Building A Thriving WooCommerce Community For Your Online Store

“76% of internet users participate in an online community.”

One study found that people participate in online communities that include blogs, forums, and/or vlogs across all devices.

Building community is the most preferred channel, today, to expose your brand/product to a wider section of the audience. And, I won’t be surprised if I say how well WordPress and WooCommerce community is swaying the eCommerce industry with events marketing alongside.

There’s no boundary to marketing channels and creativity in pitching deals to potential buyers. However, the hardest part is to catch their attention and motivate them to make purchase decisions. To succeed now, businesses need to plan and strategize to stand out from the crowd.

What Is A WordPress And WooCommerce Community

A WordPress and Woocommerce community is a group of people or businesses that share a common interest in WordPress and WooCommerce, it can be regarding their development, SEO strategies, or an online store.

In these communities, people interact, collaborate, and share knowledge with other members who use WordPress as their CMS and WooCommerce for their eCommerce store needs.

Let’s see why building a WooCommerce community is important for your online store.

Why Building A WooCommerce Community Is Critical For Your Online Store?

Building a WordPress and WooCommerce community gives your business new exposure and reach. WooCommerce is a popular eCommerce platform for WordPress, and fostering community around your online store can lead to various benefits.

Here Is Why It’s Important:

1. Know Your Customers Better

A thriving community can help you openly engage with your customers on a more personal level. An open community around your brand can lead to many benefits for your online store.

You can identify your customers’ pain points, understand their concerns, and actively respond to their feedback which can lead to increased customer engagement, as they feel heard and valued, which is crucial for building long-lasting relationships.

2. Build Brand Loyalty

According to the statistics from the Yotpo survey:

“36.5% of shoppers said they will spend more on products if they’re loyal to a brand. “

Building brand loyalty is crucial for every online store to continuously grow and survive in the long term. Brand loyalty is not solely dependable on the quality of the products or services you provide, a sense of belonging and identity within a community is also equally important.

When customers feel like they are part of a community that shares common values and interests, they are more likely to stick with your brand. Brand loyalty can lead to repeated purchases and enduring a consistent revenue stream.

3. User-Generated Content

It’s very common around thriving communities, customers may create user-generated content, such as detailed product reviews, testimonials, and product demonstrations.

This content serves as authentic and engaging marketing material that can boost your brand awareness and can be helpful in Search Engine Optimization ( SEO).

Having a WooCommerce community is like having a team of brand ambassadors who genuinely believe in your product and are willing to share their positive experiences.

4. Networking and Partnerships

Creating a WooCommerce Community can be a platform for building networks and forming partnerships with other businesses, affiliate programs, or influencers in the eCommerce niche. By collaborating with other people and entities in your community, you can grab their audience’s attention and develop mutually beneficial business relationships.

5. Market Research

Your WooCommerce Community can also act as a valuable source of market insights. You can monitor discussions, feedback, and trends within your community to gather information about changing customer preferences, and the latest market trends. You can even keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.

This information can help make informed business decisions and stay competitive in this ever-changing eCommerce World.

How To Build An Empowering WooCommerce Community

Have you noticed Events have always been a closer part of our lives? Not only in the corporate industry but different types of events have also been an irreplaceable part of almost every industry.

Before proceeding further let me explain quickly what event marketing is

In literal terms, an event marketing concept includes well-defined and structured planning, organizing, and executing a promotional campaign to promote the brand, product, or service. Events can either be online or offline.

Also, to be a part of an event you can either host it, participate in it, or just be a silent profiler by being a member of the sponsors’ committee.

Events can be very helpful in building a WooCommerce Community. Here are some of the best methods to utilize event marketing and build a thriving WordPress and WooCommerce Community

1. Webinars

Webinars or online seminars are the types of events involving discussions, presentations, and/or workshops. The Webinars, as an event, usually last for 60-90 minutes and are often held on a demand basis or in real-time.

