Author: Michelle Goodall
Communities were foundational to the nascent web. Long before social media, groups of people and clusters of communities serving a multitude of interests gathered in spaces like bulletin boards and forums. They made the early internet a truly collaborative, connective global space full of possibilities.
In the enterprise setting, ‘community’ has largely been a separate discipline from marketing. In fact, many community specialists sit in customer success or customer experience, and have actively kept marketers at arms length (and often with good reason).
But in recent years, many of the largest brands have invested in digital communities, with global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company even calling community “the big idea in marketing for this decade.”
Community-based marketing can turn your users into brand advocates, provide a wealth of ideas for content and product development, serve as a potential pipeline for leads, foster customer loyalty, and simply make your audience feel like they belong—all powerful advantages for any brand that needs to distinguish itself from the competition.
In this article, I’ll walk you through:
Examples: How brands leverage CBM for better SEO, leads, and product development
What is community-based marketing (CBM)?
Also known as ‘community-led growth,’ Ashley Friedlein and I defined community-based marketing (CBM) in 2020 as:
“Bringing people together around a shared practice, purpose, place, product or set of circumstances to create insights and closer, more valuable relationships with prospects, customers and other stakeholders to deliver organizational value.”— Ashley Friedlein & Michelle Goodall
Simply put, it’s the intentional strategy of developing and managing a community space (or spaces) to support marketing objectives (i.e., to identify, anticipate, and satisfy customer requirements profitably). Today, I’d add that the definition should extend to identifying community spaces that already exist and building those into your marketing strategy (but more on that coming up later).
Whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, your community must align to your organizational strategy and help you deliver marketing fundamentals (i.e., brand messaging, customer support, etc.) well, no matter the shape and size of your target audience.
To that end, I’ve developed a categorization called ‘The 5 Ps and 1C of community.’
The 5 Ps of community are:
Communities of Play — These are typically communities where members come together because they enjoy a shared hobby, sport, or pastime.
Communities of Product — These are communities where members seek customer support and are given advice, help, and tips around a product or platform. Examples of such communities could include Jeep Wrangler owners, digital marketing agencies that build on Wix, etc.
Communities of Practice — These are communities where members share a job function, specific skills, or a common discipline (e.g., law, medicine, marketing, public relations, etc).
Communities of Place — These communities are bound together by a love of, origin from, or identification with a country, region, city, or venue.
Communities of Purpose — These communities tend to have a higher social purpose that brings members together to take action, such as eradication of single-use plastics or ending child hunger.
And the 1C of community is:
Communities of Circumstance — These are communities where members are driven by a set of circumstances and life experiences, such as people living with the impact of Parkinson’s Disease.
The business case for community-based marketing
Many well known brands have gained their consumer awareness during a golden era of mass media advertising and reach, and then built on that momentum with personalization for marketing effectiveness. But, digital channels have become more costly, saturated, and noisy. One increasingly popular way marketers and brands are getting around this (and in front of target audiences) while supporting their marketing funnel is by exploring communities.
We are now in the third era of brand marketing, which is ‘community for influence’ (shown above) according to McKinsey & Company’s article “A better way to build a brand: The community flywheel.”
This means that the fastest growing brands are reaching consumers in the communities they are a part of and helping them express community membership by participating in their brand. For example, IKEA identifies and invites people who wish to live more sustainably to join its Live Lagom community. The company supports the community with specific IKEA products that are conducive to sustainable living, in-store workshops, and community-driven advice.
By applying community ‘we vs. I’ principles, brands ensure that prospects and customers have a much more “emotional resonance” with the brand, as McKinsey describes it.
McKinsey’s article also emphasizes the importance of developing a “community flywheel” (shown below)—a fast, actionable feedback cycle for brands to power their comms/campaigns, positioning, products, and services.
In addition, businesses are also reacting to fundamental shifts in consumer behavior accelerated by the pandemic and a gradual decline of trust in traditional establishments, such as political parties and the media.
