How Discord Marketing Works (+ 7 Strategies to Use)

Discord marketing is a smart choice for brands looking to build an engaged community.

But if you’re new to this social platform, marketing on Discord is easier said than done.

Find out if your brand is a good fit for Discord and set your server up for success with my top marketing strategies.

Key Takeaways

• Events and user-generated content are key to creating consistent engagement on your brand’s Discord server.
• Bots and apps are timesavers, helping you automate engagement and moderation as your brand’s Discord community grows.
• Roles and onboarding sequences are more important than you might think for building an organized and interactive community.

What Is Discord Marketing?

Discord marketing is a method of using the messaging and social media platform to promote your brand, product, or service.

Brands can create their own Discord community spaces (known as servers) to host conversations, answer customer questions, and share exclusive news.

They’re a little like Facebook groups or Slack channels, only far more customizable.

Discord servers allow brands to build out their own unique network of text channels (for asynchronous chat), voice channels (for real-time conversation), and forum channels (for organized threads).

Here’s an example: Adobe hosts separate spaces for each of its creative products, with servers for Photoshop, Express, and Firefly,

Although Discord has historically attracted gamers, it’s much more than just a platform for gaming communities. Many B2C and B2B brands leverage it for digital marketing and community building.

With over 150 million active users, 19 million active servers per week, and 4 billion server conversation minutes daily, Discord is a popular channel for many brands looking to connect with customers and attract fans.

Why Brands Should Use Discord for Marketing

As popular as it is, Discord marketing isn’t right for every brand. Here are a few signs it’s a good fit for yours and reasons to consider investing resources in this channel.

Attract a Loyal Community

Discord isn’t a one-way broadcast channel where brands can share an endless stream of marketing messages and expect to see ROI.

Instead, it’s a platform designed for engaging with your customer community. 

That makes Discord a good choice for brands looking to build a marketing channel around conversation and connection rather than promotion alone.

Provide Customer Support

Because Discord encourages text and voice conversations, it’s ideal for answering customer questions and troubleshooting problems, especially for tech products.

Sound resource-intensive? It doesn’t have to be.

In many cases, Discord users can provide unofficial support, preventing your team from having to assign around-the-clock support staff.

Forum channels work particularly well for support since they organize questions into separate searchable threads. For example, the OpenAI Discord server allows users to create and contribute to bug reports. 

Improve Brand Awareness

Discord is great for introducing customers to your brand and helping them discover your products and services.

Marketers can create channels for:

• Product launches and teasers to showcase new items
• Tutorials to help customers learn about your brand
• Discussions about your offerings, including customer tips and tricks

How to Get Started with Discord Marketing

You can build the basic elements of your Discord marketing efforts in just a few hours. Get started with this quick guide to Discord.

Set up a Discord Server

Creating servers is completely free and only takes a few seconds to do.

To set one up, log into your Discord account and click the plus icon in the left sidebar. Choose the option to create a server for a club or community.

Give the server a name and upload your brand’s logo. Voilà, your community space is ready to customize.

Create Content Channels

Next, think about how to organize content and discussions within Discord.

There’s no right or wrong answer. And nothing is set in stone. You can reorganize channels at any time.

Here are a few channel ideas to get started:

• Server Guide: Welcome new members and point them to your most popular channels.
• Announcements: Share news about your brand, offerings, and server events.
• Support: Invite members to ask questions and help each other solve problems.
• Chat: Encourage members to start conversations or share content on specific topics.
• Resources: Provide a list of external links to your brand’s website and knowledge base.

For the most part, I recommend using text channels so members can chat asynchronously.

But for support and tutorials, forum channels are your best bet. Voice channels are great for engaged communities that often host real-time conversations.

Establish Server Rules

Every Discord community needs guidelines to keep discussions on topic, make moderation easier, and prevent harassment or legal issues.

I suggest starting with rules that outline:

• Your brand’s definition of healthy engagement and policy against harassment
• Examples of content types or links that members aren’t allowed to share
• Your brand’s policy on buying, selling, or promoting goods and services
• Language(s) members are allowed to use on the server (e.g., English)

Require members to agree to your rules before joining the server. Then, add the rules to a dedicated channel so members can easily find and reference them.

Invite Your Target Audience

Now you’re ready to start welcoming new members.

At first, you’ll need to invite them to join. You can share your invite link on your website, in your email newsletter, or via your social media marketing channels.

You can also require members to apply to join your server. But I don’t recommend going this route if your goal is to promote your brand and welcome as many server members as possible.

Once your server has at least 1,000 members and meets Discord’s discovery guidelines, you can make it discoverable. This lets members find your server via Discord search, which can grow your community faster.

Add Server Boosts

While basic Discord features are free to use, advanced features have a price tag. You can access them by paying for server boosts, purchasing Discord Nitro subscriptions, or encouraging members to boost your server.

Each boost level adds more custom emoji slots, improves audio quality, and increases upload limits. As you add more boosts, you also get access to features like server banners, custom role icons, and soundboard slots.

7 Discord Marketing Strategies to Cultivate Community

To market your business on Discord, you need a plan. Use these strategies to grow your server and foster an engaged community.

1. Plan Community Events

Give members a reason to visit your server regularly. Organize:

• Product launches or exclusive sneak peeks of new features or offerings
• Contests or giveaways that incentivize engagement with branded prizes
• Watch parties where everyone can consume content and chat about it together
• Ask me anything (AMA) sessions with company representatives or industry figures

While one-off events can keep things interesting, I recommend hosting at least one recurring event series. Doing so helps keep engagement high and gives you a chance to reward loyal members with interesting guests.

