Creating A Community-Focused Marketing Strategy: How to Connect, Provide Value & Grow

The hand that gives is always full.

“We just need to get the low hanging fruit”, “we need a few sales in the door”, “we just need to generate a few sales to start building” are all 

Personally, I’ve found it’s easy to get wrapped up in the rigamarole of focusing all my marketing energy toward direct sales. Cold calling, cold emails,  are time tested methods that generate sales, but it can be an absolute grind at a time when people are growing sick of being “sold to.” 

What we’ve found is that customers want to buy from people they know and support. Businesses that are putting marketing efforts into connecting with their customers before making sales are finding better results when they later try to make the sale. 

So how do we pivot? We suggest taking a community-centric approach, and we’ll explain exactly what that means and how to do it here.

What Is Community-Focused Marketing?

Community-focused marketing is a value-driven marketing strategy that is as much about being involved in your community as it is about what you can give it. 

As an individual, you can contribute to your community by volunteering at local events, providing helpful services in your area, or setting up initiatives that bring your community together to help the local area. If you do stuff like this, you can quickly become a pillar of your community and the go-to person when people are looking for help.

Similarly, as a business, you can contribute to your local business community with things like helpful business resources, providing local networking events, or encouraging participation in the business community, to name a few. In the same way, it’s a quick way to make your business a pillar in the business community and brand yourself as the go-to business when others are looking for help.

The idea is that you are building your brand by building up the people around you. 

Before we get into how you can take a more community-centric approach, let’s take a quick look at how the customer journey has changed.

How Has the Customer Journey Changed?

Whether you started your business today or 20 years ago, you’ve studied the traditional sales funnel. It looks like this:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action

But recent studies show that many people (especially younger demographics) don’t buy like this anymore. 

Today, people want to be taken on an adventure—the journey is less linear. They need to come into contact with your business several times on several platforms, understand your business ethos, and align before they spend money. 

Community-focused marketing can help with many of these factors, helping people get to know your business better, find the value they’re looking for, and align with your values.

3 Ways to Be More Community-Focused 

1. Create & Distribute Valuable, Free Resources

Genuine knowledge is an incredibly valuable resource. When you are able to give your audience genuinely helpful and insightful information, they appreciate it, and they appreciate you for putting it together. You can offer buyers value through resources like:

• Value-driven blog posts and guides
• Webinars and podcasts
• Case studies
• Downloadable templates and checklists
• Newsletters
• Ebooks
• White papers
• Product demos and tutorials
• Exclusive incentives

These kinds of resources are geared toward giving potential customers or clients as much value and information as possible to help them along their customer journey. They’re a chance for buyers to get to know your brand better, see you as an industry leader, and build trust. 

But resources are just one (digital) piece of the puzzle when it comes to community-driven marketing. 

2. Host Local Events

Events bring people together, often people with similar interests and goals. Take networking events, for example. 

A more specific example would be Tech Thursdays, a weekly event for building Calgary’s tech ecosystem and giving local businesses opportunities to speak on important matters. 

If you’d like to take a more community-centric approach to your marketing strategy, hosting regular events is a fantastic idea. Why? It can:

• Position you as an industry leader, showcasing your expertise and commitment.
• Build stronger relationships with your audience, fostering trust and loyalty.
• Generate buzz and visibility, creating excitement and word-of-mouth promotion.
• Create content opportunities, gathering photos, videos, and testimonials.
• Encourage partnerships and collaboration, opening doors.

The best thing about hosting an event? Anyone can do it although it does require planning and some money up front. 

3. Participate in the Business Community

It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and watch others connect. Actually getting in there, starting the conversations, and making the effort is hard. But it does pay off. 

While this relates to networking and hosting events, participating in the business community is also about sparking new connections—whether that’s with individuals or business leads. 

Some cool participation opportunities in Calgary include:

• Weekly Networking Events: Sign up for the YYC Business Events Newsletter to find cool events going on in your area.
• Calgary Stampede: The Stampede has tons of networking opportunities every year.
• Business Accelerators: Programs like the Trade Accelerator Program and Platform Calgary’s Accelerators are great ways to connect with other businesses.
• Agencies: Alberta Innovates is just one of the businesses you can participate with, but they also offer grants and funding.

All of these options are great opportunities for businesses to connect, engage with each other, and help each other out. You’d be surprised at how friendly these Calgary communities are, and how willing some industry experts can be to give advice or point you in the right direction.

Grow Your Community, Grow Your Business!

At the end of the day, businesses are built on relationships. Meeting people is the first step. So, get out there and engage! And if you need any advice along the way, MKTGSpace is here to help. We’d love to connect on LinkedIn.