Loyal customers aren’t buying from you just because you sell a good product, they are buying from you because they feel a sense of community and trustworthiness in your brand. Marketing is the glue that holds together your brand, existing customers, and potential customers. This is why community-centric marketing is key when building a brand and getting customer loyalty. The online marketing and digital space can feel overcrowded, but building a community can be what differentiates you from the rest in your industry. Factory360 looks more into community-centric marketing and how this helps you build a brand through shared experiences. 

Psychology of Community and Loyalty in Marketing

Like everything, there is a psychology behind what works for people and what doesn’t; marketing is no different. When it comes to community and loyalty in marketing, there is a huge need for connection. Humans, by nature, crave connection in every aspect of their lives, especially when it comes to business and marketing. Belonging and feeling understood drive emotional loyalty, creating a community and a group of loyal customers for your brand or business. Many customers will choose a brand that “gets them” over another that doesn’t seem to relate to them or align with their values. This builds trust and pushes your loyal customers to continue purchasing from you, as well as pushes new customers who align to become loyal customers. All of this comes hand in hand when it comes to avoiding a transactional relationship and instead building an emotional relationship with your customers. This makes them feel like they are a part of your community and purchasing from someone who cares, instead of feeling like just another paying customer. 

What Are the Key Elements of Community-Centric Marketing? 

When we talk about community-centric marketing, there are a few different elements that you need to ensure you are building this community and using the marketing in your favor to do so. Here is a breakdown of what this looks like and what elements need to be implemented to get the marketing community that’s right for your business. 

Shares Vision and Values 

One of the biggest things that can make a customer choose your business over another is the idea that you share the same vision and values as they do. For example, Toms, the shoe company, gives one pair of shoes to a child in need for every purchase made. Their customers purchase from them instead of their competitors simply because they feel like their vision to help those in need aligns with their own personal vision and values. It’s important to align with what matters to your audience or market, to the audience that best aligns with your values. 

Communicating With Your Community or Customers 

Making a way for two-way communication can be a great way to foster relationships, hear feedback from them, and continue to keep communication open, and listen to what they really want. This means that you shouldn’t be just broadcasting, but instead communicating and having real interactions through engagement. 

User-Generated Content 

UGC, or user-generated content, is a really great way to connect with customers and showcase your brand from their point of view. User-generated content is done by the customers themselves, giving an impression of trust and relatability with the content. Potential customers can see the content, and it allows them to feel more connected to it and imagine themselves as customer of your brand. Try it with your own brand by encouraging customers to share their experiences and content to help boost authenticity with your brand. 

Exclusive Access 

Having exclusive access or experiences that are just for your customers or for loyal customers can help build up a community and help them to feel like they are “in the know.” It makes them feel a bit more like a part of the brand and less like just a transaction. You can achieve this by giving sneak peeks, exclusive access to drops, or discount codes that are specific to groups of your customers. 

How to Build Community-Centric Marketing? 

Now that you know more of the key elements of this and why it’s important, let’s look into how you can build this type of community-centric marketing for your own brand. 

Have a Clear Mission

One of the most important steps to this is ensuring that you have a clear mission with your brand and the community you’re trying to develop. You can ask yourself questions like “why does this community exist?” or “what are we trying to accomplish?” You should also determine exactly who this is for, what your target audience is, and how this mission will align with them. 

Choose the Right Platform

Not every business needs to be on every social media platform. There is a need to have a variety if you are looking to expand your reach, but this doesn’t mean you need to focus on every single platform out there – and we know, there are a lot of them now. With this said, we encourage you to choose a platform, or two, and determine why that platform is the best choice and how it will help in creating this community through marketing. 

Keep up With Engagement

Engagement is by far one of the most important aspects in marketing, and it’s something that many businesses don’t spend enough time on. It’s not enough just to post on social media, but you need to actively engage with your audiences and showcase the means of the community through that. Customers love to see businesses interacting with them instead of just leaving their DMs on read or not commenting back when they show you love on your socials. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

There are possible mistakes that could be made as you are doing community-centric marketing. Here are a few of the top mistakes that you should avoid when working with this marketing strategy. 

Treating the Community for Just Sales: The point of community is to build trust and connection, not to just make a sale. It’s important not to treat this community like a sales funnel and instead use it as a way to nurture your audience and build relationships, which will turn into long-term loyal customers. 

Inauthentic Engagement: Engagement is a huge piece of marketing, especially for community-centric marketing. This is why it’s important to be as authentic as possible in your marketing engagement tactics.

Not Listening to Customers: You are building this community for many reasons, including being able to listen to them and adjust when needed. Don’t make the mistake of not listening to them. 

Community-Centric Marketing Support from Us

Are you in need of some help to implement these tactics and run with community-centric marketing? We help businesses like yours to build their brands in a way that allows you to connect with them and showcase the best practices for building a community and bringing in your target customers whose vision aligns with yours. At Factory 360, we offer full support in the marketing efforts of businesses to ensure that your marketing is aligned. We work with using community-centric marketing approaches; contact us to learn more about what we have to offer.