Building a Community For Your Ecommerce Brand

Want to stay ahead of your competitors on Amazon, or any e-commerce platform for that matter?

Building a community with your buyers is one of the most long term investments you can make to strengthen your brand, build awareness, and create repeat buyers.

But where to start, you say?

Thanks for asking – today we will inspire you with 5 ways to engage your buyers on ecommerce and build a long term relationship.

While Facebook groups have been the popular way to bring buyers together – it is getting more challenging to keep their attention and engagement. Plus advertisers can target your group to poach your hard earned followers and customers.

Creating a Discord server is a modern way to connect with your users. You have much more control on the user experience, and are a bit further from the reaches of Facebook TOS (terms of service). 

Plus, you can use some of the tactics shared further on this article with Discord as your “headquarters” for your e-commerce customers.

We know there are risks on using insert cards in your Amazon packages – but we believe if done right you will always be able to have insert cards. 

True brands need to be able to connect and communicate with their customers, and an insert card is that invitation.

So why not call it just that? An invitation to join your community. Apply internet marketing skills by offering hooks to join your community “headquarters” (see the Discord server in point 1) and really connect.

But DO NOT ask for Amazon 5 star reviews of course. Asking for reviews in the insert card is a sure fire way to get your account in serious risk. 

Ask them to join your community (family!) and get special offers and opportunities.

Now this is when things can get interesting – using the same Discord server, you can invite influencers, KOLS, ambassadors, and other business relations to the same community that your customers are joining.

You can set up private groups within the Discord to discuss deals and engage with the influencer – and you can even then have this influencer share exclusive content to the Discord community at large.

Imagine giveaways and promotions ONLY for those in your discord server. Have that KOL you are giving funds to to promote on their TikTok not only send them to your Amazon listing to buy, but to join your Discord to connect with them there as well as get amazing discounts and offers.

This is leveraging their community and following to build a longer term community in your brand.

Want to know what product you should launch next?

Ask your users!

Whether you are in a tech startup or an e-commerce empire – knowing your customer is the key to success. 

Use the Discord community (or any group you have established) to show them what you are working on! What the product is that you are building and ask their feedback.

Make them part of the journey – and then once you launch – take care of those customers and engage!

Once you start to build this community, it is a long term asset. Those who stand up and get more active will become your moderators, your hosts, your friends.

Look into making collaborations with them, have them build blogs on your brand or product line, add new content to their websites, and more.

By building up your community and strengthening them – you strengthen you and your brand.

This is a very early stage concept but is all the rage now – create an NFT element to your brand and product line.

You may want to wait and see how the  technology develops, but think of NFTs as receipts and proof of ownership – and having a direct line of communication and connection with your customers is a sure fire way to keep them onboard long term.

There is no perfect formula or template for building a community for  your customers – but you need to do it. To become a world class brand, having an army of supporters is what will get you there.

At the Global From Asia Blimp Method we are working closely with each seller on the brand to encourage all elements to lead towards an active and engaged buyer community. 

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[00:00:00] All right. Episode what number, Aubrey? Episode 369. We’re almost there. We are there. There over there. It’s a cool, cool show today’s e-commerce brand building and community. Let’s do this! Welcome to the Global from Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down, into straight up actionable advice. And now your host, Michael Michelini!

[00:00:30] Okay. So yeah, Mike, we’re already have, our participants working on their brands on their website, business as well, and how do you think can Mercury help them? Yeah, so we, we really appreciate mercury.com. Our support of our cornerstone sponsors that’s returned, returned this year to support the show and they are amazing. We have a good relationship and we’ve had that some of our Blimp participants applying. And we’re actually working closely with them with the application process to ensure that if there’s any questions about the application that is answered rather than some negative issues happening and, you know, again, we’re really, really appreciative of them supporting.

[00:01:09] And my favorite thing is it’s totally free to apply. I can’t believe it’s free. I mean, We used to have these US bank account application services. It’d be like 500 to a thousand dollars, just the application fee. So it’s totally free to apply. So it’s easy for us to promote and we even give a little bonus to both the listener and to us, if they sign up through our link at globalfromasia.com/mercury, we also have video tutorials and texts and screenshots there, but yeah, it’s also been great. They’ve been even taking special care of our Blimp Method participants. Again, thank you Mercury for this.Thank you so much. 

[00:01:44] Okay. So welcome everyone for another show. Today, we’re going to talk about how to build the community for our e-commerce brand. I think this is a great topic, right Mike? 

