The super-simple guide to community marketing that drives ROI
Big brands dominate with money and reach. But even they’re feeling the squeeze. In 2024, paid search conversion rates fell across most sectors while the average cost-per-click still jumped by 10% in 86% of industries. In short, ads cost more and deliver less.
As a solopreneur with a (probably) tight budget, you can’t compete on those terms, but you can play a different game. You can lean into human connection by building a community around an interest, a passion, or a shared goal—and leverage it for return on investment (ROI) through direct sales, referrals, and loyal fans who advocate for your brand.
According to one study, 85% of Gen Z and 79% of Millennials believe brands need to create a sense of community to make them relevant. So how do you actually make that happen as a one-human brand?
In this guide, we’ll show you how to use community marketing to spark real engagement and business growth. You’ll learn about
- Different types of community marketing,
- The solopreneur’s community flywheel, and
- Proven strategies to turn your audience into customers and advocates.
What is community marketing?
Community marketing is a strategy focused on creating a space where people can connect—not just with you, but with each other—and using that connection to grow your business.
Instead of simply pushing out marketing messages and hoping they convert, you bring people together around a shared purpose, challenge, or passion. This could be a group of freelance designers exchanging tips, parents navigating homeschooling together, or fitness enthusiasts keeping each other accountable. When done right, community marketing transforms your audience from passive followers into engaged participants who contribute to your community and become its advocates.
“Most founders think ‘community marketing’ means promote your Facebook group or run ads for your membership. Nope. That’s the output, not the engine. Real community marketing means building a growth system where your customers aren’t just being talked at — they’re part of the feedback loop. Part of the momentum. Part of the engine.”
—Candice Grobler, founder and community strategist at Candid Collab
This is very different from traditional marketing, like running ads or sending email campaigns, which are mostly one-way conversations. Community marketing creates two-way relationships, where people feel heard, valued, and connected—not just sold to.
| Traditional marketing | Community marketing |
|---|---|
| One-way communication | Two-way communication |
| Focused on selling products | Focused on building relationships |
| Audience = consumers | Audience = participants, collaborators & advocates |
| Transactional (“buy this”) | Relational (“join us, belong here”) |
| High cost to acquire new customers | Lower cost through word-of-mouth & community referrals |
| Brand-controlled messaging that can feel scripted or overly polished | Authentic, peer-to-peer messaging that feels genuine and trustworthy |
Types of community marketing
Community marketing can take different shapes depending on your goals and audience. Here are the three most common types:
- Branded communities: These are spaces you own and run, built specifically around your brand or business. Members join to connect with you, access exclusive content, and engage with others who share the same interests. You control the experience and can shape it to drive engagement and loyalty.
- Grassroots communities: These form organically around a shared interest or challenge, often led by the community itself (like on Reddit). As a solopreneur, you can join or support these spaces to build relationships and offer value, but they aren’t necessarily a place to push your products or services.
- Ambassador-driven (or member-led) communities: You set up the community, but it runs on advocacy. Loyal customers, clients, or fans spread the word, share their experiences, and even create content or events tied to your brand. Think of superfans who recommend your product in other forums, organize peer-led chats, or help onboard new members in your group.
While the engagement strategies may be different, the goal of any of these communities is the same: to create a space where people feel connected, supported, and engaged—and to turn that connection into meaningful outcomes for your business.
What’s the difference between customer marketing and community marketing?
You might also hear the term customer marketing when talking about community building, but they aren’t quite the same thing.
Customer marketing focuses on people who’ve already bought from you, aiming to deepen their engagement and turn them into loyal advocates. This can include programs like exclusive content hubs, referral campaigns, customer events, or loyalty initiatives.
Community marketing, on the other hand, uses the community itself as a vehicle for growth. It’s about bringing people (customers and sometimes prospects) together around a shared purpose or passion. Through these connections, they support each other, share experiences, and naturally advocate for your brand.
