How to Build Advocates for Your SaaS Business Through a Community-Led Approach

Learn how to leverage the power of community-led growth in the SaaS industry (lesson from the Real Estate industry).

Source: Created in @canva

As a Community manager (product marketing + content) who transitioned from real estate to the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry, I appreciate the value of community-led growth in both industries.

It’s intriguing how these strategies, which are practically standard in real estate, are often overlooked or undervalued in the SaaS Industry.

Implementing the shift

In real estate, community-led growth is the foundation of success. We build networks, nurture relationships, and leverage word-of-mouth to drive business.

Real estate physical mockup serves as a motivation to give the customer the look and feel of what they are signing up for.

The goal is not just to sell properties but to create thriving communities where you interact with your customers and refine the features and amenities based on customer feedback allowing them to feel connected and engaged.

When I transitioned to the SaaS industry, I recognized the similarities: instead of selling homes, we sell software solutions, but community-building principles remain the same.

Below are some examples of a mock-up prep in real estate.

Images taken by author @amisiga. Left to right: Sample mockup of children's bedroom and master bedroom.

Images taken by author @amisiga. The overlay image at the bottom left is a birds-eye view mock-up, we call them miniature models. The background is of a pre-launch prep.

How do we replicate this for SaaS?

In real estate, we’d throw community launches such as mockup launches, and sponsor local events during the early stage of construction.

For SaaS businesses — take it online. Set up forums, host webinars, and dish out helpful gated content like there’s no tomorrow. Why? because we want our users to feel like they are a part of the club.

Okay! But how soon do we involve them?

For a self-sustaining ecosystem where users support each other, share valuable insights, and voluntarily contribute ideas for product enhancement, it’s important to engage beta users from the outset of product development.

Quantity does not matter at this stage, a handful of relevant 1000 beta customers can give you 10x more insights than a generic 100k users.

I have been using Slack to connect with our beta users/ early adopters.

Five years from now they have become our brand advocates and you can make it happen for your product too.

So far, I have experimented with mobile app-based products, cloud-based products, and subscription-based newsletters. Each time we were able to build a loyal and engaged user base.

We achieve this by making our users feel like they are a part of the team. We took our product’s feedback sincerely, provided helpful content, and promptly answered all our user’s queries. This not only enhanced our product-market fit but also helped in successful launches.

*Note: If this information is of any value for your business — You need to know that most of the products that I have experimented with were in the early stages of product development. So I feel early-stage product -based businessess/ entrepreneurs will benefit from it the most.

Here is exactly how I build loyal advocates

A simplified action plan to build a loyal community at an early stage of your product development.

Reaching out to early users

You must have received various notifications on your phone or desktop that read- “Please update app/ software for the latest version”. During the early stage, most initial feedback comes from early adopters until it is launched full-fledged to the market.

• Identify early adopters: Determine your target audience and reach out to them via email, social media, or personal networks.
• Create a dedicated Slack workspace: Set up a new Slack workspace specifically for early users to join.
• Invite early users: Send personalized invitations with a link to join the Slack workspace.
• Set up channels: Create different channels within Slack for discussions, feedback, bug reports, and general chat.
• Encourage engagement: Prompt users to introduce themselves in the designated channel and transfer their thoughts and ideas.
• Regular interaction: Engage with users regularly, ask for feedback, and address any issues or concerns promptly to keep the conversation going.

Below are a few sample channels you can create for your users. You don’t require all of them; having 3 to 4 channels is sufficient, particularly if you’re a business with limited resources.

Image source: screenshot of author’s Slack dashboard

So where exactly do your early adopters come from? As per my experience, early adopters are of five types — No. 5 is my favorite.

