Community marketing: the definition and 6 steps to building it

Sasha
07/03/2024

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Today we’re going to talk about marketing, but not just any marketing community marketing.

Marketing is like a big party, and community marketing is the VIP party. 👀

Imagine a world in which customers are your friends and your products are the life of the party. 🍾

That’s where we come in! 🎬

Get ready to dive into the world of tribal marketing. 🎉

Community marketing: the definition

Also known as community marketing, this strategy focuses on :

🦋 Creation.
📈 Growth.
🫱🏽‍🫲🏼 Engaging a community of customers.

They all share a common interest in a brand, product or service.

This approach aims 🏹 to establish deeper, more lasting relationships with the customers by encouraging active participation and communication, and offering a added value within the community.

💡 This often involves the use of social media, online forums, discussion groups or even face-to-face events.

What’s the objective, you might ask? 🤔

Well, simply creating a sense of belonging, encouraging brand loyalty, collecting feedback and ideas, and above all, promoting collaboration 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼 between community members.

The pros and cons of tribe marketing

Okay, now you have to ask yourself what are those benefits? 👀

Well, here they are: ⬇️

Increased trust: consumers tend to trust peer recommendations more, reinforcing brand credibility.
Customer loyalty: engaged communities tend to be more loyal to the brand, which can lead to increased sales in the long term.
Lower marketing costs: active community members can become brand ambassadors, reducing advertising costs.
Valuable feedback: they provide constructive comments and ideas, helping to improve the brand’s products or services.
Creation of user-generated content: members often create brand-related content, which can be used as part of their marketing strategy.

However, it does have a few drawbacks, which can be summarized as follows: ⬇️

Investment of time and energy: this requires ongoing commitment, time and resources, which can be demanding.
Slow growth: it takes time and results are not immediate.
Difficulty maintaining commitment: they may become less active over time, requiring efforts to maintain their commitment.
Risk of public criticism: dissatisfied members can express their negative opinions publicly, which can damage the brand’s reputation.

Why create your own community?

Well, now that you know what tribal marketing is, you’re probably wondering what the point is?

It’s simple, we answer in 4 points now! (Because yes, you are impatient little people 😏).

1) Engage a loyal audience

Your community members are individuals who have already shown an interest in what you have to offer.

They’re more likely to get involved, actively participate and remain loyal to your brand. 💟

What do I mean by that? Well, it means that you don’t just process them with numbers on a screen, but, well and truly, with real people with needs, desires and opinions. 💬

Our commitment of your community can be translated into :

Increased sales.
Positive recommendations.
Better customer retention.

So you have an audience ready to support your brand, champion your products and actively participate in your initiatives, what more could you ask for? 😇

💡 This more human relationship strengthens community members’ trust and loyalty to your brand.

For example, at Waalaxy 👽, we’re present on Instagram and Tik Tok and share certain moments of life within the company.

2) Generate trust and credibility

I’m not telling you anything new if I say that trust is one of the most valuable currencies💰 in the business world, and therefore creating a community can be a powerful way to earn it.

Let me explain. 👇🏼

When you set up and maintain a strong community you demonstrate your commitment to your customers and your products.

💡 This creates a positive image for your brand and reinforces its credibility.

In this way, your community members see not only your brand as a supplier of products or services, but also as a partner with whom they can interact in a meaningful way. 👀

Basically, it shows that you’re taking their opinions and concerns into account, always with a view to strengthening the brand. 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼

Positive word-of-mouth can also be beneficial.

Okay, but what do you mean? 🤔

When other satisfied members share their experience with others, it adds credibility to your brand. Testimonials and recommendations from loyal customers are often more convincing than any advertising campaign.

The important thing to remember is that all this will help you to stand out from the competition to attract 🧲 from new customers and strengthen your reputation.

For example, at Waalaxy, we try to answer as many of your comments as possible. 👇🏼

3) Collect valuable data

Members of your community are often more willing to share personal information and to participate in surveys, discussions or even surveys. 🗒️

💡 By gathering this data, you’ll be able to better understand the needs, preferences and expectations of your target audience. 🎯

Think of it as a beta tester trying something out to get as much constructive feedback as possible.

Well, this is the same thing. All this data can be used to personalize your offers and improve the customer experience. 💟

But what can you do? 🤔

You can absolutely tailor your products, services and communications based on feedback from your community, which will increase 📈 the relevance of your marketing actions.

You can translate it as:

🥇 An increase in sales.
🥈 Better customer retention.
🥉 Increased customer satisfaction.

Finally, thanks to this, you’ll be able to identify emerging trends, unmet needs and growth opportunities.

4) Strengthen brand reputation

And last but not least, boosting the reputation of your brand. 💪🏼

You already know this, but when you establish and maintain a community active and committed it sends a positive message about your brand. 🦋

Indeed, your willingness to create a space where customers can interact, share their experiences and ask questions shows that you’re listening to your customers. 🦻🏼

✍🏼 In reality, community members see the brand as more than just a product or service; they perceive it as an entity in its own right, with which they have a personal relationship. 😇

As a result, customers with a loyal base are more likely to recommend your brand to others and stay with you for the long term. That’s all we ask! 🖤

Last words after, I won’t bother you with it anymore, satisfied members of the community can become brand ambassadors and share their positive experiences with their personal network, thus contributing to a better online reputation.