[00:01:55] Yeah. Like, again, we’re doing this like kind of little list of ideas. Last show, we got some good feedback. It’s also been texts forum, and we’re going through the Blimp Method right now, the course we have our Excalibur Brothers brands. So we’ll go through this process. And as always, I love to share the story, the journey, what we’re learning. So we’re going to share some points today, right, Aubrey?

[00:02:16] Yeah. I think how do they get started with this? I think building community is such a norm today, especially on the online world. So maybe some are wondering how to get started. That’s basically the main question always. Yeah. That’s how to get started. I think probably the first is choosing where to establish your base, your headquarters, right?

[00:02:40] Like where’s your community going to live online? And I mean, of course it could be offline too. Right? You could have a physical space that people meet. Like, you know, it doesn’t have to be online, but of course for us we’re online. So usually it’s Facebook. There’s WeChat, right? Like you and I Aubrey, we talk about it in a community, Global From Asia, whereas the user already active and aware and educating, right.

Are they in Facebook groups? Are they on Instagram? I don’t know if we can do really a community there. Well, I mean, we’re pretty excited about Discord. It’s a little bit more common in crypto and NFTs, but we’re trying to build this into even the e-commerce brand. So I think really first is just choosing where you’re going to put your users, your community members and the structure.

[00:03:28] Yeah, I think that’s a great step, right? We need to figure out where are they hanging out so that we can build a community on that platform. So I think we have already started that doing it right. I’m really excited for that community on our Discord. Yes! On Excalibur Brothers, we set it up and just add a little bit more. Cause I think we got time to talk a little bit more detail. Like I dunno, I’m a little bit not as active on Facebook. And I I’m just, you know. Honestly we got one of our Google AdWords accounts shut down, Aubrey. 

[00:04:00] I don’t know if you saw that email. Luckily it’s not an active account we use, but I’m just always paranoid about Facebook, Google, Amazon, you know, account shutdowns, freezing, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, you also should be aware of that. And also just always try to back up your, your users. You want to try to have their contact information, their relationship directly as you can. That was just a side note, but you haven’t got a second point. I think on our second point is we’re going to have that community or we’re going to invite them with an insert card. I’m not really familiar with that term. Maybe if you can expound on that.

[00:04:40] Sure. I mean, we give good value in this show. I mean, this is a free podcast and blog is usually not always talked about often online, publicly. And we’ve talked about some of our courses. We use this in our previous brands. But insert cards is like, I have it right here on the desk. So indigitus is right here. 

[00:05:00] This is our, if you’re listening, you can’t see. But basically it’s a plastic card, like a credit card. It’s actually, right. Yeah. You could do cardboard. You don’t have to spend money on a plastic one. I’m in China and I know these factories and manufacturers everywhere. So basically, if you notice it says product registration card and on the back, it has a scratch off and you can scratch off a code.

[00:05:25] And then it says like, welcome to, register your, your device, your, your product. And then you can log in and it puts a URL, a website URL. I know some listeners are probably saying, I can’t believe Mike is telling people to use insert cards to our bad cases where you can get your account shut down on Amazon, or maybe even other platforms for doing insert cards. It’s not using an insert card at all. It’s about what you say on insert card. So you can not say. Oh, please give me a five-star review. Your feedback will help me in my business. I’m a, there’s some jokes. 

[00:06:00] I think Chris Davey’s FBA4U group. He says,some, there was like a case where somebody was like, I’m a family business. Please give me a five star review. It really helps me, like, they’re like begging, you know, like begging for a review. Don’t do that. I mean, of course it probably will help you to get reviewed. Honestly, it does potentially work. But of course, if Amazon catches you or the worst as a competitor reports you, because they see it. It’s a violation of the terms of service of Amazon to ask for reviews or especially incentivized reviews are five star reviews specifically. So don’t, if you notice the car, doesn’t say, please give me a review. It doesn’t even talk about reviews. We’re talking about community, right, Aubrey. So I always make the card about joining our community, joining our family, being part of us, getting into insight, information, insight sounds bad. But insights, promotions freebies, you know, giveaways. You’re not saying like, give me a review. 

[00:07:00] What you’re building a relationship. You’re getting them to come in. You know, we said, sometimes we call it the family, join our family. You want to match your brand. Right. So Excalibur Brothers is about like knights and armor, right. And a round table. So the card actually, I haven’t even designed it yet. Honestly, we do over Chinese new year. We want to say join the Knights of the Round Table at the Discord. 

