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- How we built a 100k member community
Hey folks,
Welcome back for another bite to chew on.
Well, we did it! We hit 100,000 members in our Obvi Facebook community.
Six-figures. We can hardly believe it ourselves.
There were more than a few high-fives in the office when we broke 100k this past week.
But this post isn’t about taking a victory lap.
Instead, we want to use the milestone to talk about why we decided to build a community, how we did it, and what we’ve learned along the way.
And why you should (probably) build one too.
On the Menu:
Appetizer - Why we built a community
Main course - How to build it
Dessert - How to grow grow it
Midnight snack - Some key learnings
Why we built the Obvi Community
We have spent a lot of time sharing retention tips and tactics here. Usually, we focus on the things everyone thinks about -
Email
SMS
Pop-ups
Offers
Flow and campaigns
But here’s the thing - when it comes right down to it, retention in e-comm should be earned not expected.
When we started Obvi we knew getting into the collagen space was going to be difficult because of the many competitors in the space.
Sure we had an edge because of our flavors but we are premium-priced - so you could easily replace us with a cheaper option.
That meant we needed to offer something more than just a product. We wanted to offer a place for our customers to learn, feel safe, and get motivated.
Most brands build retention with offers, promotions, and giveaways. But if an actual relationship with your users is the goal, it’s about capturing and holding attention over the long term.
If you want people to come back to your brand over and over again, you have to deliver some kind of value.
All that other stuff is just transactional.
That’s great if you’re pushing for a sale, but -
Your customers aren’t always in the market to buy
No one wants to be constantly “sold” to
And remember - customers also bring more value than just their wallets.
They share feedback and insights, request new products, create social proof & UGC, and recruit others to your brand.
For all these reasons, we understood we needed to create a space to encourage and grow brand loyalty at Obvi.
A place where we could not just answer questions and educate about the product ourselves, but allow others to weigh in about what they like, what is and isn’t working for them, etc.
In fact, we never have used our community as a direct sales channel. It has always been value-driven.
How to build your community
Okay, once you’ve decided to build a community, the big question is “How?”
Step 1 - Just do it
First up, you have to commit.
It’s easy to spend endless hours researching and thinking about what to do.
But, really, it comes down to - just do it.
Are you committed?
Good, then let’s pick where to build your community. There are tons of options:
Facebook
Slack
Discord
Reddit
A mobile App
Twitter (“X”)
A custom site, etc.
We chose the first option because Facebook was where we could easily find and attract our customers.
The important thing is your users will be comfortable with whatever you choose.
Step 2 - Find some help
Once you get a community going, it will need daily attention to grow. At first it may be an add-on task for an existing team member -
But eventually, it’ll require someone focused and dedicated to make it work.
That means adding community managers and moderators to the mix.
First hire - A community director
This person should have experience building communities, preferably in your industry and on your platform of choice. Ideally, they should be part of your key demographic as well.
This may start out as a part-time position, but you should plan for it to grow into FT once you gain traction.
Their role and responsibilities will be straightforward:
Drafting and posting content
Setting up and managing the platform
Aligning activities w/ marketing and leadership
Analyzing growth trends and finding growth levers
Think of this person as a chief editor and leader of your community. You want them to set the tone, create activity and momentum, connect with your users, and represent your brand.
Second hire - Moderators
Next, your community will need mods. They should be “super users” or “super fans” of your brand.
You’ll want them to approve content and new membership applications, comment and engage with the community, and answer user questions.
This position won’t have to be a paid one.
Reward your super fans with recognition, free product, or points, and they will often happily become super users in your community.
Finding your moderators can be as simple as:
Look at your top spenders over the last 60 days
Craft an outreach process via DM’s or email
Interview them via Slack to see if they’re a fit
The number of mods you need will change as you grow.
Start out with one or two, and then add as the activity level rises.
As you build things out, keep this in mind -
The energy we put into the community is what we get out of it.
There were times when we were transitioning different admins in and out and we could feel the energy shift.
And those times when we had lower engagement, we realized how important it was to have a team that kept the energy high and momentum up.
Tool Of The Week
Before we move on to growing your community, we wanted to talk about one of our favorite new tools - Proxima.
