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We assume that at the time you are reading this article, you have heard of a community that creates traffic, conversions, and customer representatives for a product or company, and you ask yourself: How do I do this ?!

And we are with you. We have our own Facebook group because a few years ago we realized that the creation of a community represents enormous added value for our laboratory members and our company.

Regardless of what type of community you want to build, there is a 100% chance that you will find the platform where you can host it. You can create communities on Facebook, Instagram, Patreon, your own membership platform, etc.

Our Facebook community has had incredible relationships between community members that have helped them improve their marketing strategies and business activities. We have also created an open line of communication between our members and us so that we can always see what we can do to help them more.

Based on this experience, we have found that every business owner has to ask 6 questions before investing time and resources in their online community.

Ask yourself these 6 questions to determine if an online community is right for your business.

# 1: Is a community a good added value for your offer?

For some products and services, a community is an enormous added value for your current offer. For example, a one-time purchase of a YouTube coaching program can provide access to a Facebook group.

Sunny Lenarduzzi, developer of the Authority Accelerator program, which helps her customers to generate sales on YouTube, offers added value when accessing the program for accessing the Facebook group.

With her community, she can show that not only will her customers get a course that they need to find out for themselves, but they will also have access to Sunny and other members of Authority Accelerator who can help with challenges or cheer them on when they need them Motivation.

# 2: Would your customers benefit from speaking to each other?

For some products, merging the community leads to even more success for customers. DigitalMarketer is the walking and talking example of this. If you are a Lab member at DM, you will have access to our Facebook group DigitalMarketer Engage.

Here our members can seek mutual advice, work together and deal with experienced marketers, agency owners and entrepreneurs who can offer help based on experience. By giving our members access to each other, we can maintain these valuable relationships.

# 3: Could you use your community to answer the same questions on a scale?

If you use a community, you can help many people with just one message. Suppose an online fitness trainer has his community on Instagram. You can answer the same question on a large scale by posting the answer to your community.

For example, Kayla uses Itsines Instagram as the main hub of her community's lead generation page. As soon as someone buys their "Sweat" fitness app, they have a community within the Sweat platform. We are currently focusing on the Instagram community.

If Kayla continues to see that community members are interested in what she eats for breakfast, instead of answering everyone, she can make a post that everyone will see.

This helps her answer the same question on a scale. If you find yourself answering the same question all the time, but for different people, a community can create an area where you can answer those questions and then refer to the answer while the question is asked again and again.

# 4: is your community a good place to host events?

With your community as your digital headquarters, you can host events within your community. Depending on the incentive, these events can last from one day to a week or longer.

For example, if you want to publish a book, you can host events related to your book a few months before publication. Events can create excitement around your book launch and all of the juicy content it contains. Another option is to go live and have conversations with your community members.

Rachel Hollis is a good example of this; She and her husband went live every day of the week to cultivate a deeper relationship with their audience and promote their products. They used Rachel's Facebook page to go live, which meant that every viewer could interact with Rach & Dave Morning Show in the comments during Start Today.

Rachel spoke during her interview at the Traffic & Conversion Summit 2019 about how important this was for her business success.

# 5: Would your customers like to know more about new products and services in the community?

With a community, your customers can learn more about your future products, new services and epic offerings. It's like the ultimate Facebook audience – but you don't have to pay to run ads for them.

In your community, you can tell them about new things to come. You can also create funnels that inspire them to buy (um, like the book example from above).

Another example is the Trends e-mail newsletter, which offers the added value of a Facebook group community for all subscribers. When founder Sam Parr decided to launch a new product: The Ideation Bootcamp for $ 599. Where was the first place he wrote about it? Within the Trends.co Facebook community (he also created an email funnel for it).

If your customers love the current product or service they are getting from you, they will be extremely excited to get a first glimpse of the next projects you are launching.

If this could be useful for your company, you can create a community that can bring you back to the exciting phase of the customer value journey.

# 6: Does a community foster a relationship between you and your customers?

This is the ultimate question you need to ask yourself before starting a community. At best, could this community build a closer relationship between you and your customers? If the answer is yes, you can now give your community almost the green light.

For example, members of our DigitalMarketer Engage have access to Ryan Deiss. If he can, Ryan can help you with your questions (see below).

People want to buy things from other people they know. For this reason, a large part of marketing consists of overcoming the factors "knowledge", "like" and "trust". People don't necessarily want to buy from complete strangers.

They want to feel that they know you by reading your content, following you on social media, being recommended by a friend, and speaking to you directly in the community. The deeper you can build that relationship, the easier it will be for you to get the traffic and conversions you want in the future.

This also works in two ways. Your community will get to know you and YOU will get to know your community. This means that the products and services you create for them are perfectly tailored to your needs and marketed exactly as you would need them to be.

Count that as a double hazard.

Online communities are where you connect your customers, scale your conversations, build a closer relationship with your customers (or leads), and more. If you are wondering whether an online community is still suitable for you, you can use Facebook groups to create and test a free community.

Just think of the golden rule of marketing: if your customers have no value in it, they are not interested.

So make your community useful, value-based and exciting.