For your community to grow, you need a marketing strategy.
Your organisation may be brand new, or maybe it isn’t.
If your organisation has been around a while, maybe things have changed. Old approaches to attract new members or customers may no longer work.
The audience you used to appeal to may have moved on. Maybe their interests have changed, or maybe yours have. Maybe what you’re motivated by has moved you in a different direction.
Either way, a new approach is needed.
Your marketing strategy will help you determine the audience you are seeking to serve. It’ll show you who you need to get to know.
And knowing your audience better will inform you how to serve them better.
A strategy provides you with the philosophy that will guide your organisation. It influences how you make decisions. It determines your brand. Strategy also directs how you connect with and serve your audience.
So, what is your strategy? Who is your organisation seeking to serve? And how will you reach them?
Start by answering those questions.
If you don’t know who you’re seeking to connect with, you won’t know how to act. At least not in anyway that will lead to noticeable, consistent growth.
Your marketing strategy influences the systems you put in place to reach your goals. To reach your audience.
Those systems will also ensure you retain your future, loyal supporters. The ones who walk through the door one day, then go on to become your dedicated customers or dependable and enthusiastic volunteers.
They become your core audience. The supporters you really value, and want to keep around.
Know your strategy, and you’ll know where you’re going – and who wants to go with you.
Your community will grow out from there.