Here’s your monthly roundup on everything Six Circles, from what’s happening behind the scenes to what’s to come on our ever-evolving community engagement platform…

Company news

In July, we were excited to welcome a new member to the Six Circles family. Meet Reece Priest…

Getting to know you

Reece is our new ​​Business Development Executive. Powered by coffee with milk and two sugars (which he shamelessly claims to be “almost as sweet as him”), Reece is joining our sales team to help us continue to grow our client base.

In his spare time, Reece loves nothing more than getting stuck into some DIY or, following an athlete’s dinner of mince and dumplings, working on improving his long-distance running. Having finished just one hour behind Mo Farah in the Great North Run, we’ve no doubt we’ll be seeing gold in the Six Circles office soon…honest.

Future roadmap

Work continues on the platform redesign we’ve been conducting over the past few months, with some exciting new developments coming soon!

Of course, we always welcome any suggestions around what you would like to see on the Six Circles platform. Send any ideas to support@sixcircles.co.uk – we can’t wait to hear them.

Feature Spotlight

Each month, we’re shining the spotlight on a different feature of the Six Circles platform to guarantee you’re always getting the most out of what we have to offer. This month, we’re focusing on the email digest feature.

Did you know?

Within your Six Circles community platform, we’ve made improvements to our email digest system to help you keep your community informed and coming back for more.

How to use this feature

Last month, we shared with you the second part of our new notification centre found within your admin area. This month, we’re bringing you more information on the final piece of the puzzle: the email digest tool.

When selecting ‘email digest’, you’ll be taken to a simple and easy-to-use area that allows an admin to tailor your email digest for your members.

With our new improvements, an admin user can now personalise the digest in a variety of ways. Firstly, you can create your own content (which will be situated at the top of your email), such as a custom welcome message or a community update.

Next, you’ll find the ‘feature selection’ option. All you need to do here is select which features you wish to include from a simple tick box – we’ll take care of the rest! Every month, the most recent content from your selected features will populate your email digest, keeping your members up to date with the latest from your business and community.

Last but by no means least, you’ll find our new scheduling feature. Now admins can choose how often an email digest will run out to its members – better yet, you can even choose the day

If you would like to see a short demonstration on how to make most of these features, contact support@sixcircles.co.uk and your dedicated account manager will be in touch

Here’s your monthly roundup on everything Six Circles, from what’s happening behind the scenes to what’s to come on our ever-evolving community engagement platform… 

Company news  

In June, we completed a series of security and infrastructure improvements across the Six Circles platform. This, combined with the routine bug fixes also completed this month, ensures our platform continues to run smoothly and remains secure.

Future roadmap

Work continues on the platform redesign we’ve been conducting over the past few months, with some exciting new developments coming soon!

Of course, we always welcome any suggestions around what you would like to see on the Six Circles platform. Send any ideas to support@sixcircles.co.uk – we can’t wait to hear them.

Feature Spotlight

Each month, we’re shining the spotlight on a different feature of the Six Circles platform to guarantee you’re always getting the most out of what we have to offer. This month, we’re focusing on the push notifications feature.

Did you know?

Within your Six Circles community area, there’s a new feature that allows you to tailor the notifications your members receive.

How to use this feature 

In last month’s bulletin, we shared more details about our email templates feature. This feature is just one of three exciting components of our new notification centre, though.

So, this month, we’re bringing you part two of our notification centre developments (found within your admin area): the push notifications tool.

When selecting push notifications, you’ll be taken into a library of notifications that are available across the platform. These range from your standard activation/password resets to more complex options like activity updates (such as new post notifications, etc). 

We’ve seen the push notifications feature help communities tailor how their platform engages with its members. This often drives community members to keep returning and getting involved across the platform.

The tailoring doesn’t end there, though. Members now can control their own notifications within their member profile, giving them the ability to personalise their platform experience based on what engagement best suits them.

If you would like to see a short demonstration on how to make the most of these notifications, contact support@sixcircles.co.uk and your dedicated account manager will be in touch.

Here’s your monthly roundup on everything Six Circles, from what’s happening behind the scenes to what’s to come on our ever-evolving community engagement platform…

Company News 

In May, we welcomed a new member to the Six Circles family. Meet Georgia Fiddes…

Getting to know you

Georgia is our new Business Development Executive, joining our team to help us continue growing our ever-expanding client base.

