The Reasons You Should Have A Community Flywheel (and How to Create One) |
At Mighty we've had the pleasure of spending 6 years watching brands and creators create successful businesses following the exact opposite path to the business colleges.
No targeted ads. There are no clever marketing campaigns. No slick funnels. Simply a community that members wanted to keep showing to. The members also spent their money too! We've watched creators make 6--, 7- and even eight-figure earnings without adhering to general business rules.
There is no hard sell. No "this is your final opportunity" things.
Supermembers that take part in the conversation and bring the community to life, then pull out their money and purchase whenever it's their turn.
These were clothing brands, fitness influencers, personal finance educators, health-care employees, and even runners who were slow!
And last year, the consulting firm-McKinsey-finally gave a name to the business model we were seeing: community flywheel.
If you're looking to change your business, it's the right time to give up trying to duplicate what worked 15 years ago. In this blog, we'll introduce you to an approach to business that's increasing businesses' revenue into six figures or higher--and demonstrate how you can do it by yourself.
Let us show you what a community flywheel is and why you should have one, and how to build your own!
If you're in need of more assistance for building a community on the internet, come join OUR Mighty Community for free and meet other new and experienced community leaders! We'd love to have you join us. Join to join for no cost!
In this piece...
Why you need a community flywheel
How do you create a flywheel for a community
3. Establish a focal point for the community
8. Make sure the wheels are turning
What is a community flywheel?
A community flywheel happens when a brand creates a community experience-either via its own platform, or social media-that leads to high engagement, epic experiences, and easily translates into sales. Last year, McKinsey identified it as the most important business trend of the coming years: brands connect with their customers through communities that they build or join.
As an example, Adriene Mishler-YouTube's top yoga instructor who has more than 12 million subscribers-created her own app that allows users to come together to join yoga classes, meet friends who practice yoga, and enhance their practices. It's the result of a group that is full of passionate superfans the brand community is now an integral part of their lives.
What is the reason why you should have an 'community flywheel'
Because your funnel sucks: Once upon an internet company funnels were all the the rage. The companies crammed prospects into an elaborate sales process, knowing they would be discarded and only a small percent could buy. Community flywheels bring people into your ecosystem instead and helps keep them there at the time to present something, you'll see effortless selling.
Because you're losing opportunities: A funnel can make you lose at least 90% of your potential customers. But so do silos-especially that are created by a faulty tech stack. If you're moving customers from Kajabi to Zoom to Stripe to Facebook Groups, to emails users, they're getting lost in the mess. The flywheel helps everyone join in the conversation within one area.
Because it simplifies your business It is a great way to streamline your business. Traditional companies have many moving parts that each deal with customers at a different point. Customer service is not the same as sales. With a community flywheel, sales, marketing, product and customer service happen together.
Because it's easier to grow: Imagine a business that has supermembers who create the customer experience for the brand, where users-generated conversations are the norm (and in which AI can manage all the nuts and bolts in a snap). That's the experience we see when we construct the flywheel. It's radically easier and it's what makes communities grow through that are led by members.
How to build a flywheel for community use
In the time McKinsey examined community flywheels they formulated an order that brands of flywheels feature: They're in a community with their members and the stories of their brands are powerful, they focus on the hero product, they keep the conversations ongoing, and "make transactions easy."
When we discuss the idea of building a community flywheel, we do see glimpses of each of these elements. But there's more.
1. Find the Big Goal
According to Simon Sinek, any business needs to "Start with the Why." When we consider building community flywheels, we start with a big goal.
A Big Purpose describes three things: the people your community brings together, the type of engagements you'll have, and the outcomes they can expect. The communities that have their Big Purposes can thrive and thrive, to the point that the very first step to creating a community online on Mighty is to start one!
If you're stuck on the creation of a Big Goal the Community Name Generator can handle it for you instantly.
Check out our Community Name Generator
Our AI engine is here to help you create a community name that feels like magic. Simply share a few sentences about who your community is about and we'll set working. Input maxlength="60" name="idealMember" placeholder="Who do you want to connect?" type="text" value=""/>
Go
Examples: coaching clients, meditation novices, vegan chefs, dog lovers, aspiring entrepreneurs, etc.
Get suggestions
The names that Mighty Co-Host(tm) are examples only and are not licensed to other companies or under third-party rights. For more information, check our Terms.
2. Identify your Ideal Member
Traditional marketing focused on the ideal customer. Marketers could create avatars.
With a community, you're trying to figure out what your ideal member is. If you're not sure how that's different from an Ideal customer, then here it is:
- The ideal customers are those that you are convinced you will sell to.
- The ideal members are those you want to build a community around-that you want to engage with every day.
If you are focused on member acquisition rather than customer acquisition, it's magical. As a result, member-led growth blows all other growth models out the water.
McKinsey's study revealed that flywheel brands did not simply have a large number of followers. The audience was engaged at a level which most brands can't. And having the right Ideal Member is the secret for high participation.
Ideal customers are those who make transactions. Ideal Members are people you want to engage each week. And that's the reason why Ideal Members are the key to a powerhouse brand.
You may ask these questions to find your Ideal Member:
- What are the issues the HTML0's have?
- What kind of community do they currently belong to?
- What kinds of information are they consuming?
- What do they need to transform their lives? How much will they be willing to pay to get it?
There is no need to guess at the answers for these queries. They are available to you! Meet with 15 to 20 potential members and watch Ideal members emerge.
3. Set up a central point of contact for communities.
There shouldn't be any surprise that a community flywheel eventually will require .... A community!
