What is community-based marketing (CBM)?

The logic behind the approach is well supported. According to Salesforce's State of the Connected Customer report, sixth edition (2023), 80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. And according to Nielsen's Trust in Advertising study (2021), 88% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know more than any other channel. Community-based marketing sits exactly where those two findings meet: it turns customer experience into a shared space, and it turns satisfied customers into the recommendation engine.

This guide covers how CBM differs from traditional marketing, seven brand examples worth studying, a six-step strategy for building your own program, and the metrics that show whether it is working.

Community-based marketing vs. traditional marketing

Traditional marketing buys attention through rented channels, while community-based marketing earns attention by giving customers a place to belong. The two approaches differ in goals, communication style, channel ownership, metrics, and time horizon.

The two models complement each other rather than compete. Paid campaigns can fill the top of the funnel, but a community gives those customers somewhere to land, a reason to stay, and a way to bring others with them. The channel ownership row matters most: an in-app community belongs to the brand, while a following on a social network belongs to the platform and its algorithm. When the algorithm changes, rented reach disappears; owned communities do not.

The three pillars of community-based marketing

Successful community-based marketing rests on three pillars: authenticity, two-way communication, and shared identity. Brands that get all three right convert customers from an audience into participants.

1. Authenticity. People join communities that stand for something. A community built purely as a sales channel reads as exactly that, and users disengage. Brands with clear values give members a reason to affiliate that goes beyond the product itself.

2. Two-way communication. CBM is a dialogue, not a monologue. That means active listening, visible responses to feedback, and product decisions that reflect what members actually say. When users see their input change the product, participation becomes self-reinforcing.

3. Shared identity. The strongest communities give members a sense of belonging. Rituals, insider language, events, and recognition all signal that membership means something. This is the pillar that turns a customer base into a tribe, and it is the hardest one to copy.

Community-based marketing examples

The best-known community-based marketing examples come from brands that treated customers as members of a shared culture rather than a target audience. The seven brands below show what that looks like in practice.

Patagonia

Patagonia shows that communities form around values, not products. Its "Don't Buy This Jacket" campaign asked customers to consider the environmental cost of consumption, and its Worn Wear program keeps used gear in circulation. Both give the community something to participate in that is larger than a purchase, which is why Patagonia's customers behave like members of a movement rather than buyers of outdoor clothing.

Slack

Slack demonstrates that feedback loops turn users into co-builders. From its earliest releases, Slack treated user feedback as a core product input and responded visibly to requests. Users who see their suggestions shipped become invested in the product's success and recommend it to other teams, which fueled growth that relied heavily on word of mouth rather than advertising.

Harley-Davidson

Harley-Davidson proves that the strongest communities offer members an identity. The Harley Owners Group, founded in 1983, organizes rallies, local chapters, and group rides that turn ownership into membership. The motorcycle is the entry ticket; the community is what people stay for, and it is a moat no spec sheet can match.

Airbnb

Airbnb shows that community can carry both sides of a marketplace. Its host community, including official forums and local host clubs, lets experienced hosts onboard and support newer ones. That peer support improves listing quality and host retention without scaling Airbnb's own support costs.

Glossier

Glossier is the standard example of a community that preceded the product. The company grew out of a beauty blog audience and involved that audience directly in product development, shaping launches around what readers said they wanted. That approach turned readers into customers and customers into brand advocates who market the products organically.

GoPro

GoPro made its users the content engine. The company builds its marketing around footage its customers capture, and programs like GoPro Awards reward users for submitting their best clips. Every shared video markets the product while giving the creator recognition inside the community, a loop that produces content no in-house team could match at any budget.

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club shows that identity and humor can bootstrap a community quickly. Its 2012 launch video built a subscriber base that identified with the brand's irreverent personality, and the club framing made a commodity purchase feel like membership. Unilever acquired the company in 2016 for a reported one billion dollars, a valuation built on the loyalty of that member base.

How to build a community-based marketing strategy

A community-based marketing strategy defines why the community exists, who it serves, and where it lives. The six steps below cover that sequence in order.

Define the community's purpose. Anchor the community in a shared interest or goal your users already care about, not in your product roadmap. A fitness app's community is about training progress; the app is the venue, not the topic.

Identify your founding members. Start with your most engaged users. A small group that participates weekly is worth more than a large list that never posts, because early activity sets the norms every later member copies.

