Going the Distance: Four Ways to Build a Better Customer Loyalty Program for Your Brand

It’s easy enough for a customer to join your loyalty program, especially when you’re offering an incentive such as discounts. All your customer has to do is give out some basic information, and voila! They’re in the fold, a brand new loyalty member with your company. From there, it’s happily ever after. You offer the perks; they stand solidly by you, bringing you their continued business. Simple. Or is it? In reality, just how many of those customers are act ively participating in your loyalty program? Do you know? Sure, loyalty program memberships are on the rise according to market research company eMarketer, having jumped 25 percent in the space of just two years. However, that figure may be a bit misleading. The truth is that, while loyalty program sign-ups may be more numerous, active participation in such programs is actually in decline. At the time of the study, the average US household had memberships in 29 loyalty programs; yet consumers were only active in 12 of those. That’s just 41 percent. And even that meager figure represents a drop of 2 percentage points per year over each of the preceding four years, according to a study by loyalty-marketing research company COLLOQUY.

When discounts just aren’t enough

So what’s a brand to do? How can you make your loyalty program worth your customer’s while—as well as your own? After all, gaining a new loyalty member doesn’t mean much if your customer isn’t actively participating in your program. Consider this: Does your customer loyalty program offer members anything different from what your competitors are offering? Chances are your program includes discounts. That’s a given. And what customer doesn’t appreciate a good discount? But when every other company out there is providing this staple benefit in comparable amounts, it becomes less and less likely that customers will remain loyal to any one particular brand. Frankly, it’s all too easy for customers to get lost in a sea of loyalty member discounts. They’re everywhere. In fact, just under half of internet users perceive that all rewards programs are alike, according to a 2015 eMarketer survey. The key to success, then, is to differentiate your business from the crowd. If you can offer your customers something unique and valuable beyond the usual discount, chances are they’ll be more likely to stick with your brand. Here’s some inspiration from companies who get it.

Virgin: Reward more purchases with more benefits.

That’s not to say you need to get rid of discounts entirely. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Customers still love a good discount. The goal is to be creative in terms of the loyalty perks you offer. Take the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, for example. As part of its loyalty program, the airline allows members to earn miles and tier points. Members are inducted at the Club Red tier, from which they can move up to Club Silver and then Club Gold. Here, it’s not just a discount. It’s status. And people respond to feeling important, elite. Still, even where the rewards themselves are concerned, Virgin is motivating loyalty customers with some pretty attractive offers. At the Club Red tier, members earn flight miles and receive discounts on rental cars, airport parking, hotels and holiday flights. But as members rise in tiers, they get even more. At the Club Silver tier, members earn 50 percent more points on flights, access to expedited check-in, and priority standby seating. And once they reach the top, Club Gold members receive double miles, priority boarding and access to exclusive clubhouses where they can get a drink or a massage before their flight. Now that’s some serious incentive to keep coming back for more. Discounts are still part of the equation – but they are designed with innovation and personal value in mind, elevating them to more than just savings.

Amazon Prime: Pay upfront and become a VIP.

What if your customers only had to pay a one-time upfront fee to get a year’s worth of substantial benefits? It may not sound like the smartest business idea at first glance. But take a closer look. Amazon Prime users pay a nominal $99 a year to gain free, two-day shipping on millions of products with no minimum purchase. And that’s just one benefit of going Prime. It’s true that Amazon loses $1-2 billion a year on Prime. This comes as no surprise given the incredible value the program offers. But get this: Amazon makes up for its losses in markedly higher transaction frequency. Specifically, Prime members spend an average of $1,500 a year on Amazon.com, compared with $625 spent by non-Prime users, a ccording to a 2015 report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Patagonia: Cater to customer values.

