Yesterday, Kristina Twigg (Water Environment Federation), Lauren Wolfe (Higher Logic), and I presented on marketing your private online community at the Higher Logic Users’ Group Super Forum.
Kristina, Lauren, and I each shared our own tips for marketing community (contained in the slides below), and then we led a crowdsourcing exercise to elicit additional private community marketing advice from Higher Logic clients and users:
- Make business cards with your community URL to hand out. Advanced tip? Have a laminating machine at your conference so people can make luggage tags with your community card on one side and their own business card on the other.
- Have a solid strategy for roll out (and K.I.S.S.).
- Do at least ONE mailing (maybe a postcard?) about your new community. If your members have unsubbed your mailing list, you won’t be able to get them via email.
- Have a mobile app for the community? Use QRC for easy app download.
- Encourage people to upload profile pictures. Send “is this you?” messages with a blank head outline periodically.
- Pre-populate the login “remember me” box – make people opt *out* rather than having to opt in.
- Start a blog series to attract attention.
- Include a regular “most discussed in our community” feature in your other communications pieces (like enewsletters).
- If your listservs are still live, link to them in the appropriate communities so the information is searchable.