When it comes to building a community for your business, you’ll find that there are many different strategies to use. Some of them involve establishing a sense of community, while others focus on rewarding your members with rewards. Whichever strategy you choose, you’ll want to make sure you keep track of your progress.
Create a sense of community
Having a community at work has many advantages. Employees are more likely to stay with a company that makes them feel like they are part of a family. It also helps to keep employees engaged and motivated. Developing a robust sense of community is a big undertaking, but the results can be well worth the time and money spent. Fortunately, there are many tools available to help you.
The first step is to determine what your community is about. For example, does your team have a sense of humor? A happy employee is much more likely to do their best work. To this end, a company like Nova 401k Associates, LLC, hired a professional writer to conduct an extensive survey of its 90 employees. They were scattered about 15 US states.
Once you have your list of must-haves, you can start a content calendar for your social media channel. Include content in this calendar that encourages users to engage with your brand and congratulates them on their achievements.
Incentivize members with rewards programs
One of the most effective ways to increase customer engagement and promote brand loyalty is by offering incentives. This strategy can help to build a positive relationship with your customers, drive repeat business, and improve your overall marketing efforts.
Many businesses offer rewards programs, which reward customers with points that can be used to redeem free products and services. These can be point-based, spend-based, or a combination of both. For example, The North Face offers a membership program that rewards customers with points for participating in surveys.
Another example is Sephora’s Beauty Insider program. This loyalty program allows customers to earn rewards for purchases, including exclusive discounts, samples, and events. It also allows them to choose how they will use their points. In addition, the company provides an online beauty community to further strengthen the relationship with its customers.
Offering exclusive perks, such as birthday gifts, can help to foster a positive relationship between customers and your brand. Often, customers will want to share their experiences with their friends, making this type of program a valuable way to encourage more customer sharing.
Measure the metrics
Community metrics can help you understand what your members are interested in, as well as how they behave. This can provide valuable insight to your teams and give you the ability to improve your community.
Using the right metrics can reveal the potential of your online community. However, it takes time to normalize these metrics. So, the key is to identify the most important ones and measure them regularly. It is important to map them to your business goals and objectives.
CMX’s SPACES model is a good way to identify your key business goals. For example, a community may be built to drive adoption of a new product. Measuring the time it takes to bring a new feature to market can be a key metric. A community can also be used to resolve issues in real time.
Measuring the metrics for your community can be the best way to ensure that your investment is making a difference. Typically, metrics for your community are based on comparisons with non-members.
Track the success
Creating an online community is a great way to improve your customer experience. You’ll have access to more sales, more support, and more insight into your customers. However, you need to track the success of your community. It’s important to know the metrics of your community and how they relate to your business goals.
One metric that is useful for measuring the impact of your community is customer lifetime value (CLV). This metric is calculated using the average order value and purchase frequency of your customers. When you combine this with your average member lifespan, you can gauge the health of your community.
Another metric to look at is your guest checkout rate. If you have a high rate of guests completing a checkout, it may indicate that your customers aren’t seeing a value in joining your community.
Other metrics you can track include engagement levels, number of posts, and likes. Measuring how many comments you receive, as well as how many people respond to a post, can help you see where you need to improve.
