Breaking down the new Community FUNnel: Top of Funnel - The Site

As Simon Sinek (and a million other marketers) like to say, people do business with people, not companies. Now that you have humanized your company through your Show at the very top of the funnel, it’s time to help your community find more ways to connect.

Your site doesn’t mean your company website, but it can be a page on the company site.

Your site can also be as simple as a Slack channel or a stand-alone landing page. If your community engages digitally, you might consider an online community platform like Mighty Networks. Whatever decision is right for the design of your community, The Site should be a place where your customers, prospects, and team members can easily find ways to connect with the human side of your business.

It’s not about the products or the mission or the prices, it’s about the subject matter experts, the successful customers, and the other members of the community who want to connect with each other over a common set of challenges and solutions.

Make sure your site tells them where to find your Show, your upcoming schedule of gatherings, feature stories of community members and customers, how they can contribute their stories to be featured and shared, and plenty of content that they can access, use, and share.

A few of my favorite community Sites are:

• The Harley Owners Group (HOG) community
• The Lululemon Sweatlife
• The AirBnB Community center for Hosts

We run a community called The Grown-Up Girls Club that I created in 2017. The group gathers once a month to learn a new skill and hang with friends while they do it. Our site is simple: A Facebook Group. Yes, we have an official website, but the Facebook group is where the action is. It's where events are created and advice is shared and questions are asked and answered.

When we created our Secret Family Reunion at Haute in 2019, we started a WhatsApp group - mostly for event logistics - but it continues into 2023 as a vibrant community channel where participants ask for advice, share experiences, and even share business opportunities.

There are many options for you to connect your people digitally, or just point them in the direction of how to meet in-person, but The Site will drive top of funnel engagement down the funnel in a word-of-mouth-feeling way.

Your Homework

Take a look at the places where your people gather online. Are you using it like a community gathering spot? Are you actively engaging with your community in there? If not, does your community even want to connect digitally?

If not, make sure you create a space online for them to find out when the next in-person or virtual experience will be to drive your community forward.

Next up: The Series of Gatherings. 

(If you missed part 1, The Show, catch it here)

Here is the full series of articles:

• The Show
• The Site
• The Series of Gatherings
• The Sounding Board
• The Shareable Moments

Liz Lathan, CMP, is co-founder of The Community Factory, helping brands grow and engage their communities of customers, prospects, and team members. Through a Community Design Strategy session, we help companies develop Community Enablement Programs and offer Community as a Service (CaaS) solutions that fit their needs. Contact Liz at [email protected]