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How 48% of B2B companies leverage communities to Go-to-Market
A few weeks ago, we wrote about the 7 Types of GTM Motions.
Nearly half of the B2B companies we surveyed (48%) are using Community-Led Growth.
Most companies are using more than one motion, so even if you are already using Inbound, Outbound, PLG, or Events, Communities can be an important addition to your strategy.
What is Community-Led Growth?
The difference between simply “having a community” and true Community-Led Growth is how fundamental your community is to your overall strategy.
It could be as simple as a customer slack channel, as complex as a fully-hosted interactive platform with annual events and regional meetups, or anything on the spectrum in-between.
If you have a siloed community team working in isolation, you have a community.
If your executives participate, if your customers rely on it, if you have community KPIs that are tied to overall corporate revenue and retention targets . . . then you have Community-Led Growth.
Why does Community-Led Growth work?
B2B companies can leverage the power of communities to foster meaningful relationships and build trust during a period when budgets are tight and traditional demand gen channels are underperforming.
Some benefits of Community-Led Growth:
Engage with your target audience on a deeper level
Establish yourselves as thought leaders
Unlock new business opportunities
Facilitate knowledge sharing, networking, and collaboration among your customers, prospects, and industry peers
Boost customer loyalty, retention, and referrals
Gather feedback, understand customer pain points, and identify emerging trends
4 types of communities to consider
The type of community should depends on your goals. While we’ve identified four clear types of communities, many are hybrids of more than one category.
Product Community
A group of people interested in achieving deeper engagement with a specific product or solution.
Helps members become experts, deal with technical challenges, show engagement
Recruits
Helps organizations build advocates, reduce support costs
Typically requires product access
Demand gen and expansion
Members should expect to be marketed to about specific products
Key KPIs: Users, active users, connect users to retention goals/CSAT goals, and reduction in support costs.
Examples: Salesforce Trailblazers Community, Adobe Creative Cloud Community
Build-a-Movement Community
A group of people looking to change the way a process or function behaves. Could include a wide variety of solutions.
Shows you are well informed and on the cutting edge
Helps customers and influencers build their careers
Supports thought leadership
Serves as a networking environment
Builds a critical mass related to your point of view.
Includes users and vendors - vendors may promote
Members should expect to be marketed to about a range of products
Key KPIs: Users, active users, invites, influencers, halo community audience reach.
Example: Purple Book Community
Formal Education Community
A group of professional people interested in receiving formalized education on a wide variety of subjects.
Offers formal education programs and certifications
Provides improvement programs on dialed-in subjects
Provides a platform for education experts to show their value
Members may get marketed to - but keeping a balance
Key KPIs: Users, active users, engagements with content, content views, completed courses, certifications, brand awareness.
Examples: Pavilion
Career Education Community
These are communities built to support individual professional performance improvement, mentoring, 1:1 coaching, role challenges, and advice.
Focus on career growth, education, and support
Receive education and increase your career specific knowledge
Offer a networking environment and recruiting zone
Empower underrepresented groups
Expect not to be marketed to - this is a safe zone
Key KPIs: Users, active users, networking events attended, promotions, jobs posted.
Examples: Peak Community, Rev Genius, Women in Revenue
Considering a community?
Here are some decisions you need to make.
How will you fund it? Most B2B communities that are a part of the Community-Led Growth GTM motion are free and funded by the host company, but that’s not always the case. What will you charge, what do people expect, and what do you need to make? Will this be a revenue stream for you, or are you just looking to cover costs?
How will you staff the community and drive engagement? Depending on the size of your community, you may need full-time dedicated resources. How do you measure and forecast community engagement and success? When do you need to plan for additional headcount?
What is your communication and content strategy? Based on the type of community you have, what kind of content should you have?
What is your launch plan? Make sure you have enough runway to attract members and keep them engaged. How will you get people to join? What does their onboarding look like? How will you publicize the new community?
What tech will you use? There are very successful communities built in Slack, others prefer to use community software like Mighty Networks.
A new week, a new ROI study!
We are cranking out third-party, analyst validated ROI studies, and the latest is Airmeet!
Download the ROI study to see how Airmeet drives high-quality leads through dynamic online events and webinars, connects companies with the right buyers to book more meetings and accelerate deals, and leverages interactive events to improve customer retention.
Airmeet's customers experience results like:
$1.1M in new pipeline
70% attendance rate
4900% increase in audience
100k concurrent attendees
2000 high-quality leads from one event
CMO Panel: Redefining ROI
Tuesday, June 13: GTM Partners’ co-founder and CEO Sangram Vajre is hosting an incredible CMO Panel with G2 and will be talking to three rockstar CMOs about different kinds of ROI
Have a wonderful week, and let us know how we can help you with your GTM!
The GTM Partners Team
P.S. Our Chief Analyst, Bryan Brown, will be joining Bombora CMO Jeff Marcoux for a review of the Bombora Upswell Report, a comprehensive exploration of the latest trends and developments across 8 different industries to uncover organizations’ research interests, trending topics, and industry-specific insights.
Embracing the shifting tides: Top B2B trends impacting your 2023 GTM plan
Wednesday, June 21 at 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET
