A brand community is a group of like-minded customers who invest in a brand beyond what is being sold ordinarily. These people have a strong emotional connection with the brand, which helps attract and retain more brand loyal customers.
Brand loyal customers are the real asset of a company. Businesses across the globe are investing good capital in building a brand loyal customer base. In fact, the brand community is a great way to attract, nurture, and increase brand loyal customers for a business.
Use these brand community groups made up of your most influential customers to boost your overall marketing strategy. The community will help you to retain your best customers and attract new ones via word-of-mouth and other essential data. And, that’s why more and more businesses are identifying the most interesting ways to build brand communities and attract consumers.
How do you build a brand community?
If you are struggling around the concept of brand loyalty and how to build one, we’ve got you covered. Building a brand community should be a systematic, strategic approach for successful outcomes.
This article focuses on the top five ways to build a brand community and why it is essential.
#1. Target special interest of customers
When you are building a brand community, it is essential to foster the particular interest of customers. For instance, identify your business’s most popular product and allow members to access the product with certain points. Many loyalty management platforms offer reward points to access special products and meet people with similar interests.
When you cater to the customers on the products of their interest, they feel more valued and are willing to engage with others. Hence, identify the special interest of the customer and group them together and encourage them to interact and build a positive brand image.
#2. Create and foster online spaces
In today’s digital time, there are multiple platforms available to connect with brand loyal customers and build a community of the customers. For example, you can use social media channels to build a group of customers who make frequent purchases with your business.
The digital space allows many opportunities for the group members to meet, communicate, and share thoughts about the brand. As the brand loyal customers engage with each other and with your business, they will provide helpful information about enhancing and improving your business.
#3. Promote content
This is one of the great ways to build a brand community and keep the customers engaged with your business. When you give valuable and informative information to the customers, they find another reason to stay connected.
You can publish the content through a blog or email and let the customers communicate with each other. For this, you can invite customers to contribute their thoughts via informative content.
#4. Cultivate a value-driven presence on social platforms.
Social media platforms help you engage with brand-loyal customers. Here you can easily group them and create a group of members to foster brand community. Also, you can share content and encourage the customers to interact with the posts.
In simple terms, social media increases the possibility to expand an online business presence while building a community around your company.
#5. Offer a Chat Group for specific members.
A members-only chat group allows members an opportunity to discuss new products, give reviews, and share industry secrets. Here, you can also label each customer’s membership and engagement level within their profile. A loyalty management platform like LoyaltyXpert is the best way to profile customers. It will help you to track and monitor real-time user preferences, trends, and behaviors.
If you introduce a loyalty program, it will also help in getting brand loyal customers. And, you can encourage them to participate in community groups and strengthen the brand community. Building brand community is essential for businesses that want to retain more brand loyal customers.
Why is building a brand community important?
A brand community is essential to gather the brand advocates and strengthen the loyal customer base. The members of the group communicate with each other by sharing the reviews and experiences of a product or service to create a positive brand image. The communication in the community group helps in attracting new customers as well. More precisely, here are some important reasons that insist upon building brand community;
- Brand community boosts loyalty programs where the members earn and burn rewards.
- Members of your exclusive community will motivate others to engage with your business offerings.
- Exclusive brand communities ease influencers and build relationships with each other.
- Selective brand communities help you accumulate vital data.
- Membership programs like customer loyalty can deepen customer relationships.
- Increase the efficiency of your other marketing initiatives.
All in all, building a brand community is imperative for businesses that want to sustain market competition by acquiring a large base of brand-loyal customers. Undoubtedly, brand communities will be helpful if they have built the right ways. Depend on the industry you serve and the requirements of your business, and you should select the ways smartly. However, selecting the above mentioned ways are all-time preferred. You can also link a loyalty program with one or more ways of building community and encourage your potential customers to enjoy value added perks along with the purchase.
