Community Building: Start with an IDEA

Start with the IDEA: Identify, Discover, Evaluate, Assemble.
Consider:

✩ What’s the common thread that connects your ideal
members?

✩ Can you picture activities they’d be passionate about participating in?

✩ In what ways do they share the community with friends,
family, or colleagues?

Spend time getting to know your ideal members and approach the
conversation strategically, focused on the key community questions
listed below:

✩ Do they have the problem you think they have?

✩ Do they want your help?

✩ Do they want help from a community of peers?

✩ Do they want to be a part of an online community?

✩ Have they been a part of an online community? If so, when
and where?

Craft a survey to learn about your ideal members. You can refine
your list of potential ideal members by posing questions that best
align with your community concept.

Here’s how you can craft and carry out a survey to help you produce a refined list:

Learn more about the IDEA Framework.

Discover Your Ideal Members 10

Write out your community purpose, vision, and mission using the information you know about your existing members and/or audience.

Pull testimonials and emails from past clients. Find commonalities among these individuals based on their needs and challenges. Align them with the benefits of the community.

Decide how your community concept can meet those needs and challenges. Rewrite each problem statement as a question. For example, if a past client has mentioned struggling with a task, ask them, “Would you be interested in an accountability group?” This group helps you finish this task.

Turn your community’s mission into a written statement. This statement can serve as a call to action for the people who need it.

Give a picture of the information you’re seeking. Identify the people from whom you’re seeking information. Explain what’s in it for them. Make sure to include how they can
learn when your community will launch, should they be interested.

Finish a list of the most active audience members and
send a survey with fewer than ten questions. The questions
should be short and relevant to their needs, not yours.

Survey Tips

✩ Have a clearly defined purpose that can be easily under-
stood in thirty seconds or less.

✩ Make it easy to finish in five minutes or less.

✩ Keep questions brief and to the point (multiple choice,
yes-or-no).

✩ Don’t forget to ask if you can contact them for further
discussion.

✩ Give them incentive to finish the survey (a discount or
special offer).

f✩ Assign a deadline to encourage immediate action.