Building an online community from scratch

When marketing to developers, what’s more effective than capturing the voice of the developer themselves? But devs are busy folks, and getting them to reply to your carefully worded emails can seem like cracking a really complicated code!

That’s why setting up your own online community can be such a powerful tool. Devs trust devs, but their online communities can be pretty scattered, so our aim should be to create a centralized platform where devs can really sing from the rooftops about how great your product is!

For inspiration, let’s look at how Richard King, CEO & Founder at PMA, describes building his own online community into a thriving business.

Q: How did you prioritize building a community and how did you make sure to keep it top of mind?

A: The community was top of mind, always has been, and will continue to be. I couldn't find anything that represented an independent voice for product marketers, so I started the PMA community first.

From there we built out what the community asked for. This is the crucial thing: Identify a pain point or need in whatever market you’re aiming for.

First, Community
then Content
now Education
next Talent & Tools

Being sure to keep the community first, we established the membership program and then certification working closely with our ambassadors, making sure we don't stray from our mission to elevate the role.

All future initiatives are not created in a silo but with the OK from the community and ambassadors. Creating an online community is a great way to identify ambassadors and champions for your products.

Q: What was the biggest growth driver for membership? Did you run a special program to encourage invitations or was it purely organic?

A: The growth was organic; there was very little out there dedicated to the product marketing manager. Marketers are naturally collaborative, but it also seemed that we were expected to go to five different places to get the information required to do the job well. We hoped to change that.

There are often online communities for any demographic out there, but they can be pretty scattered, so centralizing all the pain points of a community in one place can be so valuable.

Q: I am running a community for a Legaltech SaaS company and I'm struggling with engagement. What are your tactics for increasing engagement, particularly when users aren't overly skilled in online networking/community building?

A: I'm not sure where your target demographic already hangs out so I can't suggest the best tool. But do check out this screen grab for some powerful tools of choice.

Engage

Frequently engage each part of the community.
Make the barriers to engagement low to promote participation, for instance, starting with simple polls rather than asking the big questions.
Share what's happened in the community through collections of actions, for example, a newsletter detailing the most popular posts of the last week.
Be open, share your analytics, and be transparent about what they mean.
I also think you need dedicated people to make a community great - it's a full-time gig. Have staff that engage with your community or volunteers and really give them something to talk about. Above all else, they need to be consistent with this. Online communities can go cold very quickly with no activity.

Platform

For me, the tool is the most significant barrier to entry for community building; you have to make it easy.

Create spaces

Create channels for different segments to identify better and target people's problems.
Engage within each of these spaces rather than just one general space.
Give clear signposts about where and what to post.

Moderate

Strictly moderate and make the rules and reporting processes clear.
Users need to see that you are working to make the community what they want it to be.

Q: When and how did you transition from a pure community support system to a viable revenue-driving business? And how do you strike a perfect balance of community and business without negatively impacting either of the two?

Strategies that worked and didn't work for each of the growth stages (0 to 100, 100 to 1000, and 1000 to 10,000) in your journey?

When and how did you transition from a pure community support system to a viable revenue-driving business?

We started the Slack community in March 2019. We decided to make the company a business in August 2019. I made this ‘commercial’ decision because I wanted to try and sell t-shirts at an event - no joke. We gave them away for free because my POS checkout device did not arrive on time.

2. How do you strike a perfect balance of community and business without negatively impacting either of the two?

We are and always will be a community first business with a focus on our mission of providing value over anything else. So, with any of our paid products we look to price our value instead of valuing our price. I read somewhere that "value can justify any price". We add to our value as often as possible.

3. Which strategies worked and didn't work for each of the growth stages (0 to 100, 100 to 1000, and 1000 to 10,000) in your journey?

1 to 100

Worked - Ambassador program
Did not work - Facebook

100 to 1,000

Worked - Ambassador program
Did not work - Selling t-shirts

1,000 to 10,000

Worked - Ambassador program
Did not work - LinkedIn ads

Psst...we're building our own community of developer marketers. Want to help us out? Why not join our slack channel?