A sucker for a scrumptious McDonald’s and a decent cuppa, Georgia has dived head-first into her new role a

nd is enjoying the motivated team environment.

Georgia is an ex-Accident Management Operator who grew up wanting to become a midwife. We just hope her time at Six Circles is a less stressful experience than either of those!

Future Roadmap

We’ve been busy working away on an exciting redesign of the Six Circles platform – keep your eyes peeled for the rollout!

We welcome any suggestions around what you would like to see on the Six Circles platform. Send any ideas to support@sixcircles.co.uk – we always love to hear from you.

Feature Spotlight

Each month, we’re shining the spotlight on a different feature of the Six Circles platform to ensure you’re always getting the most out of what we have to offer. This month, we’re focusing on the email templates feature.

Did you know?

Within your Six Circles community platform, you’ll find a library of email templates. These can help you to automate how you communicate with your members once they’ve engaged with certain features.

How to use this feature

Within your admin area, you’ll have noticed our new notification centre (more on this in next month’s bulletin!).

This notification centre contains an email template section that enables greater customisation of the notifications sent from your platform. We understand that every community is different, which is why you now have the option to select which email templates you want to activate.

Better yet, you can even edit the content within each template, meaning notifications can become more personal to your members.

If you’d like to see a short demonstration on how to make most of these templates, simply contact support@sixcircles.co.uk and your dedicated account manager will be in touch soon!

Here’s your monthly roundup on everything Six Circles, from what’s happening behind the scenes to what’s to come on our ever-evolving community engagement platform… 

Company News 

In April, we began work on redesigning the look and feel of the Six Circles platform. 

The aim? We want to enhance the user journey and experience on our platform for all. 

This will help purposeful community engagement become easier than ever before, whatever your brand’s long-term goals. 

Future Roadmap

In April, we made a number of platform updates that will be pushed live in the coming weeks. 

These include:

• The ability to upload PowerPoint files to a resource
• The ability to choose the frequency of your email digest (choose from weekly, fortnightly or monthly)
• The ability to add the latest resources to your email digest

The constant evolution of our platform enables your business to stay at the forefront of community engagement.

We welcome any suggestions on what you’d like to see on the Six Circles platform over the coming months. Why not send your ideas to support@sixcircles.co.uk? We’d love to hear from you.

Feature spotlight 

Each month, we’re shining the spotlight on a different feature of the Six Circles platform to ensure you’re always getting the most out of what we have to offer. This month, we’re focusing on the Pages section within your admin area.

Did you know?

You can customise all the current pages across your platform, giving you the tools to tailor how your community platform looks and feels.

Better yet, you can even create additional pages, giving you more opportunities to personalise the platform to best reflect your business.

How to use this feature

Within the Pages section of your admin area, you’ll see the screen is broken down into two sections.

Section one displays a full list of all pages that are currently present on your platform (this includes our feature pages). Should you wish to add content to any of these pages, or include a dedicated banner image for a particular page, all you need to do is hit the ‘edit’ button. From there, simply add the content and, as soon as you hit save, all changes will be pushed live – easy as that.

The second section within the pages area clearly displays your header and footer links. This gives you the ability to reorder or rename your pages across the platform. Should you want a link to guide your members to an external site (for example, your main website or a learning portal), all you need to do is click the ‘add’ button and include the relevant URL and title for the link.

As well as editing existing pages, we’ve seen more and more of our clients take advantage of our new page creation tool – you can find this in the top right of your pages admin area. Within a few clicks, you can create a new page that your members can view on your platform, This could be an About Us page, a Meet the Team page, or a dedicated page to highlight a main focus within your community at present. Whichever direction you choose, this page creation tool is all you need to get creative.

With the ability to better customise and personalise your platform, purpose-driven community engagement has never been easier than it is when using Six Circles.

Content marketing is all the rage right now, and for good reason. When carried out with the right know-how, creating valuable brand resources can be an incredibly useful way to fulfil your brand objectives. 

But how exactly does this work?

Today we’re exploring exactly that, detailing 6 ways you can utilise your business’s content to drive results. 

With an innate understanding of content purpose, style and form, you can begin adapting your content to meet short-term and long-term goals. 

Allow us to demonstrate… 

Improve brand awareness

Brand awareness is a core brand objective – but isn’t something that happens overnight. 

That’s because it’s about more than consumers simply recognising your logo – true brand awareness means that your audience understands your brand and what it represents. 