Sometimes, the draw for consumers isn’t saving money or getting a great deal. The eco-friendly outdoor clothing company Patagonia figured this out back in 2011, when it partnered with eBay to launch its Common Threads Initiative: a program that allows customers to resell their used Patagonia clothing via the company’s website. Why is this program important to customers? And how does it benefit Patagonia? The company’s brand embraces environmental and social responsibility, so it was only fitting that they create a platform for essentially recycling old clothing rather than merely throwing it away. The Common Threads Initiative helps Patagonia build a memorable brand and fierce loyalty by offering its customers a cause that aligns with deep personal values. OK, so their customers get to make a little money, too. Everybody wins.

American Airlines: Gamify your loyalty program.

If you’re going to offer your customers a loyalty program, why not make it f un? After all, engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your customer. And what better way to achieve that goal than making a game of it. American Airlines had this very thing in mind when it created its AAdvantage Passport Challenge following its merger with USAirways. The goal: find a new way to engage customers as big changes were underway. Using a custom Facebook application, American Airlines created a virtual passport to increase brand awareness while offering members a chance to earn bonus points. Customers earned these rewards through a variety of game-like activities, from answering trivia questions to tracking travel through a personalized dashboard. In the end, participants earned more than 70 percent more stamps than expected – and the airline saw a ROI of more than 500 percent. The takeaway: people like games.

Stand out from the crowd.

Your approach to your customer loyalty program should align with your overall marketing approach. Effective branding is about standing out, not blending it. Being memorable is key. To this end, keep in mind that loyalty programs are no longer a novelty. That means that yesterday’s strategies won’t work moving forward, so look for ways to rise above the noise, setting yourself apart from the cloying drone of countless other cookie-cutter programs.

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10 Keys to a Successful Marketing Partnership

You would never try to write your own legal contracts. You certainly wouldn’t dream of trying to perform your own root canal. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even attempt to change the oil in your car.

There’s a reason these tasks are left to the professionals. They require a high level of expertise to ensure success. One misstep could have disastrous consequences.

The task of growing your business is no different. Getting and keeping customers is the very lifeblood of your organization, and as such, must be handled with surgical precision. Don’t shortchange your business growth goals or leave the critical process of building community around your brand to chance.

There are many hidden costs of do-it-yourself marketing – not the least of which are a loss of time, loss of focus on running and managing your business and loss of money if you are still playing by the outmoded rules of old marketing. If you are not capitalizing on every opportunity to engage with your customers and prospects via new technologies and new media, your competitors will, and you’ll be left behind.

Yes, you need the creative resources of an agency. But more than that, you need a trusted business partner that is invested in your long-term success. It’s not about flashy ad campaigns or catchy slogans. It goes far beyond advertising and branding. Trustcasting agencies are experts in more than just the creative arena. The real value in working with a trustcasting agency is applying creativity to every element of business growth.

When you choose the right trustcasting agency, you’ll have an equal and proactive partner in the growth of your business.When you choose the right trustcasting agency, you’ll have an equal and proactive partner in the growth of your business. Nothing is more important in today’s marketplace than cultivating and nurturing your core group of customers. Finding them, engaging them in community, building their trust and putting their passion to work to help you grow – this is the specialty of the trustcasting agency.

Working with a trustcasting agency requires you to do more than give your blessing to creative campaigns and sign checks when the invoices arrive. The best marketing partnerships start with you. You must come to your agency with an open mind but armed with clear objectives, good perspective, creative ideas and solid data. You must be prepared to back up their efforts by creating a culture of quality and service within your business to ensure that you practice what you preach.

Following are 10 practices you must implement in order to actively engage with your trustcasting agency in promoting the growth of your business.

Good discipline goes a long way

Your business – and the promotion of it – thrives on your ideas. You must have a clear vision for your company: How will it grow? What do your customers need, and how do you address those needs? How do you create a brand that people embrace as part of their own identity? How do you excite your fans to the point of being your evangelists?

The only way you can make the time you need to grow is through vigilance with regard to organization and productivity.Achieving this level of clarity requires an investment of time, effort and focus – with the greatest emphasis on time. The only way you can make the time you need to grow is through vigilance with regard to organization and productivity.