"Community marketing uses community techniques to achieve marketing outcomes… the key is to connect people with shared interests and positively influence attitudes and behavior."
—Richard Millington, founder of FeverBee community consultancy
Think of customer marketing as “nurturing relationships” and community marketing as “creating a shared space for connection.”
Why community marketing matters for solopreneurs
One of the hardest parts of running a solo business is finding and converting customers. You may have tried building a personal brand, running ads, or sending newsletters, but results can be hit or miss.
The problem? None of these tactics creates the deep trust needed to convert someone into a customer. Community marketing adds another layer to your strategy by building a space where people feel connected to you and to each other, making them far more likely to engage with you and eventually buy. Here’s how 👇
It solves your key pain points
Community marketing helps you tackle three big challenges: gaining visibility, building trust, and growing your business without relying solely on paid ads.
Sometimes, you already have a product or service and want to build a community around the pain point it solves. Other times, you might start with the community first and then create offers based on their needs. Both approaches can work—the key is that the community becomes a source of trust, feedback, and advocacy that fuels growth.
And while paid advertising can be a highly measurable growth channel, it’s also becoming more expensive and harder to sustain for small teams. Community marketing offers a leaner, longer-term path to customer acquisition and loyalty, making it especially appealing when you’re starting out or looking to keep costs down.
It encourages organic advocacy
Another truth bomb: you don’t need 10,000 followers to grow your business. You need 100 people who truly believe in what you do and are excited to share it with others.
When your community feels supported and sees consistent value, they naturally become advocates—people who tell their friends, post about you online, and vouch for your work.
Organic advocacy is at the heart of community marketing because it builds growth on real member feedback and experiences, which are far more valuable than impersonal ads.
It becomes your low-cost, high-trust growth engine
The beauty of community marketing is that it compounds over time. Every new member adds value, sparks conversation, and often brings in others. Your role becomes nurturing a group that fuels itself—and your future business ideas.
Want to test a beta course? Validate a new offer? Get feedback on a coaching program? Go to your community for feedback. They’ll give you honest insights, and some will even become your first buyers. Over time, this creates a sustainable growth loop that costs far less than traditional marketing.
The community flywheel: solopreneur edition
Community marketing works best when you treat it as an ongoing cycle, not a one‑off campaign. Think of it as a flywheel: each stage builds momentum for the next, creating a self‑sustaining growth engine. Here’s how to set it up as a solopreneur ⤵️
Step 1: Build your community
Start by gathering people who share a common interest or goal that connects with your business. This isn’t about building the biggest audience; it’s about attracting the right people. Be clear about the purpose of your community so people know why they’re there and what they’ll gain from joining.
How do you find that perfect-fit audience?
We recommend using Codie Sanchez' 3C's:
- Cash: Are people spending money on this thing I’m interested in building a business around?
- Crowd: Are there people who need this? Does your skill, talent, or knowledge solve a problem for them?
- Curiosity (yours, not the market’s): Are you obsessed and engaged with your topic?
Then, go 4 levels down to find the right niche starting place.
Next, pick a platform that will facilitate your community’s mission. An all‑in‑one platform like Circle allows you to host discussions, live events, and courses, all under your own brand. Instead of juggling multiple tools, you can create one seamless experience where members can connect, learn, and grow in a space that feels like home.
💡64% of community leaders track “new joiners” as a key success metric, making it one of the top indicators of early growth
Step 2: Foster engagement
A community only works if people actually want to spend time there. Don’t just post and hope for replies—start real conversations. Ask open‑ended questions, host casual live sessions, or share resources that help members solve their problems.
Encourage members to share their own stories and experiences, and make sure they’re mingling with each other. Strong engagement is what turns your community from a passive audience into an active, connected network. It is the difference between a group people join and one they truly value.
Step 3: Turn engagement into content and social proof
The crème de la crème of your community is when your members start pretty much doing the marketing for you. This only happens when they find genuine value in the space you’ve built—a sense of belonging they have been searching for.