[00:07:25] Maybe don’t even say Discord because maybe our discord gets shut down, right. I hope it doesn’t, but maybe, maybe we switch to Facebook or maybe you don’t say it on a card. The card is really less information is more so you invite them. It doesn’t have to be a card. It could be a piece of paper, like a flyer, right. It could be even on the product. It could be, but basically you want to engage with your user. Literally Aubrey, you just joined. I was just on our phone call. It’s guy Nole from Texas and he actually has domain names. It’s very different, but he sells domain names on handshake. You know, where else in handshake community. 

[00:08:00] And he wants to like do better with his marketing, but he sells through registrars and he doesn’t get the customer data, the email address, the phone number. It doesn’t know his user. So I say the first thing you want to do is make an opt-in on your site that says, did you buy on of my domains, fill out this form. You want them to come to you and register and give you their information? And it works. I don’t know, at least for us because, well, we do great branding, you know, Luciano is, you know, is a very talented artist.

[00:08:30] So obviously it’s not going to be a cheap looking photocopy, black and white paper or a card. Right. It’s a quality thing. It’s got a scratch off, you know, it’s got a unique code we make on our system. And so this is what I’m trying to say. You invite them. And then you can white list them. So that’s why I like discord over like maybe Facebook because you can have different channels and discordian, I think Aubrey you’re familiar. You can have like the free one, anybody can join, but you can also have like private ones for different roles. Right. So you can make them. 

[00:09:00] And that role can be able to see those things, even joined voice chats or video chats, connect with others in that private circle. And, and that’s, that’s where it gets special. I mean, it works for our Indigitus. I think, you know, we have the ambassador program here and they feel so happy and they help us and they, they even talk to our other customers and they protect us because they feel like they’re part of us, which is.

[00:09:27] I think if we have a good relationship with them, with our community, they can really advocate for our brand, right? And they also feel valued and heard as well. That’s why they love the brand itself that they want to protect it. Yeah, I notice I’m not seeing, I’m not even asking for a review. But I’m building a relationship and I’m talking to them, right? And then, you know, they will be so amazed. I mean, this is new for Excalibur Brothers, but this has been done before from us, but I know it’s work, right. It is work. 

[00:10:00] I know some Amazon sellers are, are busy with other things or don’t want to invest, or they’re even scared to talk to their customers, maybe. So it’s true. It’s not easy. It’s not going to be totally passive, but of course you have to. This is going to be part of our work at Excalibur Brothers community management, right?Just like we do at Global From Asia.

[00:10:20] Yeah, so definitely. So I think we’re going to come to our third point where in it’s best to bring in KOLa and influencers to the same community, right? Because they are the ones who are best to do the influencing and as well as the advocating for the brand.

[00:10:36]  Exactly. I mean, everybody always just a new hot topic, especially Chinese sellers always asking me about KOLs, which is our key online leaders, our key opinion leaders are basically influencers or just famous people online that have lots of fans. But of course, hopefully it’s not just numbers but engagement and hopefully it matches your user or your customer.

[00:10:56] But yeah, I mean the best is to invite them into the same community. So that’s why, again, [00:11:00] it feels like I’m promoting Discord here, but, or any kind of platform. You can have different user levels so that you can say, like bring them into a closed circle of people and they could actually talk to them and engage with them closer.

You can do a live AMA, ask me anything. Or you can do giveaways to that influencer to there and they can bring their community into your discord or your community. Right? I know this is work and actually Aubrey, we got to start to work on this for a Excalibur Brothers. We have a hundred already that opted in from other brand.

[00:11:34] We are building a Thai factory we work with. And so we already have this relationship and our product categories very similar. So we’re lucky we have this database. I’ve opted in. I don’t really call them KOLs. They’re not very, very famous, but they have social media presence and they’re willing to do this and they’re waiting for more products. So you want to have this ready. And I don’t like to just do one time to King’s. I like to have them like ongoing. I like to build long-term relationships with everybody, and I recommend that for everybody here. 

[00:12:00] So you get them into us and by discords and you can communicate with them even long-term. And they see new products you’re going to launch and have them involved. Maybe you’re even asking them a question of other products. Like I’m doing that with the Indigitus, right? I’m sending them like really in inside insights, you know, like stuff we’re working on behind the scenes to that small group. And then they’re so happy because they’re seeing stuff that’s first ever.

