Developing a Membership Community
Written by Linda Vinod
Brands that are winning in 2024 are the ones that are going beyond traditional community engagement channels to build their own membership communities. This allows them to directly engage with their customers, spot consumer trends before they make it to social, craft products guided by customer insights, and increase the success rate of product launches.
Let’s explore the driving forces behind the increasing interest in community building as a growth and retention strategy.
1. Market Validation
Remember when Instagram influencer Arianna Renee with over 2.6 million followers launched her clothing line but struggled to sell a minimum of 252 t-shirts — 36 across 7 categories — to sustain her brand? Marketing experts like Leigh-Wood Oakes and Jack Appleby attributed the failure to poorly executed branding, launch strategy, and what could be considered a subpar product.
Launching a new product can be daunting as there are many variables beyond your control. If you’re yet to launch, the best way to understand the needs of your ideal buyers and develop a product that meets them where they are is by inviting them to co-create it with you. A private community gives you the opportunity to do just that — organize events to brainstorm ideas, share early prototypes to get feedback, provide early access, and establish a seamless feedback loop to continuously collect, analyze, and act upon member feedback throughout the product development phase.
By involving your audience, you’re increasing the likelihood of converting them into customers by collaboratively creating something they truly desire.
2. Early Adopters
When Charlotte North, a gold medalist on the U.S. women’s national lacrosse team and a member of the U.S. women’s box lacrosse inaugural training team, decided to build her own lacrosse training app, she knew that engaging her audience early in the process would lead to a strong initial customer base and spark organic word-of-mouth marketing. As a result, 400+ enthusiastic early adopters joined within a month since launch and everyone who helped shape the direction of the app felt a sense of ownership and loyalty which led to high conversion and word-of-mouth referral rates at launch.
3. Customer Insights
August, a period care brand, stays on top of evolving customer needs by actively engaging with their community, The Inner Cycle, which is home to 5000+ menstruators.
Take a look at some of their community channels 👇
Fostering an environment that encourages engagement via discussions and events has enabled August to effectively tap into the specific changes consumers would like to see in the period care market. By leveraging this approach, August has been able to create products that align with their community's needs during their monthly cycles.
For any brand taking this approach, a powerful analytics tool like Common Room would help observe trending discussion topics, identify highly engaged members, and re-engage those who may be less active.
4. Fully-licensed UGC
A private community gives you the freedom to establish a shared culture. When designing your community architecture, dedicate specific channels for members to exchange valuable product tips and best practices.
The organic content and discussions that emerge from these channels can be an incredibly valuable source of UGC for the brand. For example, you might find that a few members are regularly posting tutorial videos on the best ways to use the product. You could then pick the most helpful and popular of such videos, get the necessary rights and permissions, and repurpose them across your social media channels and website or request them to post on theirs. These power users could become your brand ambassadors or even be compensated for creating exclusive content for you.
If this sparks your curiosity, take a look at Swarm, a community platform that’s specifically designed for video-first communities.
Sustainable Revenue Stream
If you sell products or services, a community can market them in a way that doesn’t feel icky while being able to remain independent and generate recurring revenue for your business. If you choose to keep it free for the members, the insights and UGC can be leveraged to improve products and marketing, further improving the value proposition for members.
In an interview with Business of Fashion, Bandit Running shared that they launched a $125 annual membership in 2022 which resulting in 60% repeat purchase rate. On average, the members who joined the membership made at least five purchases.
We anticipate a surge in others adopting similar strategies in the coming months. If you’d like to stay ahead of the curve and position yourself as a community-led brand in your space, here’s our step-by-step process you can follow to get started:
List the metrics you’re tracking. Which of these business metrics could a community positively impact? What would its impact look like?
Find 3-5 communities in your space and perform an audit of their community strategy to start thinking about how you’ll uniquely position your community
Reach out to your audience or customers for 1:1 calls to begin the co-design process. Start with a discovery call to understand their needs and how a community could support them. Take detailed notes and after the process, revisit the first point and check how the business needs align with your potential members’ needs
Start building your community. Throughout the process, stay closely in touch with the potential members who hopped on a call with you to keep them updated on your progress and get their input wherever necessary
Craft a launch plan and invite your early believers to spread the word!
Interested in working with us this summer? Check our our Community Membership Strategy service and take 24% off with coupon code: SUMMER24