The pandemic accelerated the number of people gathering in smaller, digital, localized communities or identity-based communities to find ‘people like themselves.’
Edelman’s Trust Barometer, an annual study that measures and analyzes trust in institutions around the world, has highlighted this shift in behavior for 20+ years. The popularity of community and creator/influencer marketing are visible manifestations of a societal shift away from trusting traditional figures of authority to ‘people like me.’
But it’s not just societal changes and the pursuit of more cost-effective marketing that pushes brands towards CBM. More business leaders now understand the benefits of community on their bottom line:
Supports demand generation
Supports lead generation
Extends value of content marketing and events
Improves customer retention and reduces customer churn
Increases customer lifetime value
Provides marketing, customer, and audience data and insights at scale
Provides inspiration for content, campaigns, and events
Mobilizes brand advocates and ambassadors
Supports recurring revenue models (i.e., subscriptions)
Potential for new recurring revenue models
Co-creation of products, content, etc.
Now that you’re aware of both the push and pull factors that bring us into this era of community-based marketing, let’s take a look at how it complements your organic search efforts.
Community-based marketing & SEO: A powerful partnership for search visibility
Content marketers and SEO specialists increasingly understand that embracing community means they can access market, customer, and audience insights that their competitors may not have firsthand access to.
In his brilliant article on the future of web content, Mordy Oberstein explains the concept and importance of ‘situational’ and ‘conversational’ content.
“Situational writing assumes an implicit reaction on the reader’s part and latently incorporates that dialogue into the content itself. This way, I’m communicating with you by assuming your response. The net result is conversational content.From an SEO perspective, it’s not fundamentally possible to create situational content without either having first-hand knowledge and experience related to the topic or a high level of expertise. Thus, situational content is rooted in strong E-E-A-T and (all other things being equal) would align with the signals Google uses to synthetically align with strong E-E-A-T.” — Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Branding at Wix
My take is that this means simply creating content that your audiences, prospects, and customers actually want to read, that they genuinely value, and that is crafted in a way that feels human and connective.
And what better way to deeply understand what people want from you than using traditional sources of search and intent data available to all, but layering over actual qualitative and conversational data as well as clues from your communities? Now, imagine that data is only available to you in your private, branded communities!
In the same article, Obserstein highlights changes to Google’s SERPs and the impact of forums and how “Google now leans heavily into a focus on first-person knowledge” from online community spaces that can be indexed (e.g., Reddit).
He explains how Google rewards first-person, human perspectives and experiences from forums on the SERP. To see this in action, look at the communities and forums that appear in your own search results.
![The Google search results for [install jeep hinge step], truncated to show Reddit, Quadratec, and JL Wrangler Forums as the first three traditional results.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a484d4_3190060cdec84700a16618b841b24060~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_769,h_756,al_c,q_90,enc_auto/a484d4_3190060cdec84700a16618b841b24060~mv2.png)
Community channels, like forums, are a source of real customer perspectives, making them also potentially a source of information gain for search engines. This adds more entities to Google’s knowledge graph, which helps the search engine better understand new queries, but can also enable you to avoid AI overviews (which primarily show when there is consensus over a topic).
While I’ll get into detailed examples later, I want to briefly showcase the SEO gains that CBM can provide: GiffGaff (now one of the UK’s most popular mobile telephone service providers) was a challenger brand that entered a saturated telecoms market with a community-led approach in 2009.
Its customer community not only provides near-real-time help and support, but fills the SERPs with useful content, reviews, and advice about migrating from competitor networks, tariffs, and phone choices.
![The Google search results for [giffgaff migration from three or EE], showing the first two traditional results.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a484d4_9fe0f56e8204410abfdc0c268b46cf84~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_980,h_810,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/a484d4_9fe0f56e8204410abfdc0c268b46cf84~mv2.jpg)
Community-based marketing drives every part of the digital marketing funnel
To summarize the potential impact of community-based marketing on the stages of the digital marketing funnel, I created the model below.
