When I started Affiliate Marketing, my biggest challenge was building a community around my brand. It is a back-breaking task to get the audience to be active.
It is a mammoth challenge to get the community members to respond, engage, and comment on posts. I notice it all the time in every Facebook group that I am a member of. People hardly respond! Not to forget the annoying spammers who spam here, there, and everywhere!
I have always wondered what these “influencers” do that people keep coming back and commenting like crazy when they post something new.
So keeping that struggle and frustration in mind, I am going to share 19 tips to help you build a community of raving fans.
19 Steps To Build An Active Affiliate Marketing Community
(1) Stand For Something
As a person, you must have something that you stand for. Starting a business only to make money must not be your biggest goal.
When you start your business, identify what you stand for, what propels you to start the business, and who the “bad guy” is.
For me, you can make money online without having any technical skills and experience through Affiliate Marketing, provided you take action.
So, in my case, “job is the only way to make money” and “you can make money online easily” are the “bad guys”.
Whatever I learned to establish my business I owe to my mentors and my hard work. I realised that Affiliate Marketing is a genuine business model and if you work hard and consider it a real business, you can make money.
I stand for financial independence and my mission is to help 10,000 people live a life of financial through the power of Affiliate Marketing.
You don’t need to do a job with a toxic boss and team and you don’t need to conform to society’s norms. You can build a profitable business from the comfort of your homes and live a lifestyle of financial independence by promoting the brands you love.
I also make sure to repel people who don’t want to work hard and take action. I never work with people who want to earn without putting in the effort. I know I will lose thousands of people, but I don’t want to please everybody.
I work only with those who resonate with me. Only then will I be able to deliver results, isn’t it?
Similarly, the right audience, the people who resonate with your ideology connect with you and become your die-hard fans.
(2) Positivity
A tightly-knit community will help to create a memorable and positive experience for your customers. People love brands that they can interact and connect with.
Secondly, people are inspired to use the new product if they see a lot of positive engagement around that product.
(3) Offer Tools & Resources
You can help your community to grow faster by providing them with the tools and resources that will help them to succeed.
This includes the software, graphics, swipe files, documents, videos, tips, techniques, etc. they can utilise.
(4) Attract Customers By Delivering Value
When you create content for your business, it should cover the ‘how’ and ‘why’ more than ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘who’, and ‘where’.
Your content should be filled with value, it should help people and solve their problems. When you create content, you will notice that people who resonate with you and your mission keep coming back. On the other hand, people who don’t resonate with you, leave and, probably, never come back.
When people realise that you provide value and you have the ability and the skills to change their lives, they visit your website often, attend your webinars, workshops, and training, and buy your product.
When people buy your products (and/or services), they are serious about changing their lives. And as my mentor says, “People who pay money pay attention. People who pay attention, take action. And, people who take action get results.”
Although you provide free information in the form of blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc. people who are committed to changing their lives transact with you.
(5) Set The Code Of Honor
If you want to create a community of raving fans, you should set and follow a strong set of principles of code of honour.
Before providing value, before solving problems, before helping people, you should set a code of honour. Not only set the code of honour, but you should also follow the code of honour.
If you are someone who has set a code of honour, but you do not follow it, your community will realise it and you will come out as just another ‘fake guru’.
So set and follow a code of honour yourself and then your community and customers will follow you.
(6) Build A Culture Of Mutual Respect
The next step to building a community of die-hard fans is to support and help your community members, no matter what!
Inside your community, you will have every type of people: some will be experienced, some will be beginners, some will have technical knowledge, some will not have technical knowledge, some will be fluent English speakers, and some will only speak their native language.
Regardless of people’s educational backgrounds, experience, and skills, you need to create a culture where everyone is respected and everyone respects everyone.
This feeling of mutual respect will help create a strong bond among the community members.
(7) Create A Community Vocabulary
Every strong community has their Inner jokes, memes & lingo. People who are into crypto use certain words. People who are into gaming also have their terminology.
This might sound ridiculous to some of you, but memes are the latest evolution in the language of communication. The fact that you have laser eyes on Twitter means something to a specific community of people.
