Promoting an e-commerce brand in an already crowded marketplace is not an easy task. However, there’s a powerful marketing strategy that can bring your audience together can lay the foundation for a passionate following: building a brand community.
Brand communities are groups of customers and enthusiasts who share a common interest, passion, or affinity for a particular brand. They are driven by strong emotional connections, shared values, and mutual support, often facilitated and nurtured by the brand itself. Within these communities, members engage in interactions, discussions, and activities related to the brand, which fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty while contributing to the brand's identity and success.
Whether your e-commerce brand is a startup or an established brand, building a community should be an important part of your overall marketing strategy. In this article, we'll provide tips to help you harness the potential of community building and propel your e-commerce business to new heights.
1. Define Your Brand Identity and Values
Before you can start building community, you need to define and refine your brand identity and values. What sets you apart? What does your brand stand for? You need to clearly express your brand identity and values to attract like-minded individuals who resonate with your ethos.
2. Set a Goal and Purpose for Your Community
Every successful community has a clear goal and purpose. Determine what you aim to achieve through your community. Whether it's delivering customer satisfaction or driving sales, setting tangible goals will guide your community-building efforts.
Brand communities play a crucial role in driving customer satisfaction and sales growth by fostering deeper connections with your customers and facilitating positive interactions. Through active engagement and support within the community, your customers feel valued and heard, leading to their increased gratification and loyalty.
In case they bring up the lack of payment options, you can address this need for an efficient online payment processing service with innovative solutions. Partnering with an online payment processing company like Maya Business, you can, for example, implement a payment gateway solution like Maya Checkout in your e-commerce store.
From credit and debit cards to e-wallets and QR codes, online payments processed through Maya Checkout are secured through industry-standard encryption. With this payment gateway, your e-commerce store can accommodate a variety of payment options that cover a range of customer preferences.
3. Launch a Branded Online Community
These days, launching a branded online community is as easy as creating a Facebook Group or a Reddit Subreddit. On these platforms, you can funnel inquiries and nurture expressions of interest, allowing you to turn curious members into paying customers.
While starting an online community is incredibly easy, maintaining one is quite challenging. You need to interact with your audience, respond to queries, and engage in discussions.
4. Create Valuable Content
In community building, you need to feed your audience with up-to-date and relevant content. Whether they are YouTube videos, TikTok short videos, or blog articles, consistency is key in making sure the platform’s algorithms promote your work.
You can maintain engagement and visibility within the community by regularly sharing valuable content that resonates with your audience's interests and addresses their needs. This will ultimately strengthen connections and drive growth for your brand.
5. Utilize Social Media
Don't underestimate the power of social media in community building. Within its borders, you can actively engage with your audience across platforms where they're most active. So, start conversations, respond to comments, and share user-generated content to deepen connections and expand your reach.
While many brands are already using social media for various marketing campaigns, one brand stands out in terms of leveraging user-generated content: Go Pro. This brand has 19 million followers on Instagram where people are sharing their videos created using Go Pro’s newest camera models. You can replicate this company’s success even on a smaller scale by encouraging your customers to share their experiences with your product or service on social media platforms.
6. Offer Exclusive Benefits and Rewards
Try to incentivize community participation by offering exclusive benefits and rewards. For instance, you can provide early access to new products, special discounts, or members-only perks. After all, rewarding your community members demonstrates your appreciation of them, helping foster loyalty over time.
One famous e-commerce brand that’s building community and offering incentives like exclusive event invites is Sephora. The brand’s Beauty Insider community website has over 76,000 members to date.
Build a Loyal Following with the Help of Maya Business Solutions
Sign up for Maya Business to provide flexible payment solutions for your e-commerce business that your customers will be grateful for.
Registering with Maya Business enables you to open a Maya Business Deposit account and use it as your settlement account. With an industry-leading 2.5% per annum interest rate, you’ll earn PHP 25,000 in interest per year on a PHP 1 million deposit. What’s more, you can send money to your partners and suppliers for free via InstaPay and PESONet, translating to significant savings over time.
Signing up also qualifies you for a no-collateral Maya Flexi Loan offer of up to PHP 2 million in just 3 months. With extra funds, you can realize your dream of expanding your e-commerce business. Just use Maya Business as your primary processor for all wallet and card payments. The more you use our solutions, the better the loan offer will be.
Sign up for Maya Business and enjoy the benefits brought to you by Maya Business solutions.
