Market Mix - 🔍 Bandit Running's Community Strategy

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Over the next year, you’ll see more brands turn to community events and activations to bring their brand to life and build affinity. I wrote about it on Tuesday. But here’s the next layer where you’ll see brands introduce commitments/competitions for their customers. These strategic commitments/competitions will become a staple acquisition and retention play.

PS. Next week I’m hosting a free workshop to show how brands can use organic content for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Snag a seat here.

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Let’s start with the OG…75Hard.

75Hard is a great example of a brand building a commitment/competition for its audience to partake in. 1st Phorm created it. Understood why their audience buys from them. Found a common goal. Then created a commitment/competition around it.

Two things happen here:

People who commit to and finish 75Hard have an affinity for Andy Frisella and 1st Phorm that’s unmatched.

Bandit Running’s Marathon Training

One of my favorite recent examples is Bandit Running’s Marathon Training program. In July of 2024, they launched a program in partnership with Asics where they held an in-person 16-week training program for people who wanted to train and PR during the Berlin, Chicago, and NY marathons.

But there were two parts to it:

But here’s why this program is monumental for Bandit Running…

Imagine your goal is to get a PR at the NYC marathon. So, you apply to the program, get accepted, and kick things off.

For the next 16 weeks, you’re not only training, but you're training alongside Bandit Running the brand, their team, and coaches. You’re coming in with this goal and Bandit Running is the guide taking you from where you are now to where you want to be. They’re going to be the core of your transformation and progress.

This builds a hard-to-break bond with a brand that influenced a pivotal/big moment in your life.

Where community events are for interacting with customers.

Commitments/Competitions are for building forever fans.

The next layer is the fact that Bandit Running also made this a digital program anyone could follow, and by partnering with Asics, they turned this program into an acquisition funnel for new customers. Then, the 16-week program acted as a retention channel with multiple impactful touchpoints across the 16 weeks.

So, If You Want To Do This…

There’s a framework you should follow to create the right competitions and commitments.

And it breaks down into three questions:

Performance. Mental Health. Beauty. It doesn’t matter. Your products are created for a specific reason and for a specific someone. Knowing this, you can anchor your commitment/competition in something that customers will rally behind.

Next are the underlying goals behind your product. People buy Bandit Running’s close to performing at a higher level. Specifically, to run better. By knowing this you can reverse engineer a goal that would be meaningful to your customers.

By knowing why customers buy. Then understand the underlying goals behind the product. You can reverse engineer a common goal that customers would have and then create your competition/commitment around that.