Community-led growth is a type of marketing strategy in which the community around a product or service takes an active role in promoting it. This can be through word of mouth, online reviews, or social media. The digital age we live in fosters a more collaborative economy, which has contributed to the rise of this type of marketing.
It’s no secret that community-led business growth can have a significant impact on your brand. In fact, community growth is one of the most critical aspects of marketing today. When you have the support of a community, you can make major moves toward your goals.
With community-led growth, customers and fans are given a chance to speak directly to the company or product they’re passionate about. This type of marketing allows for an authentic connection between brands and their audiences. Today, authenticity is key, especially when you’re marketing to millennials and Gen Z.
One of the most significant advantages of community-led growth is that it provides data that can be used to make informed decisions. With traditional marketing, it can be challenging to track the ROI of your efforts. However, with community-led growth, you can track everything from the number of new members to the level of engagement within the community. You can use this data to adjust your strategy and ensure your community is healthy and growing.
What Is the Purpose of Community-Led Growth?
The purpose of community-led growth is to create a connection between the brand and its audience. This type of marketing allows customers and fans to contribute to product-led growth and have a direct impact on the brands they care about.
With community-led growth, audiences are given a voice that they can use to shape the brand’s future. This can have a positive impact on the customer journey and increase emotional investment in a brand. By engaging with the community, brands can create loyalty and trust between themselves and their customers. This type of engagement can also help brands receive direct feedback from consumers, which can be used to improve the product or service.
This can also extend the customer journey beyond its most basic pathway of beginning with awareness and ending with purchase. An effective community marketing approach can keep a customer on their journey well beyond a single purchase, creating a loop and building a relationship to create significantly stronger lifetime value.
Community-led growth also provides direct consumer data that can be used to make informed decisions about the future of the brand, product development, and service offerings. It can also be leveraged to improve the touchpoints and experience throughout the customer journey, and to create more personalized marketing strategies.
The Benefits of Taking a Community Approach
There are many benefits to taking a community-led approach to growth. One of the most important benefits is that it allows for an authentic connection between brands and their audiences.
Drives Connections Between Brands and Their Advocates
Community-led growth allows brands to connect with their advocates on a personal level. By engaging with community members, brands can create loyalty and trust between themselves and their customers. Because community members are given a voice, they feel more invested in the brand and are more likely to continue using its products or services.
Provides a Method to Receive Direct Feedback From Consumers
With community-led growth, brands have the opportunity to receive direct feedback from consumers. This type of feedback can be used to improve the product or service and make it more appealing to potential customers. Community members are invested in the brand, which means they’re more likely to provide honest feedback that can be used to make positive changes.
Offers a Competitive Advantage for Companies That Choose This Approach
Community-led growth provides a competitive advantage for companies that choose this approach. By engaging with their community, brands can set themselves apart from their competitors as being more authentic, personable, and responsive to their customers’ needs. Because community-led growth is still a relatively new concept in many fields, companies can also be seen as more innovative within their verticals.
This can also provide an easier way to gather insights and fuel a more data-driven approach, which is increasingly essential across all industries. With community-led growth, data is collected transparently and directly from customers and fans, and can then be used to make informed decisions. It can be used to improve brand offerings, develop personalized marketing approaches, and track the success of your campaigns.
Generates a Space for Powerful User-Generated Content
Community-led growth creates a space for user-generated content. This type of content can be used to promote the brand and increase its reach, while boosting authenticity and emotional engagement. In addition, user-generated content can also help improve the SEO of a website or blog. Hence, community-led growth improves not only the brand but also its online presence.
Types of Communities
There are many different types of communities you can develop. The type of engaged community you choose to foster will depend on the products or services you offer, as well as the goals you want to achieve.
Learning Communities
A learning community is focused on education and knowledge. In a learning community, members share their experiences and expertise with others in the group. This type of community is sometimes used by companies to train their employees or customers and provide ongoing support.
Membership Communities
A membership community often requires its members to pay a fee to join. This type of community is often used by companies to provide exclusive content or services to its members.
Active Communities
An active community is highly engaged. In an active community, members constantly interact with the brand and with one another. This type of community is often used by companies to promote or preview their products or services.
How to Develop a Community-Led Growth Strategy for Your Brand
Developing a community-led growth strategy begins with identifying your target audience. Once you’ve identified your target audience, you need to determine what type of community you want to create. After this, you need to develop a plan for how you will engage with your community.
