Tag: blogging

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Community Building Equals High Return on Investment

According to the stats, it only takes most membership communities and groups about four months to break even on the initial investment when starting and running an online brand community for business.

 

In addition, a 2014 online communities benchmark report found that nearly two-thirds of companies manage some form of an online community, and the bigger your company is, the more likely you are to have one. However, don’t let that intimidate you. Bigger isn’t always better.

 

These communities are used to test and improve their products to serve their target audience better. Thus, allowing the business to save more money as they take fewer risks due to the helpful information they get from their communities.

 

The brands focusing most of their effort on their communities can see an average return on investment of 6,459% — showing you just how important community building is for business.

 

Building a community for your brand provides a high return on investment due to the following reasons:

 

  • Low Acquisition Costs – The technology that exists today to build your community is available for free. You can also use paid solutions if you prefer or want to overcome any restrictions other branded platforms have inexpensively. You can use Facebook Groups to get started. Once your community is large enough or you’ve tested the concept enough, you can then build a community using any number of platforms, from plugins to your shopping cart software to full-fledged active social networks using software like Mighty Networks.

 

  • High Engagement Potential – When you are running your own community, you are in charge of the tone, the engagement, and the mood. The noise created by outsiders will be eliminated so that you can focus on the best engagement possible with each member.

 

  • Quality Content Ideas Generated – Once your group gets moving and people get to talking, you’re going to find so many quality content ideas just in the comments and discussions of your group members. Customers will tell you what they need from you if you just ask them and listen to the answers.

 

  • Brand Loyalty and Retention Increases – When your members see you interact with others in the group, even if it is just printed on a computer or smartphone screen, the immediacy and personal responses you give will make them stick to you like glue. Since it’s easier to keep a customer than getting a new one, this is golden.

 

  • Increase Marketing Potential – Sharing your content and products within these communities provides another space to put your information into the hands of the people who need it but in a more captive way. You only have to promote the community and not each individual product if you don’t want to when using this method.

 

Overall, starting a community around your brand is likely to produce your best return on investment. The low acquisition costs and high engagement created work together to make it happen. You gain so much insight into your customer that you can develop amazing products and solutions for them. The more you get involved and keep your community members engaged, the more value you provide, the more you will increase your return on investment.

 

 

 

 

 

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Six Ways to Use Communities to Promote Your Products

Using communities to promote your products is by far one of the most effective ways to increase your revenue and loyalty to your brand. Sharing products within your community, or similar ones as an affiliate, is successful because the people within these groups are already interested and likely looking to purchase.

 

However, just because you share the products doesn’t mean it will automatically be successful. Sometimes you need to think creatively to promote your products without being so direct. Over promotion or creating content that looks too much like normal advertisements won’t get you anywhere. In fact, that will likely turn your audience away.

 

The following are six ways to use your brand community to promote your products and services more successfully:

 

Run a Giveaway

 

This is an effective way to just get the word out about your products without having to spend money on an advertisement or even a sales page. What you do is host a giveaway that you ask for entries too.

 

The entry can just consist of them providing their email address and name or other information that you decide. You can make this work using your email marketing software like Aweber, a Google Form, and your website to host the form.

 

Please keep it simple, but every single chance you can promote the contest, which is also promoting your business since entries are completed on your website where they can clearly see your offers. Plus, once they enter, they are now on your email list too.

 

Then when someone wins, promote the winner too, and again, this gives you a chance to go over what the product is and why it’s so great in public. You can then take this chance to give everyone who submitted a coupon and then everyone who is currently reading, a different coupon to buy.

 

Host a Contest

 

You can run the contest a lot like the giveaway in terms of the technology you use. You just need to make a form using a form maker like Google Forms, Gravity Forms, or even Acuity Scheduling. The concept is much the same, but you’re asking for something more than email addresses to participate this time.

 

The prize you offer should always be one of your products, services, or an affiliate’s products and or services so that each time you promote the contest, you are also promoting the product or service.

 

The other way to host a contest, with a required entry fee. For example, let’s say you’re an art teacher and your main product is courses for doing art in some way. You may want to offer your students a chance to win prizes that you can either buy with the fees collected or that you can ask vendors to sponsor, or you can pay for yourself. The press you get from promoting the contest, and the participants and winners will be worth it.

 

Hire Someone

 

One way to keep your community hopping is to hire people to work in the community. For example, you can hire a VA who will run your contests, promote your products, and drive engagement on your behalf. Outsourcing and reducing your workload will help you earn more money by freeing you to create more products and services and participate in engagement more.