Pull out all the stops with stage channels. These event-specific channels let you add audio or video and even encourage viewer participation.

Multi-day events are also great for getting community members to visit regularly and make a habit of engaging with your content.

For example, Buffer’s server hosts a 30-day challenge with resources for members to create better social media content and become more consistent creators.

2. Inspire User-Generated Content (UGC)

Create an interactive space where members genuinely want to share content that features your brand.

This is key to increasing engagement on your server.

But it can also make a bigger impact. UGC acts as social proof, which inspires other members to check out your products.

Dedicate UGC-focused channels where members can:

• Post photos of their purchases (ideal for ecommerce and fast food brands)
• Share “hacks” that give customers new ideas for using your products or services
• Submit fan art that shows their love for your brand

For example, Jack in the Box’s server has channels dedicated to Jack Hacks (where customers can chat about their favorite menu items) and fan art (where customers can showcase their original creations).

3. Collaborate with Influencers

Grow your Discord server faster by partnering with relevant influencers.

Identify influencers who are popular with your target audience. Then, invite them to join your server. Offer perks (e.g., unique roles or channel access) to influencer members.

Encourage them to share content in a special channel. Consider requiring members to obtain a certain role or achieve a specific level before they can join.

Ask them to attend or co-host events on your server. For example, host AMA or Q&A sessions to give members a chance to interact directly with influencers.

4. Offer Exclusive Promotions

Make your Discord server a destination customers won’t want to miss by creating special offers.

This tactic is especially important if your brand has a strong presence on other social media platforms.

When you want customers to join your Discord server instead of consuming your content on other channels, you need a compelling offer.

Brainstorm incentives that make customers want to join and encourage them to return regularly. For example, you could offer:

• Free item codes for restaurant and fast food brands
• Discount codes for ecommerce brands
• Free upgrades or special features for SaaS brands

5. Reward Users with Unique Roles

Discord roles have a practical purpose. They give members access to specific channels and determine what users can do on your server.

I find it helpful to let members choose an initial role when they first join a server. This gives them a chance to self-identify and also unlocks relevant channels.

For example, Linus Tech Tips allows members to add one or more roles based on the accounts they link to the server.

But you can also treat roles like rewards for engaged members.

Give members the option to earn additional roles based on how much they engage or their participation in certain events.

While these roles might not be functional, they remain visible on members’ profiles. As a result, they serve as a sort of flair that members can collect.

6. Create Personalized Onboarding Sequences

As your server grows and conversations go in new directions, you’ll likely accumulate more channels. By default, every new member gets full access to all public channels.

But that doesn’t create the best experience for members. Especially when they have to wade through dozens of channels that aren’t relevant to their interests.

Instead of overwhelming members, let them choose the types of channels they want to join.

For example, Perplexity’s server invites members to choose what they’d like to do after joining. This ensures that users get access to the channels they want (i.e., to report a bug or share a finding) without getting distracted.

7. Use Bots and Apps to Automate Engagement

Good engagement is a sign of a healthy Discord server. But the busier your server gets, the more time you’ll need to spend on engagement.

Unless you automate part of the process with Discord bots and apps.

• Use carl-bot to welcome members, assign roles, and handle voting.
• Host a YouTube watch party with a custom playlist using Watch Together.
• Collaborate on creative projects using Whiteboard.

What to Watch out for with Discord Marketing

Like any marketing channel, Discord has its fair share of challenges. Get familiar with some of the most common issues so you can be prepared to work around them.

Differentiating Your Server

The last thing you want to do is invest resources in building a server that’s just like the competition. Or that would work better as a Facebook group, a Reddit community, or a Slack channel.

Before launching your server, work with your team to brainstorm event ideas and engagement tactics.

Then, visit other servers in your niche to get a sense of what your target audience likes. Identify what they aren’t doing and think about how your team can address those gaps.

Getting Moderation Right

You can’t run a branded Discord server without implementing at least some moderation. It’s essential for maintaining brand safety and creating a space where your customers want to spend time.

But that doesn’t mean your team needs to manually review and respond to every single communication.

Here are a few rules of thumb for moderation:

• Clarify what members can and can’t do in the server rules.
• Enable filters to prevent spam and explicit content.
• Use AutoMod to filter out content with certain keywords.
• Establish temporary timeouts for minor issues and bans for serious offenses.

To avoid creating backlash, I recommend communicating directly with any problematic members. Help them understand what’s wrong with their behavior, what to do about it, and what happens if they continue.

Balancing Promotion with Engagement

Successful Discord marketing is two parts community marketing to one part social media marketing.

To make it work, you have to prioritize engagement and community building in every initiative. 

Want to give out coupon codes to drive sales? Turn it into a fan art contest.

Need to promote a new product? Create a series of events on your stage channel.

Keep promotional messages and one-way broadcasts in a dedicated channel (e.g., “Announcements”). Automatically opt every member into the channel to increase the chance that everyone will see your big news.

Attracting Your Target Audience

Building a community from scratch takes time.

In the beginning, you have to share your invite link to get new users to join. For many brands, that means promoting the link across existing marketing channels—like email and social media.

The more you promote your server and the better your incentives are, the faster you’ll build an audience.

And the larger your Discord server grows, the easier it becomes to attract more members.

Once you reach the 1,000-member threshold and follow discovery guidelines, you can opt into Discord’s discovery feature. This allows users to find your server via discovery or search.

Conclusion

If you’re serious about creating a community around your brand, Discord marketing is a smart investment.

But don’t expect your server to run itself.

From recurring events to influencer collaborations to exclusive offers, you need a steady stream of opportunities to attract and retain an audience.To build a successful Discord marketing strategy, you need both social media and community marketing expertise. Our agency can help.