The model also shows optimal actions based on whether the community is owned by your brand or if it exists in a brand ecosystem (i.e., communities that are not owned or managed by you, but where your product, service, brand, and competitors are discussed). Sometimes this is called ‘Community Everywhere,’ but I prefer the term ‘Community Ecosystems.’
Although CBM is applicable to all stages of the marketing funnel, it does play hardest at the middle and bottom. Being top-of-mind as a brand in a community when people are ready to buy is one way to create a surefire competitive advantage in a crowded market.
Examples: How brands leverage community-based marketing for better SEO, leads, and product development
I’ve explained the theoretical benefits of community-based marketing, but let’s take a look at the real-life results that two brands achieved and how they approached their community strategies:
The Happiness Index (B2B)
LEGO (B2C)
The Happiness Index: Leads and retention driven by the community flywheel
The Happiness Index is a B2B SaaS brand that measures employee engagement and happiness; their target audiences include senior HR professionals and business leaders. They epitomize one of the most important elements for CBM success—you need to have enlightened leaders that believe in community as a long-term lever for growth and good. Co-founder Matt Phelan is one of those business leaders.
What started as a group of senior HR professionals and influencers going for “a few drinks and conversations in a pub” became an informal WhatsApp group called HR Punks, which evolved into Happiness & Humans, a growing community where HR challenges are shared, solved and friends are made.
As the community grew, the team invested in online community technology and a community manager to ensure that the space flourished and created mutual value for its members and the business. Since then, the company has also launched a community for its investors as well as a community for sustainable businesses.
Phelan shared the business impact of community in a CBM webinar I hosted in 2023, explaining that The Happiness Index’s communities were fully attributable in their lead generation. He shared that >20% of new customers come through the brand’s communities.
Whilst he didn’t share figures, Phelan also mentioned that the communities made a positive impact on customer retention—an area where his industry traditionally focuses its efforts.
As a business leader, Phelan fully subscribes to the community flywheel principles and its unique ability to generate insights at scale. Pain points and challenges shared by community members are incorporated into The Happiness Index’s content marketing, inbound, and event themes. Additional community benefits include enhanced first-party data and feedback for product/service development.
LEGO: Content and products inspired by owned communities
At the start of the 2000s, LEGO was on the brink of collapse, but a new CEO stripped the business back and drove a new approach to creating radical relationships with its customers and fans.
LEGO is a CBM success story. It has a small, global team managing brand communities and connections with an external community ecosystem of global fans (LEGO Ambassadors).
There are many owned LEGO communities that deliver on all the business benefits I mentioned earlier, but here are a handful of them:
LEGO Ideas — A community for fan product suggestions and upvoting. An average of four new LEGO sets per year hit the market thanks to this community of creative fans.
LEGO Insiders — A customer loyalty community where members can earn rewards, buy LEGO, receive personalized offers and content, and access customer service.
LEGO Education — A community for global educators and teachers who use LEGO to support classroom activities and learning.
And, when we look at the brand’s community approach through the lens of SEO, you can see that it captures market, customer, and audience insight and intelligence at scale and translates it into content, campaigns, and even product development.
Content searches and ‘help’ queries in LEGO’s owned customer loyalty and success communities (LEGO Insiders) help the company identify, anticipate, and meet the needs of its audiences. Upvoted products in the LEGO Ideas community give a clear indication of consumer trends as well as buying and intent signals that can be met through new products and content.
Success factors for community-based marketing
You now have an understanding of the business case for community-based marketing, you can see where it sits in the marketing funnel, and you have examples of B2C and B2B brands doing it well.
Before you get started with CBM, here are some of the elements you need to get right in order to successfully adopt a community-led strategy for your brand(s):
Ensure organizational alignment, clear objectives, and the right KPIs
Provide a clear value proposition and ‘why?’ for prospective members
Big isn’t always best
Build and maintain a trusted, inclusive space
Hire professional community managers to represent your brand and nurture growth
Don’t treat your community as a broadcast channel
Create culture through community rituals
Choose the right community platform
01. Ensure organizational alignment, clear objectives, and that the right KPIs are in place
Be clear about the business objectives behind community investment, how community aligns to other areas of your business (not solely marketing), and the metrics you need to measure to ensure you’re delivering value.