When it comes to marketing, everyone in DTC talks about cost caps, ad structure, and AI. Not too long ago everyone was using interest stacks to target on Meta. Now everyone goes broad.
But we’ve found a new way to target - through Proxima’s lookalike audiences, built with cutting-edge predictive AI.
They take billions of data points from across DTC, and their algo creates boosted lookalike audiences from them.
So instead of using data that Meta thinks is going to be a lookalike audience for you, you get data that you know will work.
Proxima’s AI Audiences already make up more than 50% of Obvi’s current daily budget and they have helped both lower our CAC and increase our NC-ROAS already.
If you’re looking to expand your audience, don’t use Facebook’s native lookalike feature or interest-based targeting. That stuff mostly stopped working a long time ago.
We think you should continue going broad, but you should also sign up to test out Proxima’s lookalike audiences to see if they can improve your efficiency →
How to grow your community
Okay, so you’ve picked a platform, you’ve got a community director, and you’ve identified some mods.
It’s time to grow your community.
If you’re a brand with active sales and traffic, you can start to funnel people into your community via 5 key sources:
Pre-purchase traffic
On-site callouts
Email
SMS
Inserts
Let’s talk specifics:
Pre-purchase traffic
Comments on ads
Invites via remarketing
Social media bio links
Organic posts w/ references to community wins
On-site callouts
Community showcase popup
Announcement bar
Product page badges
Checkout call out
Post-purchase page
CTA in Email footers
Welcome series callout
Weekly dedicated email highlighting community wins
SMS
Dedicated flow about joining the community
Welcome series callout
Flash special “join community” giveaways
Inserts
“Join community” QR Code on packaging w/ incentive
Insert on all orders with an invite
There are lots of options here, but these are many of the things that have worked at Obvi.
Of course, just driving people to the community isn’t going to be enough to get traction.
You actually have to give people a reason to stick around.
At Obvi, we have 4 key community pillars:
Be authentic
Don’t only post or keep the positive comments
Allow discussion, be real
Humanize the brand
Share your journey as people and founders
Give a look behind the scenes
Communicate your wins and your struggles
Listen to your customers
Ask your users what they want
Review discussion threads for feedback
Respond to direct inquiries and challenges
Run polls and surveys
Show new product mock-ups and prototypes
Add value
Live updates from the founders
Weekly or monthly giveaways
Fun competitions w/ prizes
Provide help, support, and positivity
Remember, you’re trying to develop a relationship and a reason for people to keep coming back.
So you have to give to get.
Your Community users should feel special, listened to, and excited to be part of something.
If you can make your community a place of positivity -
if you can humanize yourself and your brand, and -
if you can reward people for their involvement -
Then you can create a community that not only survives but thrives.
Something that will compound in value over time. Both for your brand and for the people in the community.
Key learnings on the way to 100k
Some last things before you get going.
Have a purpose
Remember to give your community some kind of purpose.
One that aligns with your brand and what your customers want.
The biggest thing we noticed when we started out was our customers were trying to get into flip their habits from bad to good ones.
Often it was for a first time journey for many of them. And everyone wanted assistance in terms of what to do and where to get started.
Once we had a purpose it was much easier to get everyone rally around it.
Don’t hide
A key learning we share with other founders when building a community is “don’t be afraid to be the face of your brand or be customer-facing.”
We are 3 South Asian males selling collagen to predominantly middle-aged women.
When we first put ourselves out there and went “live” within the community we were terrified of the response but the community received us well.
We like to hope that they’re just as fond of us as we are of them.
And as a founder always take the time to interact with your customers.
It goes such a long way.
One last thing…
We all know Amazon is the place to be selling right now.
I mean, 75% of shoppers in America are subscribers to Prime.
So if you’re store isn’t optimized for Amazon, you’re simply leaving money on the table.
End of story… good luck.
Just kidding! Calm down…we got you.
I’m (Ashvin) bringing the Amazon veterans from Swiftstart over to a LIVE webinar this Thursday at 2PM EST to show you the exact strategies top DTC brands are using to rake in sales on Amazon.
On top of that…we’ll also be doing live Amazon storefront and listing page reviews.
In other words - Your Amazon store will never look the same.
All the best,
Ron and Ash