How To Make Your Small Business Community More Valuable

 

If you want to create a sustainable small business, marketing alone won’t help you stand the test of time. Marketing can help you grow, but it is not enough if you want to create a long-term organization that has several loyal customers and recurring revenue.

That is where the small business community comes in. Building and maintaining a community around your small business can help you forge strong relationships with customers, vendors, and other stakeholders. When you involve people in a local business by forming a community around it, it forms a meaningful connection, and you are no longer a business but a part of their lives.

However, you must ensure to not just form a business community and leave it at that. There needs to be stimulation and involvement, and you must ensure to keep adding value to the community for the people. So, here are some easy practices you can adopt to make sure the business community is a worthwhile part of your customer’s life. Keep reading.

What Is Community Involvement?

Community involvement brings three main factors into account. The main factor around which the community revolves is the people themselves. A business community is built around people who share common interests and want to know more about the business and how the business is contributing to society.

Another factor is the culture which is built by people of common interests coming together to participate in the community. And this shared culture leads to a sense of accountability and belonging, which keeps people involved.

How To Build A Trusted Community?

In the pre-pandemic times, a small business community almost always had a physical presence in the local area. People could meet in neighborhoods, shops, and cafes, and carry out collective tasks. However, with the internet becoming more accessible and the onset of the Covid pandemic, things have changed.

A small business does not necessarily need to have a physically present community. They can function completely through online mediums.

There are many digital mediums that can be used for building an online community. You can make groups on different social media channels, arrange virtual meetups, and even provide value through digital products.

Why Should You Get Involved In A Business Community?

A small business community can take your business to new heights. In most cases, building a community and giving value to it is no more optional as market competition demands that you do more with your organization.

With more choices available, people are looking to become loyal to businesses that don’t just contribute to the capitalist world but are also socially responsible. About 82% of the people consider the work of a business related to corporate social responsibility before making a purchase.

Not only customers but about 86% of employees also factor in the corporate social responsibility of a business while joining a firm.

So, it is important for a sustainable business to form a business community and add value to it.

How To Add More Value To Your Small Business Community?

There are several ways you can add more value to your small business community and make it a tightly knit space for all stakeholders.

• Be A Part Of Impactful Charities

At Altruistic Joe Coffee, we support charities that work to make the world a better place. Our customers buy coffee from Altruistic Joe because their money doesn’t only go towards a hardworking, veteran-owned small business, but 20% of it is contributed to carefully scrutinized charities that work for various causes like environmental conservation, animal rights, military welfare, and more.

Small businesses can add value to communities by donating a part of their income proceeds to legitimate charities that work on local or national causes. If the charity is working locally, they will be even more appreciative of your help as they don’t always get big donations.

So, go fish out your neighborhood charity working to provide food, take care of stray animals, or work on other agendas and help them.

• Sponsor A Local Sports Event Or Team

Other than being supportive of a charity, you can also become a sponsor for a local sports team or an event.

Sponsoring a sports team is a great way to promote your business while adding significant value to the community. Athletics are a big part of any local culture. Most people come out in throngs to attend such events. Besides that, playing sports is a healthy form of self-expression and keeps the mind and body strong.

Moreover, when you sponsor an event or a team, your company logo and name will appear on the shirts of the team and at other places in the sports center. This leads to the introduction of your business to hundreds of local people.

• Volunteer As A Team

What better way to show your support towards society than doing something good with your own hands?

Volunteering is a great way to be socially responsible as an individual and as a business. You can set a day in a week or whatever suits your business schedule where the whole team volunteers at organizations they support. This will also act as an amazing team-building activity.

• Offer Workshops To Other Businesses

Another extraordinary way to add value to your community is to offer free workshops to other local businesses. There are several things that a business needs help with when starting out and even after it has established a base.

You can help them figure things out by offering free workshops, seminars, or webinars. It could be a digital marketing course where you teach the small business how to run targeted, local ads online, or you could talk about managing the budget for a local business, etc.

• Start A Newsletter

Newsletters are becoming more popular by the day. You can start one for your business where you send helpful, informative articles related to your business or even outside it to your followers in the community

Key Takeaways

These are just some of the top ways to add value to your small business community. You can support charities a we do at Altruistic Joe, offer free workshops, volunteer, sponsor, or send an informative newsletter.

You can also come up with your own unique idea of contributing to society and adding value to local communities. It’s a great time to be socially responsible.