The Community Flywheel: How to Turn Your Community into Brand Ambassadors
Brand acquisition costs have never been higher, having increased by 60% over the past five years.
As a result, brands must reassess 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’s crucial for brands to build strong relationships with their customers and turn their community into brand ambassadors. These ambassadors can then help recruit new customers for the brand.
The Community Flywheel: A Proven Method for Building a Strong Brand
According to McKinsey & Company, there’s a better way to build a brand: the Community Flywheel. This approach creates a virtuous cycle of engagement, activation, and loyalty within the community.
The Community Flywheel is based on three key steps:
- Engagement: This is the first step in building a strong community. It’s important to create content that interests consumers and encourages them to interact with the brand.
- Activation: Once consumers are engaged, it’s essential to encourage them to become brand ambassadors by sharing their experiences and generating User Generated Content (UGC), which is extremely valuable for building a trustworthy community and turning consumers into buyers.
- Loyalty: Finally, maintaining engagement and activation within the community is key. This can be achieved by offering exclusive experiences and perks to members, such as special offers, private events, or loyalty programs.
By using this approach, brands create a virtuous cycle of engagement, activation, and loyalty that helps them build a strong brand and increase sales.
Turning your community into brand ambassadors helps reduce customer acquisition costs, increase brand awareness, and collect high-quality content.
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 others, helping you reach new consumers and expand your audience—while significantly lowering your customer acquisition costs.
Implementing strategies to encourage your customers to become brand ambassadors and rewarding them for their engagement is essential.
Here are a few steps to turn your community into brand ambassadors through User Generated Content (UGC):
- Engage with your ambassadors: Send them messages and respond to their comments and DMs on social media to strengthen their loyalty and encourage them to keep sharing content.
- Showcase your community’s UGC: Feature the photos and videos shared by your customers on social media, your website, or in email campaigns to show that you value and appreciate their feedback.
- Encourage customer participation: Launch a contest or hashtag campaign to motivate your customers to share content on your social platforms. This not only helps you gather more content but also makes them feel recognized and involved.
- Reward your ambassadors: Offer rewards or exclusive perks to your most active and loyal customers to motivate them to keep sharing content and champion your brand on social media.
By leveraging content generated by your community to encourage customers to become ambassadors, you’ll strengthen trust and loyalty within your community—while inspiring others to purchase your products or services.