Efficiency creates more opportunities for profit, while disorganization has significant opportunity costs. Having the right work environment saves you time and money every day. Steve Strauss, author of The Small Business Bible, coined the term R.O.O. (return on organization, estimating that “increased R.O.O. can yield up to an extra two hours of productive time a week and up to an additional six percent of revenue.”

For a business owner or marketer, good time management is just as important as sound financial management. Eliminate distractions. Stop multi-tasking. Clear your desk and clear your mind.

Give yourself the time you need to take a step back and gain perspective. Focus on ways to improve your internal operations, your employee morale, your customer service and your product or service offering, and bring your best ideas to your trustcasting agency.

Out of order comes inspiration

Once you’ve organized your work environment and maximized your productivity, you’ll find that the space and time you’ve created for yourself paves the way for inspiration to follow.

The good news: inspiration can come from anywhere at anytime. Keep your eyes open, be present in the moment and be an active observer of the world around you. Blogs, Twitter, books, magazines, art, friends, neighbors, customers – any of these can be the source of your next big idea as long as you are perpetually searching and constantly in tune with your passion for growing your business.

The challenge of inspiration is that you never know just when it will strike. Ideas don’t arrive on schedule. In fact, they are probably least likely to come when you are sitting in front of your computer. More often than not, your best thinking happens when you are driving, cooking, sleeping or even brushing your teeth. Make sure you always keep your journal or smartphone at hand so you can jot down a note whenever and wherever you might be.

Part of being a good entrepreneur is being a good steward of ideas. Don’t allow inspiration to pass you by without capturing it, and don’t allow the motivation behind it to dissipate before you explore all the possibilities that lie therein.

Every idea has the potential to become something valuable, even if you can’t immediately recognize how to execute or monetize it. That’s where your trustcasting agency comes into play. Bring them all of your ideas – no matter how rough and unrefined. They’ll help you sift through them, identify the gems and polish them into a brilliant and actionable business growth strategy.

Playing the numbers game

It’s a fact: business growth requires some degree of trial and error. However, that’s not to say that you can’t tip the odds of achieving success in your favor.

In today’s marketplace, good marketing is more cost-efficient than ever before, but it all starts with good data. You need a solid foundation in order to ensure that your efforts are driving revenue rather than undermining profitability.

The key is having good metrics in place – metrics that go much deeper than just measuring traffic to your website. You need to quantify your core business operations. At the most basic level, you must know the real cost to acquire a new customer and the lifetime value of that customer.

There are a number of factors that play into these figures: What brings your customers in the door? What motivates a them to make a purchase? How much do they spend? How many times do they return? What brings them back, and who do they tell about their experience? If they leave, where did they go and why? By answering these questions, you can determine the level of investment you must make in your marketing and trustcasting efforts in order to continue to grow.

If you have a Web presence and are active in social media, it’s also critical to keep a finger on the pulse of your online community. Again, it starts with the basics: the number of visitors to your site, what brought them there, how long they spend there and what causes them to leave.

But in the Web marketing universe, where community building is essential to brand building, you must take this analysis much further. Is your online following growing, and if so, how quickly? What is the ratio of active members to total members? How many mentions are you getting in the social web, and are they positive or negative? Are your fans sharing your content and links with their friends, and are their friends then passing these on to others within their own networks?

If this sounds daunting, don’t worry. Your trustcasting agency can show you how to take your business processes and break them down to the numbers. Together you can examine the data to determine what’s working and what’s not and use this information as a baseline for improvement. In doing so, you can be sure that you are making a sound investment in growth, not just spending money and hoping for a good return.

There is no substitute for consistency and quality

Now that you’ve made an objective analysis of your business operations, it’s time to take a subjective look at your brand and its perception in the marketplace.

Sit down with your trustcasting agency and inventory everything that you put in front of your customers – from your signage to your business cards to your merchandise displays to your advertising and website.

Evaluate each element with critical eye. What do these things say about you? Do they all work together cohesively to make a clear and deliberate statement? Or are they sending mixed messages about who you are and what you stand for? Worse yet, are they turning potential customers away because they project a lack of professionalism or quality?