How do you get this across to consumers? Content!

Look to regularly produce topical content relevant within your industry and relevant to your target audience. Of course, you also need to ensure this content is suitably branded in order to accurately project your brand image and successfully drive your brand objectives.

Ask yourself: 

• Is this written in the brand tone of voice?
• Is this topic relevant to brand and audience? 
• Does it reflect who you are and what you’re about?

If you answer yes to all the above, you’re onto a winner. Keep creating content and resources in a similar manner to steadily assert your brand within your field. 

Build trust and credibility

Brand awareness and brand credibility often go hand-in-hand. 

But while creating well-branded content in itself will help you build awareness, it’s creating high-value content that will help you build trust. 

So how do you create high-value content that emphasises the credibility of your brand? Demonstrate your expertise. 

From case studies and testimonials to how-to guides and industry insights, there’s a whole host of avenues for you to explore here. Champion the mantra of ‘show not tell’ to demonstrate this most effectively.

Anyone can declare themselves to be ‘industry leaders’ or ‘industry experts’, meaning consumers won’t trust you on claims alone. To fulfil your brand objective, prove it through the creation of in-depth, high-value content that provides genuine value and demonstrates authentic knowledge.  

Where possible, look to include unique expert insight too – supplying customers with valuable information that can’t be sourced elsewhere is a sure-fire way to quickly build your brand’s credibility and subsequent trust. 

Stand out from the crowd

We hate to break it to you, but you’re not the only brand creating content. 

You’d be forgiven for assuming, then, that with so many resources out there, the practice of content marketing for your brand will quickly become obsolete. 

But that doesn’t have to be the case. 

If your competitors are steps ahead of you in content production, all is not lost. Instead, ask yourself what you can do differently – making standing out from the crowd one of your business objectives. 

For example, perhaps you’ve identified a topic that’s important to your audience. But whilst conducting your research, you notice a competitor has already covered it… and covered it well, too. This isn’t the red flag you may think it is, though. 

Rather than finding a new topic or simply replicating what’s available elsewhere, don your creative cap and think about how you can bring a fresh approach to an old topic. 

By championing unique and, where possible, entertaining content, you’re more likely to stand out from the crowd – and more likely to drive better engagement as a result. 

Nurture leads

With the right strategic approach, content and resource production can be a powerful tool in fulfilling brand objectives for nurturing leads.

Doing this successfully relies on one fundamental aspect: understanding your audience. 

If you haven’t already, look to conduct comprehensive audience research. Dive into the data you have at your disposal, creating audience personas around your common demographics. 

It’s important not to skip the detail in this step. Knowing your audience entails more than simply knowing their age bracket, gender and location. In addition to these core elements, look to ask yourself:

• What are their habits and behaviours?
• What are their common pain points? 
• How will they interact with my product or service?

This will then enable you to begin tailoring the content you produce – in particular, targeting customers at the ‘top of the funnel’. 

Through some simple reverse engineering, your audience research will allow you to track common customer journeys back to the initial point of interest. From here, create content that aligns with this point in a customer journey. 

The thinking here is simple: become a customer’s go-to source of information from the off, and continue to create relevant content for every step of their journey. Do so successfully, and by the time a customer is ready to make a purchase, your brand has already done most of the leg work.

Increase sales

This brings us nicely to another purpose of content production and undoubtedly the most common of brand objectives: increasing sales. 

If you’ve nurtured your leads through the creation of relevant resources for each step of their journey, then this is the final piece of the puzzle. 

It’s important to note here that this isn’t a case of simply creating sales-driven content. On the contrary, resources that are overtly sales-focused in nature actually tend to drive customers away – it’s why there’s been such a surge in transparent marketing in recent years. 

Instead, once more place the focus on value. Again paying close attention to the sales funnel, create content that aligns with the last stage of the customer journey. 

This is where a powerful and strategic call-to-action comes into play. Think carefully about your word choice and link destinations – in many ways, this is your last chance to pitch. Ensure it isn’t an in-your-face sales approach, but instead a logical and natural path that a user wants to follow after engaging with your content. 

Build your community

If you’re creating resources specifically for the audience that matters to you, you’re well on your way to building a brand community. 

If your brand is the heart of your community, then your content is its body. Well-crafted resources will help generate, nurture and grow a community around your brand – this should be a brand objective of any business. 