The common metrics for communities are member growth and engagement. Whilst these are helpful indicators of community health, they lack direct connection to business outcomes. So ensure that your community aligns to what really matters for your organization (which is typically growth, efficiency, and impact).
There are many specific, tactical, metrics around community, but broader business objectives and measures should always be your ‘north star.’
Remember, what might be a vanity metric for a SaaS business lead generation community (e.g., average session length), may be more meaningful for a non-profit or a knowledge base community, where content engagement time might connect to behavior change or successful learning outcomes.
The community platforms that you may use will have their own dashboards and metrics that can be incredibly useful. but generally need further analysis to gain value from them. A rule of thumb is to avoid measuring and reporting on:
Metrics that you can’t act upon in any meaningful way
Metrics that nobody in the business cares or values, regardless of whether they improve or decline
It is okay to use exploratory metrics, such as ‘average engagement rate per post’ or
seasonal engagement rate variances’ to inform community strategy and support any adjustments you might make. But, business-critical profit, impact, or efficiency metrics such as ‘number (and quality) of marketing and community-qualified leads’ or ‘number of telephone support deflections’ will ensure continued community budgets and senior stakeholder support.
02. Provide a clear value proposition and ‘why?’ for prospective members
Be clear about what your community is, who it is for, and the benefits of joining—and, communicate those points well.
Branding, the community name, and a nice logo are all important, but prospective members of your community need to know exactly why they should join and they need to understand that in a matter of seconds.
State and test this value proposition before launch and remember you need to have an internal proposition and clear ‘why?’ too.
03. Big isn’t always best
I’m constantly asked, “What is the optimal size of a community?”
There is no correct answer to this. Your community type/purpose and addressable target audience will dictate the optimal size.
Micro communities (of 100s or even 10s of members) can be optimal, especially for communities of practice, where very senior professionals may only feel comfortable joining and engaging if they are surrounded by their peers.
The flip side of this is fan communities (categorized as communities of play in the 5Ps), where the addressable audience can include millions, members have much looser ties, and the community is much more commerce-oriented.
In this case, big is almost always best. Sephora’s Beauty Insider Community, with its over 3.5 million members, is an example of a big community that is populated with prospective buyers and genuine fans.
But, you don’t always need to chase big community numbers to show success. In some business cases, community member value is more important than community member volume.
04. Build and maintain a trusted, inclusive space
It can be a challenge to manage the dual demands of a business that wants a community to succeed, and community members that want a business to meet their needs.
Community building is a genuine skill and a delicate balance. Trust is critical for your community to thrive. Members need to feel safe to participate and constantly view your community as a valued space for them.
Like brand reputation, community trust is earned over time and it can quickly be lost. Well planned member onboarding and community guidelines will set the tone and expectations around inclusion and expected behaviors. A community manager (or team of them) and moderators should enforce these guidelines.
At the very least, to ensure that you build a safe and inclusive community, create the following:
Community guidelines
Code of conduct
Moderation process
Crisis and issues management process
Member onboarding process
Inclusive rituals (create opportunities for all member to contribute/engage)
And if you need help with any of those, seek assistance from an experienced community expert like myself!
Remember, if you set up communities, you can’t just expect members to feel included, valued, and safe. Act with integrity, speak with authenticity, protect your community, and do so consistently over time.
05. Hire a professional community manager to represent your brand and nurture growth
Very few businesses invest in community specialists unless their entire business proposition revolves around customer success, recurring revenue, members, subscribers, and community.
But the value and expertise that expert community managers bring cannot be overstated. A frequent mistake businesses make is resourcing communities with staff that lack experience, reputational antennae, and the people skills to run a community well. Branded community managers that represent your organization are an important touchpoint and are the guardians of valuable insight and intelligence.
