
Building a Community Around Your Small Business: 3 Tips
Small businesses have a few advantages over big corporations. Chief among them is their ability to build a warm, inviting community that customers and other organizations are excited to participate in. Just think about your local coffee shop where the cashier remembers your name and order. Or, imagine a little yarn store that hosts knit-together events every Saturday.
You may be thinking, That sounds nice, but I’m not sure why having a strong community is essential for my small business. Don’t worry—this guide will discuss the benefits of having a small business community and tips for fostering one of your own.
The Benefits of Small Business Community-Building
While the advantages of building a small business community may not be immediately apparent, there are quite a few benefits. These include:
- Heightened customer loyalty. A strong community means meaningful customer relationships, more trust, and high-quality engagement from your customers. All these factors make customers loyal and willing to spend money at your business.
- Improved brand awareness. On top of purchasing your products and services, loyal customers are also willing to champion your business to their friends and family. With a strong community, you’ll make your brand more marketable, as customers will naturally talk to their loved ones about your business.
- More positive reputation. Investing in and building your community will enhance your reputation and attract more customers. After all, 77% of consumers are motivated to purchase from companies committed to making the world a better place.
- Differentiation from competitors. Not all businesses in your area will have the same focus on community-building. Dedicated activities demonstrating your interest in customers beyond the money they spend will separate you from your competition, showing that your business cares about more than profits.
When you create a community for your small business, you’re not just building up a group of customers. You’re fostering relationships with individuals who feel passionately about your business and want you to succeed. These individuals will support your business through thick or thin, providing valuable support that helps you reach long-term sustainability.
Tips for Building a Small Business Community
If you’re unsure how to build a community around your small business, let’s review three tips to get you on the right track.
1. Define Your Mission and Values
When you first conceptualized your small business, you probably brainstormed its mission and values. However, as a small business owner juggling many responsibilities, these ideas might have fallen by the wayside. But they’re an essential element of your organization, as they inform how customers relate to your business by spreading throughout every aspect of your operations.
When you’re ready to prioritize building a small business community, start by properly defining your:
- Mission: Your mission should be a single statement that encompasses your business’s goals. It includes why your company exists and the feelings you want your customers to have when shopping with you.
- Values: Your business’s values are the core beliefs and principles that guide your organization in everything from decision-making to actions. They form the foundation of your business’s culture and identity.
Let’s take a look at Microsoft’s mission and values as an example:
- Mission: Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.
- Values: Respect, Integrity, and Accountability
Ask yourself: What concepts define my business’s goals? What principles best apply to the way I do business? Use the answers to these questions to determine your mission and values. Then, apply them to all your business operations and ensure your business lives by them. Customers who relate to your mission and values will engage with your business and are more likely to participate in the community you’re building.
Marketing Tip: Infuse your mission and values directly into your business’s branding so customers intuitively understand the principles your organization lives by. This might mean adjusting your name, logo, typography, brand colors, language, and tone to better adhere to your core principles. For instance, if sustainability is one of your core values, you might add green shades to your brand colors to communicate that to your audience.
2. Get Involved in Your Community
Getting involved in your greater community is a great way to get your business out there and demonstrate your dedication to building your community. You can:
- Attend or sponsor local events
- Collaborate with other local businesses
- Volunteer at charitable organizations
- Participate in local initiatives
- Celebrate local holidays or traditions
Let’s say your local community hosts an annual Earth Day fair to raise awareness of environmental conservation and sustainability issues. If you’re a run retailer, you might collect old running shoes from community members, trade them to a sneaker reuse program for funds, and then donate the money you receive to local environment-focused nonprofits. This demonstrates your commitment to uplifting causes that are important to your audience.
Marketing Tip: Use your marketing platforms to promote community events, initiatives, and opportunities and deepen your connection with your audience. Feature upcoming events in your email blasts, create social media posts about local nonprofits, and update your website’s calendar to feature local holidays (for example, if your community has a sizeable Chinese population, add the Mid-Autumn Festival to your calendar!).
3. Offer Perks to Community Members
One of the best ways to show your business’s audience that you’re serious about building a robust and supportive community is to offer dedicated perks to community members. These might include:
- Discounts
- Exclusive sales
- Loyalty or rewards programs
- Early access to new products or services
- Invitation to exclusive events
- Giveaways
- Free swag or product samples
Offer these perks to members of your greater community to reach more customers and boost sales. For example, if you run a gym, you might offer discounted memberships to teachers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, doctors, and veterans to show appreciation for their service.
However, reserve the top perks for loyal customers who’ve already demonstrated their passion for your business. In the gym example above, that could mean inviting individuals who’ve been members for over a year to an exclusive New Year’s celebration. This will strengthen your relationships with existing members, retain their business, and get them talking about your offerings to their friends and family.
Marketing Tip: Besides giving shout-outs for your perks to encourage more sales, use dedicated engagement strategies that strengthen connections and create a tight-knit community. For example, you could host Q&A sessions through social media or send feedback surveys in your quarterly newsletter to show customers that you’re committed to providing a great experience at your small business.
Inspiring loyalty in your small business’s community is no easy feat. Taking the steps to build a strong community will drive audience engagement, sales, and long-term sustainability. Don’t forget to supplement your relationship-building with strong marketing strategies that support your community’s growth. You can transform your business’s community into a loyal, thriving network by fostering authentic connections and reinforcing them with strategic marketing efforts!
Wayne Elsey is the founder and CEO of Elsey Enterprises (EE) and a member of the Forbes Business Development Council. Among his various independent brands, he is also the founder and CEO of Funds2Orgs, which is a social enterprise that helps schools, churches, nonprofits, individuals and other organizations raise funds while helping to support micro-enterprise (small business) opportunities in developing nations.