So what constitutes a well-crafted resource? Well, wherever possible you want to keep the conversation open – this means creating content that interests, inspires, educates and engages. 

Content thoughtfully created for your audience with these elements in mind will keep them coming back for more, steadily growing a community as a result. 

The benefits of this speak for themselves. From customer service to product development, brand communities are a hugely valuable asset to businesses big and small – which means getting your content right is key. 

As brand community experts, we wanted to ensure businesses were able to share their content to better inform, educate and entertain their community. That’s why the Six Circles platform includes a handy ‘resources’ feature that enables a quick and easy solution to purpose-driven community engagement. Get in touch to find out more and request your free demo today. 

You’ve got your fully functioning online store with all the bells and whistles. Your product quality is sky-high. Your product range is vast. Your web traffic is coming in thick and fast. But those coveted conversions just aren’t taking care of themselves like you expected them to.

Rest assured you’re far from alone in this situation. Sales objections plague businesses large and small, from time-honoured brick-and-mortar to digital’s cutting edge.

With a colossal, ever-expanding spectrum of options available to consumers, particularly in the ecommerce world, it’s natural for a few of the countless decision-making criteria to work against you. Taking a proactive approach to handling objections in sales – by eliminating them – is the key to making your offering as persuasive as possible.

Let’s dig into a handful of the most common ecommerce sales objections businesses are facing today to help you make converting a no-brainer for your customers.

The price isn’t right

It may not be that your products are overly expensive and don’t provide value for money – although competitive research is always recommended so you can be confident of your position within the market. Matters of price constitute sales objections for many reasons. Online shoppers can be cautious when it comes to taking a punt on a new product, and they may well use price point as the final decision-maker as to whether to take that leap.

We’re not suggesting you slash your profit margins to ribbons in the name of competition, though. Instead, why not introduce an exclusive discount for first-time customers? Something as simple as ‘10% off your first order’ can flip that switch and remove any price-related sales objections in one fell swoop.

The competition is fierce

In crowded sectors, market saturation can be the enemy of conversions. With a multitude of competitors offering comparable products to yours – perhaps at a more attractive price point or with more convenient delivery options or enhanced features – it’s only natural that this stiff competition will bring with it various sales objections.

There’s little value in chasing your competitors’ unique selling points – you need to identify and embrace your own. By establishing what separates your product range or brand ethos from that of your competitors – such as product longevity, convenience factor or even company ethics – you can begin to set your business apart from the competition and make overcoming objections an easy sell.

Your website’s slow off the mark

Site speed remains an undervalued yet vital contributing factor to ecommerce conversion rates. Slower page response times have a direct impact on page abandonment and, if your website is below par in the speed stakes, you’re leaving your business open to sales objections galore.

Leveraging accessible, user-friendly online tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights, you can benchmark your site speed and find actionable fixes to be picked up with your development team. By reducing load times, you’ll be able to streamline the entire browsing experience for your customers and make buying on the go quick and easy – a necessity in the golden age of mobile shopping.

The trust isn’t there

Trust plays a pivotal role in the decision-making process when it comes to buying online. With so many comparable offerings to weigh up, a sense of authority and trustworthiness is often the final piece of the puzzle that trumps any sales objections.

Building trust among your audience takes time through continuous contact, as you slowly but surely prove your worth and earn that sale. But there are a few tried and tested ways to evoke trustworthiness during a user’s first encounter with your website. Positive reviews and ratings are a great place to start, so make sure these pull through to your product pages to give shoppers peace of mind that they’re following in the footsteps of previously satisfied customers.

Delivery options are a deal-breaker

Convenience reigns supreme in the current ecommerce climate, as online shoppers have come to treat fast, low-cost shipping options as an expectation rather than a bonus. Even if your products are competitively priced, delivery options are the final hurdle that could present sales objections users just can’t get past.

Extortionate delivery costs and slow or inconvenient shipping processes are both common conversion barriers that could lose you sales that were otherwise in the bag. If this feels a little close to home, consider expanding your delivery options to include Click & Collect if possible, and offer choice when it comes to delivery days, time windows and costs.

Their money’s no good here

How frustrating would it be to find out that the reason you were losing sales was because you’d refused customer payments? If your ecommerce website fails to accept some major payment methods, the fact is you may as well be turning customers away at the point of sale. Naturally, this is one of the more valid sales objections held by online shoppers.