Design the value exchange. Be explicit about what members get, such as access, recognition, connection, or early features, and what they contribute, such as content, feedback, or peer support. Communities stall when the exchange only benefits the brand.

Create participation rituals. Recurring events, challenges, prompts, and recognition programs give members a reason to return. Consistency beats intensity: a reliable weekly ritual outperforms an occasional big campaign.

Moderate and measure from day one. Set clear guidelines, invest in moderation, and instrument the community so you can see what drives participation. Healthy norms are far easier to establish early than to repair later.

Choose where the community lives. This decision shapes everything above. Communities on rented platforms are subject to algorithm changes and platform rules, while an in-app community keeps engagement data and member relationships inside your product. social.plus provides the infrastructure for in-app communities: chat, feeds, groups, and moderation delivered through SDKs, APIs, and UIKit. For platform comparisons, see our guides to the best alternatives to Discord and Facebook Groups for brands and the best community infrastructure platforms for enterprise apps.

Building a community takes sustained effort, and the operational commitment is real. If you want to see what an owned, in-app community looks like in practice, book a demo with our team.

How to measure community-based marketing

Community-based marketing is measured in three layers: engagement, retention, and business impact. The most mature programs connect community data directly to revenue systems.

The industry data shows both the value and the measurement gap. According to the CMX Community Industry Trends Report (2025), 85% of community professionals agree that community had a positive impact on their organization's objectives over the past 12 months, and the number of active members is the most tracked health metric, used by 84% of teams. The same report found that 24% of teams can now confidently quantify their community's financial value, up from 16% the year before, and that teams whose community data connects to their CRM are roughly twice as likely to rate their community as extremely successful at impacting business goals.

A practical measurement stack covers:

Engagement: active members, contribution rate, posts and replies per member, event attendance.

Retention: repeat participation, retention of community members versus non-members, churn among previously active members.

Business impact: community-influenced revenue, support deflection, referral volume, and lifetime value of community members.

The member versus non-member comparison is the most persuasive number for executives because it isolates what the community adds. Running that comparison is far easier when the community lives inside your own product, since engagement data and customer data sit in the same place. If you are evaluating tooling for this, our comparison of the best social SDKs for engagement and retention covers the measurement capabilities to look for.

Frequently asked questions about community-based marketing

What does CBM stand for in marketing?

CBM stands for community-based marketing, a strategy that centers marketing on an engaged community of customers rather than one-way advertising. In a CBM program, the community itself, not the campaign, is the primary channel for acquisition, retention, and advocacy.

What is an example of community-based marketing?

Harley-Davidson's Harley Owners Group is a classic example: an owned membership program with rallies and local chapters that turns customers into a community with its own identity. A digital-native example is Glossier, which grew out of a blog audience and involved that community directly in product development.

What is the difference between community-based marketing and community-led growth?

Community-based marketing is a marketing strategy in which community works alongside other channels to build trust, retention, and advocacy. Community-led growth is a go-to-market model, most common in B2B software, in which the community itself drives acquisition, conversion, and expansion. CBM is the broader umbrella; community-led growth applies its principles to the entire growth engine.

How do you measure community-based marketing?

Measure across three layers: engagement (active members, contribution rate), retention (repeat participation, member versus non-member churn), and business impact (community-influenced revenue, support deflection, referrals). According to the CMX Community Industry Trends Report (2025), active members is the most common community health metric, tracked by 84% of teams. The strongest proof point is comparing retention and spend of community members against non-members.

Does community-based marketing work for B2B?

Yes, and often better than in consumer categories, because B2B purchases are high-consideration decisions where peer validation carries significant weight. Practitioner communities, user groups, and customer advisory spaces let prospects learn from existing customers before they buy. Slack and other B2B software brands grew largely through this kind of peer-to-peer advocacy.

Own the community you build

When community-based marketing works, it compounds: every member who joins, contributes, and invites others increases the value of the space for everyone else. That compounding only accrues to your brand if the community runs on infrastructure you own, with engagement data you can act on.

social.plus provides that infrastructure layer for apps: chat, feeds, groups, moderation, and analytics delivered through SDKs, APIs, and UIKit, so brands can launch social experiences inside their own products instead of sending users to rented platforms. Explore pricing or talk to our sales team to see how an in-app community would work for your app.