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Building a Brand Community for Bicycle Cafe Kamloops 

As the world economies are significantly increasing, globalization is following the same growth pattern. This tendency, as discussed by (Bellman et al., 2006) and cited in (Palazon & Sicilia, February 2015), combined with the rise of the internet, provides a new world of challenges and opportunities to market brands and products in all sorts of innovative communication channels. All these channels are trying to give special attention to the customer which is now being targeted from different angles in attempts to create online and offline experiences that build brand communities and loyal customers.

According to (Palazon & Sicilia, February 2015) in the early days of the internet, the internet itself was perceived as a new avenue for marketing professionals to send messages in an attempt to communicate with their virtual audiences and also to engage in a new world of a two-way communications, meaning the audiences now can “talk back to the brands”.

However, according to (Palazon & Sicilia, February 2015), the efforts of professional marketers to engage consumers in relationship marketing strategies are overwhelming their users because the virtual space is a very conglomerated field. 

Therefore, brand managers need to come up with innovative communication strategies that resonate and add value to their customers. Building a brand community is one of many solutions to reach this goal.

According to (McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002) a brand community seen from the customer experience viewpoint, is a structure of affiliations in which the consumer is placed in the center. The authors discuss that certain relationships are considered crucial for building brand communities. This includes relationships between the customer and the brand, between the customer and the product, between the customer and the firm and among fellow customers. Therefore, the authors proposed the Customer-Centric Model of Brand Community, in which the focal point is the customer and the interactions come from different angles converging in the middle, where the customer is located (McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002).

Adding to this discussion, the authors mention that in-person events such as rallies, jamborees, camps, competitions and parties bring people together, who wouldn't necessarily  know each other if it was not for sharing a common interest for the brand. (McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002).  

Therefore, when we started thinking about this project we thought about the Kamloops community, we were looking for a local brand with a small digital presence but with lots of potential to gather people around a common interest.

In the mountain biking world, Kamloops is considered to be a “mountain biker’s paradise” according to the website Mountain Biking BC . Kamlooops is a very common destination for riders from all over the world to explore the variety of trails and parks in the city. In the website Tourism Kamloops ,they mention six major bike shops in town, namely District Bikes, Bicycle Cafe Kamloops, Norkam Lock & Cycle, Spoke Bike + Ski, CycleLogic and Electra Ride.

For a small city like Kamloops the fact that six major bike shops are listed in the Tourism Kamloops website only speaks about the competitiveness and attractiveness of the market. Thus, for this project, our team has selected the brand Bicycle Cafe Kamloops. We are curious to understand what is Bicycle Cafe Kamloops doing differently in their communication and marketing strategies that differentiates them from the rest of competitors? Also, we are interested in understanding what aspects of its strategy can they leverage in order to deeper understand their customers and engage more with their current communities to increase the number of customers', brand loyalty and recognition.

As described on their Facebook page, Bicycle Cafe Kamloops is “a friendly and down to earth bike shop”. The company currently has 4,507 followers on Facebook and we couldn't find its presence in any other social media channel. The “website” they currently have is a wordpress blog and it only has 22 interactions. This is another reason we see a strong opportunity and potential in the brand to establish itself as the go to bike shop in Kamloops. 

As a group, we are keen in gathering some information in hopes to help the brand analyze, establish, grow and maintain a brand community amongst its members. Information that will be utilized to establish the guidelines for Bicycle Cafe Kamloops to bring its customers together as a community and to have meaningful interactions that will allow them to grow and possibly expand its operations.

What is a Brand Community?

Brand community helps to showcase brand loyalty at its best. It is where people with the same connection to a certain brand connect as well as the brand. Businesses across the world build brand communities as a way of strengthening their brands and having better conversations with their customers (Kumar & Kumar, 2020). The main importance of these brand communities is that they bring together customers which becomes a great advantage for any given brand. People who form a brand community are emotionally invested in what they will buy from a particular company; and they market it to others like friends and family. 

Some other benefits according to (Dholakia & Bagozz, 2006), are that brand communities represent effective marketing because consumers are not exposed to massive amounts of advertising, especially advertising in which they are not interested in. Therefore, consumers don’t present resistance to marketing communication. Another reason is that consumers become part of a “consumer empowerment” movement, which encourages companies to treat their clients as partners, share information and decisions with them to a definite level. This kind of relationship makes consumers more “loyal and make more purchase behaviours” (Prahalad & Ramaswamy,2006).

Most of the companies have a brand community already existing in their social media but they must find this community and connect directly in order to build a strategy for the people within the community to enable interaction with each other (Wider et al., 2018). 