As well as accepting multiple currencies, it’s crucial to accommodate a variety of preferred payment methods beyond traditional card payments – from PayPal and Klarna to Apple Pay and Google Pay. The broader a range of payment options available to your customers, the more convenient it’ll be for them to complete their purchase.

At Six Circles, our Stripe integration feature takes the hassle out of handling online payments. Helping your community members to effortlessly pay for events, packages, subscriptions and more, this feature is just one of the many ways we make overcoming objections easy for members of your community.

Ready to find out more? Our holistic community engagement platform is packed with slick features and must-have tools to make growing your community a breeze. Get in touch with the Six Circles team today to explore our platform for yourself with a free demo.

November was another exciting month at Six Circles HQ. Here’s the lowdown on what’s been going on behind the scenes and on our ever-evolving community engagement platform!

Company News

All the latest from the world of Six Circles…

Cyber Essentials Plus accredited

In November, we’re proud to announce Six Circles has become Cyber Essentials Plus accredited, providing users of our platform with extra peace of mind that they’re sufficiently protected against any cyber attacks.

New investment 

We are thrilled to have acquired new investment in November. This will enable Six Circles to continue to grow, expanding both our team and client base within the UK and USA.

Platform updates

This investment will also enable us to continue developing our platform. In the past month alone, these updates have included the integration of annual subscription handling within our subscription feature. This now allows organisations to enable monthly or annual memberships.

In November, the Six Circles platform was also updated to enable euro currency handling, creating a more user-friendly experience for any EU-based customers.

Future Roadmap

We mapped out some exciting new developments in the works for October’s bulletin. Here’s what progress has been made at Six Circles basecamp since then.

Newly structured email notification centre

A newly structured email notification centre is in progress, striving to give you more control over selecting the notifications that are important to you and your community.

Email digest improvements

We’ve begun the further development of our email digest to enable better custom tailoring. This will give you more control to customise features, content and more based on your unique needs.

Private groups within the forum area

Work has also begun on the development of a new private group function within the forum area of our platform, allowing users to create private discussion areas and giving admins total control to invite any member they wish.

Euro payments

We’ve integrated the ability to convert GBP to euros. This means users can now collect members’ payments for any paid events, subscriptions or packages in euros, enabling you to expand your community further than ever before.

Annual subscription system

We’ve also integrated an annual subscription system into the Six Circles platform, following the successful launch of our monthly subscription feature earlier in the year. Thanks to this handy new feature, it’s never been easier for your community to sign up!

We’re currently in the process of mapping out our plans for Q1. Got any suggestions on what should feature in our roadmap for the new year and beyond?

Send your suggestions to support@sixcircles.co.uk – we’d love to hear from you.

Feature spotlight

Each month, we’re shining the spotlight on a different feature of the Six Circles platform to ensure you’re always getting the most out of what we have to offer. This month, we’re focusing on the Subscription feature.

Did you know?

As well as handling memberships and subscriptions, you can also set user roles and permissions to tailor their interaction and overall experience on the platform?

How to use this feature

You have the control to specify what permissions each subscription has, including the ability to add benefits to certain memberships or revoke access to certain features.

For example, perhaps you’re a business network with two different tiers of membership, such as a standard membership and partner subscription. In this instance, you have control over the permissions associated with each membership type. So, if you wanted to give your partner subscription members the added benefit of promoting their services and events, you could customise our ‘create buttons’ accessibility so that they’re only visible for that particular membership type.

With complete control over your subscribers’ permissions, community engagement has never been easier than it is using the Six Circles platform.

Greetings from Six Circles HQ!

Welcome to our new monthly bulletin, where we’ll be providing updates on all of the exciting developments happening both internally and across our community engagement platform.

From what’s new to what’s to come, think of this as your roadmap for all things Six Circles.

Company News

In October, we were excited to welcome a new member to the Six Circles family. Meet Will Cook…

Getting to know you

Will is our new Business Development Executive (USA), coming on board this month to support our US pilot launch.

Fuelled by tea (with a splash of milk) and Nando’s chicken thighs and spicy rice, Will is an avid lover of musicals. Having dreamed of performing as a child, Will enjoys travelling to the West End to see shows in his spare time.

While we may not have his name up in lights in the office, he’s certainly our new star of the show!

