What is community-led growth?
It is an approach to customer acquisition, expansion, and retention that relies on a supportive community as a driving force. There are a variety of ways to engage the community, from simple newsletters to complex membership systems. Briefly, it’s people banding together to support a brand or company they love.
While the business is usually responsible for introducing the first members and providing some form of collaboration, the finest communities become self-sustaining as active individuals take the lead.
A brand community is much like a non-profit. Both are created by people who believe in the success of the cause. Brand communities gather around a product or service they consider meaningful, like nonprofit supporters chipping in to support a cause they value.
In exchange, community members gain access to a network of like-minded individuals and VIP access to their favorite brand and product. While it’s rewarding enough to support a company you believe in, most companies reward their community members with additional benefits in exchange for their assistance and support.
Why do we need community-led growth?
There’s nothing like capturing your users’ affection and developing your business with their help. All you must do is ask and provide clear instructions for your supporters to help you in many ways. Here are a few ways:
Feedback
There’s always space for improvement, whether you’re creating a product or a service. You’ll need a steady stream of users to test, feedback, report, and troubleshoot with user-centered design approaches.
Surveys and feedback forms may appear to be a way to reach out to a community. However, they don’t come close to having proactive community members regularly inform you about problems and crucial information you need to know.
Once you’ve established enough trust and rapport with your community, they’ll feel honored to participate in your surveys, write down their experiences, and share their user tales. The result is usually high-quality input that can’t be obtained any other way.
Support
Peer assistance is something that communities excel at. Many businesses drive their free-tier customers to a public forum where they can ask and answer issues. Several Q&A forums have become great brands in their own right (like Quora or StackOverflow).
Many people feel satisfied merely by assisting others and being the smart person who knows the answer. But incentive schemes can help to increase engagement. You could even be able to have your community members handle simple helpdesk issues better and faster than a dedicated customer success specialist.
Flash Mobs
You can imagine the power of a huge collective if your marketing department has ever done a popularity run in your firm (or extended network). Bringing this as an opportunity in front of your community members, whether it’s a Product Hunt launch, applauding to a Medium article, or simply upvoting your special post on Reddit, may yield significantly greater results.
Of course, there’s a limit to how much you can ask of your followers, and the best impact comes from concentrating your efforts on special events rather than asking for likes on every single Instagram post.
Advocacy
A passionate community will gladly fill review portals with personal five-star experiences that highlight how they were able to make your product or service work for them.
They can also refer their friends and peers, and encourage everyone in their network to use your brand’s solutions. It’s much easier to proactively advocate for your products when you have a personal community experience rather than merely user contentment.
Education
Not every member of the community needs to be a client. Before converting, it’s often necessary for a person to have enough knowledge or abilities — they need to develop a desire for your goods. Members can exchange mentorship and advice in the community, eventually creating a new generation of devoted customers. They’ve been through the process of becoming a member of the community, so there’s no doubt about it.
Is community-led growth a new thing?
Certainly not. There have always been groups with a shared goal, working together to further a single cause. However, for brands and enterprises, community-led growth has recently become even more relevant.
The new generations (beginning with Generation Z) are tremendously social, prioritizing direct experiences and value alignment over merely finding a good deal. It’s no longer enough to just sell and advertise to reach out to them.
Communities are growing for the same reasons that the sharing economy and gig economy are gaining traction. We prefer to spend our money on travel and experiences rather than buying a house and a car; we can always rent a car on the days we need it. Rather than settling down for a 9-5 job, we choose to work with new people every week and develop a flexible freelance career.
We also value experiences and social interactions over assets and savings as consumers. We believe that getting to know the founders and having access to a factory tour is the fantastic extra that makes us prefer one company over another when purchasing products and services. These ideas should be considered in your community-led growth strategy.
How do I start a brand community?
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to community participation, and different approaches may work for different brands, the bottom line is that clarity is key. If considered, the following three factors will make it easier for members to join:
Make sure you understand the terms of the participation agreement.
- What level of participation is required from members of the community? Is it necessary to be involved in the community to be considered a member?
- Is there a list of suggested activities, and are they rewarded?
- What kind of entertainment does the brand give – will there be events or other planned activities?
Make sure you’re on the same page when it comes to communication maintenance.
- Where is it OK to inquire about the brand or product?
- What is the best place for me to ask questions about my community membership?
- How do I interact with other members of the community?
- Are there any restrictions on the material (what is permitted)?
Be specific about your objectives.
- What is the brand’s current goal? (Launch a new product, reach a certain number of users, etc.)
- How does the community contribute to the goal? When people realize how important their participation is, they are far more willing to help.
What tools do I need?
There is no mystical instrument that is superior to others, and society can employ numerous tools at once. Furthermore, a platform that works great for one group may be a disaster for another. Most communities are managed using an online platform by a single community manager, who is known by name by the members. This person is usually a member of the marketing team, although it could also be one of the founders of firms.
It’s probably best to make your ultimate decision once you’ve established your initial strategy and conducted a few tests to check your requirements. Changing platforms afterward is inconvenient, therefore it’s only appropriate to conduct a thorough study and test any program with a small group before deciding.
Following are the few categories:
Chat apps
Forums
Vanilla Forums and Facebook Groups are simple-to-use communication platforms that can be used by communities of various sizes. Admins or users can create topics, and responses will be threaded for ease of use. Many technologies, such as Tribe and Mobilize, allow you to create a private instance of a Facebook-like platform.
Productivity tools
General productivity tools, such as task organizers and spreadsheets, can be useful in goal-oriented groups. While this improves the community’s productivity and get-things-done mentality, educating a bigger group to use the tools often requires a significant amount of administrative labor.
Email database
There’s nothing wrong with keeping community members offline and greeting them with an email or even a phone call with the most up-to-date information and directions for events and offline gatherings.
Conclusion
A community where everyone seeks to learn about a particular field and helps their peers solve problems while getting recognized for doing so is the goal.
There are several ways to facilitate that – either via the company’s stakeholders (such as podcasts or conferences with world-class guest speakers) or through the community’s members (such as open-source software or Discord). When this is done right, a company can increase its acquisition, retention, and product insights efforts.
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