Your customers can always tell when you cut corners, and it undermines their trust in you. As you work through this process, a good exercise is to look at the best of the best – companies like Apple, BMW and Nike that have mastered quality in the perception of their brand. What trends do they follow? What is the common thread that runs through everything they release into the marketplace?

For example, Apple has built their name on unparalleled quality in design, and nothing reaches the consumer that doesn’t reflect their unrelenting dedication to protecting this reputation. From their products to their packaging to their stores to their ads, Apple is invested in sending a clear and consistent message that they stand for innovative, beautiful design. As a result, when people do business with Apple, they know exactly what to expect time after time.

You can’t fake quality. Your customers can always tell when you cut corners, and it undermines their trust in you. Instead, you must recognize the importance of quality as a way of demonstrating respect for your customers and be committed to preserving the integrity of your brand through and through. With the help of your trustcasting agency, you can ensure that just like Apple, BMW and Nike, it is your name that is synonymous with quality in your market.

Keep your enemies closer

It is the curse of the entrepreneur to be obsessed with the competition. And, to a degree, that fixation can be quite productive.

If you’re like many business owners, you probably think that your competitors know more than you do, are doing more and are doing it better. However, if you want to get and stay ahead, don’t just assume – analyze.

Be your competitor’s customer. Pay close attention to each and every aspect of your experience. What kind of service did you receive while you were there, from the moment you set foot in the door until you left? How do they organize and present their merchandise? Did you walk away with a positive impression? What are they doing to build community around their brand? What kind of incentives do they offer customers to become their fans and evangelists?

Get every detail down, and feed this information to your trustcasting agency. Together, you can determine whether your perceptions line up with reality and mine this information for opportunities to outperform your competitors and conquer your market.

That being said, it’s also important to keep your focus on your competitors in check. It’s necessary to keep tabs on what your competition is doing but not to the point where it becomes a distraction from or a detriment to doing what is best for your own business.

Don’t fall into the temptation to follow your competitors or replicate what they are doing successfully. Instead, allow your trustcasting agency the freedom to try new things. You need to carve out your own niche in the marketplace, create your own identity, offer something unique to your customers and cultivate your own community of dedicated followers.

Everyone is in marketing, everyone is in sales

No matter what business you are in, you are in the customer service business. Brands are built on engagement. You may get only one chance to make a first impression, but the reality is that each and every impression counts toward earning and sustaining customer loyalty.

Good customer service is the proof in the pudding of your brand promise. Good customer service is the proof in the pudding of your brand promise. Your marketing investment is nothing but money down the drain if you don’t back it up with relentless dedication to ensuring that every customer experience reflects the values you claim to stand for.

Your trustcasting agency can help you initiate the trust-building process through honest, communication that demonstrates respect for the customer. But if the customer has a bad experience face-to-face, the foundation you’ve worked so hard to establish will be quickly destroyed. You can’t win loyalty through even the best, most well-crafted and sincere marketing messages; you must earn it through a series of positive experiences over time.

When a customer comes through your doors, your employees are the ones that make or break their experience. Every detail – from their appearance to their demeanor to their attitude to their response to requests or problems – shapes the customer’s perception of your brand. If they have a negative encounter, they won’t lose faith in your staff member, they’ll lose faith in you, and you’ll lose the lifetime value of that customer.

As a result, marketing is the responsibility of every person in your organization. From the first impression to the last, you must place value on every interaction and every event. Don’t be complacent in expecting that a certain percentage of customers will inevitably have problems and be content to offer an apology after the fact.

Indoctrinate your employees on the importance of service that goes above and beyond expectation at every opportunity. Teach them how to anticipate needs before they are even expressed, listen attentively for concerns and proactively address problems. Continuously seek out and improve areas of weakness. Make every encounter as personal as possible, no matter how large or small your business.

