Why unicorns are so focused on building communities
Traditional digital marketing strategies fall flat in the age of ad blockers and brand oversaturation. Meanwhile, competition gets tougher and customer acquisition costs go up. The modern digital economy requires a unique approach to marketing.
That’s why many of the most successful companies out there invest in things that don’t directly lead to more sales, but strengthen the brand in the long run. In particular, they are focused on building communities around their product.
To become a movement
Having a strong community isn’t just a way to differentiate yourself — it’s a way to transcend the boundaries imposed by the core component of your business. No matter how good what you’re selling is, at the end of the day it’s just a product. And one’s relationship with products can only get so personal.
According to the 2019 Meaningful Brands survey, 77 percent of brands could simply disappear and not a single customer would care. But if your marketing is structured around your community, your brand can avoid that fate. It can, instead, come to represent a passionate group of like-minded people.
One need to look no further than Blue Bottle Coffee, the coffee shop chain recently purchased by Nestle. Despite the saturation of their market and the subsequent emergence of multiple independent ‘third wave’ roasters, Blue Bottle has weathered this storm. Its community members have more options than ever, but continue supporting this particular brand. Because it stands for something greater than what it sells.
To provide social context
Your community is a market positioning tool like no other. A lot of brands produce ads featuring sports cars and luxury items, trying to appeal to the target demographic’s ideal self-image. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t mean much. By now we’re used to these tactics, that sell everything from skincare products to energy drinks. We all know that a new pair of shoes does not make one worthy of a Met Gala invitation — no matter what the ad wants you to believe. However, when your product is actually used by actual celebrities — this social context is impossible to ignore.
The iPhone isn’t marketed as a luxury product, like, for example, Vertu — but it is perceived as such. Not just because of the price tag, but also because there is a community of well-off users that continue to be emotionally invested in the product. They provide the real-life social context that marketing materials can’t. Slack isn’t particularly innovative — it’s just a modern take on IRC — but because of its agile, young user base it’s associated with culturally innovative companies.
To gain brand ambassadors
Related to the last point — the people who feel ‘at home’ in your community are also most likely to convince others to use your product. Word-of-mouth marketing is a force to be reckoned with — even though you can’t easily measure it. 6 out of 10 customers won’t trust your brand unless someone else vouches for it. They want to be sure that you deliver on your promises. Content, generated by the members of your community, can convince them to take the risk.
Moreover, these same people will willingly expand effort to ‘convert’ others. Because, as we have previously mentioned, they perceive it as a movement, a lifestyle choice — not a purchasing decision. Their connections will become your leads — 71% of consumers are highly influenced by their friends’ recommendations.
Take, for example, CrossFit and SoulCycle — both fairly new names in the space of health & fitness. The first is an especially demanding workout regimen, the second — a gym with nothing but exercise bikes. Both seem very niche — but they succeeded and became worldwide sensations precisely because of their attention to community. Those who ‘bought into’ their worldview, ‘converted’ their friends and the cycle (pun intended) repeated itself.
User generated content can play a huge role in getting your brand noticed. Take, for example, Lego. Julia Goldin, the CMO of the company, claimed that YouTube enthusiasts have made Lego the most viewed brand on the platform — and, possibly, online.
To develop brand loyalty
Community loyalty often, though not necessarily, translates into brand loyalty. These people are brought together by your corporate vision, and will, as a rule, enthusiastically approach products that expand it. This can present a set of challenges: if your development decisions somehow damage the ideals your community was built upon, users will abandon your product en masse. However, as long as you stay true to your promises, people will be eager to try out new things.
Take a look at WeWork — a startup that has been community-oriented since day one. It started off as an office space provider, but over the past few years it successfully branched into adjacent markets. Now they provide apartment rentals under the brand WeLive and daycare services under the brand WeGrow. To fit this new image, they even rebranded themselves as “The We Company”.
They have nurtured the community of entrepreneurs and hi-tech professionals who used their coworking spaces, and created a suit of products that further embody the WeWork lifestyle.
To make smarter decisions
Having an active community is a great way to ensure a transparent feedback loop between you and your customers. Individual reactions get lost, but communal resonance is hard to miss. Your community can amplify the voices that would otherwise be drowned out.
It also gives you a great way to measure how well you’re doing as a company. You can use it as a metric for customer satisfaction and customer retention.
According to Accenture Interactive, 91% of millennials are willing to switch brands over ethical issues. If you monitor your communal spaces, you can notice the early signs of things going wrong. To speed this feedback loop further up, you can even directly address your customers in a public forum and listen to their grievances or suggestions.
Moreover, it’s far less expensive for a business to retain customers than it is to acquire new ones. Yet most companies continue to prioritise customer acquisition over retention.
Indeed, there are not so many marketing channels out there that can help you with both, and deliver measurable results. We at MNFST believe we can do just that. And one of our recent trial campaigns for a neo bank in UK has demonstrated 14% increase in conversions and a 15% increase in the number of Instagram followers with a CPM of under £3.
To bridge online and offline
Last, but not least, it’s a great way to establish yourself on both sides of the screen by bringing your online community offline (or vice versa).
Your online community does not cease to exist in the real world. If you’re a company that makes digital products, or uses direct-to-consumer sales tactics, you can take advantage of this to establish your presence in meatspace.
Companies from Blizzard to Google and Coinbase arrange meetups and conferences, giving their community members an opportunity to convene in real life. The connections people make online are more tangible than they might seem, and nurturing them offline will only make them stronger. Moreover, real world presence will work as advertising for people you’ve been unable to reach online.
Likewise, traditional brands can establish online communities so that their users, no matter where they live, get the opportunity to lead an active communal life.
There are forums, subreddits, Facebook groups, and Twitter hashtags that can help you do that. Brands such as Nike and Harley-Davidson have been doing it for a while now — both have loyal fans discussing their products online. That way, offline traction results in thriving and inclusive online communities, exposing your brand to an audience that may not have noticed you for geographical reasons.
Conclusion
Brand communities are a part of our digital culture — and you can’t ignore it. While attending the 2019 Cannes Lions, I noticed that all successful businesses — b2b or b2c, large or small — are focused on building and sustaining communities. The people Forbes invited to the “World’s Most Influential CMO panel” univocally consider this activity necessary for consistent business growth. If you are not nurturing the communities of both your customers and your supply-side partners, you risk playing a losing game against the rising cost of traffic and clicks.
I think that brand communities have become a necessary point of contact. It is possible, but hard for banners or celebrity endorsements to win people over. Social media accounts and corporate blogs also have their limits. We need to open up channels of communication through regular people, those we can truly connect to. Only they can reliably drive long term user retention.
That’s why it is vital to focus on your social impact in addition to conventional marketing channels. Some of the newer ‘unicorns’, like Airbnb and Monzo, have leveraged this since day one. For them, community building is natural way to express their values of trust, transparency and fairness. Why shouldn’t it be for the rest of us?