You’ll notice it when people naturally share how happy they are to be part of your community or how much it has helped them. Use these moments as opportunities to collect testimonials, highlight success stories, and turn member experiences into content to further promote your community via other channels.
Step 4: Drive growth and monetize
Once trust is built, you should be focusing on growing your community in a sustainable way. This could mean:
- Launching a paid membership tier
- Hosting exclusive events
- Offering group coaching
- Selling digital products
However, if you want to take this a step further, think beyond individual offers and start building a sales or offer flywheel—a system where your products and services work together to grow your business continuously.
🤔 Curious what you could earn with a paid community? Check out our free community ROI calculator to find out.
📊 P.S. Don’t forget the metrics
As you build, track your key community metrics, especially those that can give you a good indication of how effective your community‑building efforts are, such as:
- New member signups
- Source of new members (referrals, social, direct invites)
- Active members (daily, weekly, monthly)
- Conversion rates for paid offers
- Revenue generated from community‑driven products or services
5 community marketing strategies that drive ROI
Now it’s time to get practical and explore the different marketing strategies you can use with(in) your community to drive real ROI.
1. Create referral incentives inside your community
Your most loyal members are often your best marketers. Instead of hoping they spread the word, give them a reason to. Create a referral system that rewards members for inviting others. This could be:
- Discounts or monetary perks
- Early access to events
- Exclusive content
- Public recognition inside the community
For example, Anthony Nardini, founder of Next Careers (a Circle‑powered community for senior executives), runs a membership program costing $2,000 per member, with 60% of members joining through referrals from close friends. His approach includes cultivating personal referral relationships, curating matches between members, and running highly engaging volunteer programs, turning his existing members into a powerful growth engine.
2. Use user-generated content as social proof
People trust people more than they trust brands. That is why user‑generated content (UGC) is one of the most powerful marketing tools your community can provide.
Encourage members to share their wins, experiences, and feedback. Then, showcase those stories on your social channels, website, or even in onboarding emails. This not only celebrates your members but also shows potential joiners the real‑world impact of being part of your community.
Pete Boyle does this brilliantly with his Growth Models Plus community, which helps coaches, course creators, and agency owners scale their businesses. He regularly shares member success stories, like increasing ad returns, generating thousands in revenue from new offers, and landing high‑value clients using the frameworks he taught them. These authentic wins act as powerful social proof, attracting new members and keeping current ones inspired.
3. Launch products to your most engaged members first
Who better to test your next big idea than the people who already love what you do?
If you need to beta test your newest product, course, or service, start with your most engaged members. It does two powerful things.
First, it creates a sense of exclusivity that makes these members feel even more connected to your brand. Second, it gives you super honest feedback, social proof, and a group of advocates who are ready to generate buzz when you go public.
Noele Flowers, a community strategy consultant and founder of On-Demand Coaching, launched her first digital product (On-Demand Coaching Core Bundle) after running an extensive beta round inside her community. The feedback she received helped her simplify her pricing from three tiers to a single, clear price and streamline her course architecture. By the time she launched publicly, she had a confident offer, stronger positioning, and a group of early customers ready to recommend it.
This is community marketing at its best, turning loyal members into co‑creators and amplifiers of your message.
4. Build partnerships with aligned communities or creators
Partnering with other communities, creators, or brands that serve a similar audience can be another powerful way to grow. These partnerships expand your reach while adding value for your members.
Examples include:
- Co‑hosting events or challenges
- Running joint webinars or content swaps
- Cross‑promoting newsletters or podcasts
These collaborations tap into shared networks, helping you reach fresh eyes. But partnerships only work if they make sense for your audience.
As Justin Moore, a leading sponsorship coach and founder of Creator Wizard, put it:
“At the end of the day, your whole job is to serve [your audience]… whether that’s with products you sell, sponsors you introduce them to, or alliances with others who can help them. It doesn’t matter—your job is to serve them.”
