How To Use Discord For Marketing?

Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube, by all means, dominate when it comes to branding, advertising, building exposure, and finding engagement for businesses. But what about the platforms that come secondary to those social media giants?

We’ve looked at some before, like Quora and Reddit, but there are still more. 

Today, I’d like to cover Discord and how you can use it for your info product business. Let’s dive in! 

Discord is a free chat platform similar to Slack and Microsoft Teams. It combines text chat, voice, and video and is primarily designed for communities. Initially, this “nerdy” 🤓 platform was dominated by the gaming and crypto industries, but with time has attracted other types of users, like creators, educators, and business individuals.

Discord has over 190 million monthly active users worldwide, all of which are quite niche-oriented. This means that if your info product business aligns with the interests and needs of Discord users, you can absolutely use this platform to build brand awareness, increase engagement, and boost your conversions.

Key Components Of Discord

Before we explore how Discord can be used to market your business, let’s first understand what it consists of (at least the basics). 

Some may view this platform as less user-friendly; however, if you were courageous enough to start a business, you have nothing to fear when it comes to learning how to use a new platform.  

Discord consists of 5 main components: 

• Servers: Spaces for communities, which are divided into channels for specific niches, topics, and activities. There are text channels – for text-based discussions; and voice channels – for real-time voice and video communication.
  
  
• Direct Messages: These are private conversations between users.
  
  
• Roles And Permissions: Server admins can assigned roles to manage access and enforce rules and guidelines.
  
  
• Bots: These automated programs can enhance server functionality, answer questions, moderate discussions, and provide entertainment.
  
  
• Integrations: You can link platforms like YouTube and tools like Zapier, Google Drive, Calendly, and Notion to collect, automate, and sync multiple processes. 
  
  

Marketing On Discord – What To Expect?

Here are the advantages Discord offers for marketing, particularly for info product businesses that use community engagement and relationships with their audience to scale their businesses. 

• Organized Content: Discord makes it easy to organize content by distributing it across designated channels instead of cramming everything into one space. This makes it easier for users to find what they want, simplifying and improving the customer experience.
  
  
• Connection With Your Community: In Discord, you can interact with your audience in real-time, which nurtures loyalty and increases trust toward your brand.
  
  
• Tiered Access: Discord allows you to create tiered access to different channels.
  
  One channel can offer free content, and another could be accessed by invite only and offer something exclusive, for example, when a user makes a payment, subscribes to your newsletter, or refers someone to your business.
  
  
• Cost-Effective Marketing: Discord is free to use for both server owners and members, making it cost-effective for building a community around your business. (Do not confuse that with paid access to certain channels – that is only if the server owner decides to charge for said access.)
  
  Discord has no algorithms, which means your content reaches your members without getting hidden or filtered by algorithms. This supports organic growth through engagement instead of expensive ads.
  
  
• Trust and Authority: Discord allows real-time engagement and interaction with your audience and customers. You can offer advice, provide help and support, and host workshops and webinars, which will help you position yourself as an authority in your niche.
  
  
• Audience Retention: With Discord communities, you can retain your audience long-term, unlike Instagram followers, for example. People enter your community because they are already interested in what you have to offer, which means audience retention and loyalty are much easier to achieve. 
  
  

Pro Tips For Discord Marketing

• Your Server Should Have Structure: Create a server with multiple channels for separate purposes, such as onboarding and welcoming new members, announcements, general discussions, feedback and support, useful resources, and networking.
  
  Your “Onboarding” channel should include a welcome message and outline rules and expectations for members.
  
  “Announcements” can include any updates about your product or service, webinar or live session reminders, and promotions.
  
  “Useful Resources” can maintain any valuable links, downloadable PDFs, recordings of live sessions, and anything that your audience might want to revisit or rewatch.
  
  “General Discussions” can be a place where you offer free, valuable information about your niche and/or allow users to leave feedback and request support from you or each other.
  
  The “Networking” channel can give users an opportunity to meet and greet each other and yourself (or the main faces of your brand).
  
  
• Deliver Value: Info product businesses thrive on informational and educational content. Use Discord to share useful advice and your expertise. You can also offer exclusive resources that complement your info product.
  
  Make your content informational but fun and easy to digest. To keep your audience engaged and learning, you can share small tips and create challenges or quizzes.
  
  
• Engage With Your Community: Respond to questions, feedback, and requests. Engage in discussions and make sure your audience knows who you are.
  
  You can share your story, ask for opinions, and start discussions.
  
  You can also share BTS (behind-the-scenes) content about your brand, introduce your audience to your team (if you have one), share a snippet of what product you are working on for them, or give them a tour of your office, where all the magic happens.
  
  
• Host Live Events: Host live sessions, webinars, and workshops and offer in-depth training on topics related to your niche, product, or service. Events like these can build trust and authority for your brand.
  
  During live interactions with your audience, you can set aside some time to answer their questions, address concerns, and get to know the users more deeply.
  
  
• Use Discord As A Sales Funnel: You can turn Discord into a sales funnel by offering free access to general channels for the non-paying audience and reserving other channels for paying clients.
  
  You can generate leads by requiring contact information to join your server.
  
  You can also create a separate channel where you can redirect users for upsells or crossells that are relevant to your main product or service.
  
  
• Leverage Automation And Bots: Discord is compatible with numerous integrations, including automation tools like Zapier, to facilitate the automation of certain tasks.
  
  You can also use discord bots to welcome new members, provide answers to commonly asked questions, or collect feedback on your product or service. 
  
  

Closing Remarks

So, to recap, Discord is a great platform to use if you are looking to scale your business organically. It allows you to build and maintain a community around your brand, which fosters trust, authority, and customer retention. 

Discord is a free platform for both you and the users – everything you build on it relies solely on your efforts and the quality of your products and services, not algorithms. 

For your community to grow on Discord (as well as any other platform), it is essential to maintain continuous engagement and provide value to your audience. 

You can delegate certain types of engagement (like onboarding, welcome messages, commonly asked questions, and rules) to bots and automation tools, which will help you focus on more important types of content. 

For any business, it is essential to consider and analyze which social media platform their target audience prefers, so Discord may not be the appropriate platform for everyone. 

On that note, subscribe to Vavoza Insider and stay tuned for more useful marketing tips! 

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– Steph