Community-led growth (CLG) is a powerful way to grow a business. People who are enthusiastic about your company and what you have to offer are an invaluable tool. Harnessing that enthusiasm can help with customer acquisition, retention, brand sentiment, expansion, and more. But you (and your company) are not the only ones who can benefit from community-led growth. It can benefit your investors as well. What is community-led growth? Here’s a quick recap. It’s a business strategy that leverages a company’s community of users, customers, and fans to drive growth and engagement. At its core, it’s an evolution of the growth strategies that preceded it: Sales-led and product-led. A successful community-led growth strategy centers around building a community that not only contributes to your goals as a company but your users as well. 89% of responders in the 2022 Community Index Report agreed that community iscritical to their company’s mission. 79% said that community has had a positive impact on their organization’s objectives, and 62% said that their organization will be increasing their investment in community. 7 benefits of CLG that impact investors 1. Increased revenue growth: While communities take time and effort to build, the energy is worth it. Community-led growth can drive customer acquisition and retention, leading to increased revenue growth and stronger financial performance. 2. Higher customer lifetime value: Customer lifetime value is an important metric that helps indicate the total revenue that a company can expect from a single customer throughout their relationship with the company. It’s a valuable metric because it allows you the power to leverage the value of every single customer throughout their journey. Because CLG can result in higher levels of customer engagement and loyalty, this can lead to a higher customer lifetime value. 3. Improved margins: By being engaged with your most enthusiastic customers, you can get direct feedback from them. Feedback on the customer experience, directly from your customers can lead to a more cost-effective acquisition process, improving margins. 4. Stronger brand: Building a strong community of loyal customers can increase your brand sentiment. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and the larger and stronger your community grows, so does your brand. Positive brand sentiment reflects well on investors as well as the company. 5. Better returns: By focusing on building a strong community, CLG can lead to better returns for investors as the company’s financial performance improves and its market position strengthens. 6. Increased customer loyalty: Connection is important, especially when it comes to creating loyal, lifelong customers. Community-led growth can lead to increased customer loyalty, as users feel a strong sense of connection and community with the product or brand. 7. Reduced customer churn: This growth strategy can reduce customer churn, as customers are likelier to stick around and continue using the product due to their involvement in the community. A strong customer base is appealing to investors. Happy and engaged customers are loyal customers, so why not build an entire community out of them, right?

Every business has a community surrounding it, no matter how big your business is or what products or services you provide. These communities are typically made up of clients, investors, consumers, industry thought leaders, and more. Supportive people who are familiar with what you provide and want to see your business thrive. Your business has a community surrounding it, so have you harnessed that community in your business strategy? If you haven’t, you’re missing out on a powerful tool: Community-led growth (CLG.) Refresher: What is CLG? Community-led growth really has one goal: To create a self-sustaining growth cycle fueled by said community that drives new user acquisitions and engagement. CLG harnesses a company’s users, customers, and fans to drive growth and engagement. The ideology is that by creating a strong sense of community around something (a business, product, service, brand, etc.) you can then use that community to drive customer acquisition, engagement, and revenue. Referral marketing, community events, forums, activations, and user-generated content are all ways this can be achieved. Pretty cool, right? 5 ways community-led growth can benefit your customers While CLG provides numerous benefits to the business itself, it’s also incredibly beneficial to the customer (or user, or client.) After all, customers are a huge part of community-led growth, and are part of the key to its success. Because the cycle is self-sustaining, customers aid in the success of community-led growth, and in turn, reap the benefits as it grows. 1. Improved customer experience: CLG can lead to a more engaged and involved user community, driving product development and improvements based on user feedback and input. With community-led growth, the customer has a more personalized connection with a business. By getting feedback direct from your community, you can ensure that you are rolling out new products and services that your customers actually want, not just what you think they want. 2. Increased value: Because of CLG’s affect on customer experience by driving new feature development and enhancements based on their needs and preferences, those developments make your business more valuable to them. When you are meeting their needs directly, that increases loyalty fueling that self-sustaining cycle even more. 3. Better customer support: Communities support each other. As the community surrounding your business grows and strengthens, they can help eachother by answering questions and providing support to other users via forums, groups, and other online spaces. 4. Increased sense of community: You might have noticed that all of these benefits build on eachother. This is all apart of the self-sustaining cycle we’ve been talking about. The more the community grows, and the stronger it becomes, it can lead to a more enjoyable and fulfilling experience. 5. Increased ROI: CLG is a cost-effective strategy for your business that can drive customer acquisition and retention, leading to increased revenue and a higher return on investment for clients. It’s a win-win situation for both parties. Don’t you love it when everyone wins?

A good business owner is always looking for ways to improve and grow their business. Marketing is huge, and anyone looking to boss their industry seeks out ways to make their marketing strategy more effective. We’ve waxed poetic about the benefits of adding bulk texting and QR codes to your marketing strategy, but there is another tool you should utilize to expand your brand: Your audience. How do you do that? Community-led growth. What is community-led growth? Community-led growth (CLG) is a business strategy that leverages a company’s community of users, customers, and fans to drive growth and engagement. The idea is to create a strong sense of community around a product or brand and to use that community to drive customer acquisition, engagement, and revenue. This can be achieved through tactics such as user-generated content, referral marketing, and community events and activations. The goal is to create a self-sustaining growth cycle where the community drives new user acquisition and engagement, which in turn fuels further growth and community building. Lather, rinse, repeat. Why does it matter? No matter how large your customer base is, every brand has a community surrounding it. Word of mouth and recommendations from trusted people in one’s life are effective and valuable marketing tools. By harnessing the power of the people passionate about your brand, you can turn them into some of your best advocates. Community-led growth is targeted and mutually beneficial. It helps your company by increasing your reach and engagement, and the customer can get more out of your product or service while being able to provide feedback on the future of your business. So what are the benefits? 1. Cost-effective customer acquisition: CLG can help companies acquire customers more cost-effectively than traditional sales and marketing methods, as the community can help drive referrals and new customer acquisition. By building a community of passionate experts, whether online, in-person, or both, those passionate experts can attract more people like them, saving you money on marketing strategies aiming to reach those new customers directly. 2. Increased customer engagement: CLG can create opportunities for increased customer engagement, as users are more likely to be active and involved in a product or brand when they feel a strong sense of community. By creating an online or in-person community around your business, your customers will feel a more personalized connection. Aren’t you more likely to recommend brands and products to people that you love and feel connected to? So are your customers. 3. Brand advocacy: If you’re curious about a new product or company but unsure if it’s worth investing your time and money in, having a trusted source you can rely on for a recommendation is paramount. Think about the companies you interact (in some way) with on a daily basis. Aren’t you more likely to tell your friends and colleagues about the ones you love? CLG can increase brand advocacy, as community members are likelier to recommend the product or brand to others. 4. User-generated content: Community-led growth can create amazing opportunities for user-generated content, which can be used to drive further engagement and growth. Testimonials, reviews, forums etc. can all be user-generated and incredibly impactful on your brand. 5. Improved customer retention: CLG can help improve customer retention, as community members are more likely to stick around and continue using the product. If your customers feel connected to your brand on a more meaningful level, they’re more likely to stick around through your evolution as a business. They will likely be some of your first adopters when you launch a new product or service, and the longer you can retain them, the more powerful the community will be. 6. Data-driven decision-making: CLG generates a wealth of data to inform and improve product development and overall business strategy. Since your community is so much more connected to your business than a more passive audience, you can get more nuanced and tangible feedback from them. By hosting your community online in places like Slack, Discord, or LinkedIn, you can also use native data and analytics to understand your customers better and make more informed decisions.