brand awarement Archives - Barbara Genest

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.

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.