Growing your community to grow your business

The grass will always be greener on the other side if you don’t water your lawn from time to time

Growth! It’s important. As an ecommerce business owner, you’re probably busy hunting for growth in new unconquered markets and the trendiest places to snatch up new clients – usually, a commendable use of time – but things are different now with Covid and all.

Whilst it’s not a bad idea to go where the people are, with everybody feeling the financial crunch of 2020, you’re probably more likely to find success building from your established base. After all, although people are keen to break the boredom of not going out like they usually would, are also reticent to break from the old and try new – especially when it comes to more involved purchases.

So right now is most likely the time to direct your marketing budget towards growing your community – ie: targeting your loyal customer base and the demographics that you already have on lock. The grass may look greener on the other side but spreading your resources too thin might leave you with not much more than bills.

So what should you be doing in terms of growing your community?

Grow your community

As many a wise guru and Eat, Pray, Love reader has touted, to find the answer you must look inward – or at least to your data. Your current and perhaps initial customers have seen you through your launch, early days and possibly even previous rocky patches in your business and now it’s time to make sure they know you realise that. Reach out to your community, make sure they know about your social platforms and encourage them to interact with posts by asking questions. Maybe get them to tag others in the confines of a competition. Get them to snap pics with your products – and even your packaging. It’s all about growing your community and what better way to grow than to reach similar people through those that already love what you do?

Let them know you’re still hard at work. Don’t barrage their inbox with your messages but a general update once a week to once a month on what you’re doing as a company reminds customers that behind the brand, there are people going through the same turbulent times as they are. It also shows that you aren’t burying your head in the sand, hoping for the best, you’re keeping current and making plans to cope with the ‘new normal’. You’re a survivor, that speaks to people and is far more likely to get your customers’ attention than an endless torrent of spam ads.

Personalise your marketing

Now you’re remembering the value of growing your community, it’s time to take stock of the people who make up that group. Although all of your customers are valuable, some have gone the extra mile for you, haven’t they? People who were hashtagging you on social, repeat customers who always leave a review, even folks who’ve had polite and constructive interactions with your customer service have helped you to grow. With that in mind, segment your email marketing to reflect that diversity.

Reward their loyalty, send people who have shopped with you before discount codes, especially on items they might’ve left abandoned in their cart. Change your order confirmation message to something with a little more heart than ‘thank you for your order’. A short, honest message about the value of their loyalty could go a long way to turning a ‘check-out-as-guest’ into a repeat customer. Try something that makes them feel good about shopping with you.

Get your logistics on track

The transition into ‘COVID times’ was a rough one for many ecommerce business owners – many of you were having record weeks, week after week after week. We know, because that’s what it was like here at Coghlan. You probably had to make changes quickly and your usual attention to detail might’ve suffered as you rapidly taught yourself how to scale or take your brick and mortar store into the eCommerce space. And of that, you should be proud. But now’s probably a good time to ask if you want to be the one packing orders as your business grows? Maybe it’s time to step it up and make sure the quality of your delivery and logistics is keeping up with the Jones’ (or at least your competitors).

Nothing can sully a customer’s experience faster than a bad delivery process; it’s a disappointment that is hard to shake. You already have one business to run, trying to turn yourself into a logistics expert might be seen as a waste of your time and your passion, both things that would be better used fostering the kind of community your brand can be proud of.

With that in mind, if you’d like help outsourcing your 3PL, pick and pack, shipping and logistics so you can save your time, space, money and sanity and focus more on creating the business you’re dreaming of, we’d love to help. You can call us on 02 9828 0111 or get in touch via the form below.