Defining your brand

Firstly, it is important to know what your brand is in the first place. Defining a brand involves understanding the mission, vision, goals, and objectives that are meant to guide your company. This is essential since the more you show what your brand stands for, the more it is in a position to attract the target audience that suits it.

Define the goals and metrics of the brand

This involves looking at the purpose of your brand, finding the metrics that are supposed to be tracked as well as finding how the brand community will help in marketing, support, and sales systems.

Choosing a community platform or forum

This is where people will meet and share their opinions about your product and service. As a company, it is important to choose the best platform that will be easily accessible by everyone with much ease. Some of these forums include Facebook, Instagram, personal websites, and Twitter just to mention but a few.

Brand Community Plan for Bicycle Cafe Kamloops

 A brand community plan on the other hand refers to the strategy that a company comes up with to ensure that it has an active brand community that can be attracted by its products and services. In this case, a brand community plan for Bicycle Cafe Kamloops would be important to help in connecting with as many customers as possible. This is a friendly bike shop that is welcoming to all models and makes bikes and riders.  A brand community plan for this company would be as follows. First, there is the need of giving the planned time. A good plan will take time to build for it to be authentic and long-lasting. This will require a lot of effort and commitment (Sorensen & Drennan, 2017).

Secondly, it is important to start with a team and this simply means building your brand internally before going externally. This will help in creating a great brand experience for customers every day.

Thirdly, it is crucial to embrace a social cause that extends a customer's impact. A brand with a social impact is effective in what it offers. Besides, it is important to involve customers in a video. Shooting a video that shows people racing and doing mountain biking can be a great idea for attracting more customers into your business. Tools like Facebook, Instagram stories are very useful in this current world of online business and can help reach more audiences across the globe. Also, developing a value-driven presence on various social media platforms is key in reaching more audiences. There are options where businesses can boost their products and help in reaching many customers (Clark et al., 2017).

 With such strategies, Bicycle Cafe Kamloops Company can be in a position to grow more and achieve much as far as its business is concerned.

 

The Bicycle Cafe Brand

 

In order to build a brand community, the first steps are always to identify the brand for which you want to build the brand community, and to conduct a brand analysis on this brand. As stated in the previous sections, Kamloops’ Bicycle Cafe is the subject for which we have decided to build this brand community, now all that remains in the preliminary steps is to conduct an analysis on this brand. By conducting this analysis, we may move forward with a better knowledge of the brand, allowing us to make informed decisions upon the development of this brand community from a broad perspective. This will allow us to align our actions with the goals, values and mission of the company.

Bicycle Cafe Brand Analysis

 

Bicycle Cafe’s...	Description
Background	Bicycle Cafe is a bicycle shop in Kamloops, BC that specializes in mountain bikes, including sales and service. The company has been operating for over 15 years in Kamloops, in multiple retail locations until recently. Since  The company is owned
Mission Statement	“Our guiding mission is to deliver superior quality to our customers both in products and in services. It is of the utmost importance to us that we be stoked. And we aren’t stoked until you, our customers, are stoked. Whether it has taken nac nac’s or rock n’ roll, The Bicycle Cafe has been here to serve Kamloops for over 100 years (well, 15+ actually) and will continue to be here so long as you desire to be stoked.”
Goals	Primary goal: · Provide the public with quality products and service. Secondary goal: · Encourage the growth of the biking community.
Values	Quality service · Bicycle Cafe has some of the most experienced riders available to provide knowledgeable service for riders from beginners to experts. Enthusiasm · The family at Bicycle Cafe is as excited as their customers are about the sport of mountain biking. Health · Bicycle Cafe looks to promote a healthy lifestyle through exercise, and places an emphasis on safe riding. Community · Bicycle Cafe aims to bring the Kamloops area’s biking community together to celebrate the sport.
Target Market	Active, able-bodied people aged 8-50, male and female with an interest in biking/adventure sports. Middle to high income individuals.
Brand Voice	Laid back, informal, friendly brand voice that matches that of its target market. Similar to skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing culture. Frequent use of biking slang in its language.

 

Why Establish a Brand Community?

Establishing a brand community for Bicycle Cafe can benefit both the company, as well as the consumers. While providing crowd sourced content, exposure, and other forms of value for the brand, it also provides consumers a place to share their experiences with the brand, and build relationships with like-minded individuals.

Brand communities provide tremendous value in the fact that they generate free, unbiased content for the brand, all from the passion of the consumers. One of the strongest ways of marketing comes in the form of testimonials from a family member or friend. People that are in the social circles of brand community members are likely to hear about the positive brand experiences of these members, and they are more likely to trust their perspective than that of an advertisement from the company because there is no agenda involved.