Trustcasting begins at home

The charge of a trustcasting agency is to help you meet your business growth objectives by facilitating the process of building and maintaining trust. Everything they do is centered around developing authentic and reciprocal relationships that are founded upon honest, two-way communication.

Most often, this process is focused on your customers, but cultivating trust and honesty within your organization is equally important.

Just as you strive to create a personal experience for your customers, do the same for your employees. Engage in face-to-face interaction whenever possible. Foster an environment that promotes open communication at all levels of your organization. Give every employee complete transparency in regard to their job tasks, why they are important and if their work came to a good effect.

Even more importantly, your employees are one of the most cost-effective sources of ideas that you have at your disposal. Your people are your eyes and ears. They are in the trenches of your day-to-day business operations and on the front lines of customer service. As such, who could be better qualified to identify areas of improvement and propose viable solutions?

Design positions in a way that allows every employee to provide input and experience personal growth. Listen to everyone’s opinions and let them know they are a part of the process and that their voices matter.

By encouraging employees to share ideas, you send the message that you are entrusting them with a stake in the company. In return, they will invest a higher level of trust in you and be motivated to always demonstrate honesty and fairness in their dealings with you and their colleagues.

Invest in your employees

Just as your best customers are your brand ambassadors, so are your best employees.

As such, your hiring practices are critical not only to the health of your brand but also to the success of your trustcasting agency’s efforts to further the growth of your business. There is a profound difference between employees who are competent in their jobs and those who actively contribute to your success.

It is essential to hire people who not only have the skill set you need but also are a good fit with your corporate culture. Seek out those who have an innate talent for leadership and put them in roles where they can help you keep your team motivated. Those who are passionate inspire others to want to work harder, too.

Once you have the best people in place, foster a culture of execution in which every employee is empowered to make decisions. Support them by developing a corporate philosophy that clearly defines the core values that drive your business practice and helps them understand what differentiates you from your competitors.

High caliber employees will be able to take this philosophy and apply it creatively to their tasks, the way they perform their work and the decisions that they make so that everything they do reflects and promotes the values your brand stands for.

Know thyself

As an entrepreneur, you are essentially in two businesses: the business of what you do and the business of promoting and growing your company. The mission of your trustcasting agency is to support you in achieving your business growth objectives.

Not every corner coffee shop wants to become the next Starbucks, and that’s okay. However, the success of your partnership depends on clearly defining those objectives. What is your purpose? To stand pat and realize a certain level of profitability? To expand to multiple locations? To own your market locally, regionally or even nationally?

What is your timeline for growth? Are you content to test the waters where you are, or do you want to pursue an aggressive expansion plan?

Just as importantly, do you have a stopping point, and if so, what is it? Not every corner coffee shop wants to become the next Starbucks, and that’s okay.

No matter the scope of your aspirations, you still need good marketing. It is essential to make the investment in creating a culture around your brand in order to sustain the longevity of your enterprise. However, your growth objectives hold the key for your trustcasting agency to determine the tactics and resources necessary to reach those goals.

Patience is a virtue

The final key is the most simple but perhaps the most important: don’t expect results instantly. Business growth is about increasing awareness, building trust and earning loyalty, a process that takes time and dedication. There are no shortcuts to cultivating real, authentic relationships with your customers.

Don’t get frustrated if things don’t work as you planned immediately, and don’t allow yourself to be paralyzed by fear of or anxiety about failing. Keep trying new approaches, slowly building on those that work well and shaving off those that don’t.

Through it all, maintain your motivation, passion and focus. Don’t try to be everything to everyone all at once. Stay true to your core brand values and concentrate on what you do best.

Above all, have faith in your trustcasting agency. They are in the business of understanding the culture of today’s consumer and creating platforms for long-term success. The methods of new marketing may feel unfamiliar, but in reality, the practices and principles of trustcasting are rooted in and based upon a timeless, proven approach to business development.

The ultimate payoff for your steadfastness and patience will be getting and keeping the best kind of customers – true, dedicated fans that identify themselves with and become evangelists for your brand.

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Building a Thriving Community Ecosystem: The Five Essential Elements

What is an ecosystem?

