Your customers are a community – developing the asset of customer communities

It’s time to think about your customers in a different way. Traditional marketing talks about customer segments or audiences. Customers are more complex than that; they don’t simply sit there waiting for you to talk to them. They talk to each other, they get ideas and information about your products. One way of thinking about your customers is as a community. A widely accepted definition of a community is a group of people with a common or shared interest. Your customers have a common or shared interest in your products and services. Treat them as a community.

By building a framework for your customers to come together as a group provides real potential value to your business. In fact many organisations are already doing just that. Consider vehicle owners clubs, software user groups etc. The benefits provided by customer communities are numerous

1. They can act as early warning systems to product dissatisfaction or problems. Keen product users and advocates are likely to start complaining early. By plugging into this form of feedback you have the opportunity to rectify issues before they get out of control
2. You can use your customer community as a product development network to test out new product and service ideas before launch. This is cost effective and highly productive
3. You can use your customer advocates and community as a viral marketing launch pad. Place viral marketing material with your community and measure propogation
4. Or simply use the community as traditional marketing advocates

Delivering a customer community

Not all products and services are right for building customer communities (there aren’t many discussion forums on baked beans for example). Before you consider building a customer community think about the relationship your customers have with your product. Is it long term and committed? (e.g. a car) Is it based around a hobby or interest (e.g. Home movies)? Does it have strong brand values (luxury products). There are of course many other factors to consider. Ask us how to go about it?

Provide the Infrastructure

Make sure you have a framework around which your community can come togther. Consider a website, regular events or combinations of both. Online communities are cost effective and can deliver good results with the right critical mass. We’ve got experience of online communities and would love to share with you what we know

Make it worth their while

Don’t go into building a community just to milk it of information. Make sure you reward contributors and participants effectively (special offers, exclusive access etc.)