Building a brand community is important because it offers a space for consumers to share their thoughts and ideas about the brand, and this may save marketers from having to do extensive consumer research. This space is also a place where consumers can build excitement around the brand, and give marketers an opportunity for meaningful engagement with the brand's fans. 

Key Motives For Brand Community Engagement

Perhaps the most relevant motive for brand community engagement is the fact that social media and online communities have come to replace the traditional ways of doing marketing in the past. In addition, this marketing strategy implies that if the customer is engaged with the brand, “the customer will make purchases that will contribute to the company’s profitability” (Kumar & Pansari, 2016). Usually this becomes a repetitive pattern and the consumers are willing to provide reviews using word-of-mouth. This technique creates a unique bond between the company and the customers and encourages them to be “more proactive in expressing themselves”  (S.F.M, Doorn , & Verhoed, 2018).

According to (Sashi, 2012) a successful customer engagement happens when a company focuses on satisfying its customers' needs by offering a greater value than its competitors. The authors described 6 stages as a conceptual frame to better understand how engagement can be achieved in an effective way. These stages are: connection, interaction, satisfaction, retention, advocacy and engagement. The first stage is to connect and “generate intelligence” (Sashi, 2012) on the needs and motivations of the brand’s audience. In this case, the audience of Bicycle Cafe looks for a place where they can meet and have a fun time like- minded people. 

They all share a common interest which is biking and some of them would be happy to be part of a community where they can share their passion. Therefore, Bicycle Cafe needs to develop a marketing strategy that involves listening to what the audience is looking for and responding to those needs by creating content, events and opportunities to interact with them.

This emotional connection creates a deeper bond between the company and customers and opens a window for interaction. The company can interact with its customers through traditional methods such as referrals, word-of mouth, and social networking. Kamloops is a city in which local businesses are well favoured, and this is something Bicycle Cafe could take advantage of. The Cafe could have some members of the community that already spent some time at the shop to simply hang out with like minded people, service their bikes and motivate them to share the whole experience  in exchange for a discount or any other benefit that could lead to start generating noise on their social media channels. One of the benefits of this type of interaction is that allows the Cafe and customers to establish a dialogue and a two-street conversation. 

If the connection and interaction between the transaction of a product or the time spent at the store, studio, place is satisfactory then the connection will transcend and customers will be engaged. An important idea to consider in this stage is that satisfaction doesn't end with the transaction or when the service ends, but takes into consideration the post-consumer service after the purchase (Firat & N. , 2006). This forces a company to provide good customer service since the beginning of the process until the very end. Once satisfaction transcends it becomes retention (Sashi, 2012), the customers are willing to come back because they are satisfied over time or they are emotionally connected to the brand or product. 

Usually, customers that are satisfied and feel happy about a product or service will willingly share their experience or story with friends, family and even use their social platforms to tell other people about it. Soon, customers become more and more loyal to the company and want to advocate for the same. This represents the biggest opportunity for Bicycle Cafe as they are not very present on social media at the moment and are not following their post-customer service. Kamloops is a small town where word-of-mouth plays a big role in businesses, advocates of the Bicycle Cafe can easily share their experience in their personal social media channels, this can generate more confidence to non users and convince them to visit the store themselves.

At last, when loyal customers start telling others about a brand they love or a product they are passionate about, the engagement has been successfully achieved. (Nordin, 2009) assures that customers need to be both delighted and loyal to the brand. This process contributes to deeper connections with customers and invites non-customers to a brand that otherwise they might have not tried yet. Perhaps the greatest benefit for Bicycle Cafe by having engagement with its customers is the fact that loyal customers stick through the ups and downs of a company. 

Creating Opportunities for Brand Community Participation

In-person events 

By bringing members of the biking community together in a physical space through hosting a variety of events, Bicycle Cafe can develop a strong brand community. Face-to-face interaction is a powerful way to make meaningful connections among people with shared interests compared to doing so through the internet. Baym’s (2004) study of interpersonal communication quality suggests that face-to-face interaction produces richer experiences for communicators vs. internet and telephone interactions. By providing members of the biking community, specifically those with a brand affinity towards Bicycle Cafe, with opportunities to meet face to face, there is a good chance that these people will build positive interpersonal relationships among one another over their shared interests. The following is an example of how we may accomplish this:

Biking Meetups

Bicycle Cafe has an opportunity to host biking meetups in surrounding biking areas in order to strengthen its brand community. They could approach it in a way that aims to attract less experienced riders for the purpose of teaming them up with more experienced riders to create beneficial learning experiences. Furthermore, in order to generate interest from the experienced riders, Bicycle Cafe could offer compensation in exchange for their help with teaching newer riders. This could be in the form of discounts at the store, free merchandise, or even free servicing of their bicycles. This type of activity hosted by Bicycle Cafe could be an effective way of bringing members of their brand community together, and creating a channel through which they may express their interest in the brand with other fans face-to-face. 

