How to Build an Online Community Around Your Product or Service

The secret’s out, and who would have guessed it? When companies put in the effort to connect, communicate and engage with their customers, they can create awareness, forge bonds and foster a community of loyal advocates. 

Fintech companies which have understood this and taken it to heart are now reaping the benefits – and you could too.

What’s the buzz about online communities?

Creating a loyal customer base has always presented a challenge, and it’s something the legacy banking and financial industry has struggled with. But it’s a problem that’s too important to ignore, and now disruptors in the fintech industry have changed the way new players are approaching customer engagement. Many fintech companies, including Payoneer, are building online communities designed to create value for both customers and providers

Community marketing is the buzz word – and fintechs are using technology to reach out to and build personal relationships with existing and potential customers online. By creating an online community, these companies are tapping into a younger customer base’s desire for online connectivity and user experiences. Instead of the patriarchy of the legacy banking sector, fintechs offer convenient and user-friendly financial solutions – from online banking and digital business payments to personal finance and investment platforms, to cross-border payment platforms for getting paid by clients around the world. By focusing on online community building, fintech companies are reshaping how customers engage with financial products and services.

What should your online community look like?

When it comes to fintech branding, companies are now looking to build online communities to foster brand loyalty, create an audience for brand messaging, recruit advocates and access customer insights. That’s a lot of heavy lifting and this is what makes the exercise so worthwhile.

Building an online community is about creating compelling ways of engaging with your customers. This could include:

• virtual hangouts
• brand app/social platform where members can connect
• member-only content that informs and educates
• ·customer-led collaborations
• member-only events
• exclusive benefit and reward programs
• member offers and pricing discounts

The purpose is to foster a shared identity and sense of belonging on the customer side, while providing you with an enhanced communication channel and a better understanding of what your customers want from your products and services.

How to build an online community

Building a community takes time and commitment, so it’s important to start working on it at the earliest possible point and take a long-term view. To build fintech brand awareness, you should:

• set out what you want to achieve from creating your online community – networking, education, advocacy, local and global growth – and appoint a community manager
• identify your ideal members from your existing customer profiles – entrepreneurs, freelancers, merchants, investors, developers, etc.
• identify the channels most used by the ideal member personas, such as Slack, Discord, LinkedIn, etc
• create your channel presence and onboarding experiences
• recruit founding members from among your biggest existing supporters
• provide compelling content with calls to action that converts your passive audience into active members of your new community
• ask questions and open conversations on your website and social channels
• identify brand ambassadors and advocates who can help scale up the community, and incentivize them
• use partnerships with other aligned businesses for co-marketing and product innovation
• track metrics that give insight into engagement, referrals and retention to identify ROI and where to target resources
• create a strategy to maintain and build your community