Today’s customers need to understand who you are and why you do what you do before they’re willing to purchase from you. And that’s doubly true if you position yourself as an expert or leader in your field.
As a creator, your customers need to trust you, which is where an online community can help.
Whether you run a community on social media or use a dedicated online community platform like Mighty Networks, fostering connections between people is a powerful way to build trust, form deep connections with your audience, and keep new and loyal customers excited and engaged about your work.
But how do you build a community that people want to participate in and engage with?
Email marketing.
How to use an email list to build an engaged online community
Email marketing is a powerful tool that helps build an online community that cares about your business and its offering—helping you grow quickly and keep your audience engaged.
Here’s how:
1. Define what community looks like for you
Community means different things to different people. For some, it might mean lots of online support, questions, or discussion. For others, it might mean regular meetups or actively working together.
Before you dive into the specifics of building a community, you should determine what it looks like. For example, ask yourself:
The community I run, Mindshare, is designed to give members the best of live and asynchronous coaching with the necessary tools, resources, and training to help them succeed over longer time horizons.
The community is there to make it easy for members to connect with peers, build relationships, and get feedback from me and others in the group. People get as much value from the other members as they do from me. Maybe more in some cases. – Kevin C. Whelan
Kevin’s community makes it easy for members to connect with peers.
Like any marketing strategy, you have to know your audience before you can communicate effectively with them.
That’s why Charis Lindrooth of BotanicWise, a holistic and natural medicine community, focuses on the human element of what he creates and puts people first above sales.
My overall strategy is to be open, personal, and genuine. There has to be an actual human exchange happening. – Charis Lindrooth
Cartoonist, author, and coach Jessica Abel of Autonomous Creative makes her online community exclusively for course cohorts so they can connect.
The most powerful thing for people in my community is to spend time meeting each other. Building an email list in and of itself isn’t the same as building a community. You need to foment connection between people in your audience to each other. – Jessica Abel
2. Create a welcome email that makes your audience feel part of the group right away
As new members join your online community, a welcome email makes them feel included and helps them understand the lay of the land.
But no one has time to manually send hundreds of welcome emails.
For example, you could create an automated email sequence designed to create engagement right off the bat. Charis does just that for her community:
It’s easy to build emails like this directly in Kit.
A behind-the-scenes look at Charis’ Visual Automations in Kit.
When anyone purchases a membership to our community, a Kit automation sends them the link to join. From there, we send an onboarding sequence automatically that will include reminders to join the course and other welcome content. I want to always give people a reason to open their email beyond what they can spend money on. – Charis Lindrooth
Some ideas for welcome emails include:
Draw attention to why they signed up for your community in the first place, establishing a problem that you can help solve
Talk through how your community works in terms of nuts and bolts, like how to post, respond, or start an event
Answer common questions about your products if they’re tied to your community
Offer free content as a thank you for signing up that requires logging in to the community to access
Spotlight popular threads or conversations that orient new members to rules of engagement
Include a coupon code or discount for additional products
3. Use email marketing to promote events and meet-ups
Email is the best channel to facilitate virtual and in-person meetups for community members.
That’s the bread and butter of Jessica’s community.
No one is coming to a live event if I don’t invite them via email. Sending an email like that is opening a door to engagement with the community. – Jessica Abel
Each invitation Jessica sends doesn’t just have the details—though those are crucial. Instead, she structures the invites the same way she does her regular weekly emails, by leading with storytelling.
I like that people invite me into their life once a week or so, and I look at my invitations as an opportunity to share what I’m thinking about and add value to get someone interested in what I have to say. – Jessica Abel
Keep that momentum up with a post-event email, too. This is particularly useful for virtual, recorded events—someone may not have been able to attend live, but they can still feel connected.
Jessica includes a link to the replay, plus screengrabs of relevant chats and links.
4. Feature your community in your regular emails
Not everyone on your email list will want to join your community, and that’s okay.
Just as getting your emails is a natural next step from following you on social media, joining an online community, especially a paid one, will mean deepening their engagement with you.
But the more you feature your community in your emails, the more curious your subscribers will become, which is how Kevin grows his members.
I answer questions and mention topics people discuss in my [regular] emails, which shows people what it’s like to be a member. It’s like giving a peek inside so people know if it’s for them or not. The more you bring people ‘into’ your community by showing them what conversations are happening inside, who’s actively participating, what questions are being answered, and what educational content you’re offering, the more people will want to join to get the full scoop. – Kevin C. Whelan
Another way Kevin piques his subscribers’ curiosity about his community is by asking them what kind of content they want to see in the future. These members-only trainings happen on a regular basis and are a big draw for folks to join.
I use Kit’s link trigger feature to poll my subscribers for topics they’re interested in, which shapes my future emails and member content. When people click a link to vote for their preferences, it tags them with their interests. This helps me ensure I’m creating useful content for members and prospective members in the future without having to guess. I think this works because people feel more bought in and the content becomes more aligned to the needs of the actual market, not just the needs I think people have. Big difference. – Kevin C. Whelan
Adding tags organizes subscribers and members based on what they’re most interested in, so he can better tailor his emails and his content in the future.
This might be on various topics, but you can also use tags to sort messaging by “members” and “non-members,” too. Charis uses Kit Tags every time someone makes a purchase or registers for any free content, which helps her trigger emails for similar events or products.
Everything is always tagged on our website, so if you make a purchase or register for a free event, we have you in a segment. That way we can make sure we’re giving our audience what they’re looking for. – Charis Lindrooth
5. Send weekly community activity highlights to keep people coming back
An online community is only as effective as the engagement of its members. Email can be a great way to give people a little nudge to jump back in and contribute to conversations, start an event, or ask a question. That’s why Jessica sends out a roundup each week to her members.
I include the themed post for the week, say something about what’s happening, and list out highlights, like upcoming coaching calls, so people can jump right in. I see very high opens and clickthroughs with that. The more you can call out individual members’ contributions and highlight conversations, the more people get curious. – Jessica
Grow your community faster with Kit + Mighty Networks
Want to make it even easier to grow your community? Our newest and deepest integration with the creator-focused community platform Mighty Networks makes your tool stack even more powerful.
Your Kit and Mighty Network accounts will not only sync together, but you can also pull content from Mighty Networks directly into your Kit emails to seamlessly add content from your community based on your audience segments, earn more by pitching your community, and more.
The Mighty Networks integration is available on any paid Kit plan, so sign up for a free trial and find out how you can earn more with your paid community.
Own the relationship with your audience
Kit helps you build a relationship with your followers and own that connection you make with them through your email list.
Always in search of adventure, Kayla hails from Hopkinton, MA, the start of the Boston Marathon. When she's not using words to help businesses grow, she's probably summiting a mountain or digging into a big bowl of pasta. Like what you're reading? Come say hi: http://www.kaylalewkowicz.com (Read more by Kayla)