You wouldn’t let an unprepared, untrained intern or junior team member loose on your corporate social media accounts or put them in a customer support role without training, yet many organizations think that they can do this in community spaces.
Community management skills can and should be taught. In my experience and opinion, the best community managers have brilliant communication skills, they are ‘people-people’ who can connect ideas, concepts, and individuals quickly and successfully. But they also need to be strategic about governance, data, measuring and reporting, crisis management and more.
06. Don’t treat your community as a broadcast channel
I repeat: Your community is not a broadcast channel!
The most successful communities feel like they are ‘owned’ by the community itself. If your community is a broadcast/one-way communications channel or a dumping ground for your content and events, members will leave and it will fail.
It’s important to engage and lead by example, especially in the early days of your community. The goal is to cultivate a peer-to-peer environment with the right people, where community members organically post and volunteer their own ideas, content, information, questions, and advice.
There is a time and there are techniques for when you do need to broadcast. For example, some community platforms will allow you to push important messages or @ mention the entire community or a channel. Other techniques include setting up specific channels for push/branded notifications.
Consider which category of community you are developing and what the appropriate level of brand/host-led posting vs. community-led posting should be. For this, you might want to draw benchmarks from other communities that feel healthy, vibrant, and valuable for members.
07. Create culture through community rituals
The most powerful aspects of a community—a sense of belonging, trust, reciprocity, stored knowledge, and valuable connections—take time and consistency to build.
It can take a while for your community to form and perform (or ‘open up’) but you can facilitate this by being consistent, creating regular rituals, and not giving up after a few short months.
I’ve written about the importance of community rituals and how they help build trust and connections:
Rituals can include simple tactics, such as a weekly or monthly community round up or newsletter.
They can be something that evolves naturally from the community itself and represent our most human need for regular connection. For example, GiffGaff’s community has a weekly thread where members share what they are cooking/eating during the week.
Use member challenges, spotlights, and weekly topics of discussion to emphasize engagement and community culture.
08. Choose the right community platform
Technology should be one of the last considerations in your community strategy.
Some brand communities exist on ancient technology, some on email lists, some communities do not have digital homes and only exist in-person.
There are pros and cons to the hundreds of community platforms out there, including those never intended for community building, like Slack, Facebook, or WhatsApp.
Like any technology choice, consider the capabilities that are important to your brand:
How critical is access to data?
Do you need APIs and integrations?
What type of branding, user experience, searchability, and privacy do you need for your community?
Do you need automations?
Should your community be fully or partially indexable for search engines?
These are just a few of the questions that you need to consider before choosing a platform.
As for social media platforms, they have reach and mass adoption, but they have minimal features, scant data, and can change owners, change algorithms, shutter features, or even close down free community ‘groups’—if they do so, you risk losing the communities and value you’ve built over the years.
The right community platform for you and your members will depend very much on what your members prefer and what’s logistically feasible for your business, but the technology comes after the strategy.
Like brand building, community-based marketing takes time, but it can distinguish your business
Bevy bought CMX, Stripe acquired Indie Hackers, HubSpot bought The Hustle—there are many more examples of this, and there is a good reason why technology and SaaS brands went on a spending spree a few years ago and snapped up the most active, healthiest communities in their spaces.
They understood that building successful communities, like brand building and getting all the elements of your SEO activity working in tandem, takes effort and time. But, it is also one of the most important ‘economic moats’ available to a business.
If you have senior buy-in, a clear value proposition, and everything in place to make your communities a success, then the one thing you must ask stakeholders for is time to show ROI.
Show small wins and evidence of the value that you are creating, but also recognize that you are playing a long game. Don’t give up after a few short weeks or months.
You wouldn’t with your SEO or your brand building strategy, after all.
A recognized global expert, Michelle Goodall works with B2B and B2C brands that place community at the heart of their growth. She trains, coaches, and consults, sharing insights and learnings publicly, and is the host of ‘Meet the Community Builders.’Twitter | Linkedin