The Business of Belonging: How to Make Community your Competitive Advantage

by David Spinks

For Ironclad, the business level of their community strategy looks like this: Goal: Grow sales pipeline each quarter. Measures: Pipeline touchpoints, “Logos Won.” Actions: Host valuable events to build trust and authority with prospects. The actions from your business-level strategy will become your goals for the community level of your strategy. The community level of Ironclad's strategy looks like this: Goal: Host valuable events to build trust and authority with prospects. Measures: Five events hosted, 75 target accounts in attendance, NPS of 85, or higher. Actions: Send very personalized email invites to target accounts and improve the email communication flows before and after events. The actions from the community level of your strategy become you tactical-level goals: Goals: Send personalized email invites and improve the email communication flows before and after events. Measures: Send invites to 150 target accounts, 75 percent open rate on invitation emails, 90 percent open rate on even communications emails, and 75 percent response rate on post-event surveys. Actions: Research the top 150 accounts to understand their specific needs, and get feedback on new drafts for email communications.