Discord Marketing: How to Use Discord for Insane Growth in 2024 [Updated Guide]

It’s never been easier for businesses to create and grow a dedicated base of targeted buyers, while optimizing brand reach and credibility, than with Discord marketing!

But, many brands don’t know much about Discord or how it can help promote services beyond gaming, and fuel brand growth.

Successful Discord marketing centers around brands developing engaged online communities, which fuel brand loyalty.

Discord marketing done right is a steady and strategic process. But with the right know-how, and some of Discord’s handy automation bots, you can easily grow and engage your online community.

And your audience already wants to feel like they’re a part of a community – almost 80% of internet users are part of an online community, and 85% of marketers confirm communities build customer trust and improve buying journeys!

So, how do you get your Discord marketing right?

Today, we’re covering the top Discord marketing strategies to use, innovative ways to achieve rapid Discord community growth, and everything else you need to know to make the most of this community-driven platform!

Ready?

Let’s get started!

What is Discord

Discord is an online social platform allowing users worldwide to chat, call, and video call for free. To interact with others, Discord users must join community servers. Users find these servers via invite or Discord Explore. After joining Discord servers, users can chat with others on various channels.

For instance, you have a server for your workforce. To divide departments for communication to reach the appropriate people, create channels for each team. Top management may have a dedicated channel, with a different one for your sales team and a separate one for data analysts or finances.
You can allow teams to share a channel, while having their own too!

But Discord isn’t only a social communication platform. Discord is vital for online marketing and community building too!

With Discord marketing, brands can create exclusive content and share it with their online communities, while reaching thousands of targeted buyers. This social channel allows you to optimize your reputation and social credibility, and keep your audience engaged through a branded experience.

Source: CustomName

Discord Marketing Benefits

1.Community Marketing

Discord is the perfect platform for community marketing. And all successful brands have established communities because buyers love feeling like they belong!

If you want to build and grow an online community of buyers and qualified leads, Discord has the features you need like:

• Members can join Discord for free. 
• You can segment like-minded buyers with server channels.
• You can share pictures and encourage interaction among your customers.
• Your server is a central location for all your audience members to stay connected to each other and your brand.

Once you have an up and running Discord server, develop an online community. 

An online Discord community will take time, and you need to keep these tips in mind:

• Create community rules.
• Use branding throughout your channel for an improved customer experience.
• Interact with your community members frequently.
• Post engaging content consistently.
• Create automated rules for users to be welcomed after joining your community.

2.Share Brand-Relevant Content

If you post content on other channels like a blog or social media page, share it on your Discord server. Your community members will appreciate valuable content tailored to them. For example, if you sell three different gardening spades, create and promote a quick guide for buyers to know which one suits their needs best.

But you don’t only have to share the content you create. You can share content from other industry sources too. Ensure this content doesn’t clash with your brand but provides more value to your audience. With this approach, you can build credibility and authority among your community.

Discord marketing allows brands to share content, and this can help you:

• Optimize your audience engagement rates.
• Share industry news and brand updates.
• Share new products.
• Answer customers’ questions.
• Give customers more reason to share branded content.

3.Quick Customer Support

Customer service is the core of a positive customer experience. And the experiences your buyers have with your brand determine customer loyalty. Almost 50% of people stop supporting a brand after bad customer support, whereas 81% will be more likely to make repeat purchases if they receive great customer service.  

Fortunately, Discord allows businesses to quickly answer customer queries. Discord offers an instant messaging system in real-time. You can have one dedicated customer service channel to centralize your customer messages and set notifications so members receive instant support. 

If you have a considerable workforce, use various customer support channels based on the question’s topic. 

Discord marketing makes customer support seamless because:

• Businesses can send and receive videos, make calls and video calls, and send images for clear communication. 
• You don’t wait to send and receive real-time messages.
• You have a platform to provide self-help resources, like guides and a FAQs section, decreasing the number of users that need dedicated support.

7 Bullet Proof Discord Marketing Strategies 

1.Encourage Users to Create User-generated Content

While creating customer-centric content is excellent for audience engagement, nothing beats user-generated content. User-generated content is more natural, and persuasive, than brand-developed content. 