1. CEO recommended — As the name reads, they are a group of top-level/powerful individuals recommended by CEOs/ Founders. They are people with decades of experience and in many cases, angel investors/ stakeholders.
2. Opt-in audience — These are the users who have shown interest in your offerings and signed up via direct, organic, or paid marketing efforts.
3. ICP- They are the ideal cold prospects that a lead generation team reaches out to via social media, emails, or phone calls. I don’t have a positive experience with phone calls and company email outreach (if your ICP is an employee in a large organization). For first interaction phone calls can often be perceived as intrusive and email outreach often gets caught in phishing filters, due to phishing software integration in most big companies. Please share if your experience differs.
4. Influencers — When I say influencers, I am not referring to LinkedIn influencers /personal brand experts who were born during the Covid era. I’m referring to genuine leadership figures within your niche or industry, individuals who have instigated tangible change, can make insightful thought leadership assessments of your product, and whose endorsement carries weight in securing customer buy-ins.
5. Referrals: These are contacts proposed by the above 4 types of early adopters, which is why it’s one of my favorites. It saves a great deal of time and energy.

The intended goal is to recruit a group of high-quality early adopters to test your product, provide feedback, and help contribute to its development.

Here I measure the response rate to the invitations, monitor engagement levels in the Slack channels, and collect qualitative feedback from early users regarding their initial impressions of the product.

Below is an example of an ICP persona outreach message.

Image source: Screenshot from author’s inbox which was later edited in Canva to hide personal identification

Helping new users get started

• Develop onboarding resources: Create tutorials, guides, or videos to help new users understand how to use your product or service effectively. More than 80% of individuals express that they are more likely to remain loyal to a company that prioritizes creating onboarding content.
• Set up an onboarding channel: Create a dedicated channel in Slack where new users can ask questions and receive assistance from moderators or experienced users.
• Utilize automation: Implement automated FAQs and greets for new members and provide them with useful resources and tips.
• Encourage peer support: Encourage experienced users to share their tips and best practices for getting started with newcomers.

Once you onboard them, your goal is to ensure new users feel supported and guided as they explore your product’s features and functionalities.

Analyze the completion rates of the onboarding tutorials, monitor activity in the onboarding channel, and gather feedback from new users about their onboarding experience.

Making your community fun and helpful

• Plan events and activities: Organize virtual events, themed discussions, or contests within Slack channels to keep the community engaged.
• Use video calls: Utilize Slack’s video call feature for face-to-face interactions during events or meetings.
• Create topic-specific channels: Set up separate channels for different topics or interests relevant to your community.
• Promote peer support: Encourage members to help each other out by sharing resources, offering advice, and answering questions within the community.

Evaluate participation rates such as product usage, monitor activity levels in topic-specific channels, and solicit feedback from members about their overall experience and satisfaction with the community engagement activities.

Listening to feedback and making improvements

• Establish feedback channels: Create dedicated channels for users to submit feedback, share ideas, and vote on feature requests.
• Encourage detailed feedback: Prompt users to provide detailed descriptions and use cases for their suggestions to understand their needs better.
• Prioritize feedback: Regularly review and prioritize feedback based on user input and engagement.
• Communicate updates: Keep the community informed about any changes, updates, or improvements executed based on their feedback.

This step is likely the most exhaustive and yet super satisfying.

At this stage, I analyze the volume and nature of feedback submissions, prioritize feature requests based on user votes and comments, and track the impact of implemented improvements on user satisfaction and engagement metrics within the app.

I then go ahead with another step of creating another group within the Slack community, which will consist of a filtered list of selected users who have actively used the entire feature of a product, engaged with the community, participated in events, and provided constructive feedback.

In addition, the user must have rated your product a 10/10 or 5/5 when surveyed “how likely they are to recommend your product to others”.

These groups will have the opportunity to directly interact with the top management, such as the CEOs, Founders, and CPOs within the app.

In the long run, they evolve as the 1% of loyal users who will ensure the success of your GTM product launches, generate new customer signups, and take care of the customer retention rate and lifetime value.

It’s a lot of work, you see that’s why I feel this is probably the most exhaustive step and yet the most rewarding.

Can your business do without community-led growth?

Definitely yes, if you want competitors stealing your stage! If you aren’t building a community you will soon be another face in the crowd.

Duolingo and Notion show how important communities are for growing SaaS businesses.

With over 500 million users and a value of $2 billion respectively, they have used their communities to make more money and keep users coming.