In nature, an ecosystem is defined as “a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment.” In today’s culture of the Web, an online ecosystem is essentially the same thing – the organic result of the interactions that occur between the members of a community and the environment that they live in. It cannot be defined in and of itself but only as the sum of its thousand moving parts. For brands that exist in today’s culture of the Web, there is no higher echelon of marketing than establishing your own community ecosystem. Why? Well, it’s one thing to interact with your customers and fans in an ecosystem that someone else has built (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.). However, because you didn’t build the ecosystem, you’re limited to one-off interactions that are structured according to the framework defined by the architects of that community (140 characters, anyone?). On the other hand, however, when you’re the one that builds the sandbox, it’s your party. Your website becomes the place where members of your tribe choose to hang out, to debate, to share and to be inspired by their peers – who, incidentally, are other members of your tribe. Most importantly, their identity as a member of this community is inextricably linked to your brand. It’s a marketer’s wildest dream come true. The process of building a thriving ecosystem is no small feat. Here are the five essential elements that you must have if you want to create a real, organic online community that simultaneously exists for and is a product of your tribe:

Earth: The foundation

Before you can build an ecosystem, you have to lay the foundation. But where do you begin? In our series on understanding and marketing to tribes, we established that tribes form around a shared passion for a specific idea, lifestyle or movement. Therefore, for your ecosystem to thrive, there must be a common thread that draws people in and binds them to the community and its members so that they identify themselves as part of your tribe. Your goal is not to build the next Facebook. People don’t need just another broad-based social network where they can set up a profile and post their thoughts. That already exists in any number of places where they already do those things. What people are yearning for is to be among and connect with other people who share their passions. When you build a community around that passion, they’ll come there knowing it’s a place where they can satisfy that need to belong, where they’ll be among others who speak the same language and where they’re free to obsess over something with like-minded people who won’t mind if they talk ad nauseum about that one particular thing that really stokes their fire. So how do you find that common thread? Think about your customers. What do they love? What excites them? What challenges do they face day in and day out? What do they worry about? How can you tap into those things? The answer to those questions is the foundation for your ecosystem. By identifying the common passion that unites your tribe, you can begin to build a community where great interactions will thrive. Even if your brand only ever lives at the periphery of those interactions, that’s okay. Remember, too, that among those who populate your ecosystem there will be individuals who are already your customer, might someday be your customer or may never be your customer, and that’s okay, too. The fact that you exist at the root of all of it will yield greater rewards than you could ever imagine.

Air: Sharing

The ability to interact with other members in meaningful ways is as critical to the life of an ecosystem as the air we breathe; in its absence, the community suffocates. An ecosystem is not a blog with comments. While commenters may well respond to one another on occasion, these interactions are limited in scope to the content to which they are attached. There’s nowhere else for these commenters to go to keep the conversation going or to talk about a different subject entirely. An ecosystem is not a message board where people come to get help or resolve a problem. Once that problem is solved, they move on and never come back; they don’t identify themselves with or feel any lasting ties to the community. An ecosystem is a place where people can share the things matter to them in ways that are meaningful to them. It starts with being able to establish a profile – one that’s more than simply a name and a photo. You need to give people the ability to define who they are in the context of that community and its foundation. Then they need outlets to share their own ideas, photos and videos and to interact with others around that shared content. It’s this level of highly personalized sharing that forges deep, persistent bonds among members of a community. NASCAR driver Ryan Newman’s Fan Club site is built around keeping its members engaged and active by giving them many different ways to share and interact. They can post their own videos, build photo albums, join the conversation on community message boards and even chat with other members in real time. Again, keep in mind that all the sharing that takes place in your ecosystem may have very little to do with your products or services. And that’s exactly what you want because a community that will thrive over the long haul is one that exists to serve its members, not your brand and your business. As long as you’re the one providing the arena where these exchanges are taking place, you’ll benefit immeasurably from constant exposure and engagement.

