CMO of 6sense, taking the guesswork out of predictable revenue growth with the power of AI and insights to uncover buyers already in market.
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Most of the marketing leaders I know strive to build thriving communities for their businesses. After all, what could be better than a group of people who are so enthusiastic about your product or service that they want to spend their precious time connecting with other people about it? A community like that can pay dividends for your brand in terms of enthusiasm, loyalty and evangelism.
So it’s not surprising that so many companies are eager to form communities for their brands. But often, efforts in the community-building realm fall flat. Sometimes it’s because companies get the tactics of community-building wrong — that’s what inspired me to write an e-book about the eight rules for building successful and sustainable communities.
But in other cases, communities don’t get off the ground because they forget to ask themselves one crucial question: Why do they want to build a community?
Sure, there are the general benefits I listed above. But as I’ll explain in this article, the “why” should go deeper than that for a successful community to take off. You should get granular about the “why” for your specific company if you want buy-in — from both members themselves and the decision-makers who sign off on the resources and budget needed to build a community that lasts.
Your ‘Why’ Can Drive Investment
Colleagues often ask me how I got my CEO to agree to invest in community building. After all, with competing priorities and limited budgets, not all CEOs are convinced it’s worth the money.
By starting with a clear understanding of your ‘why,’ you’ll be able to articulate exactly how a community will benefit your business — and how you’ll measure that to show that it’s working. When it’s clear how the community will bolster the health of your company, it’s much easier to get CEOs to sign on.
But it’s important to set expectations about what a community will not do for your business. Be clear that it’s not a quick win. It’s a long-game play that can have tremendous benefits. But if there’s an expectation upfront that it will yield immediate ROI, everyone is bound for disappointment.
Even though they may take time to have an impact on your bottom line, communities aren’t just a feel-good endeavor. They do provide solid, measurable results. When you’re campaigning for investment in a community you want to create, make sure you’re focusing on goals and metrics that matter — the ones that will prove you’re delivering on your “why.”
Those metrics will vary depending on the goals of your specific community. You can track influenced and sourced revenue, of course, but those may take years to come to fruition. In the meantime, here are some other measures of success you might want to track:
• How many referrals are you getting as a result of the community?
• Which personas and industries are you engaging?
• Is it easier to get meetings with executives because you’ve built relationships and added value to the right personas?
• Are you making meaningful connections with decision-makers who meet your ideal customer profile?
Just remember: It’s a long game, but if you plan to have a company that adds value for a long time to come, building a community can net big results.
Communities Help Spur Big Behavioral Shifts
One of the big reasons companies invest in communities is that they support the thought and behavior changes needed to move buyers along in the sales cycle. If you’re selling something that requires buyers to make a big change, a community of people who have or are currently making the same change can provide the encouragement they need to jump in.
This is especially important considering that a B2B buying group for complex solutions involves a team of six to 10 decision-makers on average, according to Gartner data. Getting all of those people on board can be a lot easier if you have someone on the inside who’s ready to evangelize your brand.
Your “why” in these situations is that you need champions who are willing to go to bat for you. You need them in their power zone so they have the strength and perseverance they need to not only make big changes for themselves but also to rally their teams to do the same.
What’s Your Customer’s ‘Why’?
As important as it is to know your “why,” it’s equally important to understand why people would want to join your community — and I promise you it’s not to hear you pitch your product.
On a broad level, you can assume your community members will only show up if you provide value. To do that, you need to engage them as whole people — not just users (or potential users) of your product. Because the truth is that no matter how awesome your product is, it’s just a fraction of a person’s job — and their job is only a fraction of their life.
To form the types of relationships needed to make communities valuable to both you and your members, you should connect with the whole person. You should understand them and offer opportunities for meaningful connection across the span of who they are — not just how they use your product.
Understanding your members’ “why” and connecting it with your own is key to building the authentic connections that keep people coming back — and paying dividends for your company for years to come.
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