 

Develop an Affiliate Program

 

If you have even one product, especially if it’s digital, consider having an affiliate program. When you set this up, you can promote all your products and services individually, or just some of them, or just the membership community itself. Again, it’s up to you, but having this type of system will increase revenue exponentially, even if it’s only used as a referral system for your members.

 

Ask for Feedback and Reviews

 

Use your group and the discussion boards you create to ask for feedback and reviews on your products and services that you can use on your sales pages, in promotions, and more. If you sell your products anywhere outside your group, you can even use the group to point out all the places you sell them, so they will feel free to give you reviews on those other platforms, too, where permitted.

 

Run a Live Demo or How-To-Presentation

 

A really fun way to use your brand community is to “go live,” as they like to say on Facebook to demonstrate your product, talk about an issue, or give a how-to presentation on using something you sell or are promoting as an affiliate. People love participating in live events, even if they’re unplanned and last minute. The good news is that they are recorded and can be enjoyed and repurposed at any time.

 

If you plan to build a community or use other communities to share your products, you need to create content that doesn’t feel too pushy or promotional. The more you understand your target audience, get them involved, and provide real value, the more you gain more revenue. With these six selling techniques, you can be sure that your promotions work every time.

 

 

 

 

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Building a Community is The Competitive Advantage Your Business Needs

Research and statistics show that you must have a competitive edge to make it in business. No businesses succeed without fierce competition, especially with the advancements in technology and online communication.

 

The truth is, many of these exciting advancements destroyed common barriers to entry that most businesses had in the past – meaning you can start a business with next to nothing. Unfortunately, due to that, the competition only gets worse as more tools and resources are created.

 

Building a community around your brand will provide you with a competitive advantage because customers are increasingly dissatisfied with the kind of customer care they are receiving. A branded community can help you provide better customer care because as you build a community, you’re also building relationships that advance trust, which increases your ability to influence sales.

 

The following are a few ways community building helps you stay ahead of your competition:

 

  • Through Strong Member Connections and Relationships – People like feeling as if they belong to a community. Unfortunately, building community in our private lives is harder than ever. Everyone is busy, but creating these customer-centric communities can make your customers feel more connected not just with you but with the other customers as they converse and comingle.

 

  • By Being a Source of Endless Lead Generation – Every single person you get into your group is a source of more members. Because of this, once you start building a community, your reach will increase as your leads grow.

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  • Word-of-Mouth Marketing – Even if your customers only talk about your products and services inside the group, new members will still see the discussions, which will reduce their fear and help them make a purchasing choice for the products they see discussed within the group community. However, once a member becomes your loyal customer, they will start asking their friends to join them in the community because it feels good to share what’s good in your life.

 

  • Through Community Feedback and Engagement – One of the most important aspects to you, and from your viewpoint as a business owner, is the ability to read your customers’ minds. Of course, you really can’t do that, but by watching the discussions take off that you prompt and experiencing the feedback generated, the information you glean will become invaluable. Eventually, your customers will start claiming you can read their minds, and then you’ll stand far out from your competition.

 

  • By Being Unique, Fun, and Helpful – Face it, most businesses are not unique, fun, or helpful. But you have this amazing opportunity to stand out and be that for your customers in a way that benefits you both.

 

Overall, community building shows your target audience that you want to support them and their needs. Your community shows, and the information you provide shows them that you are willing to listen to them and serve them instead of your own needs. The more you focus on your target audience, the more you can easily stay ahead of your competition. Which is why building a community around your brand is the competitive advantage your business needs to be successful.

 

 

 

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How Community Member-To-Member Engagement Grows Your Business

Building a community is today considered one of the biggest industry secrets to growing your business. There is good reason this is true too, the fact is, communities foster the power of word-of-mouth marketing through member-to-member engagement and turn influence into dollars.

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Community building is a crucial strategy that promotes trust, increases your credibility with your member size, and boosts revenue exponentially. Without word-of-mouth marketing or community involvement, many people won’t make a purchase or contribute to the success of your business because most people often rely on positive reviews or social proof before they feel confident purchasing or getting involved.

 

The following are four powerful ways member-to-member engagement within your community grows your business:

 

Customer Loyalty

 

A loyal customer is worth more than ten new salespeople because they will shout about how great you are from the rooftops without you ever paying them a dime. Just the fact that you delivered the right product or service in the right way at the right time to them in a way that met or exceeded their expectations is enough for them to keep buying and tell everyone they know about you. Likewise, inviting your customers to your groups and community will encourage satisfaction and increase loyalty because they feel heard.

 

Customer Retention

 

Keeping delighted customers is far less expensive than finding new customers. Even if you only have one product today, understand that having long-term customers hungry for every product or service you offer is your key to sustainability and success. A community helps you do this because people enjoy feeling like part of something important, and active communities serve that purpose.

