Advertising VS Community. Is there a big difference between the two?

"You can just run ads, it takes a lot less time," said the Performance Ads guy before the pandemic.

There's a chance this was true two years ago.There are too many ads today, and they cost too much.Why?Because everyone thinks the same way as Mr. Performance Ads.Together, they're filling the ad-vert bidding war to the brim.

In two years, it's going to be almost impossible to run ads directly to your product because of how much moneyit costs.Trust is hard to come by, so even if you get a click, you're probably not going to make a sale. A community isn't just your moat; its main value is that it boosts conversion by making people more trusting.

People may have thought that the old model was better when it worked for a short time.It doesn't take long for a dollar to turn into two dollars.The new way to do businessis to build your community first, then make moneyfrom it. It's cheaper, but very slow.It can take months for the money you spend to show up in the results.But, boy, did it pay off. It was worth it.

There's a big benefit to building a community because when advertising platforms are all used up, it will be the only way to grow your business.Another Zoho executive recently said that his company is going to stop paying for ads on Google because link clicks are too expensive even for the company.

In the long run, community isn't going to build trust. It's going to cut CAC and increase LTV by a lot.Your job is to spend money on things that will be good for the company in the long run.Community is a good thing to do, and it's a good idea.

Marketing, Advertising and Community

Turning The Funnel Around

It's the way information is spread that makes the two different.

A "Marketing Funnel" is a term you may have heard before.There are 100,000 people who see your ads.Ads with 10,000 clicks.And 2,000 people changed their minds.

If you want to build a community, you want to turn the funnel upside down.You start a group for 2,000 people.These are the people who started working for you as soon as you started working together.They each spread the word to 5 other people, so you now have 10,000 people in your community.Then each of them spreads the word to 10 other people, and you have 100,000 people in your group.

Community is more difficult to start.But when you reach a certain number of people, word spreads like wild fire.It means that your CAC is going down over time.

Also, community has a place in an organization that isn't just the marketing department. In the past, community was thought of as just another way to get attention for your brand or business.Today, businesses are starting to see how important it is for their products, customer service, and so much more to have a sense of community.

How To Distinguish Advertising And Community

Advertising is how you get them in the door.

Community is their experience once they’re in the door.

If you're building a community, you're giving people a sense of belonging and who they are.You're helping them get to know each other and build friendships.You're giving your customers a great experience.

So Marketing Goals Might Be

• Reach
• Traffic
• Signups
• New customers created
• Followers
• Awareness

Community Goals Look More Like

• Happiness (NPS)
• Retention
• Active users
• Return customers
• Referrals
• Product feedback

When you think about it, what if you had someone who did marketing but was judged on community goals and metrics?A more common mistake is to judge a person in the community by their marketing goalsand metrics.

A lot of marketing metricscan be tracked right away, but community metrics take a long time to really track and understand.So, it's easier to show ROI for marketing than it is for community because it's easier to show for marketing.

Community And Advertising Working Together

Obviously, just like any other member of your team, community and advertising are linked.Your brand has a belief, a culture, and a sense of who you are because it is linked to it.It's often the identity and culture of the community that drives the culture of the place where they live.Member: It's what holds them together.You can see this in Lyft, which is a great example of a company whose marketing, culture, and community are all very well matched.

When people in a company compete for resources, it might look like they're competing against each other. But it's not like that in a competition.adding more customers or making the experience better for your current customers is what you should focus on more.How does every business have to answer this question at different times?

Community And Marketing Can Even Overlap In A Few Places

• You can find people in your community who want to be ambassadors for your business. This will help you get more people to come into your business.
• Word of mouth, or referral marketing, can be better if you build a group of customers and encourage them to spread the word about your business.
• People in your community can write or tell stories that you can use for marketing.
• Advertising and community can both be used to make people feel like they have a sense of who they are because of a brand.

It's also true that you can have one person do both marketing and community service at the same time.It's not unusual for one person to do a lot of different things at a small start-up.

People should know that they have different jobs with different goals and metrics, so that's what's important.It doesn't matter if it's just one person.Even if you call it "Community Management," it's still the same thing.

Conclusion

Before you decide which type of advertising you want to do, think about who the community is and what the goal of the marketing campaign is. In the long run, using both strategies would be a good way to market.