Incentives May Lead To Problems

One way of enticing people to join a community is to provide incentives. You may provide freebies or rewards in order to get them to sign up. This may be a good way of getting sign ups. However, if you want to entice action within your community, you this may not always be the solution.

The problem with incentives is that the moment they've received what they signed up for, they're through participating. It is better to target people who sign up because they're the type of people who enjoy participating in such community. The mentality of people who sign up because of these goes something like this. "No incentive - no action." If you're resources are limited and you don't have an unlimited amount of freebies, it may be harder for you to entice these people to take some action.

In order to remedy the situation where your list is filled up with dead leads, it is better to start at the very source - the sign ups. 

This is where the challenge comes in. Instead of enticing people with rewards to sign in, you need to persuade potential members that they are the sort of people that would join your community. It may be harder to do this. However, once you've persuaded the right people, it will be more effective compared to enticing action from the "rewards only" people.

In order to salvage what you can out of the sign ups you got from freebies, look for ways to entice them. It may not be as promising as a 100 percent conversion, but at least you've tried something to take them out of the dead end list.

A community that has no activity is a dead community. So make sure you persuade the right people to join your community.

Incorporating Your Business With Your community

It's not possible to force your business in your community. You incorporate your community with your business. This means that you'll have to change. Changes are needed within your company, your product, and even your marketing strategies.

Your Company Needs To Change

We're not saying you should overhaul your company. What we mean is that your company needs to adapt to the changes within your community. You will have to work with the people you want to reach. Your staff should be interacting with the members of your community. In other words, there should be communication between your company and your community. You need to respond to queries, discuss ideas and, most importantly, befriend members. The community should feel that your company is part of the community.

Your Products and Services Need To Change

Not all products and services are marketable (depending on your community). You need to listen to your community and see what it needs. "See a need, Fill a need". You can also encourage your community members with first time incentives, or perhaps give community members a discount. One good idea would be to automate it. If someone makes a purchase or avails of your service, you can automatically give him a community member's account.

Your Promotion Needs To Change

Your promotion should be integrated within your community. You can promote within your community members first. Also, you can ask members for ideas to make help the promotion more. In using your marketing and advertising resources, you also get to promote your community as well.

Your Website Needs To Change

Keep your website up to date. To entice your community into action, make the community elements the central elements of your theme. Encourage interaction within your site by bringing the community at the forefront of the site. Provide elements such as chat capability where members can talk about products. This is also a form of feedback that will certainly help you improve your products and services.

Your Pricing Needs To Change

Give incentives to your members, such that they will think that it is to their advantage that they are part of the community. Provide bonuses or free products to the most active community members.

There are a lot of ways of integrating your business into your community. You should consider each and every one of them. If your community is well integrated with your business, then you can be assured of its success.