Water: Leadership

Good tribe leadership is the water that helps a fledgling ecosystem grow and keeps an established ecosystem strong and thriving. The task of providing good leadership is actually more challenging than it may at first seem. In the traditional world of marketing, everything was centered around presenting a carefully cultivated message and never allowing the customer to see any cracks in the perfectly polished veneer of a brand’s image. But that approach doesn’t work in the world of the online ecosystem. You must be comfortable walking among the members of your community and interacting with them on a human level. You must be willing to drop the corporate mask and be authentic. Think of your role as the leader of your community as being the host of a party. It’s not your job to dominate every conversation or to restrict what your friends are and are not allowed to talk about. It is your job to provide good fodder for discussion, to fill in the gaps when you sense a lull in the conversation and to help everyone feel at home and included.

Fire: Rewards

The members of your ecosystem that make the wittiest comments, spark the healthiest debates or share the most interesting content are the ones that keep the community vibrant. So how do you motivate them to keep doing what they do best? In today’s fame-obsessed culture, everyone wants their 15 minutes of notoriety, and everyone wants to feel like a celebrity in their own circles. People are driven by the opportunity to be elevated to a position of higher esteem among their peers. Therefore, if you want to stoke the fires of participation in your ecosystem, recognition is the name of the game. Give the members of your community ways to participate that are all about them, and then reward them for that participation. Distinctions such as “photo of the day” or “most viewed video” reward the creator by putting him or her in the spotlight. Call them out from the crowd, and you'll feed their craving for more recognition. The key to establishing an effective reward system is knowing what motivates the members of your community. For example, because racing fans thrive on competition, the Ryan Newman Fan Club community is built around a points system. Members who start discussions or who post photos and videos can earn points – or votes – from other members that put them in the running for a spot on the fan club’s leaderboard. Points are tallied throughout the racing season, with prizes awarded to the top performer each month as well as the top overall points earner for the season.

Aether: The essence

Aristotle defined aether as the quintessence – the immutable substance that makes up the heavens and stars. When it comes to online ecosystems, the aether is the intangible element – the sine qua non – that makes being a member of your community something to be desired. Think about the most popular nightclub in town. Why do people go there? It’s not just to listen to music. It’s not just to drink a martini. It’s not just to hang out with their friends. They could do all of those things in any number of places. There’s something in the atmosphere – an indefinable quality – that propels them to go to that one club rather than any of the dozens of others in the same vicinity. Perhaps it’s that when they go there, they’re surrounded by people just like them. Or perhaps they’re surrounded by people that they aspire to be like. Maybe it’s the bragging rights that come with being “seen” in the place that everyone’s buzzing about. Your ecosystem needs the same thing. There has to be some sense of status or value attached to being able to claim membership in your tribe. This is the one element of your ecosystem that you have the least control over. You simply can’t manufacture the essence, nor can you make a proclamation that this is what makes your community special. In fact, the essence can only emerge when it’s allowed to develop organically. When you see members of your community sharing inside jokes, developing their own language, even making plans to meet up offline – that’s when you’ll know you have the essence. The best thing you can do when you recognize it is to subtly encourage those members or activities that you see happening around it so that it continues to flourish.

It’s your sandbox.

The prospect of building your own community ecosystem is certainly daunting. There’s much at stake and many unknowns that you must contend with. In sharp contrast to the world of traditional marketing, there’s a distinct lack of control. An ecosystem can only thrive when allowed to develop and grow naturally and on its own timeline. As soon as you start to restrict or interfere too much, it will wither on the vine. Entering the realm of ecosystem building requires a leap of faith. However, just as building the trust that your customers have in your brand is paramount to the growth of your business, putting trust in your customers is essential to the growth of your ecosystem. If you can relinquish the need for control and truly let the members of your community take ownership of it, you’ll be amazed at the results that unfold. Interactions will become vibrant and nuanced, natural leaders will emerge and the community will truly take on a life of its own. And in today’s marketplace, there is no more powerful force for business growth than a large and engaged community that’s homed around your brand.

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