Unleashing the Power of Community-Led Growth for SaaS Success

The impact of Product-Led Growth has changed how product teams work. It has helped them become more focused on users and their experiences with a product in order to drive the growth of the product. A well-organized growth team, using product-led growth techniques, can boost conversions and signup rates by up to 33%.

However, we are now witnessing the rise of Community-Led Growth—a newer approach and not just a buzzword! It has proven to be a solid strategy that can help SaaS companies grow exponentially.

What Is Community-Led Growth?

Community-Led Growth is a go-to-market strategy that relies on the influence and input of a strong community as the main lever for product and business growth. This community is a group of people whom you have nurtured and thoughtfully built over time. They are your product fans who will act as a driving force for increased customer acquisition.

Being thoughtful while creating such an impactful community is how it all starts. Community-Led Growth happens when customers come together to use products in ways that may not be obvious even to the company itself. It begins with thoughtfully creating a community that generates ideas for future products.

Having a strong community benefits both you and your users. It creates a win-win situation for both parties, where your users get more from your product because they are willing to dive into its details faster, while you receive real-time feedback to continually improve your product.

Community-Led Growth is an overarching term that can describe various marketing and growth disciplines such as event marketing, field marketing, and content marketing. Any marketing strategy where relationships are an accelerant to growing awareness of your product can be placed under Community-Led Growth. This simply means it is any strategy that helps you create relationships with people to help them discover your product.

How Product-Led and Community-Led Growth Strategies Work Together for Maximum Impact

A question often asked about Product-Led and Community-Led Growth is: Can these two strategies work together? Short answer: Yes! They work hand-in-hand, with each bringing its strengths to drive product growth.

Each strategy provides unique value:

• Product-Led Growth

  This leans on product usage and user experience, i.e., how people make use of your product and how they enjoy using it.

• Community-Led Growth

  This relies on building and nurturing a strong community or network that influences product growth through awareness and user loyalty.

Product-Led Growth infuses product analytics—data—to drive adoption and incorporates continuous feedback from users to improve your product. Meanwhile, Community-Led Growth helps your product grow through word-of-mouth promotion and user-generated content.

Bob Moore attests to the effectiveness of combining Product-Led and Community-Led Growth, noting that “Product-Led and Community-Led Growth can exist harmoniously together.” This is why, at times, the line between Product-Led and Community-Led Growth blurs, as they share key elements.

Aside from Product-Led and Community-Led Growth, we also have Marketing-Led and Sales-Led Growth. These two can also work together, but your choice of strategy depends on your business model, team structure, and target market.

Now, let’s take a look at how Community-Led Growth can drive product growth.

Benefits of Community-Led Growth

• Community-Led Growth offers so much, such as acquisition, retention, and uncapped feedback. The beauty of Community-Led Growth is that the biggest gains often come as a bonus from your community-building activities. You do not have to work for it, but as you build your community, you also begin to see massive gains that can be converted into growth for your product.

• When your community is well-engaged and active, it can help reduce support tickets and your expert users can become an additional resource to grow your product’s knowledge base.

• Community creates a sense of belonging for both users and customers.

• Building and nurturing a community also builds brand trust and social proof. Your brand will gain authority because of your community. However, the focus should not be on pushing your agenda but on genuinely putting your customers first. Your motives must be unselfish, so that you can consistently seek to give them value. When your community sees the value you bring, it will drive growth.

Although the concept of online communities isn’t new, it’s worth examining how much product teams can benefit from it. Community building requires a lot of attention, commitment, resources, and focus from you. You are responsible for knowing which lever to pull and which to ignore. Don’t be hell-bent on community building just because everyone else is doing it.

If your product can grow through word-of-mouth, then you should consider investing in community-focused efforts; if not, you should find out what’s best for your product at that moment. Before you start a community, it’s important to know who you are building the community for and why.

One thing you should not do is rush to build a community, especially if you're not ready or if your product is still in the early stages, i.e., the pre-PMF (Product-Market Fit) stage. However, if your business is already gaining momentum, building a community of early users will benefit both you and your product to a great extent in the long run.

There are several types of communities, and we explored three in this article. Let’s check them out.

Types of Communities

The three most common types of communities are:

1. Product-Oriented Communities

These communities are usually centered around a specific product or service. Members of these communities typically receive tips, ask questions, and provide feedback related to the product.

2. Topic-Oriented Communities

These communities are built around specific interests or subjects. They do not necessarily have to be about the product. These types of communities encourage discussion among members and exploration of these interests on a broader level.

3. Profession-Oriented Communities

These communities focus on professionals within a specific industry or field. They provide a platform where members can network with each other, share knowledge and tips, and engage in career development.

These three types of communities are not mutually exclusive, but each serves a different purpose. The type of community you choose should align well with your audience and your brand vision.

Growth Strategy for Community-led Growth

When you start your community, remember that engagement goes both ways. The right growth strategy for your community should include defining team ownership, facilitating user interactions, and nurturing relationships. You need to set clear rules for interactions and ensure that your community managers stay active—following discussions and providing answers.

Always look out for metrics to track success—monitoring engagement and referral rates are very good metrics. This way, you can provide value beyond the product.

There are no fixed rules in community building, but you must recognize the interests of your users and create new interactions with them as your business grows. Always look out for feedback from users in your community. Lani Assaf, Marketing Manager at Elpha, advises, “For building a community from scratch, build it with those people in your community not for them.” When you know what your users’ preferences are, you can curate activities that will engage them and help your community grow.

Community-Led Growth is quickly gaining momentum and is here to stay. Some industry leaders believe its continued success will depend on various factors, while others think Product-Led and Community-Led Growth will eventually become fully intertwined.