The Community Flywheel: How to turn your Community into Brand Ambassadors

Brand acquisition costs have never been higher, increasing by 60% over the past five years. Brands must re-evaluate their marketing strategies to maintain sustainable profitability since acquiring a new customer costs 5 to 10 times more than retaining an existing one. That’s why it is crucial for brands to create close connections with their customers to turn their communities into brand ambassadors. Ambassadors can then recruit new customers for the brand.

The Community Flywheel: A Proven Method for Building a Strong Brand

According to McKinsey & Company, there is a better way to build a brand: the Community Flywheel. This approach involves creating a virtuous circle of engagement, activation, and loyalty within the community.

The Community Flywheel is based on three key steps:

1. Engagement: This is the first step in building a strong community. It is important to create content that interests consumers and encourages them to interact with the brand.
2. Activation: Once consumers are engaged, it is important to encourage them to become brand ambassadors by encouraging them to share their experiences and generate user-generated content (UGC), which are extremely important in building a trustworthy community and encouraging consumers to become buyers.
3. Loyalty: Finally, it is important to maintain engagement and activation within the community by offering exclusive experiences and perks to community members. This can include exclusive offers, exclusive events, or loyalty programs.

By using this approach, brands create a virtuous circle of engagement, activation, and loyalty within the community that will help them build a strong brand and increase sales.

Turning your community into brand ambassadors allows for reduced customer acquisition costs, increased brand awareness, and quality content collection.

Brand ambassadors are enthusiastic and engaged consumers who have already purchased your products or services. They have a close relationship with your brand and are more likely to recommend it to their circle, which can help you reach new consumers and increase your brand reach, significantly reducing customer acquisition costs.

Implementing strategies to incentivize your customers to become brand ambassadors and reward them for their engagement is essential.

Here are some steps to turn your community into brand ambassadors using UGC:

1. Engage with your ambassadors: Send them messages and respond to their comments and messages on social media to strengthen their loyalty and encourage them to continue sharing content.
2. Promote UGC from your community: Use the photos and videos shared by your customers on social media, your website, or in your email marketing to show that you appreciate their feedback and value it.
3. Encourage customer participation: Launch a contest or hashtag campaign to encourage your customers to share content on your social media. This will allow you to collect more content and show that you appreciate their participation.
4. Reward your ambassadors: Offer rewards or exclusive perks to your most active and loyal customers to encourage them to continue sharing content on your social media and become ambassadors for your brand.

By using UGC from your community to incentivize your customers to become brand ambassadors, you will strengthen the trust and loyalty of your community and encourage others to purchase your products or services.