Latest / Community Marketing with Fexingo: Discord, Slack Groups, and Brand Communities / How a Bookstore Built a Community That Competes With Amazon
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this assumption that if you're a small retailer, you can't compete with Amazon on community. That you're just outgunned on budget and reach. But there's a bookstore in Austin, Texas that's been proving that wrong for years. Luna: BookPeople, right? I've heard about their community. It's almost legendary in indie bookselling circles. Lucas: Exactly. BookPeople isn't a tiny shop — it's a 50,000-square-foot store that does about $20 million a year. But it competes directly with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and every ebook subscription service. And its secret weapon isn't a loyalty points program or a discount scheme. It's a community. Luna: Okay, walk me through it. What does their community actually look like in practice? Lucas: The most interesting piece is a private Slack group they started about five years ago. It's called the BookPeople Book Club — but it's not a traditional book club where everyone reads the same title. It's basically a digital water cooler for the store's most engaged customers. Readers can post what they're reading, ask for recommendations, share events they're excited about. The store uses it to test book displays, get feedback on author events, even source ideas for their famous window displays. Luna: So it's part focus group, part fan club. How many people are in it? Lucas: Around 1,200. That's not huge by platform standards. But here's the metric that matters: members of that Slack group account for about 40 percent of BookPeople's author event attendance. And they bring friends. The store's customer acquisition cost for those events is essentially zero — because the community does the marketing for them. Luna: Forty percent from just 1,200 people? That's a ridiculously high concentration of value. Lucas: It is. And it's not an accident. The store's community manager, a woman named Jessica, runs that Slack group with a very specific philosophy: no selling. You're not allowed to post links to the store's website in the chat unless someone explicitly asks. No flash sale alerts, no 'buy this now' messages. The only product mentions come organically through conversation. Luna: That's counterintuitive. Most brands would want to use that channel to push inventory. Lucas: And that's exactly why most brand communities fail. They treat the community like a broadcast channel. BookPeople treats it like a real social space. The payoff is trust. When a member asks for a recommendation, five other members jump in. And because those recommendations come from peers, not the store, they convert at a much higher rate. The store tracks that — they estimate every active member in Slack is worth about $400 in annual revenue above the average customer. Luna: So the community doesn't just drive attendance — it drives basket size too. Lucas: Right. And the best part? The entire operation costs about $200 a month. Slack's free tier doesn't cut it for 1,200 people, so they're on the paid plan. That's it. A $200 tool stack, plus maybe ten hours a week from Jessica. Compare that to what a small retailer would spend on Facebook ads or email marketing to generate that same kind of engagement. Luna: It's almost absurd. They're outspending Amazon on community by — what, a factor of a million? — and getting results that actually matter for their bottom line. Lucas: That's the thing that often gets missed. Community isn't about scale. It's about density. You want the people who already love you to love you more, and to bring in one or two friends each. BookPeople proves you don't need a million members. You need the right members. Luna: And the right members will do the work for you. That Slack group is essentially a volunteer marketing department. Lucas: Exactly. And this is something we hear from so many community managers — that a small, engaged group creates a ripple effect that paid marketing can't touch. It's one of the reasons we keep doing this show, honestly. Because these stories matter, and they're not just theory. Luna: Speaking of which — if these conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own work, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps this going. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It makes a real difference, especially for a show that doesn't run ads. Lucas: Yeah, we keep it ad-free because we want to be able to talk about whatever we find interesting, and listener support is what makes that possible. So if you've gotten something out of it, we'd appreciate it. Luna: Alright, back to BookPeople. So the Slack group is one piece. What else do they do? Lucas: Another major piece is their 'Staff Picks' program — but they've evolved it. Most bookstores just put staff recommendations on a shelf. BookPeople turned it into a community curation engine. Any customer can submit a 'Reader Pick' card. They write a short blurb, the store puts it on display next to the staff picks. And those customer-written blurbs actually sell more books than staff picks do. Luna: Because it feels more authentic. A staff pick is still the store talking. A reader pick is a neighbor. Lucas: Exactly. The store tracks it. They tag each pick in their inventory system. Customer-written picks convert at about 12 percent higher than staff picks. And the customers who submit picks become more loyal — they visit more often, they spend more, and they tell their friends. It's a virtuous cycle. Luna: So the store is basically outsourcing its most effective marketing to its customers, and paying them with recognition. Lucas: Recognition and the occasional free book. But mostly recognition. There's something powerful about seeing your name and your words on a display in a store you love. It's not a transaction. It's a relationship. Luna: I want to talk about the economics a bit more. You mentioned $200 a month for Slack. But what about the time investment? Jessica's ten hours a week — that's real money for a small business. Lucas: Sure. Let's do the math. Ten hours a week at, say, $25 an hour is $250 a week, or about $13,000 a year. Add the Slack subscription — $2,400. So roughly $15,000 a year. And what do they get? According to the store's own estimates, the community directly drives about $500,000 in incremental revenue annually. That's a 33-to-1 return on the direct costs, and that's before you factor in the word of mouth effect that's harder to track. Luna: That's a better ROI than most paid ad campaigns. And it's compounding. Every year, the community gets stronger, not weaker. Lucas: Exactly. Amazon can't replicate that. It can match prices, it can offer faster shipping, but it can't manufacture the feeling of walking into a store and seeing a recommendation from someone you actually know. And that's the lesson for any brand, not just bookstores. Community is a moat. It's hard to build, but once it's built, it's almost impossible to compete with. Luna: So what's the one thing a small business should take away from BookPeople? If you're starting from zero, where do you begin? Lucas: Start with your most engaged customers. Don't try to build a community for everyone. Identify the twenty or thirty people who already talk about you, who already bring friends, who already spend more than average. Invite them into a private space — Slack, Discord, even a WhatsApp group. Give them a reason to stay: exclusive conversations, early access to events, a direct line to the owner. And then get out of their way. Let them talk to each other. Your job is to facilitate, not to broadcast. Luna: It sounds simple, but it's hard to resist the urge to sell. Lucas: It is. And that's why most attempts fail. But the brands that get it right — like BookPeople — they end up with something that no amount of ad spend can buy. A community that markets itself. Luna: Alright, so final thought: if you're listening and you run a small business, what's one action you can take this week? Lucas: Identify your top ten customers. Send them a personal email. Not a newsletter. A real email from a real person. Ask them one question: 'What would make this store feel more like a community to you?' Then listen to what they say. That's the starting line.