Breaking down the new Community FUNnel: Bottom of Funnel - The Sounding Board
So now you’ve started moving people through the Community Funnel and transforming them from audiences to community members.
As they begin to engage with your people more and tell other people about how much they enjoy this engagement, you’ll need a path to bring them into your inner circle.
During a Community Design session you’ll determine what you want this level of inner circle to be:
It could be an advisory board for your company or one for your community in general. It could be a small peer-group that has access to the right people at your company to be part of trending conversations. Or it could be a special loyalty program for top customers.
It could be for 10 customers. It could be for 5,000 customers. But it's a pinnacle of engagement that your customers and community members strive for.
Whatever form your Sounding Board takes, these are the truly loyal fans (we like to call them your Locals) who actively advocate for you, speak on your behalf, and even create content for you (in the form of interviews, recommendations, or even contributing written content).
When your broader community accesses their content, they are more likely to share it than any content you produce yourself, thereby amplifying both your eminence and theirs. In fact, according to TurnTo Networks, 90% of consumers ?find user-generated content useful and believe what existing customers say about the brands rather than flashing ads and promotional emails.
A few of my favorite Sounding Boards:
For our very own Team CMO community, the sounding board will be available to community members to join a one-quarter-long series of conversation for 5 to 7 CMOs to share and solve challenges together.
As the Grown-Up Girls Club "franchises" out to other cities, the leaders in each city will become the inner circle, sharing ideas and tips and tricks for running their communities.
领英推荐
Personally, I'm involved in a community called Summit Junto , which curates 7-person "personal advisory boards" for members to help each other through professional and creative challenges, while their greater series of gatherings are for hundreds, if not thousands, of broader Summit members.
Your Homework
Take inventory of inner circles that may already exist across your company. Do you have customer advisory boards? Sales advisory boards? Focus groups? Loyalty programs? Customer advocacy programs?
Now align those with the appropriate organizations across your business - which ones are 100% sales-focused? Which ones are retention-based? Do any of them help your inner circle feel a sense of ownership, authority, or connection with your company? If not, it's time to add or redesign a Sounding Board.
Next up: The Shareable Moments . Sharing is caring!?
(Catch up if you missed Part 1 : The Show, Part 2 : The Site, or Part 3 : The Series of Gatherings!)
Here is the full series of articles:
Liz Lathan, CMP, is co-founder of?The Community Factory , helping brands grow and engage their communities of customers, prospects, and team members. Through a Community Design Strategy session, we help companies develop Community Enablement Programs and offer Community as a Service (CaaS) solutions that fit their needs. Contact Liz at [email protected]