Motivate your community to create user-generated content by setting up channels to discuss your brand. Businesses can also ramp up how much user-generated content their audience organically produces by offering a giveaway in exchange for this content.

So that customers love generating content for your brand, be consistent and engaging. Users will only make an effort for brands that resonate with them. 

2.Build Audience Engagement

Discord is a fantastic platform to boost audience engagement. Unlike your website, your Discord channel acts as your audience’s “hangout” spot. 

To build and nurture audience engagement with Discord marketing, you can:

• Go Live.
• Send voice messages. 
• Share fun content and announcements.
• Do video calls with leads and buyers.
• Establish personal aspects of your brand. 

3.Join Discord’s Partner Program

Guess what makes it easier to promote yourself on Discord? The Discord partnership program!

While this program is aimed at established and highly engaged communities, new members can also join but not every Discord server makes the cut, and it’s an extensive application process ahead.

Here’s the list of requirements (from Discord) to join the partner program:

There are loads of perks to joining Discord’s Partner Program, like:

• Users can effortlessly find you on the Discovery page.
•  You can personalize and brand your community server and get a badge to gain attention!
• Brands earn points for growing and engaging their communities. With XP points, you can unlock features like spam prevention and grant community roles.

Discord’s Partner Program is a challenging circle to join but it’s worth it. You can unlock features that take your Discord server to the next level!

4.Network with Like-Minded Users

Like networking on other social media platforms, you can network on Discord too. Network with like-minded Discord users to grow your community and develop valuable relationships.

For example, you can build relationships with impactful users through networking on Discords, such as:

• Macro or micro influencers.
• New members that you recruited through communication. 
• New members from word-of-mouth by current members. 
• Other brands to help promote each other (if your products complement each other, of course). 

Interact with like-minded users in your community and on other Discord servers to maximize your chances of building profitable relationships. 

5.Throw Live Events for Maximum Interaction

Who doesn’t like a fun event? You can host events on Discord and engage your current community while attracting new members. 

Here’s a list of activities you can use for Discord events:

• Poker nights
• Product showcases
• Competitions
• Live podcasts
• Watch parties
• Party games
• Trivia nights
• Community workshops
• Giveaways

All it takes to host a successful Discord event is knowing what will entertain your community, and encourage them to interact. Looking at the list above, is there something you know your audience will enjoy? Or do you need to think out-the-box? 

To get started, click on your servers name and then go to this tab:

Create a lot of hype before launching an event. Besides this being excellent marketing, it provides insight into how excited your audience is. If you notice little enthusiasm, add a few valuable updates aligned to your audience’s preferences. 

Use Discord bots to make hosting an event easier. A few of the best Discord event bots are ChronicleBot, Groupflows, Giveaways Manager, and Advertiser bot. You can use multiple Discord bots to launch the perfect event – easily!

6.Offer Exclusive Discounts and Offers

Lure members into your community with special discounts and offers. Consider what attracts your target audience and use this benefit to expand your community.

Offered as Discord discounts and offers, you can attract new members with:

• Exclusive access to events
• Discounts on attending an event (like workshops)
• Freebies
• First dibs access to product launches

You can offer Discord users so much to join your community! And if you want to do this within your community, offer deals to your most loyal and engaged members. Your brand can gain new members while securing brand loyalty with your most valuable members. 

7.Leverage Discord’s Server Insights

You can find insights into your community’s performance on Discord. 

To view Discord Server Insights, you need 500 or more community members, and then Discord will unlock this feature. On the Server Settings page, you’ll notice a new option, “View Server Insights”.

You can also use this link to see all the servers where you have permission to view the server’s analytics. 

With the Discord View Server Insights feature, brands can look at analytics like:

• What’s trending among your server’s audience.
• The top Discord channel conversations over time.
• Your overall Discord server sentiment over time.

Discord makes these statistics easy to evaluate with colorful graphs. If you use the Spiketrap Discord add-on, it gets even better!

Spiketrap users can seamlessly integrate their Discord server to this platform. Once integrated, Spiketrap provides insights into what your Discord users chat about in every channel. You can get community safety ratings too!

