Marketing to Community

If you were to look at all your customers from the past year, would you be able to find what they have in common? It used to be that people would default to the answer that they all live in an immediate vicinity, but in a digital age this is a dated notion.

Now think about the various products and services you and your family have purchased in the past year – can you find anything in common between who you bought from? I would be almost positive yet again the answer is not based on them being local to you.

Community is what binds your marketing together – but what actually is it?

You know when it comes to your marketing, you have got to think about the fact that you are operating within a community.

Now what does community mean?

Well most people think of it in terms of geography but the reality is: the geography plays very little to do with it in this day and age. And in fact, geography is an old idea when it comes to marketing because you are no longer limited by where you’re physically located.

Think about the idea of the old corner store. It doesn’t really exist anymore, because that convenience factor is now taken up by the internet and by copious amounts of supermarkets that are located all over the place, not to mention your petrol stations that are doubling up in the same capacity.

So if community is not geography, what is it?

Well, it’s a shared purpose and that is the critical thing when it comes to your marketing. When you think about who you are marketing to, it is to a community with a shared purpose.

So spend a little bit of time this week and think about who is your community, who is it that actually shares the same purpose of which you are driving to and of which you are providing a solution for.

If you don’t have a shared purpose in mind, then chances are you are not creating an emotional bond with your potential clients. People are not longer loyal as a general rule, just because you are located nearby. It is so easy to order or travel, price and quality play a much greater role these days.

Purpose brings you closer together, but it has to be something which is not just ‘because we support the same football team’. Purpose is deeper. There is an underlying need attached or shared values. Think about what communities you believe you belong to. A group does not make a community unless they have a shared purpose of which they are actively participating in addressing. So a group is not a community unless you are all pushing for something shared.