Drive revenue growth by igniting the community engine

A brand-owned community is an online platform that brings together customers, enthusiasts, and community members who share an interest in the brand's products or services. It serves as a hub for discussions, feedback, and engagement, fostering a sense of belonging and loyalty among its members.

These communities, often found on the brand's website or dedicated platforms, enable users to connect, ask questions, provide feedback, and receive support. At the same time, they can serve as a valuable channel for companies to gather insights, build relationships, and drive customer advocacy.

More specifically, here are the three primary ways brand-owned communities help drive revenue.

In business, understanding your customers is one of the most important driving factors for success. Having access to their needs, preferences, and feedback allows you to increase customer retention and encourage repeat business. Moreover, satisfied customers are more likely to become brand advocates, bringing in new prospects through word of mouth.

That’s why one of the most valuable aspects of brand communities is their ability to serve as a constant source of detailed customer insights and user-generated content.These insights can be utilized in a variety of ways. For example, feedback around product preferences and suggestions in an ideas board can be leveraged to inform product decisions and promotions. Reviews and testimonials allow brands to segment their customer base effectively, enabling teams to personalize marketing strategies and identify loyal brand advocates.

By monitoring these discussions, brands gain access to real-time market intelligence and unique industry trends to increase customer satisfaction and fine-tune marketing campaigns, resulting in a better customer experience and more repeat business.

Research by the McKinsey Global Institute all but confirms this, as brands that listen to the voice of the customer outperform the competition by 85% in sales growth margins and by more than 25% in gross margins.

Well-cultivated, these communities can evolve to become powerful, long-term sources of innovation, helping brands enhance offerings to meet their customer base's changing needs and expectations.

New prospects are like oxygen for businesses–they keep them expanding and thriving in the long run. Bringing in leads broadens the customer base, reducing reliance on existing customers and driving business goals forward.

Luckily, brand-owned communities have advanced features that work together to attract new prospects and fuel organic growth. These online platforms can serve as a channel for brand promotion, creating awareness, and fostering trust with open dialogue.

By facilitating engagement, delivering informative content, and providing educational resources about their products or services, companies can attract prospects. As those prospects become satisfied community members they can evolve into brand advocates and contribute to the organic growth of the customer base–offering word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals. This cycle expands the company's reach, attracting more new prospects..

All this conversation becomes a goldmine of powerful user-generated content, content that can also elevate brands in search engines, improving performance in organic search. This makes brands and their communities more discoverable. Ultimately, increased visibility drives organic traffic and establishes the brand's credibility and authority within its niche.

Ranking better in search by ensuring that content is well-structured and readily accessible, fosters further user engagement and encourages exploration of the community, contributing to the growth of the brand's customer base.

SEO-focused practices also help communities stay competitive in a digital landscape, ensuring they remain valuable hubs for existing customers and those who are just discovering the brand.

Attributable sales refers to the portion of a company's total sales revenue that can be attributed or assigned to a specific factor or source. This could be a particular marketing campaign, product line, sales channel, or any other identifiable element that contributed to generating sales. Measuring attributable sales helps businesses understand and measure the impact of various factors on their revenue which, in turn, can inform decision-making, resource allocation, and marketing strategies.

Brand-owned communities can help here as well–providing the data needed to identify a brand’s most engaged customers and transform them into passionate advocates. Once identified, these individuals enjoy additional opportunities to elevate their voice and influence prospective customers. This peer-to-peer feedback is invaluable, and when these advocates speak highly of a brand within the community, it serves as a trusted recommendation to others.

Real-world examples demonstrate the revenue-boosting power of brand-owned communities:

• Bunnings experienced AU$8 million in community-attributable sales in 12 months by using its community to identify, engage, and increase activity with its most passionate customers.

• Airbnb produced 2.5 times more revenue for its member hosts by using its community to drive innovation and product development, showcasing the impact of community insights on revenue growth.

Brand-owned communities are an invaluable source of product feedback and improvement, allowing brands to align their offerings with customer needs and preferences, leading to increased customer satisfaction and sales. Leveraging user-generated content from the community enhances marketing efforts, providing genuine social proof that helps convert prospects into paying customers.

Far from simple platforms for customer engagement, communities are engines for revenue growth. These spaces excel in building customer loyalty and retention, as engaged community members tend to be more loyal and make repeat purchases, ultimately increasing their lifetime value. The sense of belonging within these communities often turns customers into enthusiastic brand advocates, generating social proof and new customer referrals.

By tapping into the power of customer insights, attracting new prospects, and driving attributable sales, these communities are a strategic investment for executives looking to secure the financial future of their organizations.

To learn more about brand-owned communities and advocate for one in your organization, download our whitepaper, “The executive’s business case for a brand-owned community,” here.