Score your club out of 10 on the loop that actually grows groups: a findable page, a consistent time, a warm first five minutes, photos, and asking.
Growth is not a marketing budget. It is a loop: someone finds you, has a great first visit, tells a friend, and the friend finds you the same way. Fix the loop and the numbers take care of themselves.
Score your club out of 10
Give yourself a point for each one you can honestly say yes to.
• A stranger can find us by searching our city and activity • Our meetup is the same day and time every week or month • Our next date is posted publicly right now • A newcomer knows exactly where to stand when they arrive • Someone greets first-timers by name • We introduce new people to two others in the first five minutes • We post a photo within a day of every meetup • We say "bring a friend" out loud at the end • There is a co-organizer who can run it without me • Nobody has to message me privately to find out what is happening
7 or higher and you are growing already. Below 5, the loop is leaking, and it is almost always in the first five minutes.
[[rank:Leak 1|Nobody can find you|]] If your group only exists inside a chat app, you have a lovely club that grows exclusively by coincidence. A public page with your neighborhood and activity in the description is the difference between being discovered and being lucky.
[[carousel|Local clubs on ClubFinder]]
[[rank:Leak 2|The first five minutes|]] This is where you win or lose every new member. Greet them, use their name, introduce them to two people, tell them the plan. That is the entire retention strategy and it costs nothing.
[[rank:Leak 3|Silence between meetups|]] One photo and the next date, posted the night of. It proves the group is real and gives people something to say yes to while they are still smiling about it.
[[rank:Leak 4|Never asking|]] "Bring a friend next week" outperforms every algorithm ever built. Say it at the end of every single meetup until it feels silly, then keep saying it.
:::tip The 90-day test Same time, same place, twelve times in a row, with a photo and a next date after each one. Groups that do this almost always double. Groups that improvise almost always fade. :::
[[gcta:/create|Give your club a home page]]
[[pills: Start a group/blog/how-to-start-a-group-without-meetup ; Where to host/blog/where-should-i-host-my-local-club ; Explore teams/?mode=teams]]