The Importance of Building Community

Branding is a two-sided conversation

The stats are striking: It costs 80% more to gain a new customer than to retain one. And, buyers of services and products rely more on the recommendations of their peers than they do on the advertising of the business. Although a large proportion of business strategy focuses on user acquisition and advertising, it’s better in the long term to also build a brand community and to keep your customers happy, engaged, and involved.

“People simply just expect more of the brands that they consume; Relationships have transcended beyond merely product transactions to human interactions.”

With social media changing the landscape of branding, people now want to communicate with brands. Whether commenting on a tweet or asking a question on a brand’s Facebook post, they want to be acknowledged and included. Some companies do this exceptionally well.

Harley Davidson is well known for its die-hard fans, and they’ve even created a sponsored community marketing club called the Harley’s Owners Group (known to it’s enthusiastic members as the HOG). This group serves to promote not just a consumer product, but an entire lifestyle. Originally created to build longer-lasting and stronger relationships with its brand advocates, it has exceeded that goal and has also expanded into creating new revenue streams for the company. HOG members also spend 30% more, on average, than other Harley owners.

Sharpie is also an exemplary model of a brand that has achieved tremendous success building a community around it’s brand. The Sharpie marker is an ubiquitous mainstay found in every office, school, and home. It also serves as a beloved art tool, and has been used to create stunning pieces since its inception in 1964. Sharpie uses its social media platforms as well as its blog to promote and share gorgeous works of art that were created with their markers.

Sharpie’s initiative of creating starts out of their customers has helped gain an audience and foster a strong community, consisting of artists and art lovers. It’s very exciting for members of the Sharpie community to have their artwork selected and featured, and is something worthy of being shared, which only perpetuates the community aspect of Sharpie. It accomplishes this while highlighted new and creative ways to use the product, and shows off its capabilities.

My company, JotForm, an online form builder, has a loyal collective of users numbering over 1.7 million. It never gets old to hear from our users directly, describing how our tools have helped them organize and run their business, raise money for nonprofits, and save them countless hours with our drag-and-drop technology. Most recently we were happy to hear how JotForm helped a magician successfully book over 300 events a year and allow him “to focus more on [his] craft and less on business administration.”

We wanted to allow our biggest form-building fans to connect with each other. A brand community exists to serve the people in it, and the business aspect that it serves is secondary. People participate and join communities for a wide variety of reasons —to cultivate interests and skills, to get encouragement, to ask and answer questions, to explore ways to contribute to the greater good, and most importantly connect with people who have mutual interests and passions.

Whether you are a web designer, business owner, blogger, or otherwise forms enthusiast, join us!