[00:12:30] And you give them a future benefits. Yeah, I think that’s our fourth point where in they should launch or share new products with these private communities so that the members can see value of it. And it’s not just about selling the brand, but actually, you know, telling more about this brand, giving them opportunity to have the first look to your new products and such, right?

[00:12:52] Yeah. So again, we’re probably making it sound easier than it is. It is a lot of work and takes time. But once you get these users in there and you have some ambassadors and influencers in there, and then you want to go to a new product launch, or even even want to do a promotion for an existing product. You go to them first, right? You go to them first and then you share, like. I like to use a people, not just the product, but you can also have people in our community that are saying. Hey, look at this. This is what we’re working on. You know, make a nice little custom poster or picture for them and share that into the inside group.

[00:13:30] It’s really an amazing opportunity. And again, I’ve done this over the years and we’re gonna do it again for Excalibur Brothers. Engaging them. You know, maybe it’s my skill. I mean, this is kinda, my passion is connecting, but it’s basically being open and vulnerable in a way, but saying, hey, this is something new.

[00:13:48] Maybe even before I even liked to involve them before you launched, not just when you launch, but this is something we’re working on. It’s not yet ready. What do you think? You know, that’s why I don’t share it’s a totally public. You just share it to a private group of maybe previous customers opted in or [00:14:00] ambassadors or influencers you say, Hey, to something we’re working on. What do you think? What would you like to do better that you see in the market? Or would you use this or would you buy this? And then once you’re ready, then you say, hey, thanks for your feedback. We listened to it and this is what we did. And then they’re like, so happy.

[00:14:19] I think we’ve covered all the points. I mean the last one is we should have partnership with them. Yeah. That’s the reason why we built the community. Right. So, yeah. Well it’s a little bit different, Aubrey. I just want to be clear, like we are doing the blimp method, the brand licensing improved. So the real value what we’re doing in our program is we have sellers.

[00:14:44] We have these four, a franchisees, for Excalibur Brothers that joined through blimp in our first beta launch program and we’re working fairly closely. Thank you so much for all of you. We hope to get them in a future show. So what I mean with that, Aubrey is they could become your partner, your investor, you know, like McDonald’s is a franchise system, right?

[00:15:05]  So the McDonald’s near your house is not owned by the parent company. It’s owned by a small business owner investor that invested in opening that McDonald’s so the same as here. So this has not yet been done by me or anybody that I know, but you could take your customer that bought your product and funnel them all the way to become a franchisee.

[00:15:30] As a partner, as an investor. Do you, you can say a discord or in a community or an email launch. Do you love Excalibur Brothers so much? You like it? Do you want to actually be part of it? We are looking for franchisees to be sellers on new products we’re launching. Fill out this form today. I mean, you can see us doing that right, Aubrey.

[00:15:50] I mean, we haven’t done it yet. So this is like, again, I’m giving you like very valuable insights today, but the idea is it’s I would call it like total full circle. Imagine taking an Amazon customer or e-commerce customer B2C and converting them to a B2B relationship where they’re actually a seller.

[00:16:06] And of course it’s not going to be one out of a thousand or maybe even one on a 10,000. It might be one out of 15,000 and we’ll do this, but obviously that’s an amazing value creation. Because they are going from buying your product to becoming like a reseller or a distributor, you know, a franchisee. And that would be an amazing one.

[00:16:30] And I’m not sure it’ll maybe ever happen, but it could happen where they are your normal customer. And because you’re investing in this, it’s more like a community funnel. Right. But because that you’re, you’re, you’re nurturing this customer. You’re not just ask them for a review and you’re not just like selling them a product, the next product you’re actually like engaging and building a relationship. And I’ve learned a lot of this in the NFT community. And I didn’t put it on here. We could talk about, oh, is, is a bonus. So I’ll save it. But. What’s different from normally e-commerce communities and crypto communities is the relationship of the users is almost like an owner of the actual company and the brand like, so we want to actually do that.

[00:17:12] And I think we’ll maybe go to that next point, but what I’m seeing here is on 0.5. You’re trying to nurture them from just a normal customer on Amazon or Shopee or Lazada or Taobao. It doesn’t matter, riight? You’re trying to build them into, of course not right away, but maybe they have money. They want to invest or they want to actually sell online or they want to do business or invest in somebody or something.

