Dark horse: when community outperforms marketing
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with two industry pros, Joshua Zerkel and Jorge Tellez, at the Community Led Summit organised by Melting Spot. I thoroughly enjoyed our discussion about whether the role of CCO is the new CMO (link to replay) but it was the case study from Jorge at Revelo that I felt should be shared this week since it’s a live, current example of the power of community to turbocharge business growth. Spoiler alert, they have outperformed all previous marketing activity by fully harnessing their community.
So, what’s the story? Revelo, the platform that supplies remote Latin America-based engineering talent to organisations in US time zones, recently had to take the difficult decision to cut costs by closing down its internal marketing function. Suddenly Jorge, the Chief Community Officer, was asked to try to back-fill marketing activity via the community – and somehow get the message out. Initially, expectations weren’t high – the brief was just to stop engagement falling off a cliff. However, not one to shy away from a challenge, Jorge grasped what he saw as a great opportunity to demonstrate that community-led marketing growth is a real possibility.
He and his team quickly set up their "Revelo Content Network" and began to reach out to the community of developers with a call for content.
As Jorge explains, “We were looking for people who resembled the community we wanted to build: diverse and inclusive developers who were community-driven.”
A formal application process was developed which was transparent and open to all. Jorge then shared the initiative at events and meetings and in social posts to drive sign-ups. The “ask” was very simple – we want to hear your voice, so please create and share content with us around the topics in this space which interest you most. Community members were given guidance around the values and style of content, but it was entirely up to them to choose the subject matter. This meant that, instead of having to produce all the content themselves, the company’s internal content editor was freed up to help an ever-growing network of authors come up with ideas and support them in the editing process. Revelo now has 235 community contributors sending in content and they apparently have enough material to keep them going for over six months (a “good problem to have”, comments Jorge).
This all has a nice, warm vibe, but what made me really sit up was the metrics. Promoted across their social channels, website and newsletters, the content has achieved record impressions. In fact, it’s now generating more impressions to previous organic and paid activity combined without spending anything in advertising. Engagement rates have increased by between 50% and 60% compared to the previous period and they are enjoying an average 350% higher engagement rate than their competitors.
And this was all accomplished while cutting internal resources and massively decreasing paid-for activity. As you might imagine, with results like this community has gone from being a bit of a side- hustle for the organisation, a fun place for developers to grow their career, to a vital strategic asset. According to Jorge, community is now embedded in everything they do, and to underscore its importance, he reports directly to the CEO. The dark horse is leading the field.
With thanks to Jorge Tellez for his support in helping us produce this article.