Guide to creating community programs for every stage of the customer journey

An acquisition program focuses on attracting new members to your community. These programs bring in the right audience, whether customers, prospects, or partners, by executing targeted tactics that compel them to visit your community. 

Without acquisition initiatives, your community risks flatlining. A consistent flow of new members within your target audience is vital to keeping the community dynamic and growing and ensuring you build an audience who will engage meaningfully with your brand and product. Effective acquisition programs lay the groundwork for the rest of your community strategy, building your pipeline of members to convert, onboard, and engage.

Key strategies for customer acquisition programs

• Create high-value content: Content is the key to helping your community get discovered by new users. 70% of traffic in mature communities comes from organic searches. Create valuable content targeted to your audience that answers common questions, fosters discussions, and enables connections.

• Leverage user-generated content: Search algorithms rank peer-generated content higher than branded website content. Peer-generated content is also produced at a higher rate than branded website content, giving search algorithms more content to index. By fostering a strong branded community that encourages member interaction, your brand can boost search rankings, attract new traffic, and grow your audience.

• Syndicate community content across channels: Repurpose and distribute your community-generated content across multiple platforms, such as blogs, social media, and third-party websites. Syndicating content broadens your reach and drives traffic back to your community, helping attract new customers interested in your industry or offerings. This approach can enhance your SEO and establish your brand as a thought leader.

• Promotion of community across digital channels: Promoting your community through paid advertising, social media campaigns, email newsletters, and digital partnerships can significantly drive new member visits. Tailor messaging that emphasizes the benefits of joining the community, whether it's for networking, learning, or access to exclusive content.

• Collaborate with influencers and thought leaders: Partner with industry experts or influential community members to expand your reach. Their endorsement can lend credibility and encourage more people to join.

Customer example: SKY UK drives acquisition through promotion and syndication

Sky UK leveraged promotion and syndicating community content as a core acquisition strategy. By embedding trending discussions directly into the Sky.com navigation area and help articles, Sky made it easy for potential members to discover the community. The integration of syndicated content also generated £750,000 in annual savings, proving that well-executed content syndication drives acquisition and reduces costs.

Proactively promoting community content through social media platforms like Facebook and X contributed substantial growth. Weekly, Sky saw 4,000 new members join their community, with 5,000 posts generated.

Customer example: NetApp's search-driven acquisition

NetApp improved its community by expanding its Knowledge Base and enhancing self-service options, allowing users to resolve problems quickly. As a result, 75% of NetApp’s website traffic now comes via Google search, helping them acquire new members without extra marketing costs. By addressing customer queries through community content, NetApp drives acquisition and reduces costs by 20% in its support processes​.

Metrics to track for acquisition:

• SEO sessions

• Visits

• Unique visitors

• New visitors

• Returning visitors

• Average session length

• Page views

A conversion program focuses on transforming visitors into active community members. These programs nurture potential members by offering valuable resources, peer-to-peer connections, and engaging content encouraging them to join the community. The goal is to support visitors as they move from curiosity to active participation within your community.

Building a large audience of community members is more critical than merely attracting visitors. Conversion programs ensure that you guide potential members along the journey, helping them understand the value of your community and encouraging them to take the next step—joining.

Key strategies for conversion programs:

• Create personalized, seamless journeys based on key personas: Understand the motivations of users visiting your community and group them into specific personas. Craft tailored journeys by writing user stories for each persona to identify what they seek, how to provide it, and how to encourage them to sign up. Design your community to highlight these personalized paths, ensuring it's easy and intuitive for visitors to register and begin engaging.

• Lean into social proof: Showcase the experiences of current members and highlight the benefits they’ve gained from joining. Peer validation and success stories can create a sense of trust and belonging for visitors.

• Leverage email marketing campaigns: Send targeted email campaigns to potential members who have shown interest in your community but have not yet joined. Personalize these emails to address their interests and provide compelling reasons to sign up.

• Create a community challenge or campaign: Launch a community-wide challenge or campaign that encourages visitors to participate and engage. Promote it through social media, email, and other channels to attract new members and build excitement.

• Incorporate chatbots or live chat support: Provide instant assistance through chatbots or live chat features on your community website. This can help answer questions from potential members in real time, guiding them toward joining.

• Offer exclusive access: Reward visitors who join your community with exclusive content, special events, or early access to features, giving them a reason to register and start engaging.

• Host open, interactive events: Invite visitors to attend free webinars, live discussions, or virtual meetups to experience the community's value firsthand. These events enable them to engage without commitment and feel connected before joining.

• Provide quick wins: Make it easy for visitors to take small, meaningful actions demonstrating the value of joining the community, such as downloading a resource, engaging in a poll, or joining a free discussion thread.

Customer example: SAP Concur's personalized support journey

SAP Concur transformed its online community into a primary support channel after discovering users needed more help through Khoros' Value Analytics Survey. They created a dedicated support and FAQ section with over 100 blog posts and integrated a CRM system to personalize user experiences based on industry and role. This personalized approach increased registrations by 55%, boosted traffic by 46%, and saved $1M in support costs in 2020, demonstrating the power of tailored support in driving engagement and conversions.

Customer example: SMARTY's community-driven conversion success

SMARTY, a UK mobile provider, launched a digital community to build trust and offer clear support paths. By fostering peer connections and open dialogue, they attracted 20,000 active users and achieved a 1.6% conversion rate to their online store. Integrating the community into their app streamlined support, cutting SLA response times by 92%, and earned SMARTY the "Customer Service Team of the Year" award.

Metrics track for conversion:

• Active members

• Active non-employees

• Active employees

• New members

• Cumulative members

• Non-employee members

• Employee members

To quote Brian Oblinger, an onboarding program is a “curated and choreographed collection of experiences designed to guide new community members from initial account setup to fully educated and enabled contributors.” It provides the resources, support, and guidance necessary for new members to feel comfortable and empowered to use and engage in the community.