[00:17:38] Ah, so now that we have chosen the platform, they already have the members to join and they already have the engagement process. Maybe it’’s also best to adapt with the current changes. As we’re in the norm now is to have everything online and also to offer something you would just like crypto, NFTs and such and anything with web3. Maybe you can also share about that. Right, Mike?

[00:18:04] I think you were on the call yesterday. Aubrey. We can’t share. I mean, we share quite a lot here, but I can’t share everything because it’s not even developed yet. I think you noticed on a call yesterday about discussions about using crypto with e-commerce and Amazon. And we are trying our best to be as ahead of the curve as we can. I’m always, I don’t want to say always often I’m early Aubrey. Sometimes it’s too early because I see stuff and it takes longer than I expected, but for sure. For sure, without a doubt in my mind, there’s going to be e-commerce on blockchains. There’s going to be NFTs and connected with e-commerce and products and receipts and gifts and all this stuff. All of this stuff is going to move into crypto. I still very, very early and I, I know a lot of Amazon or normal consumers don’t understand crypto and NFTs, but we’re going to do our best to incorporate that into our brand. 

[00:19:00] And there’s discussions with just yesterday with somebody to allow even the customers or, or normal people to be able to be a part of owning that process. So I don’t want to say too much on that, but to make it more simple is you can issue NFTs, like Global From Asia issued NFTs and other projects we’ve done have issued NFTs to, you know, our VIP customers, our users, aren’t GFA, VIP members.

[00:19:26] You know, you issue these to only select people and they get this benefit. And then you can have this long-term relationship and it’s a long, long discussion. But the, basically the idea is if you’re not building this community now and you wait until it’s very mature and this is already ready, you’ll be behind. So it’s not maybe, maybe if you’re not even ready, even as Excalibur Brothers isn’t fully ready to integrate NFTs or crypto into these products. We’re building a community. And then if you all, you really need as a community, the value is a community. And you can of course, issue NFTs or a crypto bonuses to these customers or these supporters or ambassadors or influencers.

[00:20:05] And I will be probably sharing more as I learned. And we’re in confidential agreements with certain people in the communities about building these things. But the main point is this is gonna to happen. There’s just no doubt in my mind. I know even if governments don’t like it, but it’s no way it’s going to just go away.

[00:20:25]  I think on this podcast, I hope we can, you know, expand our team as well for this community and also influence other brands to have their own community, to build their own and to engage with them. For sure. And, you know, we talked about this in our GFA VIP mastermind last week member. Actually after the call, even our members in GFA VIP wanted to join our discord of Excalibur Brothers. I didn’t even think of that, but you see, like now we can bring in our members and even others in the community, like experts, podcast, guests. They’re like, oh, I want to join that community. Can I join? And I said, yeah. And then we give them a special role. We’re not just let them as normal user, but you have different roles.

[00:21:08] So we call them experts, you know, experts. They’re not like influencers or actually I’ll be honest. It’s very busy more to it right there. We’re matching their role name to the Knights of the Round Table. So I don’t want to, it’s just so much to talk about it. That’s another point. There’s a lot of interest you want to like match your community and your naming to your brand. And it’s just amazing. So we’re calling them, I forgot the name for the experts, but you know, we have, the nights are the franchisees, you know, and then we have the surf, which are not verified people, you know, like those, the peons, the, the people in the castle that were farming. And, but of course we want them to upgrade to be off customer.

[00:21:51] They can go to a higher level. So it’s, it’s a really amazing stuff that we’re, we’re trying to do here and integrating and know it’s happening. But what you do is you just drive in all this value, right? It doesn’t sound like value to you, Aubrey it’s like it’s value. It’s one modern day values community.

[00:22:08] I think all we’ve covered them all and hopefully a more members will come to our community as well, and enjoy their stay here. Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks. Thanks for this. And I hope people are enjoying this format. Were just taking a few points on the we’re taking some points in the end is what we’re learning and we’re sharing it as we go. And then, and things are moving fast. So right now it’s going into Chinese new year. The show is going online in Chinese new year. And so factories in central closed or working on a launch process and we’ll be sharing as much as we can to the public community, but of course our members and our blimp participants get the most detailed insights.

[00:22:50] So, thanks. Thanks for being here with the Aubrey. You’re really a natural on this podcast. I really appreciate. Thank you as well, Mike. And really, this is a great opportunity for me to practice my communication skills. So I’m really enjoy  talking about this subject. So thank you, Mike, and have a great day to everyone. Thank you. To get more info mode running an international business. Please visit our website@wwwdotglobalfromasia.com. That’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.