Future Roadmap

There are some exciting new developments in the works at Six Circles basecamp. Here’s a sneak peak at some upcoming changes and improvements we’re launching across the next quarter to make sure our platform keeps driving the regular engagement we all want to see:

Newly structured email notification centre

Our new notification centre gives you the tools to select the notifications that are most important to your community.

Email digest improvements

We’re improving our email digest to be better tailored to your unique needs.

Giving you more customisation options than ever before, you’ll have the tools to control which features are added (and where), as well as the ability to add your own content to the beginning of each digest.

Private groups within the forum area

We’re developing a new function to allow users to create private discussion areas within your forums, with admins able to invite any member of their choice.

Euro payments

We’re integrating the ability to convert GBP to euros, allowing users to collect members’ payments generated from paid events, subscriptions and packages in euros.

Annual subscription system

After the successful launch of our monthly subscription feature earlier this year, our team is hard at work constructing an annual subscription system. This will make it easier than ever for your community to sign up, and for you to manage subscriptions within the Six Circles platform.

Got a suggestion on how we can improve the Six Circles community engagement platform? Send your ideas to support@sixcircles.co.uk – we always love to hear from you.

Feature spotlight

Each month, we’re shining the spotlight on a different feature of the Six Circles platform to ensure you’re always getting the most out of what we have to offer. This month, we’re focusing on the Events area.

Did you know?

As well as handling free or paid events, you can also add an external URL link to our ‘get tickets’ button.

How to use this feature

With face-to-face meetings quickly becoming a thing of the past amidst the ongoing pandemic and local lockdown restrictions, the way brands are conducting business and interacting with their communities is, naturally, changing. From Zoom to Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts to GoToWebinar, we’re seeing a sharp rise in the use of online video calls as a means of hosting virtual events.

Thanks to our handy external URL function within the Events area, we’re seeing a growing number of communities promote their own online events within our platform. Linking to the relevant meeting room, members are able to navigate straight to the event via the Six Circles community platform.

Six Circles’ community engagement platform is the perfect companion to your online event, giving your community the tools to engage with one another both pre and post event.

Customer retention is often overlooked by brands. Businesses are embroiled in a never-ending battle with competitors as they fight over that precious initial sale – but the real victory comes in retaining that customer, boosting their lifetime value (LTV) and securing their long-term loyalty.

The value in this really speaks for itself. It costs 16 times more to build a long-term relationship with a new customer than it does to hold on to an existing one, with just a 5% boost in customer retention increasing profits by between 25%-95%

So, how do you ensure your customers keep coming back for more? Join us in exploring six customer retention strategies primed to convert your existing customer base into loyal long-term customers.

Align products and services with customer needs

First things first: how do you expect your customers to keep coming back if you’ve got nothing to offer?

While it may sound simple, make sure you’ve conducted thorough market research to better understand what your audience is searching for and how you can provide the solution. While your customer may like your brand, if your range of goods or services offers no appeal following their initial purchase, what incentive do they have to buy with your brand again?

From polls to Q&As, utilise community engagement platforms like ours to conduct valuable research and source useful data from those who really matter – your customers.

Champion customer service

Never underestimate the power of good customer service as an effective customer retention strategy.

With 65% of consumers revealing that a positive experience is more important than great advertising in influencing their purchasing habits, top-drawer customer service may well be a more effective means of customer retention than any repeat sale marketing campaign.

So, ensure a complete 360°customer service model that accommodates every type of customer at every stage of the sales process – and you can learn how to do that right here.

Action customer feedback

Customers like their voices to be heard.

With this in mind, actively promoting feedback and properly considering relevant customer requests, advice and opinions is a great form of customer retention – after all, it’s a great way of keeping the happy customers happy and turning unhappy customers’ frowns upside down.

To keep customer satisfaction consistently high, be sure to show your appreciation for positive customer feedback and go above and beyond to resolve negative feedback.

While the latter will, of course, depend on the situation at hand, even something as simple as a sincere apology can go a long way in improving customer experience. Going the extra mile, though – through actions such as refunds, freebies or future discounts – could be your golden ticket to turning an unhappy customer into one who comes back for more.

Personalise your marketing

Email marketing is an incredibly effective tool for customer retention.

After the initial conversion, the real perk of customer retention marketing is that the hard work is already done for you – you already have the contact details and customer preference information you need.

Look to utilise this data to better inform your email campaigns, personalising everything from discounts based on purchasing history to email topics based on browsing activity.

