This is the most important marketing you should do
Build the community first
I’ve worked in marketing for more than 20 years, and the most common pushback has always been some version of: we don’t need marketing.
And those who claim to know they need marketing, reduce it to a press release or a social media account.
In coffee, that usually means handing the account to the youngest person on the team and asking them to recreate whatever’s trending on TikTok.
Most owners believe the product should carry the business. Find a decent location, buy the right machine, hire good baristas and open the doors.
It’s only when the seats stay empty that “marketing” becomes urgent.
Someone needs to post something.
So they do. Sometimes they post something good. It might even get views. Most times they post something terrible.
Regardless, the fact is, posting something is content. It’s not marketing.
What is marketing?
Marketing should tell you:
who the café is for,
why those people should choose it,
what they should expect when they arrive and
what will bring them back.
It should shape the offer, the pricing, the menu, the space, the service, the way staff behave and the way the business talks about itself.
If none of that has been worked out, social media only broadcasts confusion.
Marketing runs through the whole business
Marketing doesn’t sit in a department. It isn’t your Instagram account. And it isn’t the person holding the camera.
It starts with who the café is for. And where you choose to open. The name, the sign outside, what the place looks like, the products you sell and what you charge for those products. All of those decide who will visit. All of those are all marketing.
Then the customer walks in.
The menu needs to make sense. Ordering needs to be easy. Someone should acknowledge them. The wait should feel reasonable. Staff need to speak to people properly. That’s marketing.
When something goes wrong, the way you handle it becomes part of how they see the business. That’s marketing.
Reviews count. Your website counts. So do your posts, promotions, partnerships and whatever people say about you after they leave. All those things are marketing.
There’s one other thing that is also marketing. And, in my opinion, the most important marketing you should do.
Building a community.
What is community?
The coffee industry uses the word community very loosely.
A busy room gets called a community. An Instagram following gets called a community. A WhatsApp group gets called a community.
Regular trade doesn’t always mean you have a community. Someone might visit every morning because the café is close to work. The coffee is reliable, parking is easy and they collect points.
Nothing wrong with that. That’s good business. But it’s not community.
Community starts when people feel they belong there. They know the staff. The staff know them. They know other customers. Other customers know them.
Social media followers can watch for years without becoming part of anything. Participation is what you’re after.
Why is community so important?
Community gives you something your competitors can’t easily reproduce.
Another café can buy the same coffee, install the same equipment, maybe even better equipment, and hire someone to make really beautiful, polished content.
What it can’t copy are the relationships you’ve built. The barista who knows a customer has a difficult meeting every Monday. The running group that has met outside for two years. Or the regulars who trust one another to watch their laptops while they use the rest room.
Those relationships won’t move because a prettier café opens nearby.
People come back
Customers who only buy the product will keep comparing you with other cafés. Price, quality, distance and convenience are their most important considerations.
It’s once the café becomes part of their routine, that leaving carries more weight. They’d lose familiar staff, familiar faces and a place where they already know how everything works.
The drink is still important. It’s simply no longer the main reason for returning.
They bring other people
Regulars bring colleagues because they trust the team to look after them.
A runner brings the rest of the group. Someone who has just moved into the neighbourhood gets told where to go. A friend visiting from overseas gets taken to the café everyone talks about.
Your marketing becomes easier to believe
A lot of cafés say they care about quality, service and people. A community is evidence.
Customers keep returning. Staff know their names. People come to spend time together.
New customers see that. They don’t need to take your word for it.
The business has some goodwill
Slow months happen. Competitors open. Costs rise. Prices must follow. Someone on the team makes a mistake.
Customers with no connection to the café can leave quickly. Or, even worse, write a Google Review.
A community gives them reasons to stay.
Having said that, goodwill has limits. People will still leave if the coffee gets bad, service slips or the prices stop making sense.
You still have to run the business properly.
The relationship gives you a little room when things don’t go to plan.
You learn what people need
When you have a community, you have people you can reach out to for genuine feedback.
You hear which parts of the menu confuse people. You see what they order, who they bring and when their habits change. People tell you what they wish you sold and why they use the café in the first place.
You don’t need to build the business around assumptions anymore.
How to build a community
You can’t launch a community with a poster and a date. It’s not a button you can switch on or off.
It develops. In stages.
Step 1: Watch who already uses the café
Start with the people who are there now.
Spend a few weeks paying attention. Who returns? When do they come? What do they do while they’re there? Who already knows someone else?
You might think you’re building a destination for serious coffee drinkers. But see that the people choosing you every day are teachers, office workers and parents from nearby.
Don’t work with what you hope for. Work with what you see.
Step 2: Sort out the basic experience
The drinks need to be consistent. The café needs to be clean. Ordering should be easy. People should feel acknowledged.
Because a frustrating café experience doesn’t leave room to build a deeper relationship.
Step 3: Let people feel recognised
Learn names naturally. Remember usual orders. Acknowledge someone when they arrive, even when you’re too busy to serve them immediately.
If a regular disappears for a while, notice when they return.
Don’t be a stalker. Some people want a quiet coffee and nothing more.
The job is simply to make the person feel their presence hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Step 4: Create something that repeats
Give people a predictable reason to regularly come back to the same place at the same time.
It could be a weekly run, a workshop or a monthly cupping.
Keep it manageable. A small gathering that happens regularly will do more than a large event nobody has the energy to do again.
Step 5: Help people meet
When there’s a genuine connection, introduce people.
Two customers work in the same industry. Someone is new to the running group. A regular can help a newcomer with a question.
Watch for the opportunity to make the introduction. And when it presents itself, make the intro. Then get out of the way. Nobody wants a coffee shop to feel like a forced networking event.
Step 6: Let people contribute
Ask regulars what they thought of an event. Invite a local customer to run a workshop. Show someone’s work. Collaborate with nearby businesses and support something people in the area care about.
People feel closer to places they’ve helped shape. Their role doesn’t need to be a big one. A small contribution is enough to change the relationship.
The café becomes somewhere they have a stake in, even if that stake is informal.
Step 7: Show what’s happening
This is where social media becomes useful.
Show the running group, the local artist and the people who keep coming to the workshop. Tell the story of someone who has visited since opening week. Introduce the team as people rather than hands operating equipment.
Step 8: Keep it open
Communities can become cliques.
Regulars get comfortable. New customers walk in and feel like they’ve entered someone else’s private room. Staff can spend so much time talking to familiar customers that everyone else feels ignored.
Watch for that.
Regulars should feel recognised. But a first-time customer should still feel welcome.
You’re building a place people can join, not a private club with coffee.
Keep posting
Keep posting. Advertise when there’s a reason. Improve the website, manage the reviews and run promotions.
Those things do a good job of introducing people to your café.
However, it’s work to build a community that gives them a reason to stay.