Building a brand should be a community initiative

While I was browsing through a newsletter in my inbox, an article piqued my interest on the Forbes website*. The article basically sheds light on how fitness brands are not just building digital campaigns, but are also looking to build platforms where they are able to create communities of their buyers/consumers/fans/followers to enable them to engage with the brand and with each other.

Having worked in marketing with both B2B and B2C brands, I have observed from close quarters the impact that digital disruption has on the way brands engage with their customers. But while most large brands have managed to now “include” digital in their game plan (and even deploy award-winning campaigns), very few of them have been able to use it to its full potential. In the long run, this eventually makes marketers question the whole potential of digital!

In the west and now in India too, fitness brands are really bringing a fresh approach to the whole community-building phenomenon using digital channels. As someone interested in fitness, I believe this is proving to be a game changer primarily because:

?   Most people view fitness as an “IMPORTANT” goal, but not an urgent one. It probably comes 9th on a list of top 10 goals for the year – right after house, car, EMI, iPhone X, a foreign holiday, Big Billion Day Sale shopping etc. But when you become part of a community that is focused on fitness, things change. It’s a psychological push that you get every time you engage with that community, to better yourself, to match up or even lead your group.

?   We’ve all felt convinced that something is just not for us? It could be anything – studying math in school, learning to swim, cooking, public speaking, skydiving or even following a fitness routine. And while you keep convincing yourself “that it is not for you”, there is always a small voice in your head that says, “Hey if he/she can do it, why can’t I?” Now we've all tried stamping out that voice of reason for the first few times, but if you are continually being poked by this voice, you will most probably give the task a shot (sometimes even a half-hearted one to convince your mind that you tried). And that’s really what changes when you are a part of a community. Even though you feel like giving up, the whole energy in a community serves to keep you going and get better every day. You look at the experiences of others and how they are being consistent, to lift up your own game.

While all this consumes a brands’ resource, how does it benefit marketers in the long run?

?   After initially driving awareness and community memberships, the brand needs to shift its focus on providing great content and engagement opportunities (online and offline). As the community builds over time, brands get a ready pool of customers to have focused conversations about new product ideas, getting insights, beta testing, product reviews and trials.

?   Eventually, as community bonds grow stronger, members themselves start becoming advocates for the community. The brand moves on to become more of an administrator and lets the members take the lead. In doing that, customers feel more empowered, free and responsible to talk about their achievements in the community, how it has changed their life and also effectively influencing more members using their networks to join the community. For marketers, this means lower costs for advertising and amazing word-of-mouth promotion.

?   Ever wondered how hard brands have to try and differentiate their products on the basis of “incremental feature” improvements in an overly competitive market? Rarely do these incremental improvements get customers super excited and have them run to buy the product or service. And this is after the brand spending millions of dollars in R&D to perhaps add that one new “incremental feature”. At the end of the day, businesses will always be on the hunt to create real differentiators that give them a competitive advantage in the long run. If honestly pursued, building brand communities can actually prove to be that elusive unicorn for a marketer. It is a great way to keep customers engaged throughout their lifetime and perhaps even salvage the role of marketing as not just a cost function, but also one that means business. 

While all of the above pointers seem relevant only to B2C marketers, I also believe that B2B brands have an opportunity here. It may not be that B2B needs to replicate this method in totality like the B2C brands, but what they can do is build customer communities around ideas or concepts. For example, when a company is selling a cloud solution there is scope to build and nurture a community that focuses on topics around healthcare, education, sports or even cooking. The idea is that the users should feel strongly about the cause of the group and it should not end up being a place that the brand uses to just bombard sales messages.

And finally, the team that manages this community needs to have a long-term vision, be empowered to focus on nurturing conversations in the group, create relevant content and most importantly protecting the group from internal organisational influences that will see it just as a lucrative sales platforms.

Some brands that I believe have built strong communities. Do you know of brands that have had success/failures in building strong communities?

1. Nike – https://www.nike.com/in/en_gb/c/running/nike-run-club

2. Harley Davidson - https://hbr.org/2009/04/getting-brand-communities-right

3. Royal Enfield - https://royalenfield.com/community/forum/

*Forbes Article - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylewong/2017/09/21/how-the-worlds-top-fitness-brands-are-building-social-community-to-grow-their-business/3/#3009a6c2e037