You're Already Doing It!

Yesterday I talked about the importance of building a community. There's a line of reasoning that fails the logic test ... here's the reasoning.

• "Communities don't work. Don't you think everybody would be doing what you said if they worked? They reason we pay tolls is because we want to find qualified buyers who want to purchase right now."

Do you see where this line of reasoning fails the logic test?

I'll show you.

Do you execute email marketing campaigns?

Yes?

Do you have an email marketing list?

You do?

Guess what?

You've built a community!

Now, you may have built exactly the wrong type of community ... one that participates because you offer 40% off, 50% off, 60% off, or 70% off. But it's a community, nonetheless.

I have e-commerce clients where 40% of annual net sales come from email marketing. Does that seem like a powerful community?

Catalogers misstate what they generate via email marketing ... via flawed matchbacks they'll take an order generated by the community (the email marketing list) and "attribute" the order back to those who received the catalog. Wrong. We've known it is wrong for 25 years.

But your community cares.

So there, you're already managing a community. Why not take it to the next level?