Community-led growth is a way of making an online community core to your business growth and it’s getting more attention thanks to its proven results and cost efficiencies. Because of this, we’ve started a series, speaking with industry experts to get their perspectives and tips for community-led growth.

First up, Neil Morgan of CMO Advisory. He has worked for over three decades with high-growth SaaS companies including Oracle, Sage, Adobe, and GoCardless. He now works with SaaS founders, advising on marketing strategies that lead to tangible business results.

Working daily with scaleup businesses  means that growth is top of mind every day for Neil, and he’s a huge fan of the community-led growth approach. Why? We’ll let him explain.

What does community-led growth mean to you?

“Community-led growth means a different focus on how you think about growth as a business,” Neil explained, “Traditional growth marketing relies on external things like advertising while community-led growth considers those closest to you like your customers.”

It flips the funnel on its head, to put the emphasis on your customers and partners, as a driver for long-term business growth. Communities are powerful spaces for bringing together your customers, partners, colleagues, industry influencers and experts. Vitally, these spaces are brand-owned, which builds trust and exclusivity. They encourage members to share knowledge and create growth through better understanding.

“Through community-led growth, you create a virtuous cycle of engagement that drives acquisition, adoption, retention, and advocacy. That then leads back to acquisition,” Neil added. 

Invaluable in crunch times

A community-led growth model is valuable to all businesses, in any market condition. But it really comes into its own during economic downturns. “Businesses are going through a bit of a crunch at the moment, there’s less budget available. Traditional methods of B2B marketing are becoming challenged with content being ever more crowded, it’s really expensive to compete. Likewise, outbound marketing like ads are getting harder to stand out and again, it’s expensive,” he said. The solution? Online communities that put customers at the heart. 

“It’s ironic because marketers place so much focus on top of funnel, they’re trying to interrupt people who aren’t that interested in you. Meanwhile, they ignore those closest to your brand,” he highlighted, calling to SaaS businesses in particular. “In a subscription business, like SaaS, that’s really important because retention is what drives growth for those businesses.”

The foundations for community-led growth

With that in mind, Neil advised on the main foundations for community-led growth. 

Firstly, you need to build something. A lot of organizations have communities and social networks, but they need to take control of them. A branded community truly reflects your values and message, it gives you owned data, and creates more trust with your audiences. 

Then, you need to engage with people and encourage them to share their insights and knowledge.

Next, you want to look at the technology and integrations to manage your community effectively. “You don’t want to reinvent the wheel,” he explained, “so your community needs to integrate with your CRM, to put your customer and prospect data in there. It needs to work with your meeting software, and your knowledge base.”

Having your community integrated with your other marketing and operational systems will help you align it with the business which makes for a more consistent experience. 

Finally, you need to keep your community alive — a vibrant, insightful space full of valuable content and data. 

“One thing that I’ve seen work really well in communities is benchmarked data. A social marketing company I worked with, for instance, collected benchmarked data on the social media engagement for leading brands. They shared it and it became the biggest campaign they did, it went global, and used insights that cost nothing to produce. Ultimately it was hugely impactful in their growth,” Neil shared.

Your community needs to create as much value to members as possible, helping them to learn new knowledge and do their jobs better. That’s what’ll attract new members, retain existing ones, and motivate them to refer others. 

Pitfalls to avoid

There is one mistake that Neil has seen time and time again. “This is something that influencer Thomas Power often speaks about, and it’s the need to be present. Communities are not one way traffic, you have to be there in the moment, in the context,” he advised. 

“It’s like welcoming someone to a party at your house. You have to say hello and introduce them to people.”

Communities are not designed to be a static asset because they are really about engaging people in dialogue. 

That requires experienced community managers. You cannot leave your community in the hands of the most junior person on your team. In the community-led growth model, the most important people in your business are your members. The questions that you’re answering and the interactions you’re having with these VIPs need to be of the highest quality and value. You need to put your most important employees on the job. 

Community-led growth in action

As for examples of community-led growth in the real world, Neil had several examples including the Zapnito-powered community Propolis by B2B Marketing. This community creates growth through providing exclusive advice and best practices that B2B marketers cannot get anywhere else. “It’s a great example of how a publisher has developed a business model to create more value using expert opinions,” Neil added.

He also called out SaaStr, as a space where SaaS sales professionals can share best practices and knowledge on how to build successful SaaS sales campaigns. 

Sage Advice was another example, built specifically to drive engagement within the accounting SaaS company Sage’s audience of small business owners. Content is designed to make tax more interesting and help small business owners become more self-sufficient when managing their business and cash flow. 

Time to flip the funnel

Flipping the funnel and prioritizing those closest to you, your customers and partners, can have a significant impact on your growth. It leverages your most loyal customers and partners to share their experiences and knowledge with prospects, leading to high conversions. It retains customers and increases their lifetime value through exclusive content and discussions they cannot get anywhere else. It turns customers into advocates for your brand, sharing their successes and referring others. And it increases product adoption and results, leading to more advocates and leads. 

In the business powered by community-led growth, everyone thrives. 

That’s why Zapnito has created a community-led growth template to help you get started with using your community for business growth. Check it out now.