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- 10 Community business models
10 Community business models
Plus a product feedback community platform/widget, spreading joy in your community, "best in class" community Dreamers & Doers and which is better: community as the product or just a piece of the product?
Carmen Taubman
August 02, 2024
Welcome to the Community Coach newsletter, a value packed read
for community builders… but who realises that I change this part of the sentence every week? Reply to let me know you read this part…
📚 Community 101: Community business models
🤖 Product feedback community platform: Featurebase
🎱 Spread joy in your community: creating “sticker” moments
🔥 Inspiring community builder: Dreamers & Doers have one of the best community landing sites I’ve seen
👋 Answering your questions: “Which do you think is better: Community as 'the' product or just a piece of a larger product?”
Community 101: Community business models
Here’s a rundown of 10 popular business models that involve community.
1. Paid Membership Communities: Members pay a flat monthly/annual fee for access to the community and its resources
2. Freemium Model: Offer basic community access for free, premium features/ content behind a paywall
3. Tiered Membership Model: Offer different levels of membership with increasing benefits and prices (e.g. Bronze, Silver, VIP tiers)
4. Community as a Sales Funnel: Use a free community to nurture leads & upsell products/services.
5. Course + Community Model: Sell online courses with an included community component for support and networking.
6. Event-Driven Model: Host paid events (virtual or in-person) for community members. Can be combined with a free or low-cost basic membership.
7. Sponsorship, Advertising & Affiliate: Monetize a large, engaged community through sponsored content, advertising or affiliates.
8. Marketplace Model: Facilitate transactions between community members and take a percentage
9. Consulting/Coaching Upsell: Offer 1:1 or group coaching services to community members as an additional revenue stream.
10. Product-Led Community: Community supports a core product/ service. The community might be free, but it drives adoption & retention of a paid product.
Product Feedback Community platform: Featurebase
Featurebase is a platform that helps startups gather feedback from their users and figure out what features to build next, plus share news/announcements too.
You can set up a feedback portal or add a feedback widget to your app so users can share their feedback, ideas and vote on what they want to see.
Spread joy in your community: creating “sticker moments”
This recent interaction reminded me of the joys of being a community builder - where we can truly have the power change the emotions (in a positive way!) that our members feel instantly.
It's funny but whenever I rewarded members in a community and got it right, I would see members react the same way a kid would when they got that special sticker from their teacher.
It's such an incredible feeling to tap into that emotion!
— Carmen | Community Coach (@acommunitycoach)
1:05 AM • Jul 17, 2024
How are you spreading joy in your community? In past communities I would reward community members but I would specifically focus on how I could tap into their intrinsic goals > their extrinsic ones.
That meant rewards like:
Free mentoring session with someone who could provide career advice/ expertise they needed
Custom made posters for their classroom that gave them clout with their students
Badges and profile photo frames with high res images that could be placed anywhere they wanted (LinkedIn profiles, Twitter, their websites etc)
Create rewards that make people feel like a kid again, getting that special gold starry sticker from their teacher. Remember how good that felt?
Inspiring community builder
Dreamers & Doers
Usually when I look at community landing pages, I find a bunch of things they could potentially improve or edit to help convert visitors into members or at least help people understand why their community exists and who should be in it.
Recently I came across a website where my jaw dropped whilst I kept scrolling through it.
It was SO GOOD.
Introducing Dreamers & Doers - an “award winning community” and I could see why straight away!
Here are two things that I loved the most about their website (and there was a lot):
Benefits that clearly understand
1. Their members and what they need, and
2. How to maximise adding value to these members
1. Clear on the benefits (and focus on value add to members)
They don’t use vanity metrics to showcase their community. Hallelujah!
Their “success metrics” are incredible - sharing member stories that are compelling for others to join
There’s a lot more I could say about this community and how they absolutely nailed their landing page), but I highly recommend you check it out here and see how it differs from many others out there:
Answering your questions
?
“Which do you think is better: Community as 'the' product or just a piece of a larger product?”
Honestly there are great versions of both -
1) Paid communities where the community is the initial product and they are very strong, with upsells due to the high value they bring their members
2) Communities that are offshoots of already existing products/services where the community itself can bring tons of value to the business (raise brand awareness, bring in new customers, increase customer retention, lifetime value, reduce support costs etc).
Usually it depends on what stage of business you are at: do you have an established product/service or are you about to launch it? I wouldn’t say one way is better than the other - it’s more about your current situation and what your goals are.
Got a question for me? DM me on Twitter and ask away. Your question may be answered in a future newsletter (and I’ll reply to everyone who asks).
Until next time,
Carmen
Community Coach
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