The trick is to ensure your customer retention strategy is driven by data. Paired with all of the usual email marketing best practices, a personalised email campaign is sure to turn one-time buyers into loyal, long-term customers.

Acknowledge repeat customers

Of course, sometimes your brand and products do the work for you – meaning some customers will provide recurring business without the need for incentive.

In these instances, don’t just write this off as a ‘quick win’. Instead, ensure you’re nurturing the relationship by showing your appreciation. For B2C businesses, this could come in the form of automated thank you messages, exclusive discounts and more. For B2B, you could offer collaborations on anything from case studies to webinars.

Be the heart of your community

Of all the customer retention strategies, there’s perhaps nothing more effective than building a strong brand community.

While you can learn all about the fundamentals of nurturing a brand community here, the key takeaway is to position yourself at the very heart of your community – the central hub for all things related to your brand and sector.

Perhaps the most powerful way of achieving this is through sharing your knowledge to position your brand as an industry leader in the eyes of your customers. Share relevant testimonials and experiences while creating content that directly addresses customer pain points.

Do this successfully and you’ll see your customers begin to view your brand as the number one provider of your goods or service, meaning they’re far more likely to shop with you again as a result.

Customer retention strategies should be a core part of any brand’s digital marketing plan. To learn more about how the Six Circles community engagement platform can help with your customer retention, get in touch to request your free demo today.

Our blog is full of useful tips, tricks and information on how to build a brand community – but today, we’re taking it back to basics.

As the country continues to adapt to ‘the rule of 6’, we thought we’d introduce you to our own rule of 6 by offering up our 6 fundamental principles for building a brand community.

Today’s post isn’t about getting into the nitty gritty. Instead, we’re giving you the key factors that should always be at the forefront of your approach when curating a brand identity that has your customers at its heart.

Champion authenticity

Authenticity and transparency go hand in hand.

To establish a genuine relationship between customer and brand, look to champion these core values at each and every opportunity. Whether it’s in the content you produce or the way in which you interact with your audience, the way your brand operates within its community should encompass your core values in order to stay true to your brand identity.

Keep your brand voice consistent

If you’re championing authenticity in the way you present your brand to your community, you’ll find that a powerful brand voice begins to emerge.

Keeping this consistent at all times is critical to successful community management. Why? It helps define your brand in a way that’s unique and instantly recognisable. Better yet, it’s one of the most effective ways of communicating your brand’s values in a transparent and authentic way – meaning pinning down your defined brand voice ticks two of these boxes in one fell swoop.

Be persistent with engagement

It should go without saying that regular engagement is important to keeping your community, well, engaged.

With that in mind, look to check in on your brand community regularly. Whether it’s reaching out on your social platforms or getting involved in the conversations on your community engagement platform, knowing where your community congregates online and making sure you’re visible on those platforms will help you to keep your audience more engaged for longer. 

Listen to your community

Engagement isn’t just about interaction. 

On the contrary, if you’re only interacting with generic responses or duplicated ideas, your audience is going to see right through it. As we’ve already touched on, authenticity is key to making your audience feel valued, so ensure you’re listening to what your community has to say.

Of course, listening is all well and good, but this alone won’t cut the mustard. As such, make sure you’re acting on all customer feedback and adding genuine value to any conversations in order to show your audience their opinions matter. This will help you to build a more powerful brand community by better understanding the wants, needs and expectations of your audience.

Appreciate your audience

Your audience is the very essence of your brand community. 

As such, showing your appreciation for members of your audience is a great way of illustrating their value and keeping them engaged.

This doesn’t have to be a mammoth task, either. Whether it’s welcoming new members or championing your regular contributors, it’s all about making your audience feel valued.

Do this correctly, and you may even see your community members become brand ambassadors. 

Explore new methods of engagement

To keep your community engaged, there needs to be an element of innovation. 

Fear not – this doesn’t mean wacky experiments and out-the-box inventions. Instead, you can simply look to vary your content types in order to keep social pages and community engagement platforms fresh and interesting.

From videos and how-to guides to news updates and giveaways, there are options galore when it comes to keeping your community on their toes.

While the government’s rule of 6 is hopefully not here to stay, our rule of 6 is sure to help you build a successful brand community now and well into the future. For more information on how our community engagement platform can help you on your way, get in touch to request your free demo today.