In the third edition of the Wrap Up Ninja, organized by Ninja Marketing, several topics were addressed to understand chow to turn a community into subscribers through subscription strategy.
In an era when social has become a digital agora, celebrities, influencers and micro influencers, especially after the pandemic, have begun to lead communities and micro communities, rather than hedonistic membership, today we are reminded that "people helping people".
Community values have always existed, butit was technology that gave the impetus and dignity to a phenomenon that has become a business opportunity for so many brands. Not surprisingly, the metamorphosis of many influencers has been to become co-producers of services and products.
Tackling phenomena such as Banner Blindness,which sees more and more users ignoring banner ads due to limited attention, not only online, creating, driving, and transforming a community into subscribers, including through subscriptions, is certainly a major challenge.
The Wrap Up Ninja's packed agenda featured alternating viewpoints, such as the truly enlightening one from Professor of Consumer Sociology and Marketing Bernard Cova,who recalled the origins and importance of a tribe and some unsuccessful examples of conversions to subscriptions.
To Mirko Pallera, CEO of Ninja Marketing, the task of telling about the evolution of the marketing drive platform in Italy, combining business with subscribers' needs.
Talking about community could not miss also Gianluca Perrelli, CEO Buzzoole, and the trends related to influencer marketing strategies to start and grow a community, such as the case brought forward with LG Home Appliance & Air Solution.
To Carlotta Calegari, Community & Marketing Specialist WeRoad, the task of suggesting best practices, while to Ignazio Morici, Marketing Director power2Cloud, the task of explaining concretely what is behind the scenes of a Subscription Strategy, giving hints to organize it in the best way.
In the early 2000s, brand community was accompanied by three key aspects: traditions and rituals, feeling of being part of a group of one's own, sense of mutual help.
Then the community was already there, but companies did not take it seriously. Today they are part of this change and a new awareness driven mainly by Covid.
Professor Cova recalled the bad example of Couchsurfing.
Casey Fenton, its founder, wanted to turn the world into an immense couch available -- for free -- to backpackers interested in discovering the world.
At one point, the platform began charging a small fee to each member, but did not ask for it. "The more a settled community came together in nonprofit mode," Cova cautions, "the more difficult the transition. The mistake was to force the transition."
Another example that of Lomography, of the non-digital cameras that have been around for at least 30 years and continue to be sold, even if you don't know the company behind it.
Three Austrian students found an old Soviet camera in a market in the eastern countries and thought of creating the Lomographic Society International by creating a creative photography community.
There is no shortage of products to buy on the site, but it is not known who produces them, what the business model is, who the partners are, what the budgets are. This has perhaps allowed Lomography not to have problems like Couchsurfing.
Singular also is the story of Anicet Nemani, a fanatic of Cameroonian music, which he felt was known and valued over that of other young artists. Anicet thus brought together a group of volunteers who are experts in Cameroonian music and created the Bimstr platform, with more than one million followers, where people can exchange songs and information.
The idea of monetizing music tracks was also considered here, but the Spotify model was not suitable since only 5% of Cameroonians have a bank account, very many not even a VISA.
Anicet left the community to work alone and founded the Bimstr agency, an advertising agency dedicated to food and beverage brands in Cameroon, to which she proposes to target the support of her community of young music lovers.
DoB2B communities exist? "Sure, but they are less known and less managed. We have worked a lot s- Professor Cova concludes-on the concept of the community of practices, it is not just physical or virtual sharing, it is a microculture, feeling part of a whole. Just think of what the HP-12C calculator represents for the world of finance today and after almost forty years. There are specialists who don't get into Meet without it!"
"Community marketing and influencer marketing, formerly known as viral marketing, - Gianluca Perrelli, CEO Buzzoole - were the Cinderellas of marketing, destined to reap the crumbs of budgets at the time. Today they are an opportunity for brands in the attention challenge, to reach target audiences.
Technology has been the driving force behind this change because of the measurability needed to measure the audience, in which three major players, social tech platforms, brands and influencers broadcasters and co-creators of products and services, now navigate.
The new trend points to the revaluation and professionalization of micro influencers as ideal community builders, connected to online and offline initiatives. Although they have a more limited follower base (up to 100,000), they manage to create a more intimate relationship with the community, reaching niche targets. That they are not the focus of the interests of the big influencers, but that of brands, who see great opportunities compared to traditional advertising."
Talking about trends and the future, one could not miss a mention of the case of Gary Vaynerchuk's Vee Friends community, which can be accessed by buying 10,255 available NFTs. An affordable investment for those who want specific benefits, including the opportunity to spend time with the author.
Interesting also is the case of Ninja Marketing who presented the new business model born without losing sight of customer need, a most comprehensive continuous learning platform in the market to grow professionally and stay ahead of the times.
"Born from a blog in 2004, Ninja is the only platform, explains enthusiastically the CEO, Mirko Pallera, combining information, education and Community.
We thought of a matryoshka model that could contain them with a content offering and pathways tailored to the user, who may be a student or a professional.
The change was encouraged by the layering of sites, content, brands, and services, then the complexity of management, the desire to improve analytics and business intelligence, and to personalize content according to a target audience that is both B2B and B2C.
With SWG, we conducted a survey to understand members' interest in this new proposal, giving away those who participated. We then calibrated the proposal and pricing based on the results on the target population, which is our community!
While with HubSpot, Ninja can identify and create profiles of buyer personas, starting with our real users. This system allows us to give rbetter and more personalized responses, effectively responding to what are the user's needs."
Then let's turn to the case of a successful community such as WeRoad as told by Carlotta Calegari, Community & Marketing Specialist, who has three watchwords: customer centricity, brand as community and customer delight.
"We start with an advantage because travel binds people a lot, but it is also true that we don't want customers, but fans and brand ambassadors. They are the protagonists of our content and everything we publish on social and in our communication.
There is a direct relationship, an open and frank dialogue between our brand and the WeRoaders who are constantly talking to each other, especially on the Facebook group, exchanging travel tips and suggesting new departures.
Present online and on so many channels such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, billboards, radio, guerrilla marketing, perhaps the biggest challenge for WeRoad is to follow the evolutions of a growing and ever-changing community. We therefore need to test - endlessly - new ideas, change formats to continue to nurture a sense of belonging and continued strong engagement.