The webinars enable opportunities for the participants to connect and interact with each other to discuss information on a topic. The best part is that the participants have the platform for real-time webinars to directly share their queries and concerns with the presenter during a question-and-answer session.

2. Virtual Events

The virtual events bring together participants from different geographical locations to the same platform where they can connect, network, and engage in meaningful discussions.

Moreover, virtual events are set up in a way to give you a feel of an offline event. For example, the Inbound.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of it then you’ll know that their virtual environment setup gives a real look and feel of the offline event by setting up a virtual lobby where the attendees can ask queries, collect reference materials for the events, meet the speakers and other participants, etc.
Such virtual events are hence organized in real time for all the participants to have a fulfilling experience.

3. Live-Streaming Events

Have you been part of the song launch event of your favorite singer?

Well, since the pandemic began, there have been many instances where marketers, specifically, from the media industry opted for social platforms like Instagram Live and other broadcasting platforms.

Live streaming allows you to engage with your audience using chat and other social media functionalities.

4. Physical Events

The physical events as the name suggests are the offline events that are organized to build face-to-face interactions. However, hosting physical events requires a comparatively huge amount of investment than online events.

Yet, their impact can’t be ignored as it involves the human factor that online events lack.

5. Trade Shows

Trade shows, this event derived its name from the agenda of gathering, i.e., traders coming together to interact and build their network. In this type of event, multiple representatives from various professions gather together to display their products and services or to partner with other companies for mutual growth and development.

Some Popular Events To Build Your WordPress And WooCommerce Community

There are events organized by the WordPress and WooCommerce community that can help you build your very own community or WordPress forum, giving your business a new and fresh hope to grow better.

1. WordCamps

WordCamps are locally organized offline events that last one or more days and, the sole purpose is to bring WordPress users of all types together. Since WordPress is a non-profit organization it relies on the collaboration of its enthusiastic users.

WordCamp is your one-stop solution for gaining world-class information on WordPress and building long-lasting relationships with WordPress experts.

So here are some topics that the WordCamp events cover:

• How to use WordPress effectively?
• WordPress plugins and themes development
• Enhancing WordPress security
• Advanced techniques
• Blogging tips, etc.

WordCamps are not only a set of conferences. It also includes many other activities as well. Being a member of the WordPress and WooCommerce community, you have the opportunity to be a part of it. In case you couldn’t attend the event, you can just watch it later on the WordCamp channel of WordPress.tv.

2. WooCommerce Community MeetUps

WooCommerce MeetUps are formal events held around the globe to guide the participants with better practices for running their WooCommerce stores.

You can be a part of the Woo MeetUps by entering the WooCommerce groups near you or joining the popular groups that organize the meetups regularly. You can also be a host by joining hands with the WooCommerce MeetUps organizing committee.

Check out the upcoming WordPress and WooCommerce meetups HERE.

3. Do The Woo (Podcast)

Do the Woo Podcast is a one-of-its-kind podcast running WooCommerce news and insights for all those who work on WooCommerce sites, plugins, and other development activities. It is a great way concerning the audio-marketing preferences of today’s people to get insights and share stories and information with their fellow community members.

4. WooSesh

WooSesh is a virtual conference for WooCommerce store builders held in real-time. It is a highly curated event to provide the best possible information and experience to all the participants. Each speaker at the WooSesh is selected with precision to address topics and subject matter to complement or build information for the participants.

Attending WooSesh events and conferences will help you in varied ways like project scoping, troubleshooting, improving customer experience and site performance, etc.

Few Examples: How Various Businesses Build Their WordPress & WooCommerce Communities

Apart from events, there are various other conventional ways to build your community of experts like:

1. WordPress Support Forum

WordPress provides multiple resources to share information and solutions with its audience. The WordPress Support Forum is one such platform where you can get any information or specific advice that you couldn’t have found elsewhere.

The WordPress Support Forum is where the whole WordPress community is available to resolve your confusion and doubts on a broad range of topics.

