Community marketing is proven to drive marketing performance. Incentives can be used to drive the performance through the roof, once done right. Find out how.
Table of contents
☑️What is community marketing?☑️Methods☑️Benefits☑️Examples☑️Improve ROI☑️In conclusion
What is community marketing?
Community marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on building a community of customers and followers around a brand, product, or service. This approach seeks to create relationships with customers through engagement and interaction, rather than just promoting the brand to them. The goal of community marketing is to create a sense of loyalty and connection among customers. Just like relationship marketing, community marketing strategy focuses on building lasting relationships with customers. The key difference between community marketing and relationship marketing is that relationship marketing focuses on strengthening the relationship between the brand and the individual, whereas community marketing focuses on the enhancement of the relationship between the brand and the group of united individuals.
Community marketing methods
Community marketing can take many forms. Think of customer engagement initiatives, referral programs, social media communities, brand-sponsored events and loyalty programs. The focus is on creating opportunities for customers to connect with each other and with the brand, and to feel a sense of belonging and involvement in the brand community. By building strong relationships with customers, community marketing can help create a loyal and passionate customer base that will support and promote the brand over time.
An online community can help organizations improve engagement by 21% - Source
Benefits of community marketing
Community marketing can offer many benefits to businesses. The good application of community marketing results in increased:
✅Customer engagement and loyalty✅Customer insights✅Brand advocacy✅Customer retention✅Customer satisfaction✅Customer referrals✅Brand reputation✅Marketing efficiency
Customer engagement and loyalty
By building a community of customers and followers, businesses can increase customer engagement and foster a sense of loyalty and connection to the brand.
Customer insights
Through interaction and engagement with customers, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer needs, preferences, and behaviors.
Brand advocacy
A strong and engaged community of customers is more likely to advocate for the brand and spread positive word of mouth.
Customer retention
By fostering a sense of community and belonging, businesses can help retain customers and reduce churn.
Customer satisfaction
By providing customers with opportunities to connect with each other and with the brand, businesses can improve customer satisfaction and overall customer experience.
Customer referrals
Community marketing can help encourage customers to refer friends and family to the brand, which can lead to increased customer acquisition and growth.
Brand reputation
A strong and engaged community can help build a positive brand reputation and enhance the overall perception of the brand.
Marketing efficiency
By leveraging the power of word-of-mouth, community marketing can help businesses reach new customers and increase marketing efficiency.
Thanks in a large part to the visibility of online communities driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, 83% of executives have a positive perception of community potential - Source
Community marketing strategy examples
A good community marketing strategy will vary depending on your target audience, goals, and resources. However, here are some commonly effective strategies:
✅Building a strong online presence through socials✅Creating valuable, shareable content✅Hosting events and meetups✅Providing a suitable loyalty program✅Encouraging user-generated content
Building a strong online presence through socials
Having a strong online presence through platforms like social media and your own website can help you connect with your target audience and build a community. It is crucial to provide a seamless omnichannel marketing experience for your users to guarantee the optimal performance of your marketing efforts.
Creating valuable, shareable content
Creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and engaging content such as blog posts, videos, and podcasts can help establish your brand as a thought leader and attract new members to your community. By working out a content strategy that takes customer journey phases into account per content type, you ensure that you optimize your customer journey as well.
Hosting events and meetups
Organizing events and gatherings where members of your community can connect and interact with each other and with your brand can help foster a sense of community and strengthen relationships with customers.
Providing a suitable loyalty program
Offer rewards and incentives to customers who consistently engage with your brand to encourage repeat business and brand advocacy. To find a suitable loyalty program for your community, you must first get familiar with the different types of loyalty programs.
Encouraging user-generated content
Encourage customers to share their experiences and opinions about your brand, and feature this content prominently on your website and social media channels. This can help build trust and increase loyalty by showcasing the positive experiences of others.
By focusing on building strong relationships with your customers and providing value through ongoing engagement, you can help establish a loyal customer base that will continue to support your brand over time.
Incentive marketing to improve ROI
Businesses can use incentive marketing to improve the return on investment of their community marketing efforts. Incentive marketing can be an effective way to make the most of an online community for your business. Not only will you be able to take advantage of the benefits we have already mentioned, but you will also be able to increase its effectiveness and scale.
Boosting online performance
Providing a seamless omnichannel experience means that your channels are well-coordinated and aligned with each other. But what if you could add a direct channel to your marketing mix that not only is complementary to the existing channels but also boosts the performance of each individual channel? With Crowny, you can leverage incentive-driven content campaigns to encourage your community to spread the word and engage with the content you’re distributing on socials.
Positive ROI on high-quality content
All marketers have been there. You create an extensive blog article, high-quality video or any other piece of a time-consuming and high-quality piece of content, but it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. With Crowny’s Loyalty & Marketing Platform, marketers are now able to set interaction and reward their online community upon completion of the desired action. You can think of answering a poll, clicking a link, watching a video, etcetera. Now you can make sure your time is never wasted, and you have a way to make sure your content is always getting the traction it deserves. By leveraging event-based messaging with push notifications in the Crowny App, businesses can even ensure that the timing of content delivery is on point.
Traditional loyalty programs are based on the same principle as the first points-based loyalty program ever, which was launched in 1896: they all are based on purchases.
Content-driven loyalty
There are a variety of different loyalty programs, some of which work very well to this day. One issue stands out for all different types of traditional loyalty programs. They are all based on the same principle as the first points-based loyalty program ever, which was launched in 1896: they all are based on purchases. Even though purchases are most important to businesses, there is much more value that customers generate these days. You can think about spreading the word on socials, providing customer data, word of mouth, social proof, feedback and reviews. Crowny's solution is different. The interact-to-earn model is a key aspect of the platform and can be seen as an engagement-driven incentive mechanism.
Enabling mass UGC
Word-of-mouth marketing is regarded as the most important marketing for a business in existence, and UGC can be seen as the online version of it. Nearly every business is looking to get as much user-generated content (UGC) as they possibly can. But there are barely any businesses out there that actually provide an incentive for this. Crowny allows businesses to do this. Customers that spread the word are of extreme value to businesses. It’s time to adapt to modern times and anticipate the opportunities that are here for the taking.
In conclusion
It’s time for a change. There are many opportunities that online marketing can bring businesses. Combine this with loyalty-focused strategies, and a business’ strategy can become incredibly sustainable for future growth.
The Crowny Platform is currently in development, and almost ready to be deployed. Get early access to a demo, and we will show you how we can change loyalty and marketing forever.