The concept of pairing veterans with beginners in a brand-sponsored activity was explored by McAlexander (2002) when members of Jeep’s brand community attended Camp Jeep, a program that allows fans of the brand with minimal off-roading experience to pair up with professional off-road drivers to witness the full capabilities of the vehicles made by Jeep. It was noted that the relationship between the experienced drivers and the beginners was symbiotic; the new drivers obtained value from the learning experience and the approval of the veterans, and the veterans enjoyed the social benefits of maintaining a position of leadership and respect. To summarize this scenario, McAlexander (2002) states that “the community as a whole benefits as exchanges of knowledge cement relationships through reciprocal exchanges of value.” 

If Bicycle Cafe creates a space for members of the community to teach and learn, the brand community as a whole may benefit, increasing its overall passion for biking and brand affinity to Bicycle Cafe, which in turn could lead to more sales.

“Virtual Communities”

Social media presence - Choose a platform for your community

The first step is providing that group with a channel to communicate with each other and your brand; a place where social interactions can happen and that promotes interaction with each other in a way that traduces in that sense of being part of a community.

To choose this platform, the brand needs to think about the audience demographics and media consumption habits. As said by Francisco (2015), It might be best to start with something simple, like a forum for your website or a Facebook group. You can promote these community hubs through email marketing, social media, or any other of your marketing channels.

To increase our presence in social media we can create events and contests in different channels that will allow us to grow the awareness and popularity for the brand as well as to gain more followers and establish a relationship with our virtual community members. To do this, it is imperative that we include in our communication strategy the online audience. As discussed by (Palazon & Sicilia, February 2015) a virtual community is a specific, geographically separated group of people that consists of an organized and compelling structure of relationships among its members which share a common focus or interest. Based on this concept we can create brand advocates that are not only in Kamloops but bikers from all over Canada and the world that somehow have been in contact with any of the touchpoints of the brand, even fellow community members.

Email Marketing

Also, collecting email addresses when making a final sale or tune up service in the store could be a fantastic opportunity to ask for permission to collect personal information and email addresses to send email marketing campaigns tailored to the consumer behavior and buying interests. For example, if a customer buys a Specialized bike model in 2018, we could keep them up to date with new models and complimentary products or services. The idea is to continue to engage with customers after the sale and target them with products and services of their interest. 

 Social Media Activities 

One of the greatest benefits of social media is that it is free and can be used to target a massive amount of people, customers and new people that might not even know about Bicycle Cafe. A very useful strategy on social media is “giveaways”, where the main purpose is to reach new customers through existing ones by giving them a certain discount or even product or/and free service. This increases the engagement with our customers because they love the brand and are willing to post on their social media accounts in exchange for what we can offer as a company. Our win is that people will like us, follow us, and comment on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, making our platforms a two-street conversation to start interacting and connecting in a deeper way with our community. In addition, this creates more exposure for our Cafe and this can lead to more opportunities to learn our customers' needs by first hand.  Some of these activities on social media can be: photo contests, vote contests between two different options like “which one do you prefer, winter or summer?”, puzzle contests, commenting on a favorite activity for a chance to win a $50 gift card on our services, and others.

 

Partnership with SunPeaks 

A partnership with SunPeaks can generate a great exposure from local and foreign people who share a passion for bicycling. We can run some contests where SunPeaks can contribute with a free pass or a discount on their pass. And we can give out free services on their bicycles. This will lead us to connect and engage with people that are not already our customers and we can reach out to a greater community. 

 

Conclusion

The latest technology has made possible the development of innovative communication channels, businesses now are capable to provide more attention to the customer feedback by developing two- way communication system that means the customers are no longer just the audience to the company advertisements but could talk back to the brands and could have all their questions and concerns answered in few minutes. The position of customer is very important in building the brand equities therefore customer is placed in the centre of the brand, product and market. As noted, the success of “Bicycle Cafe Kamloops” is also related to the business strategies and policies that keep customers at the focal point and adopt effective ways to communicate with the communities. 

The concept of brand community helps the firms in strengthening their brands and establishing better communication with their customers that eventually leads to consumer empowerment that means treating one’s clients as partners and consider their concerns while making business decisions that further strengthens the loyalty of the consumer towards the brand. Thus, likewise Bicycle Cafe Kamloops, the opportunities could be created through enhancing participation through in person events and biking meetups arranged for the enforcement of leisure activities and to attain the customer interest and relation with the brand. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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