This is why Elon Musk keeps tweeting memes. We are now communicating differently.
If you’re looking to build a religion or a cult-like following, build your lingo, and build your vocabulary. For instance, every time I encourage my community members, I end the “pep talk” with “C’mon boys!”
Why “C’mon boys!?”
Because before becoming a full-time Affiliate Marketer, I used to play cricket and when I was the captain, I used to end my speech with “C’mon boys!”
Similarly, I use plenty of catchphrases with the members of my community. That’s my vocabulary. Similarly, you should build your vocabulary.
(8) Consistency
Consistency is key, period!
No matter what you are trying to achieve, consistency is the most important thing you should master.
Pursue any goal, work consistently, and it’s only a matter of time until you achieve it. Your success and that of your community require a high level of consistency.
Build a routine, build a daily practice, and this consistency will knit down the community. When you show up consistently and deliver information with high and positive energy, your community will feel that you are always there for them.
You can conduct a weekly mastermind, monthly workshops, etc. You should keep your community members in the loop about the ongoings, future plans, and share the list of tools and information to help them achieve their goals.
(9) Build A Habit-Forming Experience
In your community, create a habit-forming customer experience. For instance, encourage your community members to:
- Listen to motivational audio. My mentor recommends we listen to “The Strangest Secret In The World” every day.
- Write goals every day.
- Write ideas daily.
- Write and repeat affirmations every day.
- Attend webinars, workshops, and training.
- Write things they are thankful for.
- And, so on.
(10) Create An Offline Experience
If possible, you could organize offline events to deepen the bond with your community members.
For instance, I went to Mumbai last month to meet the members of my community. We had dinner together, played music, danced (I suck at dancing), had fun, shared our experiences, laughed together, cried together, and strengthened our bond. Although it was not a grand event, we had a memorable experience.
It also enabled them to meet me and realise that I am a real human being and not a robot! 😛
(11) Values & Culture
As a social animal species, we are looking for belonging, we are looking for people like us.
We all have a vacant spot within us that needs to be filled. We are drawn to people like us. We are drawn to people who see the world the same way we see the world. We are drawn to people who walk on the path we walk on.
Every strong community includes people who share the same values, the same culture, and the same mission.
It is said that if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together. The moment you find people who share the same values as you, the journey to going far will commence.
(12) Make Community Members Feel Special & Appreciated
Create a community where every member feels appreciated and special. Create a feeling that every member feels privileged to be a part of the community.
Aim to create a community that when asked why did they join answers, “He/She helped me without expecting anything in return.”
Your community should feel understood and accepted without judgement. As we all know that acceptance is another form of helping!
Show appreciation to your community. They should feel that you care for them. They should know that you have their best interests at heart and that you don’t take them for granted.
Let your community know that you appreciate them and reward such members who help you become better and contribute to your mission.
Every person in your community has the potential to become an ambassador for your cause or brand. Give back to those who’ve been with you for a while, for they are the ones most likely to stick with you until the very end.
It is your responsibility to care for them, and in return, they will walk alongside you!
(13) Build Trust
Trust is the underlying bond of every social contract! I will always prefer to join a community that is trustworthy for trust is even more important than love.
You can build trust by delivering value. Your community members should feel deep within that they are better because of this community or are becoming better by being a part of this community.
Trust leads to more trust as fear leads to more fear. Your aim should be to create a community that provides a safer place against the fears of its members. If you could earn people’s trust by providing value and knowledge, you’d win in every social interaction.
(14) Promise & Deliver A Positive Outcome
If you want your community to flourish in their lives, you should promise and deliver a positive outcome for the members.
At an individual level, your community members should say to themselves, “If I keep doing the things I am being told to do, I will get the results I want.”
For instance, let’s consider Tesla. People who are invested in Tesla know that there is a direct financial benefit to them if things go the right way.
If Tesla becomes the biggest car manufacturer in the world, they will get rich because of it.
Similarly, every group needs to have a positive personal outcome on the individual level to create a strong community and entice new members to join.