 

Brand Advocacy and Word-of-Mouth Marketing

 

Thrilled customers become brand advocates without you even asking them to. With a vibrant community, you can actually develop your loyal customers to become brand advocates by asking them directly to tell others about you and rewarding them for doing so.

 

Enhanced Customer Service and Experience

 

Most people hate calling anyone on the phone to deal with a problem, so don’t worry, you don’t have to do that, but having a community will make your customers feel safe because they will feel as if they know right where to find you at all times of day or night even if you’re sleeping. It feels like a direct connection, and for the customer, that feels good because, face it, big business makes everyone feel unheard and unimportant.

 

As you can see, member-to-member engagement or getting your community members involved with each other positively is a powerful tool that can grow your business beyond your own capabilities. Not only is it powerful, but it is relatively affordable and simple to do with the right content and contributions from you or your brand community team.

 

 

 

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Three Ways Online Communities Improve your Products and Services

One major benefit of online communities to the owner and business is that all the members’ information is available when engaging with others in the group or the content you publish. This information will help you re-work and improve your products and services to keep them interested and buying more.

 

When you think about this fact, it means that communities are just as important to you as they are to the members who join. It’s simple, the more you know what your audience wants, the better you can deliver a high-quality and valuable product or service to them in the way they want it to be delivered.

 

Online communities improve your products and services in the following three ways:

 

Through Specific Feedback and Reviews

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Generating various ideas and insights by asking for and receiving feedback and reviews from your community is very effective. If you make it easy for them to leave their thoughts and even reward them for doing so, you can encourage them to provide deep insight that can affect future products and services substantially.

 

You can take an especially well-written and delightful review and turn it into a blog post, place it on your website sales page, or even turn it into a case study to help encourage more people to buy that product or service.

 

Through Commonly Asked Questions and Frustrations

 

Being a part of your community gives your audience a chance to ask questions and even express frustrations. You can do this by using simple Google Forms if you want to or using your own website and another form creator. Just provide the link to the group members and tell them how to submit their questions or frustrations to you.

 

When you do get the questions in, or the frustrations are expressed, use that information to help each person directly but also use it to design a current blog post with information that solves these problems or directs them as to where they can find a solution if it’s not through your products or services.

 

Through Education and Member-To-Member Interaction

 

Each time you provide content that educates your members, always participate in discussing the information you provided. Encourage the member-to-member interaction and discussion by calling out particular experts or members who have already been educated in that regard. And remember, all of the discussions and user-generated content on your membership site, community boards, or groups are yours to use as you will as long as you set up permissions when they joined.

 

As you grow your community, please take advantage of these options to see how your members feel about your current products or what they are searching for to help solve their problems. These options provide you with more information that can be used to generate even more content. It also gets them engaged and makes them feel like they are valuable and a part of something important.

 

 

 

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Community Engagement is Key to Growing Your Business

To have a sustainable and profitable business, you must have involved or engaged customers, new or old. An active community includes tools and resources that help you attract new customers and retain old ones to keep your business running and profitable. Conversely, a not engaged community will fail to establish the positive reputation and brand awareness you need to grow your business.

 

The following are the four common ways community engagement help grow your business:

 

Promotes Long-Term Relationships and Trust

 

A community keeps the discussions and the former promotions inside it forever. A new customer can pop in today and see old conversations you were part of and begin building an opinion of you and the group from day one. As time moves forward, if you’re consistent as the relationship builds and grows, so will the trust.

 

Trust is not something people have for anyone without some form of proof. Usually, the evidence comes in the form of time. Over time, if nothing bad happens, the customer will develop trust for you and your brand. If something good happens, that trust will be solidified and become even stronger.

 

Improves the Customer Service Experience

 

Customers all have various needs and ideas about what they want in terms of interaction with brands. Your audience will have their own unique way. But stats tell us that most people today like to be involved in the community with the brands and products they use. People simply like feeling heard and seen. They want to feel important to you and like you care about their needs. It’s so much easier to demonstrate this over time within the bounds of a branded community.

 

Creates More Human and Authentic Interactions

 

While you will want to implement some automation because you do have to sleep, a community offers you a way to have authentic human interactions, even if they’re not always in real-time. For example, your customer might post a message at 3 am your time asking a question about your product.

 

You don’t see the question until you normally check your community, but your members will. The older members of a long-standing group will often help the person for you without your ever asking, but what’s more, you can respond on your own time within 24 to 48 hours of the question being asked, and to the customer, it will feel instant. The main reason is that most businesses underserve their communities so that you will stand out in comparison.

