We could be gigantic – we haven’t even touched the surface of it, and we’re not slowing down. And it’s the personal touch and the community that’s going to drive this thing.

Meet Your Saltwater Guide

Your Saltwater Guide covers every aspect of deep sea fishing with entertaining, educational content. And since they cater to a tight-knit niche of fishing enthusiasts, founders Dave and Elliott have been focused on creating relationships since Day 1.

Dave and Elliott are highly engaged and involved with their social following, and make it a point to personally connect with people through direct response comments and live streams. It’s a great marketing strategy that helps them build relationships, generate leads, and drive traffic to the website.

But in order to grow, they needed to continue building those connections after people signed up for the service.

The challenge

Scaling the business meant Your Saltwater Guide had to gain and retain customers, which meant creating a connected culture within their membership.

The solution

The community is accessible anywhere (including the Your Saltwater Guide mobile apps) and organized into 3 separate channels with upgraded thread capabilities, so it’s easy to navigate.

The community forum quickly became a defining part of their platform.

This easy-to-use feature was exactly what their audience wanted, and it turned their business into a true membership community that’s generating recurring revenue and helping them grow at the same time.

Now, they’re using it to scale.

How they did it

Actively promoting the community and turning it into a major selling point.

Dave and Elliott take every opportunity to promote the community to their members, make sure people know it’s there, and emphasize what a great resource it is, because they know it adds to the experience.

They even advertise it when they go to conventions and fishing shows, because it fills a need for so many people in their audience.

I emphasize so much that the community is a great way for people to actually continue their success.

Creating a safe community space that offers inclusivity, support, and a uniquely positive experience overall.

Dave and Elliott take pride in the fact that they’ve created a completely safe space for their members, where everyone can share their stories and ask for help when they need it.

And it shows. The forum is filled with tons of posts from members describing what they’re catching, where they’re catching it, and even posting pictures of their latest family fishing trips with the kids.

“We don’t allow any negativity in any way, shape or form,” Dave said. “It’s just a warm, fuzzy feeling.”

And the creators themselves are there, interacting and offering support, which makes all the difference for their members.

Building community engagement with promotions, contests, and challenges.

They run contests and giveaways on the forum, and give away everything from cash to prizes for the best fish reports on the app in a certain timeframe. This helps them encourage users to post their own contact, interact, and use the community more.

The results

Your Saltwater Guide has seen the community help convert people from free trials to paid memberships.

During Saltwater Guide’s 2 week trial period, people get to experience the value of the community. For members who are new to fishing, the ability to get expert personal advice from other experienced members is a game-changer. “Why would they want to cancel that trial when they’ve just joined this new community?” he said.

The community has helped improve retention.

The community is a hugely effective way for the founders to engage with and support them, or help them bond with other people who want to celebrate their successes. Dave has noticed that when members feel like they’re being cared for and looked after, they stay on longer, and he’s seen increased retention rates after launching the community hub.

The community helps grow and market the business by generating its own glowing testimonials.

Creating the testimonials channel was just a way to remind people that they can leave one if they want. But Dave’s community is so special that just encouraging people to be part of the community means the testimonials naturally create themselves. They don’t need to incentivize people to leave reviews – members post their own because they love the experience so much.

“They want to share their success with the other members so that our members know the website works, which is just a big, giant good thing for us, and it works really well.”

And these glowing reviews reflect the feeling of togetherness and the value people get from the YSG community. They leave tons of feedback about the friendships they’ve built and how much the community has benefited their lives.

Your Saltwater Guide’s community helps not only sell the membership, but builds recurring revenue by building loyalty from within.