(15) Vulnerability
When you become vulnerable with your community and share your weaknesses, failures, and bad experiences, the members of the community look up to you.
Every great leader knows that to connect deeply with their community members they need to come out as human beings, with their flaws, weaknesses, and bad experiences.
Once you share your weaknesses, mistakes, disappointing experiences, and challenges with your community, you speak the hearts of your community members. You speak about what your community feels.
Once you share everything with your community members, they are encouraged to reciprocate, empathise, and are willing to be open.
(16) Skin In The Game
Many “gurus” and “experts” voice their opinion about anything and everything. However, unless you have the skin in the game, your opinion won’t matter.
If you want to build a cult-following or a closely-knit community, you need to get your skin in the game. For example, once you invest in Tesla, your financial growth is dependent on the growth and success of the company. If the company falls, you fall and lose your money. On the contrary, if the company grows, you grow and your money grows.
The more you are in the game and the more skin you have in the game, the more you become an authoritative figure for the thing you stand for.
As an authoritative figure, you should encourage your community members to participate. Once they have their skin in the game, they will take action, work hard, improve their skills, get their voices heard, and get closer to their goals.
(17) Know Your Community
As humans, we need human connections to build bonds. The best way to build life-long bonds is to know your community members.
You can know your community by scheduling events (online or offline), informal sessions, and connecting on a personal level.
To build strong connections with my community and to know them better, I follow my mentor’s template. I conduct weekly masterminds and monthly events to connect with them and create life-long relations.
Such events and masterminds help to know each other and build a closely-knit community. Your customers are normal human beings like you with different interests and aspirations. Hence, it is crucial to make time to interact with them and get to know them, what they like, what they do, and so on.
(18) Have Fun!
Do you hang out with people who suck your energy? Nobody wants to hang out with such people. Make learning interesting, gamify your courses, etc.
You have to make learning fun somehow! The deepest and strongest bonds that you have in your life are with your childhood friends. You might not get time to meet regularly, but one thing is for sure – you have fun when you meet.
In addition to the value you are providing, there needs to be an entertainment aspect to it. Gamify your courses, gamify your training, crack jokes while teaching, etc. To create a lively community, you should have fun and make the learning process fun.
(19) Have A Bigger Than Everyone Mission
Many entrepreneurs fail because their sole purpose in starting a business is making money. If you are money-minded, you won’t go a long way in this journey.
As a person, your mission should be to help people with your knowledge, skills, and expertise. When you help people to achieve their goals, you achieve your goals.
For example, at a broader level, I am making money from my Affiliate Marketing, but if you delve deeper, you will find that, at a deeper level, my mission is to help 10,000 people live a life of financial independence.
The best communities in the world have these bigger-than-myself missions.
Now, you might ask: “Who/What decides that mission?” The answer is, your core! Whatever you do in life, if you feel it can help and benefit others, that will be your mission.
For instance, as I shared earlier, I am an Affiliate Marketer who aims to help 10,000 people live a life of financial independence. Therefore, when I work, I aim to help people and when my community sees value and gets results, the by-product is me making money.
Conclusion
When I started Affiliate Marketing, my biggest challenge was building a community around my brand. It is a back-breaking task to get the audience to be active.
It is a mammoth challenge to get the community members to respond, engage, and comment on posts. I notice it all the time in every Facebook group that I am a member of. People hardly respond! Not to forget the annoying spammers who spam here, there, and everywhere!
You can also follow these 19 steps/tips to create an active community for your Affiliate Marketing business:
- Stand For Something
- Positivity
- Offer Tools And Resources
- Attract Customers By Delivering Value
- Set The Code Of Honour
- Build A Culture Of Mutual Respect
- Create A Community Vocabulary
- Consistency
- Build A Habit-Forming Experience
- Create An Offline Experience
- Values & Culture
- Make Community Members Feel Special And Appreciated
- Build Trust
- Promise And Deliver A Positive Outcome
- Vulnerability
- Skin In The Game
- Know Your Community
- Have Fun!
- Have A Bigger Than Everyone Mission
