The Broadcast Tax
Most communities blast the same invitation to every member. Then wonder why no one shows up. You tell yourself it's an engagement problem. It's not. It's an economics problem.
The Cost of Irrelevance
Every irrelevant invitation you send costs you brand equity. Members learn to ignore you. Your open rates crater. Your community becomes noise.
The assumption: low interest.
The reality: wrong audience.
A community blasted 1,000+ members with an event invite. Conversion rate: less than 10%.
But when they dove into the member database, applied community segmentation based on member intelligence—persona, stage, demonstrated interests—and personalized the messaging, conversion for the next event jumped to 65% with an 83% completion rate.
That’s the difference between getting people to register or getting the right people to register.
Segment Before You Send
Netflix doesn't show you every show. Spotify doesn't play every song. Amazon doesn't display every product.
Why? Because relevance drives retention.
“71% of consumers expect personalized interactions and companies delivering them see up to 25% revenue lift.”
Ask at sign-up:
Where are you in your journey? (Aim for their exact moment in time)
What brought you here? (Get their purpose)
What's your current priority? (Narrow in on what they care about)
Then use it.
Relevance Compounds
Don't invite everyone to everything.
Invite the right people to the right things.
Don't send generic welcome emails.
Send relevant next steps based on who they are.
Don't measure member engagement by volume.
Measure by relevance.
If you don't know whether someone is a beginner seeking frameworks or an expert seeking peers, you're running a vanity metric factory, not a community.
When you design for who members actually are—not who you assume they are—participation doesn't just improve. It multiplies.
Stop broadcasting. Start segmenting. Ready to design member segmentation? Reach out.
Abraham is a community strategist who has worked with organizations including YPO, founder networks, and executive communities to design cohort experiences that create depth and transformation. Through Heard.Social, he helps leaders build communities that go beyond surface engagement.