 

To Build a Customer-Centric Brand

 

Your brand, while it is your business, really isn’t about you. Your brand is about your customer. A branded community can help you become much more customer-centric in your offers and even help you improve your branding. After all, most of us choose colors and ideas based on what we like without even thinking that it’s not about us when it comes to our business. Now you can ask your community, and over time your brand will begin to feel even more authentic and trustworthy to your audience.

 

Ultimately, to increase your customer size, effectively promote more products and services, and cultivate more trust within your industry, you need to get your community engaged. Engagement is an effective tool if you want your community to grow your business.

 

 

 

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Four Ways Community Building Improves Customer Service

Proper and effective customer service can make or break your business. In 2019 Forrester Consulting surveyed over a thousand different customers across two-hundred enterprise brands to learn what customers really want from brands.

 

One important takeaway was that nearly two-thirds of respondents reported how one unpleasant experience with a brand caused them to switch brands instantly while also warning their peers to stay away — showing you just how important proper and effective customer service helps you retain your customers and keep them happy.

 

In addition, growing a community for your business can instantly improve your customer service and build more content members that foster a more successful and sustainable business.

 

Here are four ways community building can improve your customer service strategies:

 

Increased Availability and Communication

 

Real-time support is possible with online communities – meaning problems can be solved instantly even if you or someone from the business is not responding directly. You can set up automation using bots in most communities to answer frequently asked questions that allow your members to serve themselves when you’re not there essentially.

 

Increased Self-Service Tools and Resources

 

You can also incorporate files and written FAQs that enable your customers and members to check out the rules themselves any time they want to. If you offer these tools, make sure to post about the tools and resources you have in your group and how they can access them. Not everyone understands how these tools and platforms work, so a little education can go a long way.

 

Increased Engagement and Education

 

Within the enclosed privacy or at least imagined privacy that a group provides, members will feel more at ease about engaging with your content and you. Because of this, the information and education you provide within the group will be much more useful due to instant feedback.

 

Improved Products and Services

 

When you start regularly speaking with your customers in a community setting, online or offline, you’ll begin to understand how you can improve your products and services. Not to mention you’ll end up with a never-ending stream of new product and service ideas because you’ll know the audience so much deeper.

 

As you can see, all of these options work together to provide superior support to your target audience. Through communities, your customers can find information faster and get the solution they need easily without frustrations. Access to nearly endless education, materials, and superior customer support makes community building a must-have for business.

 

 

 

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Common Community Building Mistakes to Avoid

Creating and building a brand community provides loads of benefits to you and your members. However, to achieve these benefits, you must be sure you give your audience the right information, tools, and resources. Unfortunately, many brands in online communities are making many mistakes today that are destroying their true and fullest potential.

 

Here are the six most common community-building mistakes to avoid while growing a more successful and sustainable business:

 

Lack of Clear Goals and Community Focus

 

Before you start building your community, you need to know what your brand stands for and the goals of having a community for yourself and your customers. First, the community has to be primarily for the customer, and secondly, the community has to represent your brand’s values. If the group members have no idea your point of being, it might be big, but it won’t be prosperous.

 

Overselling or Over Promoting

 

While you do want to make offers and sell in your groups and communities, you do not want to make these communities all about selling in the minds of your audience. They need to believe and know that they can come to the community you build and get information without being bombarded and harassed or threatened with losing something if they don’t act right now to spend money.

 

Yes, you do want them to buy from you, but overselling and over-promoting do not work as well as you might think. Selling and promoting your products and services need to answer a problem the customer has suggested and not the only reason you have the group.

 

Ignoring Community Members

 

Setting up a community requires that someone keeps everyone engaged. You need a minimum of one post a day, plus several interactions to keep your group busy and in front of the audience. The more you post and the more interaction you have with the community members, the more they’ll come back to do it again. The more members visit your community, the more likely they will buy your products and use your services.

 

Sharing Irrelevant or Repeated Content

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While it is okay to repeat some posts when a timeline is attached, try to avoid sharing other people’s repeated and irrelevant stuff in your group. They already saw that cat post you saw somewhere else. Try to be much more original. If you want to share that cat post, try to find some connection they may not have considered when they saw it on their own wall earlier to make it relevant to your group.

 

Tracking the Wrong KPIs

 

It’s easy to track likes and shares, but are they really relevant to what you need to know about your group? The group key performance indicators that you want to track need to focus on why you shared the content in the first place. The reason you share anything is tied up in the impact you want to create. So, if you share a particular post about an event you’re going to speak at, and you want them to purchase tickets, the KPI you want to track is how many tickets were bought when you shared your event? How many shares and likes the post generated is mostly irrelevant if no one signed up.