2 Innovative Discord Marketing Ideas to Try

1.Host a Giveaway

A common challenge for Discord marketing is motivating your audience to engage with your brand and share your name. While content is the key to this, a giveaway or social media contest can help you quickly achieve this.

You can host a giveaway to share your content and grow your community. To enter your giveaway, users must take specific actions reliant on your contest rules.

For example, say you sell NFTs through Discord. To launch a giveaway, you can require users to buy a limited edition NFT with the chance to win a small collection. Or you can host a monthly giveaway, requiring users to submit NFT designs. The best design gets to be the inspiration for your next NFT, and the winner receives one free copy.

There are many angles for a Discord giveaway. If you want to host a successful Discord giveaway, consider these factors:

• Is your giveaway easy to enter?
• Does the prize add value to your audience?
• Is the reward easily accessible?
• Are there resources on how the giveaway works and FAQs?
• Have you set SMART goals for your social media contest?
• How long will you run your giveaway?
• Besides Discord, will you use other channels to promote your giveaway?

Here’s an example of how a crypto brand on Discord concluded their giveaway. They expressed their mission and values, how they selected the winner, what the prize was and how to contact them:

2.Use Multiple Discord Bots

You can use bots to promote your channel and interact with your audience. These bots can help you host giveaways and polls, and automate other tedious tasks for Discord marketing. 

Discord bots are fantastic for thriving Discord servers because:

• They add interactive elements to your server.
• You can save time by not doing repetitive tasks.
• You can welcome new users without manual effort.
• Businesses can engage their audience through polls and quizzes.
• Discord bots make it easier to manage your community.

But here’s the thing – many Discord bots offer different features. You can find Discord bots to do tasks like:

• Keep your Discord channel clean: Moderating your Discord server is tedious and time-consuming. These bots scan members’ chats for violations and handle them according to your your server’s rules. So, if members act unethically toward each other, the Discord bot can mute them, kick them out or ban them. You get to decide the consequences of a specific number of violations in a certain time frame. 
• Play music: Discord users love music, and you can allow your community to listen to music with music bots. Most music bots allow users to stream songs from apps like Soundcloud, Spotify, and YouTube. You can set rules for which users can play music, how many times a song can play, and the language the song plays in. 
• Create and manage customer support tickets: If you want to use query tickets to track and manage customer queries, Discord bots can help you. You can use them for project planning too. Most of them allow you to tag specific channels and set server roles so tickets reach the right people. 
• Create memes: Memes are more popular than ever and a surefire way to help you trend. You can find loads of Discord bots to automatically make memes for you. 
• Host polls, events, and contests: Polls, events, and Discord contests are excellent for audience engagement and retention. But there’s a lot to consider, especially for successful events and contests. You can use a Discord bot to make this process easier and quicker. 
• Set member XP and offer rewards: Why not enhance users’ experience in your Discord community through XP points and rewards? Users can earn XP for taking actions or interacting with your community. You can offer reward-tiers to encourage members to rack up as much XP as possible. 
• Track Discord analytics: Stay on top of your Discord marketing analytics with a Discord bot. These bots deliver intuitive data and analytics reports, reveal insights into user behavior, and provide real-time suggestions. 

Discord even helps you choose the right bots for your community, by providing a monthly rating of the top bots!

Conclusion

Discord’s social platform is the perfect opportunity to grow and develop a thriving community of loyal customers. Whether your services are gaming, crypto, NFTs, or creative services, Discord is what you need to connect your audience to your brand and each other. Because Discord is free to join, users can join your online community effortlessly.

It’s not simple to achieve successful Discord marketing. Brands need to use these top 7 Discord marketing strategies to accomplish results. These strategies can help you engage targeted users, improve user experience in your community through automation, and host live events!

References

ChronicleBot: Manage Discord Events 

Discord: Server Insights FAQ

Discord Bots: Giveaways Manager

Discord Bot List: Advertiser bot

FinancesOnline: 70 Key Customer Support Statistics: 2022 Analysis of Trends, Data and Market Share

Groupflows: Discord Event Planner

PeerBoard: 105 Online Community Statistics To Know: The Complete List (2022)

Spiketrap: Contextual Analysis Tools

Tribe: 40+ Online Community Stats You Must Know in 2022