Using the MeetUp Platform to find Clients for Your Business

A group of kayakers enjoying the ocean amidst stunning limestone formations.

Finding clients for adventure-based businesses is perhaps the most difficult part of the business. Once you acquire clients, providing them with an great experience is much more straightforward. When we were first starting out, we used MeetUp to help us, and we continue to use it today.

This platform has been around for a while and has helped our business find clients.

MeetUp allows anyone to create a group and host events. These events are announced to your group members, and people sign up and attend. The main idea behind MeetUp is to bring people together in person, not just online. Groups are organized by location, and you can find a group for almost anything.

When we started our paddleboard business, we used MeetUp to connect with the local community. Our initial thought was to offer special deals on tours to locals through MeetUp.

We wanted to build a community of local paddlers instead of only marketing to tourists.

MeetUp made it easy to share events, collect payments, and get feedback from our members. Because we were reaching out to locals who wanted to be part of the paddling community, we met some genuinely good people. Many of our members went on to coach for us, and some became long-term friends.

People typically use MeetUp to find like-minded individuals to interact with. This makes it a suitable tool for an adventure business, as we are also looking for engaged individuals. Recently, a MeetUp member joined us for several events, booked a private event with her family, and then purchased a paddleboard from us. All of this began because she signed up on MeetUp looking for something to do.

Every day, we see new members joining our groups and signing up for our events. We don’t do separate promotion for these events—MeetUp handles it all.

Of course, there are also some downsides to using MeetUp.

MeetUp Advantages:

  • Relatively easy and affordable to get started.
  • The platform helps potential clients discover you and your offerings.
  • Handles payments for you.
  • Good for connecting with your local community.
  • Helps build a base of your ideal clients.
  • A good way to test new ideas.

MeetUp Disadvantages:

  • Many people may join your group, but only a small percentage will attend events.
    • We have over 3000 people in our MeetUp group but only a very small fraction attend events.
  • Many people RSVP for events and then don’t show up.
    • We have started charging for our events because they are more likely to show up if they have made a small investment. This has helped.
  • Communicating through the platform can be slow and not always reliable.
    • When people sign up, we try to get their cell phone numbers so we can text them with any updates. This is especially important if you have sudden changes to the event or if you are in a place that doesn’t have good internet coverage.
  • When accepting payments through MeetUp, the platform takes a percentage for processing fees.
    • While not ideal, it is nice to not have to deal with the payment processing on our own.

Do you use MeetUp to find leads for your adventures? How does it work for you?

P.S. Feel free to check out our MeetUp site to join us in one of our adventures. If you need help setting up Meet-Up for your business, let me know! We would be glad to share what worked for us.

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