Your consumers are responsible: community marketing

You can communicate with your consumers: marketing communities

As promised, I continue to talk about the types of WOMM (marketing word of mouth)

In previous articles I talked about rumor marketing.

kudashkina.habrahabr.ru/blog/75946

and viral marketing

kudashkina.habrahabr.ru/blog/76423 .



Today we talk about community marketing.

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I sincerely believe that the effectiveness of community marketing in Russia is greatly underestimated. As a sales representative, you are an important source of information for your community. When you multiply your efforts through collaboration and coalitions, you can increase your awareness of both the surrounding reality and your target audience.





In this article I will talk about the definition and general characteristics of the community. In the next article I will describe the process of its creation.



For a start, it would be useful to consider and evaluate the following factors:

• Identify and describe your target audience (s): where do its representatives get information from, who do they trust, what are their needs? Make a characteristic of the ideal customer, including people who want to purchase your product. Once again I’ll focus on the fact that this is not about the people who need your product, but about those who want it.
• Try to understand: what competitors are fighting for the attention of your target audience and how do they convey their information? What external factors (political, economic, etc.) affect your products / services?
• Identify your personal and collective marketing resources: Assess the potential of each group.
• Think about what definition you give the community, how you would like to build it. What qualities should it have? What benefits should it give to its members? What is your ultimate goal of creating a community?

This definition of community is given by Lee and Vogel (2003):



This is a virtual space supported by computer information technology and based on communication and interaction of participants in order to create content together, resulting in relationships within the community.



What are the general characteristics of a virtual community?

1. Personal homepage / profile;
2. Creation of personal content;
3. The ability to influence the content of each other;
4. The ability to "friend" and share content.

What is the community atmosphere like?

1. A sense of belonging;
2. Feeling of influence;
3. Integration and satisfaction of needs;
4. Mutual emotional connection.

1. The feeling of belonging

• Occurs when defining community boundaries;
• Feeling of emotional security;
• Feeling of ownership and identification with something;
• Use common symbols, language, etc.

This refers to the pages of personal profiles, the ability to "frand", the isolation of smaller groups from large ones, the invitation to groups.

Do not restrain personal and group self-expression.

Greet newbies and introduce them to other members with similar interests.



2. Feeling of influence

• The ability of the participant to influence the group (the opportunity to express their opinion);
• The ability of the group to influence the participant (the opportunity to learn);
• Fast feedback;
• Setting the rules and monitoring their compliance with the participants;
• Maintain established standards within the group.

This applies to forums, chat rooms, comments, blogs, "lichke."

Participants should be provided with as many ways of communication as possible.



3. Integration and satisfaction of needs

• The feeling of support from other participants;
• Benefits of the participants, such as status, competence;
• Shared values;
• A sense of competence within the group.

This refers to the status of reward participants, VIP-status, karma, rating, etc.

"Chips", known only to initiates, their traditions and rituals.



4. Mutual emotional connection

• Relationships within the group, shared history and experience;
• High-quality and frequent interaction;
• Individual / shared events / stories;
• Personal investment of time and resources;
• The effect of reverence and humiliation;
• Spiritual connection

This is difficult to create on purpose, but can be maintained through in-depth interaction with the community, meetings in real life, joint celebrations and assistance to developers.