How to Set Up Your Email Database For Community Building

To build a successful community, you will need a deep understanding of your members and their collective goal. By capturing data from your members, you can gain insights into their preferences, challenges, and needs as they pursue that goal. This, in turn, will help you tailor your content and events to better serve your community members.

Additionally, data can help you identify community members that may benefit from connecting with each other. With the right data at your disposal, you'll be in a position to foster meaningful relationships that benefit your members achieve their ultimate goal.

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The Tools You Will Need to Capture Data

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You need the right tools to capture data from your members. A critical component is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform such as Salesforce or Zoho, or an ESP (Email Service Provider) such as Mailchimp or ConvertKit, to house the data. These tools can be used to send targeted emails to your members about relevant events and resources.

Additionally, an online form builder, such as Formstack or Gravity Forms, can simplify the process of capturing information from your members. However, if data needs to be moved from one program to another and those programs don't communicate with each other natively, a tool such as Zapier can help you pass data from one source to another.

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Create Personas to Represent Your Community Members

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Before diving into the details of data collection, it's important to take a step back and think about who your community members are. By creating personas, you can gain insight into their wants, needs, and pain points, which will ultimately inform the data you collect. Take some time to develop a deep understanding of your so that you can ensure that you're capturing the most relevant and impactful information from them.

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Decide Which Demographic Data You Want to Capture

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Deciding which demographic data to capture from your members is crucial for effective community building. Data points to consider could include:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Occupation

By collecting this information, you can gain insights that will help you better serve your members and engage with them on a deeper level. For example, knowing where your members are located could help identify the best time zones for your in-person or virtual events. Similarly, understanding their professions could help you create more relevant content and opportunities for engagement.

However, it's important to remember that filling it out long forms that ask for too much information can be overwhelming. Only capture what you need to effectively serve your community and always respect your members' privacy.

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Decide Which Psychographic Data You Want to Capture

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It's crucial to not only understand the demographics of your members, but also their psychographics. Psychographic data provides invaluable insights into the emotional and behavioral patterns of your community members that demographics simply cannot. For instance, knowing that a particular member values environmental sustainability or frequents farmers markets allows for more targeted and meaningful community building efforts.

Similarly, understanding the preferred communication style or technology usage patterns of your audience can also inform your engagement strategies. By capturing psychographic data, you can craft personalized experiences that resonate with individuals and foster deeper connections within your community.

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Capture Data Related to Milestones

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One important aspect of building a strong community is identifying the milestones that each member may hit as they work towards their shared goal. Capturing data from each member related to those milestones can help you steer them toward the most relevant resources. For example, if you run a community of musicians and you know that some of them are preparing to record their first album, you can send them tips which will guide them towards this milestone.

Equally important, capturing milestone data will help you avoid sending irrelevant content, which can lead to frustration or disinterest. Identifying milestones and capturing related data from your members can create an engaged and cohesive community.

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When To Use Different Types of Input Fields

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In order to create effective online forms, it's important to understand the different types of input fields available for online forms:

• Text fields are great for capturing basic information such as someone's name or email address.
• Dropdown menus are useful when there are a large number of options to choose from and the community member filling out the form knows the correct answer without seeing all of the available choices. For example, when somebody is selecting the state that they live in, a dropdown menu is appropriate.
• Radio buttons are best used when you want to present a few choices, but the community member filling out the form needs to see all of the choices before selecting one. For example, when identifying their occupation from a list, a radio button is appropriate.
• Checkboxes are useful when you want to allow a community member to select multiple options.

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By using the appropriate input field for each question in your online form, you can make it easier for people to provide the information you need while improving the user experience.

Collecting data in different ways can have a significant impact on how that data is used. Data collected through dropdown menus, radio buttons, and checkboxes can be used to filter and sort members for customized communication to a larger group, while the information that is gathered through text fields can be used to personalize your communications.

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Data Is Key For Community Building

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Capturing accurate data from your community members is vital to connecting your members with the resources that will benefit them the most. By understanding the specific needs, preferences, and interests of your members, you can drive engagement and satisfaction. Capturing data will help you foster a sense of belonging and value among your members, which in turn encourages more participation and grows your community.

This article first appeared at https://www.communitymarketingrevolution.com/blog/how-to-set-up-your-email-database-for-community-building.