7 reasons why you need an online community!

Online community-building is a fast-moving business strategy with the proven potential of disrupting markets.

Today’s digital economy emphasizes the integration of online communities with customer engagement strategies to keep organizations ahead of time with evolving consumer expectations.

Massive names such as Amazon and Harley-Davidson learned the trick of the trade early, and elevated competition by bringing businesses neck to neck in meeting customer demands in minimum time.

It’s time you revamp your community strategy by considering these 7 reasons to capitalize on the power of tribalism.

1. Adapt to Uncertain Market Expectations

Social communities are instrumental in indicating business opportunities in uncertain and changing markets. The ongoing pandemic is evidence enough to prove uncertainty can be a potent opportunity creator. According to one report, downloads of health and fitness apps increased by 46% worldwide in 2020.

2. Fast-Track Customer-Centric Product Development

Virtual community strategy is designed to open an array of ideas. Product development strategies leveraging co-innovation can easily excel and accelerate with the voice of customers landing on brand communities. Crowdsourcing ideas, product feedback, and criticism on beta and prototypes can set a competitive momentum in launching and improving products/services.

3. Tailored Customer Engagement Strategy

Several organization customer success strategies tactfully invest in personalized customer engagement activities. And as per research, the online community can help organizations improve customer engagement by up to 21%.

4. Improve Customer Experience

Community development teams tasked with improving customer experience parameters indirectly impact the bottom line. This is because viewers interacting with reviews and customer queries are 105% more likely to purchase while visiting, Bazaarvoice in 2011.

5. Increase Customer Retention Rate

Peer-to-peer engagement on commonalities produces a sense of belonging that indirectly turns customers into brand evangelists. High retention is also a by-product of high customer engagement in social communities.

6. Increase Revenue While Building a Loyal Customer base

A study discovered that 55% of branded communities say that the community increases sales and increases exposure to the brand. Especially B2B organizations must exploit the fastest medium- online brand communities- to fire up up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.

7. Drastically Reduce Support Cost

According to Gartner, organizations integrating online communities with customer support can reduce costs by up to 50 percent. Timely investment in online communities does not only contribute to product enhancements but remarkably reduces post-sales services costs. Quite evidently, community members find it thrilling participating in online query threads and returning a feasible solution to the viewers.

Let your customers drive your product strategy and influence selling. Strike when the iron is hot- stick to the trend and create a buzz in the online world.