. At the moment the Twitter is mainly used to retweet industry related posts but it could be way more interactive with strategies like StartupCanada is using where they are having one influencer answering followers questions on a specific time of the week.

Here’s a list of Twitter ideas:

Having a weekly Canadian ex-pat tech entrepreneur chat like Startup Canada
Developing our Hashtag

Need to work on

Establishing a simple Twitter strategy from the ideas above
Establishing a communication calendar
Sharing our new content (weekly video snippet & articles as listed in Chapter 4)
Pin our new video trailer

C100 Linkedin — 4132 followers

Linkedin is the social media used by business people to follow to interact with colleagues and others from their industry. At the moment our Linkedin is mainly used to do big announcements or give roundtables reminders.

Here’s a list of Linkedin ideas:

Adding a new Life section gathering photos and videos of our community like MaRs did
Developing a Linkedin group

Need to work on

Establishing a simple Linkedin strategy from the ideas above
Establishing a communication calendar
Sharing our new content (weekly video snippet & articles as listed in Chapter 4)
Pin our new video trailer

6.4) SMS

Community — new SMS newsletter

The new newsletter because now that marketers ruined email marketing by abusing it, only 15–20% of people open the newsletter they subscribe to.

Community will be available to the mass soon at 99$/month. It allows brands to text their audience and create a more direct interaction. Our audience can subscribe to different types of messaging via answering the proper channel #hashtag. Example we could do: #Canadatechnews every Monday, #entrepreneuroftheweek every Friday

A good person to get inspiration is Gary Vaynerchuk who is using a lot of that new service.

Smsbump — Monthly SMS blast

The idea is to send a 140 character SMS blast to our database once a month announcing big news. It costs on average 5–10 cents per text but receives 98% of the opening rate.

Another option is:
https://www.twilio.com/sms

Manychat — Facebook Messenger

Even though Facebook is not our audience communication tool, Manychat is an incredible tool to consider. You can connect it to our website as chat support and build automatic messages per options our members or leads would choose from.

Another option is:
https://apps.shopify.com/recart
https://chatfuel.com/
https://www.intercom.com/

6.5) Website apps

By keeping the mindset of driving as much traffic as possible to our website, we can start updating our website weekly with different notifications, top banner, blog articles bottom banner, or popup and countdown.

This type of communication is especially useful for promo day on specific holidays like Black Friday.

Here’s the list of Shopify apps we could use:

Smartbar — Announcement bar, countdown timer bar, free shipping bar. … With an easy-to-use insightful editor, you can change style, font, color, size, and more.
Pixel Popup — Engage customers w/ popups (exit-intent, promo, email & more). Create popups to promote special offers, featured products, coupon codes, gift guides, social media accounts, and more.
Provesource — A social proof app that shows live recent orders notifications, sales pop-ups & FOMO notifications that increase trust!
Pushowl — Web Notifications. A push notification platform for web browsers. Inbuilt automation for abandoned cart recovery, shipping alerts, back in stock, price drop, and more.
SMSbump — An SMS marketing & automation app. Segment customers, recover orders, send campaign text messages with a 35%+ click-through
Unlimited Bundles and discounts — Bundle products together with discounts and make more sales!

Chapter 7: Execution

7.1) 3-month execution calendar

Month 1

Week 1:

Meet the team, understand internal channels & structures
Edit & improve the marketing plan from the Executive Director advice and other candidates ideas

Week 2:

Quickly set all the social proof (chapter 1) improvement
Reactivate all social media
Sit down with the team to decide the plan to modernize the website

Week 3:

Draft new website version
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication
Draft a plan to create the B-Roll official C100 video trailer

Week 4:

Finalize new website
Start the production of the B-Roll official C100 video trailer
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Month 2

Week 1:

Start the Self-Publish book project reaching out to our chosen members
Launch the B-Roll official C100 video trailer
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Week 2:

Rebuild membership package & market research the new Mastermind service offering
Start the interviews for the Self-Publish book project
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Week 3:

Plan the in-person & post-marketing of October’s 48H in the valley
Continue interviews while asking for feedback about the website & new content
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Week 4:

Launch a new lead generation strategy giving away an ebook
Continue interviews while asking for feedback about the website & new content
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Month 3

Week 1:

Start collecting 250 leads per week while optimizing the membership registration funnel
Continue interviews while asking for feedback about the website & new content
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Week 2:

Launch the promo of our first Mastermind for starting in September
Continue interviews while asking for feedback about the website & new content
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Week 3:

Finish the 1st Draft of the book
Continue interviews while asking for feedback about the website & new content
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

Week 4:

Trimester Marketing report & get work feedback from Executive Director
Continue interviews while asking for feedback about the website & new content
Create a new video snippet and article, send weekly communication

7.2) Why I can deliver

33 Years Old Serial Entrepreneur with 9 years of experience producing product-market fit with the help of visual specialists like Graphic Designer, Video Editor, Cameraman, Content Writer.

Skills

Outsourcing good people half the price
E-commerce and Web Marketing
Product builder, building human experiences
Events and Trips Organizer & Coordinator
Entrepreneurship teachings
Running a team of 20–25 members
Landscape Photographer

FULL JF BROU PORTFOLIO = http://jfbrou.com/

Other Jf Brou websites:
Jf Brou Reviews
Amazon Author Page
Jf Brou Linkedin
Jf Brou Medium Blog

My Resources
Clip mic & good camera phone to record videos
1 Marketing Assistant at 4$/h
3 Graphic Designer to choose from
1 Video Editor at 20$/video
1 Content Writer
3 proofreaders & editors
1 Documentary producer

Top 3 Articles
I asked my team to answer this mindset question: What would you do if you were given $10M today?
8 steps to unfuck yourself from your conditioning and become your best version
100 productivity tricks they will never teach you in university

Landscape Photograph
Jf Brou photo portfolio

1 photo with 21m+ views
https://unsplash.com/photos/915UJQaxtrk/info