If you have an online business, you should be well aware of how competitive it can get. Some niches are tight, and maneuvering in a saturated market is not something that everybody could manage to pull off.
Brands are fighting to attract new customers and get the lion’s share of the market. And they use everything that they can to reach this goal.
Online communities are one of the most underrated methods that a business could leverage and profit from. It might seem like building a community from scratch can be tough, but you have a lot of tools for that.
For instance, a right WP design for BuddyPress integration would help you create not just a simple community. You can even develop a platform akin to social media websites. Though that may not be something necessary. At least not at first.
So why more businesses should bother with online communities. Well, you may be surprised by the number of benefits.
Benefit #1 – SEO Improvements
Ranking higher in search engines is a dream for a lot of business owners. As more and more people are shopping online, you want to stand out with your products or services and be at the top of Google.
The biggest brands pour a lot of money and hire SEO agencies that create long-term SEO strategies. However, not everyone can afford to do that. So there is a need to look for other methods that will allow you to reach for greater heights and overtake the competition.
An online community will help with SEO. If you create a forum, the content posted by other users there will naturally attract attention from search engines. Before you realize it, you are ranking for keywords you would not have thought about yourself. And the best part about it is that it is the members of the community who are generating content.
Benefit #2 – Brand Trust and Awareness
Image source: Pexels.com
Sustainability is not always about focusing on sales and customer retention. What people think about your business as a whole is also a good indicator of success you have managed to achieve. Or did not manage to achieve.
Having a healthy and active community that is driven by healthy members and one that you have nurtured for many years will show others some of your best sides.
And the more people take note of that happening, the more you will stand to gain in the long run.
Benefit #3 – Innovation for New Ideas
Scaling a business should be one of the priorities. Stagnation will lead to losses. However, there are times when even your best employees cannot think of something that would be a good addition to your products or services.
On the other hand, members of the community might prove to be more useful than anyone who is working for you. Innovations for new ideas stem from discussions about what problems people are facing or what they would love to see in the future.
Keeping tabs of such discussions will function as market research, and you will be one of the first to find out about real problems that real people face.
Benefit #4 – Discussions Among Community Members
Image source: Pexels.com
Having a lot of returning customers is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Not everyone is keen to remain loyal to a brand and continue to visit the website just because of a new product or a discount now and then.
But what about giving them another reason to continue to come back? A strong community and bonds between members can lead to discussions other than problems related to the product or service of a brand.
It can function as a means to socialize with like-minded people. We are social creatures, and not everyone has people in real life that they can speak to whenever they want. Your online community could become the hub for such people.
Benefit #5 – Problem Identification
Similar to innovation for new ideas, a community could become a perfect tool to solve various issues that may arise when you least expect them. Perhaps you are looking for new testers but cannot find enough people willing to sign up? Or maybe there is a need to pick one option from multiple selections, and you need a big number of people who would take a vote?
More members of a community will give you more brain power. You can never know when something might happen, and how a random person who has joined your forum a few months ago could solve the problem.
Benefit #6 – Customer Support Improvements
Image source: Pexels.com
Customer support is important. There are a lot of different customers. Some prefer to make a phone call as soon as they have a problem. Others would look for information themselves.
Having a knowledge base in the form of community-answered questions will give the opportunity to find answers on your own, especially if you do not like to wait for a response from an email or live chat. Giving more options will make more customers happy.