5. Turn your power users into advocates
Your most engaged members—the ones who show up to every event, answer questions, and cheer others on—are your community’s biggest growth asset. Do not let their energy fade. Give them meaningful ways to take on bigger roles, such as becoming ambassadors, leading discussions, or getting early access to new offers.
As Pat Flynn, founder of the Smart Passive Income community, shared during Circle’s Future of Creators Summit,
“Superfans aren’t created the moment people see you for the first time. They’re not created by the moment they purchase something. They’re not created the moment they sign up for your community. They’re created by the moments that you create for them over time.”
Simply put, show up for your biggest supporters and watch them become the identity of your community and an important part of your funnel.
How to activate these strategies in Circle
All of these strategies become much easier to execute when you use the right tools—and that’s exactly what Circle was built for.
- Affiliate programs: Turn your most passionate members into revenue partners with Circle's built-in affiliate system. Set custom commission rates, provide affiliates with unique tracking links, and let them earn while they advocate for your community. This transforms word-of-mouth marketing into a measurable, rewarding system that incentivizes your biggest supporters to actively grow your membership base.
- Community spaces: Create dedicated spaces for announcements, discussions, and posts. You can segment members into groups, spark rich conversations with posts (supporting videos, files, and embeds), and use Circle’s content co‑pilot to brainstorm or draft ideas for discussions.
- Events: Run everything from small workshops to live AMAs and large summits directly in Circle. Send push notifications, segment your audience for tailored invites, and repurpose recordings into evergreen content that keeps delivering value.
- Gamification: Motivate and celebrate your most active members with points, levels, and leaderboards. Automate rewards like badges, discounts, or access to exclusive spaces, turning everyday engagement into advocacy and helping identify future ambassadors.
- AI workflows: Free up hours every week with AI‑powered workflows that automate onboarding, moderation, and member support. Set up filters to flag off-topic or negative posts, auto‑respond to FAQs, and send personalized welcome messages—all while keeping your community organized and easy to navigate.
👉🏻 Try it for free for 14 days yourself.
Leverage community marketing to your advantage
It is safe to say that community marketing, especially for solopreneurs, is one of the most sustainable and cost‑effective ways to grow a business. Traditional marketing is losing its impact, while people continue to crave connection and belonging. Communities meet that need and, when done well, become one of the most powerful sources of long‑term growth.
Circle gives you everything you need to build, manage, and grow a thriving community—all in one place. Start your 14-day free trial today and see how quickly your community can become your biggest growth driver.
FAQs about community marketing
What is community marketing?
Community marketing is a strategy where you create a space for your customers and audience to connect with you and each other around a shared interest, problem, or goal. Instead of focusing on selling right away, it prioritizes building relationships and a sense of belonging.
Over time, this connection creates “emotional switching costs,” meaning people become so invested that leaving feels unthinkable. This deep trust and loyalty can then be leveraged to drive business outcomes like sales, referrals, and brand advocacy.
What does a community marketer do?
A community marketer builds and nurtures spaces where customers can engage, share feedback, and form connections. Some of their responsibilities include organizing events, starting conversations, and encouraging members to interact with the brand and with one another. Their key role is to strengthen customer relationships while turning satisfied members into active advocates for the business.
A recent study by HeyOrca found that 25% of social media marketers are considering adding or upskilling in community management to future-proof their careers. This shows that community management is increasingly seen as a strategic capability for marketers looking to adapt to industry changes.
How do you measure ROI from the community?
You can measure ROI in community marketing using business-focused metrics like sales, referrals, and sign-ups, along with community health indicators such as engagement, retention, and member advocacy. Looking at both the financial impact and how actively members participate gives you a clearer picture of how your community is driving overall business growth.
What are the pros and cons of a community marketing strategy?
The main benefit of community marketing is that it builds high-trust, long-term relationships that lead to customer loyalty and organic advocacy. It’s also often more cost-effective than traditional advertising. The downside is that it takes time and consistent effort to grow an engaged community, and results are rarely instant.
