OVER TO YOU
Build a Destination
Nurturing the right communities that drive long-term loyalty.
Resources to accompany chapter 9 of Make Marketing Matter: Change perceptions. Drive performance. Architect growth.
Chapter snapshot
People seek belonging. They invest time and energy in communities where they feel understood, supported and able to contribute, and when that belonging exists, loyalty deepens.
Build a Destination is about creating somewhere people choose to return to, participate in and gain value from. A destination is an environment where the value comes from the members themselves, with the business acting as facilitator and contributor rather than the centre of attention.
Chapter 9 sets out the conditions for community: aligning on what community really is, establishing its purpose for members, and creating a home with clear house rules. It then shows how to activate, cultivate and nurture a community over time, and how to demonstrate its influence by comparing the behaviour of members with non-members.
Why Build a Destination matters
In a world where content is produced at scale and attention is fragmented, community is one of the durable sources of trust. Members trust peers more than brands, and peer recommendation reduces perceived risk and speeds up decisions.
That trust shows up commercially. Communities lower acquisition costs, strengthen retention and build advocacy. Over time they increase loyalty and lifetime value, creating switching costs that are social rather than contractual. The value lives in the relationships between members, meaning a well-facilitated community is something competitors can't easily replicate.
Community multiplies marketing effectiveness. It's a long-term commitment that requires patience before the return is visible, but one that delivers relevance and lasting strategic advantage.
Definitions in this chapter
build a destination principle.
A commitment to creating and facilitating communities that build loyalty, deepen participation and create meaningful value exchange.
Check In
Take a moment to reflect on whether your business is ready to build a destination.
- Is there a shared group of people your audience would genuinely value connecting with, beyond their relationship with you?
- Could the business facilitate a community without needing to be at the centre of every conversation?
- Is there the patience to invest in community before a return is visible?
Take Action
Establish the purpose of your community by answering four questions:
- Why would this community exist for its members?
- What would they turn to if it didn't exist?
- Why will it be relevant to them?
- What's the common thread that connects them?
If every answer comes back to your business, your products or your sales, you're describing a marketing channel, not a community. Keep going until the value flows between members.
Bring it to the room
The biggest barrier to community is the internal mindset about what's being built. Align the room before anything is launched.
Share what a community is not: traditional marketing, an email list, an event series, a loyalty scheme or a revenue stream. Then ask each leader: is everyone clear that value flows between members, not between members and the business? Is the business prepared to facilitate without being the centre of attention? What would make us nervous about investing?
Agree the internal ground rules together: how leaders and teams show up, what sales and marketing can and can't do, and how community insight will be used.
If there's hesitation, agree a small, experimental budget and start there.
Related reading
Belonging to the Brand by Mark Schaefer
Schaefer argues that as traditional marketing becomes less effective and trust in brands declines, community is the strategy that still works. He connects it to a basic human need to belong, heightened by rising loneliness and a more fragmented, digital world, and makes the case that people increasingly want to connect with each other around a brand rather than simply be marketed to. Drawing on research and real-world examples, he shows how businesses can build communities that serve their members first, and the loyalty, retention and advocacy that follow.
Schaefer Marketing Solutions, 2023.
Unfair Mindshare, Derek E. Weeks
Written by a CMO who has built large, thriving communities himself, this is a practical playbook for earning attention by giving value first. Weeks argues that in markets crowded with similar products, the businesses that win are those that build genuine communities around the challenges their audience cares about, gaining a share of mind that competitors struggle to match. He's refreshingly honest about what it takes, including his first rule of scaling a community: commit 1,000 hours a year to it.
Unfair Mindshare LLC, 2023.
Back pocket arguments
- A 2009 Harvard Business Review article cautioned against treating community-building as a marketing activity, arguing instead that it must be framed as a high-level strategy aligned to business-wide goals. Read the article >
- A 2021 Harvard Business Review article highlighted that true loyalty is emotional and often irrational, rooted in a sense of belonging rather than transaction. Read the article >
- Deloitte identified ‘connected communities’ as one of the defining marketing trends of recent years, noting that companies investing in community are finding new pathways to loyalty and growth. Read the article >
- McKinsey & Company described what they call a community flywheel, where brands place community at the core of their strategy. They found that brands that activate this flywheel move beyond large passive followings to build actively engaged members that create, share and amplify content. These organisations consistently outperform across key metrics including user-generated content and conversion rates. Read the article >
- In Belonging to the Brand, author Mark Schaefer highlights that 66% of companies report that their community has a direct impact on customer retention.
Get the full picture
This page includes additional resources to support Chapter 9: Build a Destination in the book Make Marketing Matter.
The chapter walks through defining the conditions for community, launching and sustaining it, and measuring its influence through the 3D Dashboard. Make Marketing Matter is a comprehensive guide for marketing leaders and boardroom colleagues who want to build a marketing ecosystem that shows impact, links to outcomes, and leads to recognisable revenue.
30
Definitions
Clear, precise language that gives you a shared vocabulary for your ecosystem approach.
40
Practical Exercises
Consistent, repeatable actions that bring the ecosystem approach to life.
Preorder Make Marketing Matter
Make Marketing Matter: Change perceptions. Drive performance. Architect growth. is out on 20th October 2026.
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