 

Not Setting Proper Community Rules and Guidelines

 

If you really want to have a solid group that you can rely on for years to come, you must set very clear community rules and guidelines and then stick to them yourself. Of course, you don’t need to have a lot of rules, but having something that the members can look to in order to stay on the group’s topic will help.

 

Be sure to keep this list around to avoid these common mistakes as much as possible. Avoid stunting your growth and results by building the wrong community or steering them in the wrong direction. A community needs to thrive with clear goals, rules, focus, and determination with valuable and relevant content.

 

 

 

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Three Steps to Building a Highly Engaged Brand Community

Communities work because they are engaged. Engaged people feel connected and form relationships that keep them around long term. Thus, allowing you to grow a healthy and sustainable business. In addition, through these communities, you can inspire your members to take action that benefits your business and them.

 

Follow these three steps to build a highly engaged and active brand community:

 

Step One: Define Your Business Values and Align Them with Your Customer Needs

 

Your customers’ needs come first, but you need to understand what your business values are. When you can share what you stand for and show that it aligns with your customer’s needs, you’ll really stand out in a big way. For example, if your business holds the value of a commitment to the customer, that needs to be very clear in every interaction you have.

 

Step Two: Choose the Right Platform and Community Structure

 

Lots of activity on every platform is not required to succeed. However, it is important to start an account if your customers are there. Social media platforms come and go, so even if you focus on one more than others right now because that is where your customers are, that doesn’t mean that will be the same one you’re focused on later.

 

The right platform to use to build your community is the one your customers will use. That may seem like a cop-out to say, but it’s true. The platform you choose needs to be the platform your customers like, even if you don’t like it. For a lot of businesses right now, that means Facebook Groups.

 

Step Three: Share and Engage with Relevant Content

 

More important than anything is not the platform as much as what you share with them on the platform. Provide interesting information, education, and offers for them to take advantage of throughout the year. Try to offer something new to them every single day if you can.

 

Content is where engagement and interaction breed and continue. Without content, you won’t be able to inspire and influence your audience to act. Without action from your target audience, you won’t find success within your community. An active and engaged community leads to success because they share the valuable information they appreciate with others or make direct purchases. The way to grow their trust and find value from you is through the content you share.

 

Following these steps will ensure you set up the right community for your business and target audience. These steps are essential to review and not overlook if you want to build a thriving, inspired, and engaged community. Knowing what your brand stands for, and using the platform your audience prefers, while keeping them active with relevant and actionable content will make your community exceptional.

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Four Reasons Why Communities are Crucial to Your Business Success

Community building is a fabulous, fun, and effective way to get to know your customers, grow your business, improve your products, and stand out against your competition that you needed to incorporate yesterday. This community-building strategy requires building a community around your brand that puts your customers’ needs first.

 

You will unlock powerful resources, tools, and information that will only lead you to ultimate success through community building. In the age of technology, you must do everything you can to stand out and stay ahead of your competition. Fostering a brand community is nearly a requirement if you want to succeed in this day and age.

 

Here are the top four reasons why communities are crucial to your business success:

 

Communities Promote Word-of-Mouth Marketing

 

Nothing is more powerful than word-of-mouth marketing. People like the Kardashians are billionaires because of word-of-mouth marketing using social media and community building. They were smart enough to tune into the idea that they were building a community of followers on every social platform that they can influence easier because they’re a captive audience.

 

Communities Save Revenue

 

It doesn’t cost that much to set up a community. In fact, you can do it free through most social media platforms today, like Facebook and YouTube. So, if you already have these platforms take a look at the features, you may have been ignoring. The only thing it costs is your time.

 

Communities Establish Credibility and Trustworthiness

 

When you are part of a community, people get to know you more because you share more. When your audience sees with their own eyes the evidence you post in the groups and how helpful you are to the members of the group, they will begin to trust you more by observing. However, just the existence of a large, engaged, and friendly group gives you an edge on credibility and trustworthiness.

 

Communities Initiate Brand Loyalty

 

When everyone in a group is talking about your brand and what they like about your products and services, it becomes kind of like a club in that each member’s identity is tied up in using your products and services. When that happens, they become loyal to them.

 

Engagement and interaction are crucial to successful brand companies. This is how you grow a community that advocates for you while staying around for the long term. In other words, valuable engagement reduces customer retention while attracting new ones. Thus, making it easy to grow your brand sustainably and profitably.

 

In the end, these reasons establish just how crucial communities are to your success. Without one, you may not find your customers or continue to build the business you need to stay around long-term. Communities are your connection to more revenue, recognition, reach, and business potential.