Angela, I totally get where you are coming from. Community building typically gets the following objection: it's difficult, takes time, requires efforts, needs upskilling, maintaining will be hard and so on.
The best way to convince management to invest in community is to show them the value community can generate for the business. Community is the highest ROI asset any business will ever build. Let me share a few pointers that will help you convince your management:
- Best way to get customer feedback:
A branded community isn't just a marketing tool. It's a way to have direct interactions with your customers and potential users. People often share their feedback, frustrations, demands, wants and needs through questions and comments.
- Reduces customer churn:
A branded community is very efficient at reducing customer churn. It's a huge cost-saver in the long run. When your customers feel that they are heard, supported and a part of a family - they tend to stay. By fostering interactions between the customers and business officials, you can build the confidence among your customers that the company cares. Community is the only way to achieve this.
- Improves the NPS:
An engaged community is the best way to improve your Net Promote Score without any additional investment. A well-managed community can help you build your brand advocates who'll help spread the word, help others and improve the collective brand loyalty.
- Reduces customer support costs:
As the community grows, members start supporting each other and help you reduce your customer support costs significantly. At one of the startups I worked with, our community was responsible for answering almost 60% of the queries from potential customers.
Also, it's much more effective way to engage new users than implementing AI agents.
- Increases brand trust and credibility:
When a company addresses customer queries openly, it helps build trust and credibility among the existing and potential customers of the business.
- Organic SEO traffic:
A branded community is a great way to build organic traffic and boost your overall search engine rankings. Community creates fresh, valuable content with real human insights and acts as a rich and authentic source of information - which Google absolutely loves.
I hope this will help you convince your management to invest in a community.