How to Build a Consistent Community Marketing Engine

Finding a growth path that works consistently and feels good to you.

What you do when you start a community business to get your first members in the door is vastly different from what will keep your community growing and your business sustainable in the long term.

No matter the type of community business you’re running: a membership, a course, or a coaching program, your first goal is to get it up and running. Your next milestone should be to grow the business to a sustainable size, ideally via a marketing channel and pace of growth that works for you.

What worked to get your first handful or dozens of members, often won’t work to get your next hundred.

It’s common for communities to have growth come to a standstill after a successful initial launch.

Why does community growth slow after initial launch?

Your first members were likely waiting for your offer. Many of them might have known you for a long time and were excited to support whatever you decided to build.

Since those initial members opted in, unless you’ve continued to develop and grow a marketing channel that works consistently to put you in front of new potential members, it’s likely that your growth has stagnated.

The solution is usually not to continue trying to convert the same people in your existing audience. It’s to find ways to reach more people who don’t yet know you via sustainable, consistent marketing efforts.

How can we approach marketing in a non-sleazy way?

If marketing feels like the worst part of your week, your potential members will feel that.

None of us want to come off as pushy or disingenuous when selling. And a lot of advice on the internet about growth feels exploitative, especially for those interested in genuine human connection.

Marketing by using someone else’s playbook can feel inauthentic. But if you can change your relationship to the concept of growth, a lot of it starts feeling more creative and flowing more naturally.

Leaning into growth requires a mindset shift.

I recommend exploring what growth uniquely enables for you and for your members. Here are some prompts to think through and journal on:

• How did my relationship with money and financial success get formed? How does growing my business potentially conflict with my ingrained beliefs? How can I slowly shift those beliefs that no longer serve me and the community?

• What’s the difference between growth that is greedy and indulgent and growth that feels aligned and lifts all boats?

• How does serving more members allow me to improve everyone’s experience?

When growing a community, slow is better than fast.

When we’re not used to marketing, we tend to try to put all our eggs in one basket. That means we rely on a big launch, finding just the right hire, or getting a big break via a social media mention or speaking engagement.

But quick bursts of growth don’t tend to lead to consistent, long-term revenue that you can rely on. Because relationships take time, building a community tends to work best with patience while prioritizing real relationships in the process. That means…

• Letting go of the idea that your next batch of members will be exactly like your current members.

• Building a process that compounds so that each additional action brings larger results.

• Not waiting until a launch to grow an audience, instead finding actions you can take consistently.

Choosing a marketing channel for consistent growth.

The best way to design your marketing for long-term sustainable growth is to find the marketing actions that feel right to you.

Your channels are the places you show up to market your offer to new potential members. These are some examples of channels:

• Affiliates

• Referrals

• Ads

• Co-hosting free events

• Direct outreach to potential members (email or DM)

• Posting on social media (LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, X, etc)

• Posting YouTube videos

• Partnerships

If you want marketing to not feel hard every day, the best thing to do is to find one channel that works consistently for you and build a growth process around it.

To find the marketing channel that works for you, start with the one that you think most aligns with:

• The places you feel comfortable showing up authentically.

• Where your potential members are already hanging out.

• A place that best aligns with how it feels once members are in your community.

Once you have a hypothesis of which main growth channel will work for you, the next step is to spend a few weeks going all in and testing it. Experimentation is crucial to finding the right growth path.

None of these channel examples are one size fits all. They work better when you approach them in a unique way that works for you.

You don’t need to do any particular growth strategy if you feel it’s misaligned or if you don’t want to.

Instead, try out different paths until you find one that both works to predictably bring you new members AND feels good to you.

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If you want to explore what your ideal growth channel might be, and want to do it in community with others, starting on November 13th, I’m hosting the Community Growth Catalyst in partnership with Circle. It’s a 4-week bootcamp where you’ll explore 4 growth strategies and take imperfect action to grow your community. If you’re already a Circle customer, you can join the bootcamp here.

Whether or not you’re a Circle customer, if you’d like early access to our upcoming coaching program, click here to join the waitlist and and we’ll keep you posted on all the info.

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