Identify Your Target Audience
Before you can develop your community-led marketing strategy, you need to identify your target audience. To do this, you need to consider who your ideal customer is. It’s ideal to support your assumptions with data from your existing consumer base. At AUDIENCEX, we leverage AI-enabled data science to understand your existing audience more deeply and predict high-converting expansion audiences.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, you need to determine what type of community they would be interested in joining. There are many benefits to audience segmentation at this stage. By segmenting your audience, you can create a more targeted community-led growth strategy. Audience segmentation is the process of dividing your target audience into smaller groups. This is often done by considering factors such as age, location, and interests. Segmenting your audience will help you create a more targeted community-led growth strategy. This will help you save time and resources by engaging only with those who are interested in your products or services. Additionally, segmenting your audience will also help you create more personalized content.
When you’re segmenting your audience, it’s important to make data-driven decisions. This means that you should use data to determine which factors are most important for segmenting your audience. By using data, you can create a more accurate picture of your target audience. Additionally, data-driven decisions will help you save time and resources.
Some factors you may want to consider when segmenting your audience:
- Age
- Location
- Interests
- Income
- Occupation
The main benefit of narrowing down your audience is that you end up with a smaller but more engaged and profitable group – and then, you can build from that engaged base more effectively.
Establish Your Community Space
The next step is to find a community space that your users frequently visit. Alternatively, you can establish a channel of your own. This could be an online platform, a social media network, or even a physical location or event.
Nowadays, the most common community spaces are on social media. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have billions of users. This makes them the perfect places to engage with your community. Social media allows you to connect with your community in real time. This means you can quickly respond to any questions or concerns they may have. Social media also allows you to share content with your community, that they can then share beyond it. This is a great way to promote your brand and increase its reach.
Of course, because social media algorithms are always in flux, it can be difficult to hold users’ attention. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a plan for engaging with your target community.
If you can’t find an existing community space your users frequent, you can always establish a community channel. This could be a blog, a podcast, or even a YouTube channel. By establishing a community channel, you will have complete control over the content that is shared. This is a great way to ensure that your community always has access to high-quality content.
Identify a Community Manager or Community Leaders to Engage With Your Online Community
Once you’ve found a community space, you need to build community teams. A community manager is someone who is responsible for engaging with the community. A community leader is someone who is respected by the community and influences its members.
The community manager or leaders will be responsible for moderating the community space. This means they will need to remove any spam or offensive content. They will also need to respond to any questions or concerns that members of the community have. Additionally, the community manager or leaders will be responsible for sharing content with the community.
A strong pipeline requires an efficient community manager or leader since they are the face of your brand. They need to quickly and accurately respond to any questions or concerns that members of the community have about your product or service.
Provide Members With Valuable Resources or Insights
To keep your community engaged, you need to provide them with valuable content. This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, e-books, or even video content. By providing your community with valuable resources, you will show them that you’re invested in their success.
For example, with online courses, you can use community-led growth to create a strong pipeline. By marketing the courses to your target audience and providing valuable content, you can encourage people to sign up. In addition, by actively engaging with your community, you can build relationships with potential students.
Build Your Brand With a Community-Led Growth Approach
Community-led growth relies on engaging with online communities to improve the way people see your brand. This type of growth strategy is often used by companies to set themselves apart from their competitors or to improve their SEO. Community-led growth involves finding a community space your target audience frequents and engaging with that audience by sharing valuable resources and insights.
To be successful, you need to have a clear understanding of your target audience and a vision for the type of community you want to create. You also need to establish a community manager or community leaders to engage with the community. Lastly, you need to provide members with value to keep them engaged.
AUDIENCEX is an agile digital advertising partner that can work seamlessly as an extension of your brand or agency team, helping you to identify, reach, engage, and grow your audience.
We deliver fully integrated solutions powered by tech, informed by data, and executed with strategic expertise. Our holistic, full-funnel approach to performance marketing is backed by predictive analytics, advanced data science, strategic expertise, tech-enabled creative, and continuous optimization to deliver meaningful results throughout the digital ecosystem.Wherever your audience is, we can reach and engage them, whether through display, video, search, social, native, CTV, or beyond. We can help you craft a strategic identity, find and build a community, and leverage it to create efficient, scalable growth. To learn more about how we can support your marketing strategies, reach out for a free consultation today.