Despite being one of the most important programs, onboarding is one of the most neglected by businesses. Effective onboarding is crucial because it lays the foundation for future success. Without it, even new members excited about joining the community can quickly disengage when they don’t receive adequate support or direction.

The onboarding process is an opportunity to cultivate early engagement and long-term retention. By strategically guiding members through their first interactions, you can create a deeper, more sustained relationship between members and your community.

Key strategies for onboarding programs:

• Create a dedicated new member hub: Build a space within your community specifically for new members with a collection of welcome guides, how-tos, and best practices. Make it easy to find the resources they need to get started.

• Send a “Welcome” email series: Create an automated welcome email series that introduces new members to different aspects of the community. Each email should highlight valuable resources, upcoming events, or specific community features, encouraging them to explore and engage with other parts of your platform.

• Provide structured learning or onboarding paths: Offer step-by-step learning or onboarding paths to help new members use your community or product effectively. These could be self-paced modules, video tutorials, or interactive quizzes.

• Incentivize initial engagement: Offer incentives for new members to take their first community action, such as posting, commenting, or attending an event. Rewards like badges, points, or exclusive content can spark early participation and build momentum for continued involvement.

• Encourage peer support and mentorship: Pair new members with experienced users or mentors within the community, allowing newcomers to connect, ask questions, and learn from those who have already succeeded with your product.

• Host welcome webinars or live demos: Conduct regular onboarding webinars or product demos to walk new customers through key features and workflows. Build in time for live Q&A to address specific questions they may have.

• Incorporate profile completion functionality: Encourage new members to fully complete their profiles by offering benefits like personalized content recommendations or increased visibility within the community. Highlight the importance of completing profiles for better engagement, rankings, and networking opportunities.

• Facilitate group or physical experiences: Provide opportunities for new members to engage in group activities such as virtual meetups, discussion groups, or in-person events. These experiences help build stronger connections early on, creating a sense of belonging and encouraging continued participation.

Metrics to track for onboarding:

• Time-to-first action (how quickly a new member takes their first meaningful step)

• Engagement rates in onboarding content

• Retention rates after the first 30 days

Engagement and retention programs aim to keep existing community members active and invested in your community over time. Generally, the goal is to foster ongoing participation, create value for members, and encourage loyalty.

More specifically, Brian notes that engagement programs should aim to create deeper, more meaningful, and more impactful engagement among members rather than continually creating more engagement.

Engagement is vital because it indicates four pillars of success: You understand your audience’s needs, what you deliver is valuable to them, your strategy is working, and members are likely more satisfied, will buy more, and will stay longer. Engaged members are likelier to become advocates, refer others, and provide valuable feedback.

Retention programs are critical because acquiring new members is often more costly than keeping existing ones. A community that can retain its members is more sustainable and more likely to deliver long-term business impact.

Key strategies for engagement and retention programs:

• Gamify engagement with rewards and recognition: Implement a rewards system that recognizes active members with badges, titles, or points. Create leaderboards to encourage friendly competition and motivate participation.

• Foster peer discussion, knowledge co-creation, and ideation: Encourage members to ask questions, provide solutions, and collaborate on creating knowledge. Invite them to participate in ideation programs, fostering peer-to-peer interaction, innovation, and a sense of ownership within the community.

• Launch contests and missions: Use contests or missions to motivate participation and reward members for achieving specific goals. This type of gamification can boost engagement and create excitement within the community.

• Develop a guest blog program: Invite community members or industry influencers to contribute blog posts, offering them a platform to share their expertise and engage other members with fresh content.

• Invite voting behavior on content: Allow members to vote on posts, answers, and other content to promote interaction and highlight popular contributions. This also helps surface high-quality information for the community.

• Send personalized, data-driven nudges: Use community analytics to identify members who are becoming less active. To re-engage them, send personalized messages offering content or resources that align with their past behavior and interests.

• Create exclusive member perks for certain ranks: Offer access to exclusive content, early product releases, or community-only events. This sense of exclusivity can increase retention by making members feel valued and appreciated.

Customer example: Spotify’s Stars Program

Spotify transformed its Stars Program, focusing on enhancing relationships with superusers to deepen engagement. The program rewards highly active community members by integrating them into product teams, running events, and providing feedback opportunities.

Through initiatives like Star Jam, an all-expenses-paid event for top contributors, Spotify successfully doubled retention rates for members who attend. This personal touch and recognition drive sustained loyalty and involvement in the community.

Customer example: Unit 4’s community growth

Unit4’s private community for customers, partners, and team members focuses on peer-to-peer interactions, sharing best practices, and offering product support. By integrating gamification with ranks and badges and recognizing top contributors through podcast interviews, Unit4 saw a 125% increase in posts and solutions, with engagement more than doubling year-over-year.

Metrics to track for engagement:

• Monthly active users

• Response rate

• Time-to-first response

• Thread depth

• Solution rate

• Time-to-first solution

Creating community programs at every stage of the customer journey is a long-term investment. Still, when done right, it becomes an invaluable asset contributing to a community's long-term success. By understanding and catering to the needs of your members at each stage of their journey, you’ll build a thriving, engaged community that fuels your brand’s growth and strengthens customer relationships.

Remember, a community is only as strong as the value it provides—so focus on creating meaningful interactions, valuable resources, and genuine connections.

Interested in learning more? Stream these on-demand webinar sessions for a deeper dive into acquisition, onboarding, engagement, and retention programs:

• Community Learning Labs - Session 6: Acquisition programs

• Community Learning Labs - Session 7: Onboarding programs

• Community Learnings Labs - Session 8: Engagement and retention programs