Duolingo community team uses the 1/9/90 rule- they ask just 1% of its users to make educational stuff, which brings in even more users.

Notion did something similar, and now they have over 30 million users. Notion’s community-building approach was inspired by its customers who were creating online groups on social media to chat about its products. Notion saw this and capitalized on it by inviting users to join its official community platform on Slack.

These stories tell us the importance of community-building. Community-led growth is about authenticity, trust, and creating long-term love affairs with your brand.

When competitors offer similar features and pricing, building a strong community sets you apart. It creates a moat around your brand, making it more resilient to churn and better positioned for long-term success.

Key components of GTM for community-led growth (with examples)

Identify target community segments: Begin by understanding your target audience segments and identifying communities where they gather. These communities could be industry forums, social media groups, or niche online communities relevant to your SaaS offering.

Suppose your SaaS product caters to project management needs within the software development sector. You might identify the “Agile Software Development Community” on LinkedIn as a prime target. This community consists of software developers, project managers, and agile enthusiasts discussing best practices, tools, and methodologies in the industry.

Create clear value propositions: Develop value propositions that resonate with the pain points and aspirations of your target community segments. Highlight how your SaaS solution addresses their specific needs and adds value to their workflows.

Taking the same brand above as an example, your value proposition could focus on addressing pain points related to project visibility and team collaboration. You can further emphasize the features offering real-time Kanban boards, sprint planning, and team messaging features, enabling teams to stay aligned and deliver software projects more efficiently.

Build engaging content and resources: Produce high-quality content, tutorials, case studies, and resources tailored to your community’s interests and challenges.

Example: Tutorial videos showing the setup process and customization of agile boards for different project workflows, catering to beginners and experienced agile practitioners.

Two-way communication: Actively listen to user feedback, address concerns promptly, and incorporate community suggestions into your product roadmap.

Some ideas you can experiment with are asking the community to suggest new features and troubleshoot issues with your support team. Host regular “Office Hours” sessions where users can join live Q&A sessions with your product managers and developers to discuss roadmap updates and provide input on upcoming features.

Empower advocates and influencers: Identify power users within your community who are passionate about your SaaS solution. Empower them to become brand advocates and influencers by providing exclusive access, rewards, and recognition for their contributions.

Example: Offer them early access to beta features, invite them to participate in guest webinars, and recognize their contributions through features in your newsletter or social media shoutouts.

Collaboration and networking: Consider organizing virtual meetups where members can participate in group discussions and networking activities.

Example ideas: Partner with industry thought leaders to host webinars on relevant topics such as emerging trends in software development. Encourage users to share use cases of their business challenges and solutions they implemented, providing valuable learning opportunities and connections within the community.

Measure and analyze: Implement robust analytics to track key community metrics such as engagement, churn rate, referral rates, and sentiment. Use these insights to iterate and refine your community-led growth initiatives continuously.

Below are some metrics to consider, priority metrics will depend on your business goals.

1. Engagement metrics: Monitor community engagement metrics such as active users, participation rates, and interaction levels to gauge the health and vibrancy of your community.
2. Churn rate: Measure the churn rate among community members to assess retention and identify areas for improvement in your product or service offering.
3. Referral rates: Track the number of referrals generated by community members to quantify the impact of word-of-mouth marketing on user acquisition and growth.
4. Sentiment analysis: Conduct sentiment analysis to gauge community sentiment and identify trends, themes, and areas of concern that require attention.
5. Revenue growth: Monitor revenue growth and customer lifetime value (CLV) to assess the overall financial impact of community-led growth initiatives on your business.

Set business goals not just to acquire customers but to build an army of advocates. A satisfied community evolves into brand ambassadors, customers who refer friends and family and leave positive reviews. A community-led go-to-market approach done right will help turn satisfied users into champions who will voluntarily evangelize your product within their networks.

Before I sign off, there is something I want you to take into account.

“You want your users to feel like they are a part of something bigger, a community where they call the shots and you are just here to make magic happen.”

Did I miss out on anything important? Let me know! :)

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