Flywheel brand names have spaces where Ideal Members join and engage to build friendships that ensure that your community is maintained.
And there's really no substitute of having your own personal community-based platform. In the event that everything is available in one place either a website or an apps that have native capabilities for creating discussions, information, and events, as well as offer offers, you'll be able to be able to get the most value from your flywheel.
Once you have started to create a community, and hosting discussions for your ideal members The value of your flywheel starts to grow.
McKinsey discovered the role that communities play in increasing brand awareness. They found that with brands on flywheel seventy percent of their content created by users They had more than a 2% engagement rate, greater than four percent of traffic is converted, and brand-related posts go viral at least twice each year!
In the simplest form The community must:
- Offer a lot of opportunities for users to create content
- Utilize notifications and content organizing to increase virality
- Make it easy to engage with content
- have the capabilities to create and market offers
4. Set your device to the right place
Community flywheels need tech. Let's start by establishing a foundation. It's about creating digital experiences that allow your Ideal Members to connect with each other.
But what type of technology is best to make use of for a flywheel community?
This is the most important question to ask, and the brands don't ask it frequently.
Because most tech stacks weren't designed to maximize your flywheel. The majority of brands use a technology stack developed through having fun with the marketing department, product development, as well as customer service problems.
It's a duct-taped, Zapier-integrated nightmare. The idea of asking members to purchase on Stripe or take a class through Teachable or join a community in Facebook Groups, or attend events in Teams, is ridiculous. In addition, requiring your staff to manage four different customer service and management platforms is no more efficient.
If you're looking to align your tech to make a successful flywheel we've found two factors which are crucial: putting everything together and native features.
Actually, it's a single aspect! Native features allow you to access everything from the same place.
Choose an app that allows you to create and monetize communities, and add in ANYTHING you need for the development of a successful flywheel. Things like live and pre-recorded courses as well as chat and messaging livestreaming, and events. Make sure it has an application, or offers you the chance to build your own. Be sure that your superusers have their needs met at all times. Make sure you're able to offer these items for sale (or community memberships).
5. Pick a hero product
Once you've decided to increase the revenue of your group, start by launching a hero service according to McKinsey. Actually, we've seen a lot of communities make money using an annual membership fee as the item. Averaging $39 for a cost for membership on Mighty Network, the community could be the primary item.
There are many communities also include classes, events, expensive deal such as coaching or a mastermind, and other things that fit their brands.
What's awesome? The flywheel is able to generate new product concepts. In the case of women's apparel company Oiselle created a community for runners to discuss their training experiences and make friends. The Oiselle Volee community had a bonus benefit: its members generate some of the most valuable product feedback and ideas to develop brand new product ideas!
If you're looking for ideas, check out our list of digital items on this page .
6. Create a brand story
If you read the awesome stories shared on Mighty, you'll see that the brands that are community-focused have something in common: compelling stories. And McKinsey noticed it too. Brands with a community flywheel are able to tell the benefit of a "talkable and credible" narrative about their brand.
Here are some of the reasons for success .
- A firefighter who was in top physical condition who realized his cholesterol was high and launched a movement to eat a plant-based diet.
- Wall Street employee whom quit her six-figure job to bring financial education to the other 99.99%.
- The slow running runner the initiated an exercise to "back in the line" runners.
You've got a story driving your brand. It's the thing that 's going to stick with Ideal Members. It's the reason that drives your Big Purpose. Being able to tell that story is the secret to a rapid growth of your community!
7. Create the offer
The next step is to create an offer to your community. No matter if you're selling digital or physical product, there's no need to make a "hard sell" or employ funnel sales techniques. It will be surprising to find out the products are able to sell themselves.
Here are some of the most amazing outcomes we've witnessed from Mighty Hosts.
- A YouTuber set up a live challenge that over 4,000 members took part in.
- The health-oriented launch of 100 members with high-tickets also added $40,000 to the ARR.
- A speaker and author launched a 4-week promotion that brought in an additional $35,000 in sales.
- An author and podcaster offered 5,000 seats for a $997 course in the span of 10 days.
- A personal finance community generated $130K in five days, thanks to their latest course.
- A social-impact SAAS company has launched a community app with their annual conferences. They saw a 70% increase in engagement and contributions.
8. Make sure the wheels are turning
What happens when the customers in your funnel don't buy? Usually, they're gone. In the best case, they might stay in your list of email addresses.
What happens when community members don't buy?
Nothing! The content they consume remains in your ecosystem, consuming your contents. They can purchase your content.
product in the future, or maybe a different one... Whatever it is, you will continue to serve them.
The final stage comes in. Keep the flywheel turning. Delivering content on a regular basis, or providing opportunities to your Ideal Members to benefit from your community.
Are you ready to begin?
If you're looking to create an individual community flywheel get started today ! This is the best flywheel for community, providing users the most powerful, native features your community needs!
Ranked the #1 community platform by G2, Mighty has native livestreaming and discussion forums Chat and Spaces as well as pre-recorded and live classes, as well as events that are built in. Most of our hosts have launched 6-, 7-, or even 8-figure community flywheels. They sell memberships and bundles of 135 currencies.
Only Mighty has cutting-edge AI-Mighty, a community AI Co-Host(tm)-that automates things like courses outlines, sales pages as well as member profiles featuring text and discussion functions to make sure you're never at a loss of words.
Mighty offers an app that works on every device and if you're an established brand, talk to us about developing a personalized app with your logo- which will be available within the App Store as well as the Google Play Store!