Feature
The Gist
- Paying for the privilege. Professionals are ready to pay thousands of dollars in membership fees to be part of exclusive paid professional communities offering learning and development.
- High expectations. Members expect next-level experiences and access to best-in-class mentors and experts.
- Does the shoe fit? The audience and the opportunity are there, but should B2B brands take it on?
It’s the age of information overload. “Best-in-class” coaches and gurus shower us with free advice from every digital corner. Almost every brand — B2B or B2C — has a free-to-access resources page overflowing with ideas, insights and how-tos. There’s no shortage of groups and private social networks — whether on LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Discord, or Mighty Networks to learn, network and grow with. Enter paid professional communities.
Rising Trend: Paid Professional Communities Reshape Business Growth
Despite that — or perhaps because of it — paid membership communities for professionals are having their moment in the sun. In a world of abundant yet shallow online connections, the era of paid-membership communities — where the barriers to entry are higher, the bonds are deeper and the benefits are exclusive — is only just beginning.
Let's take a look at some of those private communities:
- Chief, a private, paid membership for female founders, was valued at over $1 billion in 2022 and has annual membership costs close to $6,000.
- Hampton, a private community for founders and entrepreneurs with revenues of over $1 million, had 3,000 applications on Day 1, despite membership priced at over $8,000.
- The Commons is a private career membership where top talent learns high-demand tech skills within a curated community.
- TroopHR is a national network for HR leaders to learn, connect and elevate their careers amongst top talent from leading organizations.
- The South Park Commons caters specifically to founders who are in the ideation stage, looking for connections to help turn their vision into a concrete idea.
- Be The Upside offers a network of support and essential resources specific to the needs of independent consultants.
Quality Over Quantity: The Rising Value of Paid Professional Communities
Most of these paid member communities are built for business professionals. The core is the member experience, which cannot be separated from the community experience. Though membership is paid, all applicants are vetted to ensure they are a good fit for the community and are able to create as much value for the community as they themselves get from it.
Motivation
What motivates members to pay for the privilege of interacting with a group of peers in a curated, professional environment? Speaking to several paid members of these communities led me to some recurring reasons:
- The quality of the community
- The opportunity for professional and personal transformation
- Learning about new ideas
- Getting inspiration for innovation
- Finding new collaborators and opportunities
- Finding purpose and support
- Seeking accountability partners
- Accessing premium content
- Interacting with like-minded individuals
- Receiving personalized support or guidance
Growing Businesses
But above all, the purpose of membership is not to do business, but to grow their business. Most of these paid professional communities have a no-sales policy. Members measure their “ROI” more in qualitative terms (how much they learn or grow) rather than quantitative terms (how much business they generate from the network or the value of free perks and amenities). If all that had to be distilled into one word, it would come down to quality. The quality of the members and the experiences.
Related Article: From Reach to Retention: Let Your Brand Shine on Private Social Networks
Are Paid Models a Good Idea for B2B Brands?
Many paid communities for business professionals are run by independent coaches, influencers, consultants and content creators who had already amassed a large following on social media or other platforms. Alternately, they are run by companies for whom the community is the product, and whose revenue model is membership fees.
When it comes to B2B brands, however, there is an inherent tension in asking paying customers to pay separately to be part of an exclusive group of customers and then potentially wanting to sell more to them!
Balancing Community Engagement & Business Value
That is not to say B2B brands don’t get community. In fact, 58% of the top SaaS brands and 40% of B2B brands have dedicated brand communities. The challenge is that these communities, while useful in building customer engagement and brand loyalty, are not always sustainable. The 2023 Community Industry Trends Report found that while 80% of respondents reported that their (mostly free) community has had a positive impact on the business, only 44% believe their organization will be increasing their investment in the community, down from 62% last year.
This next stat may offer a clue as to why that is: only 10% of companies can actually quantify the impact of their community on the business in financial terms, and only one-third can connect their community data to their customer data.
The fact is membership to brand communities is rarely paid. The whole point is to grow and engage their community of users so that they may be nurtured to buy more, or eventually help sell more, as brand advocates.
Not the Product, but Nice to Have
For B2B brands, the community is not the product, and the membership fee is not the revenue model. So, the community often becomes a “nice-to-have,” often the first to get the chop when budgets are tight.
But it’s 2023, and the experience economy is booming. There is a huge appetite in the professional world — especially younger generations — for access to more intimate, high-value experiences with an exclusive community of peers. And the success of the many private, paid communities shows they are willing to pay for it. For B2B brands that get it right, it can be a bold strategic move, an additional source of revenue, and a powerful source of insight and influence.
If you are considering it, here are three aspects to factor in as you build your business case.
Related Article: Tips to Build a Highly Engaged User Community
Three Considerations for Paid Professional Communities
Clarity of Purpose
Brands considering a paid membership community need to clearly distinguish between paid member-only communities and loyalty or reward programs, fan-based communities, social channels or private social networks. While the former is about paid access to an exclusive membership, the rest are all ways to grow an audience and better engage the user community.
Breana Teubner, COO of community-building platform Try Your Best, said a mindset shift is essential. “The key is to think of community as a growth channel. This helps build a direct relationship, delivers the right engagement opportunities, and makes it easier to measure results," she said. "The value proposition to join a paid community has to be clearly communicated, enabling an individual to be not only part of something bigger than themselves (ideally connected to the brand mission), but also to express their identity within that experience."
Teubner also highlights the need to think about the right technology to manage paid communities. The platform should enable the community to hear, see, and talk to each other seamlessly, digitally or physically. The brand should be able to measure that engagement and connect it to purchase data for the best results.
The Learning Model
Learning is a key element of any community. Paid-member communities specifically expect a mix of collaborative, peer-to-peer learning as well as expert small-group or even 1-to-1 interactions with people who have been-there-and-done-that, executive coaches, mentors and guides. For example, The Commons offers a membership for top talent to learn high-demand tech skills within a curated community. This model combines learning, mentorship and community to deliver stronger learning outcomes for members. This is a far cry from open-to-all webinars or troubleshooting forums that free brand-supported communities usually offer.
Scale, Longevity and Member Retention
For members of paid-for communities, member retention is entirely dependent on how much value they find in the personal and community experience. But more important, since these are membership models, the community needs to grow with the member, or the member will outgrow the community.
For example, Venwise, a decade-old C-suite membership group, curates the member experience by dividing them into cohorts based on company stage and size, giving members new and distinct value at each stage. Free communities tend to remain static, with more new members joining as they discover the brand, and older members slowly becoming inactive as their initial needs are met.
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An Emerging Model for the Evolving Experience Economy?
B2C, and especially D2C brands, are already leveraging the paid-membership model effectively, but the nature of member expectations is distinct from what professionals want from paid business communities.
For B2B brands, it comes down to customer needs, business goals and available resources. With the right value proposition, a paid community could well be an additional source of revenue, but more importantly, it could seal the brand’s place as a leader in the rapidly innovating experience economy.
