I caught up with Sherilyn Shackell, Founder and CEO of The Marketing Academy to discuss the success of their Virtual Campus community and to uncover the secrets to their incredible growth at such a challenging time.

The Marketing Academy delivers a minimum of 24 live learning lessons over a 12 month period, leveraging 250 C-Suite mentors and 140 Executive coaches around the world. In total, the core teaching community is roughly 1,200 strong.

Sherilyn's top advice for anyone interested in building their own digital community:

• You don't need a big community to start with. The first place you should start is with your advocates and your champions. Leverage these to build a foundation of engaged members and contributors.
• Utilize adjacent abundance. Be highlight collaborative. "The Marketing Academy have only got to where they are thanks to some incredible partnerships."
• Don't be scared of digital communities as a new concept. You'll be amazed at how forgiving customers are when you're providing something of added value for them.

Best quotes from the discussion:

"Within weeks we were at 1,000 members just through word of mouth and engaging our existing community".
The Marketing Academy has now enrolled almost 4,000 members in just two months since launching in February 2021.

"There's a great sense of belonging, relationships and pride within the Marketing Academy community."

"What's going to be important in the future, for any organization delivering content, is for their 'tribe' to know that they are part of a powerful community and one that's going to deliver a shared experience."

"The relationship within a community goes right the way through the engagement experience."