2. Quora

The most spread open-forum platform, Quora, is also the platform for eCommerce enthusiasts to share ideas and information. Many Quora spaces deal specifically with everything about eCommerce, WordPress, and WooCommerce like:

• WordPress
• Knowledge-base
• Solutions
• SEO Highlights
• WordPress WooCommerce Biz

3. Slack

The WordPress and WooCommerce community on Slack channels are always up for some new learnings and knowledge sharing. Some of the top slack communities supporting the WordPress marketing business growth :

• WooCommerce Channel
• WP Developers’ Club
• The WordPress Governance Project

4. Reddit

Reddit is also a popular platform where the WordPress and WooCommerce communities come together to interact and share knowledge in the form of subreddits on a particular topic. Some popular subreddits for WordPress and WooCommerce-related topics are :

• WordPress
• r/ProWordPress
• WooCommerce
• WordPress Plugins

5. Local Expert Groups

There is no forum or platform where the eCommerce enthusiasts lack their hold. Be it specific forums and channels or popular social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.

There are ample groups and dedicated pages available on Facebook and LinkedIn with active members who share valuable insights on marketing and development regularly. What’s more, is that these groups and pages entertain the users and developers at all levels. Some of these groups are :

• eCommerce and Marketing Insiders
• Advanced WordPress
• WordPress Help
• WooCommerce – WordPress eCommerce
• WordPress Plugins Suggestions
• WooCommerce Help & Share
• WordPress Solutions
• WPBeginner Engage – WordPress Help for Non-Techies

Top 5 Best Plugins To Build WooCommerce Community

If you are interested in creating your own platform for your community members you can leverage these plugins and create your community platform in WordPress.

1. Membership for WooCommerce

Membership for WooCommerce is the best plugin to create an exclusive community around your brand, with this plugin you can create a members-only section and offer your products and services exclusively to your members.

it has 2 user-friendly templates to show membership plans, you can customize membership emails and modify the subject line and message body of membership creation, expiration, and cancellation email for members.

Furthermore, you can also monitor all membership plans and their details like Plan ID, Access Type, Offered Products and categories, etc.

2. Buddy Press

BuddyPress is a popular community-building plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create a social network on your website. It’s created by the WordPress team and can be easily integrated into various themes and plugins.

It has a straightforward design with astonishing features. You can create user profiles with built-in functionality for friends, groups, messaging, and more.

3. WpForo Forum

WpForo is a WordPress forum-building plugin that allows you to create responsive forums for your community members, it has a badge and ranking system to create excitement among your community members, and anti-spam blockers and it’s SEO friendly.

This plugin integrates with a variety of other plugins including BuddyPress so you can easily reap the benefits of both community forums and social media networks. Additionally, you can extend your site’s functionality by purchasing add-ons from the WpForo Forum.

4. bbPress

bbPress is another WordPress forum-building plugin but it’s open source which means if you have development expertise you can easily customize its code according to your needs. bbPress is specifically designed to create a discussion board and it’s compatible with numerous WordPress plugins.

Another great thing about this plugin is that it’s open source so you have an entire WordPress community to solve any issues you face during your custom development.

5. ProfileGrid

ProfileGrid is a freemium WordPress plugin, that helps you to create member groups/communities and frontend profiles.

It also includes social network features like private messaging, activity feed with notifications, and even the option for users to create and share their blog posts within your community.

Each group can have its own workflow for registering users, set membership limits, and choose from different privacy levels. furthermore, the admin can manually approve or decline requests for new group members.

Summing Up!!!

Events marketing is a traditional concept but can be very effective in building your WordPress and WooCommerce community. It has gone viral as a modern marketing methodology.

Creating a loyal community of customers, users, and or participants who are willing to be part of gatherings to learn something new for their business and grow it to new heights.

Building a strong WordPress and WooCommerce community will give you a better platform to connect, interact, learn, explore, resolve queries, share ideas, and whatnot. Hence, it brings you a lot of information to learn from and grow your business to new heights.