Back in the Groove
People often ask me what “good” looks like when it comes to brand communities. Well, there’s one community that consistently goes above and beyond, a community that I feel a growing personal connection with, a community I predict we’ll be hearing a lot more about.
It’s a productivity app we’ve written about before, but now we want to shine the brightest of spotlights on their community-led activity and why we think they are getting a whole lot right:
Surprise and delight
Groove has become a truly global group. When I “Groove” myself, I can encounter people from literally anywhere. In my last session, there were people from Sao Paolo, Augsburg, Vancouver, Cape Town, Krakow, and from some other exotic places I won’t list because I’m not sure I can spell them. But last week I got an even bigger surprise. Our friendly “postie” delivered a fun looking parcel which seemed to be from America. Full of curiosity, I tore it open, and was flabbergasted to find a handwritten note from the founding team thanking me for Grooving over the past few months plus some laptop stickers (love ‘em) and a cute, very on-brand phone stand for when using the mobile app. Did it feel gimmicky? Not a bit. The note felt personal and authentic and the stand is genuinely useful for using the phone camera. While the items themselves would not have cost much, postage costs ain’t cheap nowadays, and what I appreciated above all was the effort that had gone into thinking of doing this. And not just doing it - the timing and the manner. If it was a freebie everyone got when they signed up, it would have meant less. And somehow the fact that it was a surprise - rather than something communicated in advance. A bit like someone sending you one rose on your birthday. Strange thing to add maybe, but the fact that such a digital company did something as analogue as hand-writing a note had a disproportionately big impact too. Yep, as far as I’m concerned, they nailed it.
They show up
The founding team are always very present, using the product and sharing what’s going on in their world. I often meet one of them in a session. They are open, always friendly, encouraging whoever is there to achieve whatever we are working on, as well as sharing their own priorities for the business. They embody the brand values and always seem to have time for their members. We talk about effective communities being more of a roundtable discussion than an expert to audience vibe – well, the Groove team is doing this literally every single day.
Relevant events and connections
Recently their Head of Community, Taylor Harrington, has upped the community offering to include regular events. As it’s a productivity app, one of these is a monthly goal-setting session. I wasn’t sure this would be for me, but when I test-drove it, I was welcomed to a well thought- out, structured and hugely helpful session, organised with just as much care and attention as an expensive professional coaching session. Pretty damn impressive.
Personalisation and care
As you’ll have gathered, I was already right on the brink of being a Groove superfan, but something happened today which tipped me right over the edge, and prompted me to sit right down and pen this post. I received an email from Taylor - a beep.audio message reciting the personal goal I had specified in one of these sessions earlier in the month and asking me how I was getting on with it. I mean, whaaat? 🤯 Sure, I know that Taylor must simply have made a record of everyone’s goals and targets and spent a couple of hours recording the messages to send out to people, but I have never received this is level of attention to detail and care before - even from the most expensive memberships I’m part of.
Involving the community
Over the past few weeks the founding team have been sharing their thoughts on potentially charging for access to the service (it’s currently all free). They’ve done this in a very considered and sensible way, neither sugar-coating it nor being apologetic, but straightforwardly putting the case that to successfully maintain and further develop the service, there’s no clear alternative to charging. The key is, rather then just announce it, they are bringing the community with them - genuinely inviting the community to give feedback on the best way to implement this.
Will I pay up?
The paid plan will be introduced in January. So, having been used to a free service, will I stump up? No way. (Just kidding - of course I will.)
Clickworthy content from around the web 🖱️
Fabian Pfortmüller shares his thoughts on how to ensure people will make time for your community.
Final call for anyone who is based in London and is free on 30th November - come join us for the community industry Big Bash! Tickets and full info here.
Oh and if you are interested in checking out Groove for yourself - here is a personal invite (it is limited so act today to make sure you don’t miss out!)
This newsletter is brought to you by www.customer-ization.com. We work with B2C brands to activate and empower customer communities to deliver growth, retention and satisfaction. To find out more why not book a call to explore how we can help you harness your customers’ enthusiasm and achieve a step change in your business outcomes.
💜 💜 💜 Thanks for being part of the Groove community, Madeleine! This blog post was such a special surprise!