Inside community-led growth: the first in our new series of insights from experts

 

Community-led growth describes a way of making an online community core to your business growth and it’s getting more attention thanks to its proven results and cost efficiencies. Because of this, we’ve started a series, speaking with industry experts to get their perspectives and tips for community-led growth.

First up, Neil Morgan of CMO Advisory. He has worked for over three decades with high-growth SaaS companies including Oracle, Sage, Adobe, and GoCardless. He now works with SaaS founders, advising on marketing strategies that lead to tangible business results.

What community-led growth means to Neil

The conversation began with Neil explaining what community-led growth meant to him, based on his experiences with communities. “It means a different focus on how you think about growth as a business,” he explained, “Traditional growth marketing relies on external things like advertising while community-led growth considers those closest to you like your customers.”

Communities are powerful tools for bringing together customers, partners, colleagues, industry influencers and experts, to share knowledge and create growth through that better understanding. 

Community-led growth in action

Neil gave several examples of this in action today, including a Zapnito-powered community, Propolis by B2B Marketing. This community creates growth through providing exclusive advice and best practices that B2B marketers cannot get anywhere else. “It’s a great example of how a publisher has developed a business model to create more value using expert opinions,” Neil added.

Sage Advice was another example, built specifically to drive engagement within the accounting SaaS company Sage’s audience of small business owners. Content is designed to make tax more interesting and help small business owners become more self-sufficient when managing their business and cash flow. 

A virtuous cycle

The community-led growth model creates a virtuous cycle of customer acquisition, product adoption, retention, and advocacy (that leads to future customer acquisition). Neil highlighted how vital it was for businesses today to explore communities as growth engines, due to the current economic climate and tightening of budgets. 

Flipping the funnel and prioritizing those closest to you, your customers and partners, can have a significant impact on your growth. After all, they are the most important people to your business. 

Watch the full interview with Neil and get his tips for building a community-led growth model, plus more success stories, on the Zapnito community now.