Community-Led Growth Strategies for Small Businesses

Community-led growth (CLG) is a marketing strategy that prioritizes the opinions of customers to influence everything from product development to marketing. 

Community-led growth is a strategy that has helped activewear brand Actively Black bring in $2 million in its first year of business. “Most entrepreneurs will build the product, or they’ll build the brand, and then they’ll go try to find somebody to sell it to,” founder Lanny Smith says. “We built the audience first and then built a product that super served that audience.”

Read on to learn what community-led growth is, how Actively Black and other real-world brands have applied it, and what it takes to implement the strategy for your own business.

What is community-led growth?

Community-led growth is a business growth strategy in which a brand builds an engaged community to help achieve goals like increasing sales. That community then drives key aspects of the business, such as product development, marketing, and customer retention. 

Unlike a traditional marketing strategy that depends heavily on data analysis and paid ads, CLG is focused on bringing community members into the fold rather than reaching a target audience with ads. The people who gather around the brand shape what the brand does next through feedback, votes, suggestions, and peer-to-peer conversations.

Community-led growth strategies for small businesses

• Build your audience first
• Nurture brand loyalty by asking thoughtful questions
• Create customer-inspired marketing
• Reward customers like influencers

Choose from among these strategies to start building a community-led growth strategy around your brand: 

Build your audience first

Lanny says on an episode of Shopify Masters that he wanted to reverse the usual step of product first, audience second. The key difference for this brand launch was that he had 10,000 people waiting for it. 

Before launching any product, Lanny says he used the power of social media to test his concept and share his mission to create apparel in a space missing Black ownership. As a former NBA player, Lanny translated his experience into a mission-driven brand. 

The organic interest he generated helped him build an audience of 10,000 Instagram followers, 10,000 email subscribers, and 3,000 SMS subscribers. With an engaged audience of 23,000 people, Lanny had the right information he needed to inform his first collection.

Ultimately, this led to a successful launch on Black Friday, generating $55,000 on the first day and $2 million over the first year.

Nurture brand loyalty by asking thoughtful questions

For Set Active founder Lindsey Carter, nurturing brand loyalty starts with an authentic connection to customers. “We’ve built a collection that’s made by the community and for the community. And we have two big community collections a year,” Lindsey says on an episode of Shopify Masters.

Those collections are shaped by input from power users. “We post questions like: Do you like this color? Do you like this style? And we get thousands and thousands of votes because people like having a say in what they’re going to spend their money on,” she says. 

This level of alignment between community and brand builds trust and helps Lindsey plan for future products. “When we did our Parke collaboration, we did an in-person community dinner, and I asked everybody: What’s one product they want to see from us in the next year? Almost every single thing they said we have coming,” Lindsey says.

Such a strong relationship has paid off for Set Active. It brought in $1 million per hour during one of its drops in 2024 and eventually over $30 million in annual sales.

Create customer-inspired marketing

Since launching in 2013, women’s underwear brand Knix has always leaned on its customers to shape the brand. After customers saw the brand’s launch video introducing leak-proof underwear, they immediately had feedback. Most wanted to know if the product worked for heavy periods or spotting.

“Within the first 24 hours of launching that video and two years of work, we pulled it down,” Joanna says on Shopify Masters. They re-shot it with broader messaging that reflected what they heard from customers. “There’s just something so beautiful in being open and receptive to what the customer is telling you that they want from your product and your brand,” Joanna says. 

The theme of listening to customers to inspire marketing has continued for Knix. Joanna says Knix was the first brand to showcase its products in every size that they make. “That was the start of using real people in our campaigns, using our customers in our campaigns, showcasing different bodies, celebrating different bodies,” she says. 

By directly leaning on customers to shape the brand, Knix has seen success. It’s sold more than 50 million pairs of underwear and was acquired for $320 million in 2022.

Reward customers like influencers

Waterboy, the hydration supplement brand, took an approach to community recognition that cofounder Mike says went against the industry norm. Instead of sending content creators on a brand trip, they invited their everyday customers.

“Our customers are the ones who make our company what it is," Mike says on Shopify Masters. He says the decision came from observing that influencers regularly receive experiences most customers never do and inspired him to ask how they could uplift their loyal fans.

Mike says the team decided that the cost was worth it regardless of the direct revenue impact, but that it ended up being a good return on investment. The experience generated attention in part because it was unexpected. “Any time you can do something against the grain within reason, then generally you can generate enough buzz to support that decision,” Mike says.

Tips for implementing a community-led strategy

• Put authenticity first
• Host community events
• Use social media management tools

Keep these tips in mind as you implement community-led growth strategies:

Put authenticity first

Community engagement starts with genuinely wanting to connect with your audience rather than treating it like a marketing channel you have to manage. 

Lindsey of Set Active says that if she goes a day without talking to her customers, she misses them. Authenticity builds trust. “You can’t fake community,” Lindsey says. “Consumers can smell that from a mile away. They can tell when you don’t care.” Likewise, Lanny says sharing his own story of why he started Actively Black has worked better than any advertising they’ve done.

The most sustainable retail communities are built around shared values between the brand and its customers. A useful starting point is identifying the genuine overlap between what you, your brand, and your ideal customers actually care about and building from there.

Host community events

Hosting community initiatives that facilitate in-person interactions can help increase brand awareness and build customer loyalty. 

Waterboy, for example, brought everyday customers on a brand trip instead of content creators. This live experience celebrated the people who actually buy from the brand, as well as got people talking. 

Whether you host a community dinner like Set Active or create an entire brand trip for customers, it’s the purpose behind it that matters. Events that make customers feel genuinely valued, heard, and connected with a brand build communities that lead to growth.

Use social media management tools

Once you engage customers, you should have a strategy for how to continue interacting with them. Tools like Sprout Social and Buffer allow you to manage your social media content as well as reply to comments. 

Several platforms are built specifically for brands to host community platforms. Community platform software like Circle, Bettermode, and Mighty Networks allows you to build pages where you can share updates, ask polls, and engage with your customers on a deeper level.

If you have the budget but not the time, consider hiring a community manager or customer success team to moderate community efforts, give customers support, encourage active participation, and engage members to build trust.