We’ve created a Facebook group to share all our tips on our prospecting tool. ⬇️

Get your first customers this week

Take advantage of the power of Waalaxy to generate leads every day. Start prospecting for free, today.

6 steps to building a community

Now that you’ve understood what tribe marketing is, let’s discover together, how to create it in 6 steps. 😏

Take notes (and your life jacket), the information will sink 🌊.

Step 1: Define the community’s purpose

Start by asking yourself the following questions. 👇🏼

What role can my community play in my overall strategy? Do you want to boost brand awareness or encourage innovation?

You need to clearly define this objective, as it will guide you through all the steps you need to take subsequent decisions that you will take regarding the community.

This will help you define member expectations and establish guidelines for the content commitment and, above all, community management. 🫶🏼

Step 2: Identify and target the right audience

A community can’t evolve without a strong, relevant 🎯 target audience.

That’s why you need to clearly identify 🔎 clearly the group of people you want to attract 🧲 to your community. This can be:

🔵 Your current customers.
🟣 Passionate about your industry.
🔵 Professionals sharing similar interests.
🟣 Any other group.

If you wish to target you need to start by defining the demographics your customers’ needs, interests and behaviours target audience.

💡 By understanding your potential community members, you can tailor your approach to attract and engage them effectively.

For example, you can adapt your language, your content or even your channels from communication. 💬

Step 3: Select communication channels

Now that you’ve defined your objective and identified your target audience 🏹 the next step is to choose the appropriate communication channels for your community.

Don’t panic, there are many options, such as :

🕊️ Social media.
🌐 Online forums.
🗣️ Messaging applications.
🏬 Physical spaces.

But beware, you need to choose your channel based on your previous analysis of your target audience.

Okay, let’s take an example.

If you’re a fashion company, focus on visual social media such as Facebook, Pinterest or TikTok.
Conversely, if you’re a company that offers an online tool and updates it regularly, then favor X (formerly Twitter 🩵).

As you can see, make sure the channels you choose are easy to access, user-friendly and relevant for the nature of your community.

Okay, I’ll throw out another example. Our HR uses LinkedIn to recruit our talent. ⬇️

Step 4: Create engaging content

Fourth, and by no means least, is to create content that is informative, useful and, above all, useful, engaging ! 🦋

To do this, we advise you to create an editorial calendar to plan all the content you want to share with your community.

If ever, we have made a dedicated article on the editorial calendar with a small example for Instagram. 👈🏼

Inside, you’ll be able to include articles, videos, infographics, webinars, polls, tutorials and anything else you like (except a picture of your cat… though, it all depends on your content 🙊).

However, we advise you to be consistent in your publication in order to maintain member commitment. 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼

Give preference to spontaneous commitments, in the form of questions, answers, testimonials, personal experiences and even recommendations.

💡 User-generated content reinforces a sense of community.

Step 5: Encourage interaction

If you want your community to be a dynamic and engaging space, you need to encourage users to interact with each other.

For example, you can ask open-ended questions, organize polls and contests, or encourage members to share their experiences experiences and their knowledge.

Remember, the more interaction you encourage, the more members will feel connected to and invested in your company. community. 🦋

Step 6: Analyze performance

Last but not least, performance analysis. This is essential if you want to ensure continued growth and the success of your business your community’s success.

Don’t hesitate to use analysis tools to measure :

1️⃣ Commitment.
2️⃣ Membership growth.
3️⃣ Participation rates.
4️⃣ Other key performance indicators.

So don’t hesitate to monitor member satisfaction and gather regular feedback.

Okay, but how do I do it? 🤔

For example, you can ask your community to comment on your products and services points of view.

If you notice that participation is declining, try to find out why and make changes to encourage involvement.

💡In fact, analytics help you identify what’s working, what needs improvement, and above all, make informed decisions for your community’s future.

Finally, continue to evaluate your initial objectives regularly and ensure that the community remains aligned with them to achieve lasting results. ✳️

Conclusion: how do you build your brand community?

I’ll use my example from the beginning of the article, but creating a marketing community is a bit like organizing a party. The right people you choose the best places to chat, and make sure everyone has a good time.

As an added bonus, you can serve cocktails of engaging content, play the music of interaction and dance to the tune of the performances to make sure the party ends on a high note.

Nevertheless, remember that getting a record number of attendees to your party is not your job only objective.

You need to succeed in building strong relationships and authentic exchange. 🗿

Basically, you don’t want to be the DJ of the evening (although, that’s fun), but rather the master of ceremonies who will create a warm and welcoming 🪐 atmosphere.

Finally, don’t forget to add a pinch of humor to keep things fun and entertaining. 🪩

Frequently asked questions

Did you think we’d leave you in the lurch when we have so many other resources to pass on to you? You don’t know us very well. 😇

What is a community strategy?

If you still don’t know what it is, a community strategy is a plan of action designed to develop 📈, manage and operate an online or offline community in order to achieve specific objectives related to a brand, company, organization or even a cause.

In reality, it aims 🏹 to create a space where members share interest and above all, where they can interact, collaborate and engage. 🫶🏼

What is content marketing and how do you go about it?

Content marketing is the strategy of creating and distributing informative, useful and relevant content relevant to attract 🧲, engage and build loyalty a target audience.

The main objective of the content marketing is to deliver value to the public while building brand awareness and generating revenue business opportunities.

Finally, this content can take various forms, such as :