Why a community? Values & benefits of having one
Having an online community has lately become a trend and every manager wants one. Often it is because competitors have one, or they want to reduce customer service costs. However, most of them in my experience don’t really know why they want it and what are the real benefits of having one.
That’s why very often communities are born without a specific target to hit: sometimes the company is taking over a fan community or it’s basing its choice upon the immediate whim of the CEO.
The benefits of an online community vary by its type of community, the only common element is using member to member interaction to achieve the company’s objectives. They can relate to revenue or to net promoter score, for example. A community influences purchase decisions as well!
Having one:
- increases brand awareness;
- reduces marketing costs, by lowering down CPA and reducing customer service and research costs;
- increases customer acquisition, by lead generation and conversion;
- increases CLV, by increasing retention rate, share of wallet and ads served/CPM;
- reduces recruiting costs.
It establishes and reinforces social norms within a peer group (e.g. ‘people like me travel like this’).
It shapes environment to encourage behavior (e.g. ‘I can find better information on setting up my trip here than on Google’ or ‘It’s easier to buy in bulk or through subscription here’). If the community makes a behavior easier, that behavior will happen more often.
It increases the perceived value of the product (e.g. ‘I didn’t know this city had these special and super local places to visit, I’m going to buy from this site more frequently’). If the community encourages people to better understand the value of the product, they might buy more of it and remain as a customer for longer.
It rewards the buyer and develops further purchases (e.g. ‘by buying this trip I will find a peer group of people who love traveling as much as me’).
