If you’re waiting to be lucky to grow a community (or deepen engagement), you could be waiting a long time.
Sure, people might drift into your community (and fish might swim into a net if you leave it there long enough).
But waiting and hoping is a terrible strategy.
Search traffic is a useful bonus, not a strategy. If you’re hoping your members create content which attracts more people over time, you’re leaving yourself at the mercy of whims and currents beyond your control.
Even if they do swim into your net, they’re just as likely to swim right back out again. (Why would they stay?)
A better approach is to target and expand.
This means target the first group of members you want, satisfy an immediate need. Then take them on a journey to satisfy more desires over time. This is where your journey mapping becomes critical.
Once growth rates slow, target the next group, then the next etc…
Easy to say, harder to do.
It means difficult strategic trade-offs. You need to limit who your community supports at the beginning to maximize the value you offer to members at the end.
Doing this right means mastering a core set of skills.
You need to know how to research, analyze, and identify the clusters of members you have and what they need/desire (as specifically as possible).
You need to know how to prioritise each cluster of your members and then how to cater your technology and communications towards each of them.
You need to know how to design their entire user journey with all of the assets you have available to you today.
Next month we’re going to train a group of community professionals to maximize the level of growth, engagement, and value in a community through these techniques.
If you’re trying a scattergun of different tactics, or waiting to be lucky, this workshop will take you through a different approach to satisfying the needs and desires of your members.
(p.s. If you sign up by the end of this week, I’ll give you access to a module from our training courses for free).
