What is community marketing and how can you use it to your advantage?

The global COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on small businesses all over the world. Businesses that were deeply entwined with the culture and history of towns and cities were struggling to stay afloat. Feeling the need to support such businesses, locals in cities such as Toronto decided to do something about it. Suddenly, new websites and social media accounts emerged that promoted, encouraged, and even facilitated people to #buylocal.
 

Such is the power of community, where members not only interact with but also support each other. And a business’s ability to foster such bonds not just with its customers but also among them is a true hallmark of its success.

What is community marketing?

Community marketing isn’t marketing in the true sense of the word. It is a business initiative to provide a platform for people with shared interests and circumstances to connect with one another. These people typically represent your prospective and existing customers but by participating with them in community-centric activities rather than persuading them, you make them your allies

Is community marketing for you?

At the outset, community marketing seems to have little to do with actual marketing. However, with consistent effort, you will see how it gives you a competitive edge and how its effects percolate into more measurable business success. Some of the most visible benefits of community marketing include:

• Having your target customers gather organically in one space
• Earning brand loyalty by providing people a space to learn and connect
• Having a direct line to customers to hear out their feedback, concerns, and suggestions
• The opportunity to improve your online presence through user-generated content

How can you use community marketing for your business?

If you’re convinced that community marketing is for you, here are seven tips to help you get started.
 

1. Define your purpose

People join communities for different reasons. Some of us are there purely for social interactions. Others want to learn more about things that they are passionate about. Yet others just relish the feeling of belonging to something exclusive. There are also those who simply want to enjoy the members-only benefits—discounts, pre-ordering, invites to events.

 

Then there’s the inevitable business side. Unlike traditional marketing, the goal in community marketing isn’t increasing sales or profits. Those come as a consequence of other objectives such as getting to know customers, establishing your brand’s reputation, providing a platform for your target audience to communicate, or gaining access to honest customer feedback.

 

It need not be set in stone, but identifying what’s in it for the people as well as for your business will just make the task of managing your community easier and the results more achievable.

 

2. Brand your space

Whether you’re building a business or a community, it all comes down to branding. You don’t have to go crazy in this case but it’s still a good idea to give your space a unique brand identity. One of the simplest ways to do it is to host it on a great domain name. It’s simple, cost-effective, and it does the job. To make it more meaningful, you could register your domain name on a new domain extension such as .tech, .space, .online, .fun, or .site. A domain name as simple as www.name.space or www.name.online where “name” is the name of your community can help you build a unique and memorable brand.

 

3. Define your members

Just like other platforms, your community marketing strategy will also benefit from a buyer persona, which involves creating a fictitious person who represents your ideal customer. While your community members may not be your customers (yet), they still mirror the personality and demographic traits of your target segment. Identifying who they are will help you in everything from choosing the right channels, picking the right topics, and sharing the most engaging type of content. For instance, a younger audience may prefer videos but older ones may prefer long-form articles. Similarly, a community of gamers may gravitate towards heavily animated videos but a book club will always prefer the written word.

 

4. Find the right space

There is no dearth of virtual space for your community to congregate and converse, which is why it is important that you pick the right channel, or you might find it difficult to locate your target audience. Alternatively, you might think it’s better to have a community on as many channels as possible. While that is the ideal solution, you don’t want to spread yourself too thin. It’s better to focus on a few channels where you can put your best efforts to cultivate a thriving community.

 

The right space for you depends upon your target audience, your industry, and your business objectives, but also on how much time and money you have on hand. Social media is where you’ll find the majority of people from all walks of life. But your particular kind of audience may prefer one channel over another.

 

For instance, teenagers or people in their early 20s may be more active on Snapchat or Instagram. If your community comprises professionals, LinkedIn or Flock may be the right platform for you. For a community that has more creative interests, Pinterest is worth a try.

 

There are other ways of fostering a community as well. Virtually, you could join or create groups on platforms such as Quora and Reddit. You could hold monthly or weekly discussions over Zoom calls or actually meet in person to have discussions on books, movies, politics, food, or other interests your members have in common.

 

5. Reward early members

Communities tend to grow themselves once they have enough members, but when you’re just starting out, you might have trouble finding people to join. In the absence of existing members, you may have to entice people with rewards. These could be new member discounts, free trials, access to exclusive content, a free online course or ebook, or something else that is of value to them. Winning over the first few members is the hardest, but also the most rewarding. They are, after all, the ones who will be instrumental in getting more people to join. The first members of your community are the first people who put their trust in you when you’re still discovering yourself, so they definitely deserve all the special treatment they can get.

 

6. Don’t treat it like a sales pitch

Your community is a place for people to come together, talk, share, and learn. Although it ties in with your business objectives, it furthers them in an indirect way. You provide a safe space to your target audience and eventually, the conversations and the sharing lead to deeper relationships, which nurture brand love and more conversions.

 

It is important to remember why people are there in the first place. No one wants to be hit by a pushy sales pitch when they are involved in an interesting article or watching a particularly riveting video. If you jump in with posts and comments waxing eloquent about how great or cheap your product is, you will come across as a phony salesperson rather than a valued member of the community.

 

Every time you post something, think about it from the user’s perspective rather than a marketer’s. Think of how you yourself will react to what you’re about to post. Will it add value to the time you spent in this community? Do you find it intellectually or emotionally fulfilling? Advertisements do little to achieve those goals and, therefore, don’t belong to your community.

 

7. Be an expert

While you shouldn’t use your community as a sales channel, you can definitely use it to establish yourself as an expert or thought leader. Useful and practical information is the greatest form of value that you can add to your target audience’s life.

 

As a marketer or business owner, such content will be easy for you to create as you will already have expertise in the area and it will also help build trust with prospective clients. Moreover, content such as useful tips, hacks, how-to videos, and infographics make for highly shareable posts.

 

When you do showcase your expertise, do so as an expert rather than a marketer. Provide actual, actionable guidance rather than self-serving content that portrays your product as the solution.

 

8. Partner with active members

Once your community has become a thriving space with tons of vibrant content floating around, it is a good idea to take a step back and let the members take charge. The most engaged participants of your community have the potential to become your most ardent brand ambassadors.

 

How can you enlist them to work with you? Start by identifying the most active members. They will be the ones sharing often (without spamming), steering discussions and being authoritative contributors. Others might be looking up to them for answers, they may be tagged in other people’s comments and may have questions directly addressed to them.

 

Once you do, reach out to them, thanking them for their support and letting them know how they could further play an important part in helping the community grow. Talk to them about the specific roles you envision them playing, such as becoming admins, or being part of your focus groups, or creating user-generated content (UCG) for your community and your brand.

 

By getting active members more involved, not only will you deepen your relationship with them by making them feel more invested, you will also boost your word-of-mouth marketing.

 

Conclusion

Today’s customers expect a lot more from businesses than just their products. They want to be engaged, inspired, even challenged. They will gravitate towards brands that echo their values and beliefs. Community marketing helps brands build that kind of affinity by transforming them into facilitators of togetherness, participants and simply one among the rest rather than businesses.

 

Alisha Shibli 

 

 

 

 

Alisha is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .ONLINE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.