What content can do, that no marketing campaign or loyalty scheme can, is build a community. But this is easier said than done.
An ad is an ad.
You see the poster. You read the poster. You get on with your day.
You see the ad. You watch the ad. And it piques your interest, you may talk about it.
A loyalty scheme is a loyalty scheme.
You buy something. You hand over your card. You remember about your benefits. You spend or redeem.
What these two things have in common, is they're isolating.
You don't need to be with anyone or involve anyone else when looking at a piece of marketing. And while you might get 10% off at All Bar One on a Friday, being part of the scheme is a lone venture.
What content can do is build communities. It an bring people with particular interests or lifestyles to your website. And you should do more than just get them to sign up for a monthly newsletter or to get offers straight to your inbox.
You should get them to come back to your website, even when they're not buying anything.
Forums and events are a good way of bringing people together.
Encouraging people to create their own content to help their peers - after all, people do love showing off.
Building a community that's relevant to your sector doesn't just mean acquisition, retention and loyalty. It has lots of other business benefits that bigwigs salivate over, like increases traffic, active users, database and up/cross-sell opportunities.
More importantly, it makes your users feel special and part of something. Who doesn't want to be a member of an "exclusive" club?!
You also help them make decisions based on the trusted advice and opinions of their friends or community champions - the halo effect being that you become more trustworthy as a brand.
So don't just open up your digital arms to give your readers a big hug, give them the opportunity to hug each other too... In a non-creepy way.
