Community Metrics: Lessons From Udemy, Moz, and Salesforce

If you’re having trouble communicating the value of your community, you’re not alone. We’ve talked to thousands of community managers and builders, and their challenges often fall into one of the following categories:

• Tracking engagement and growth
• ROI of community building
• Communicating that to the rest of your team

We’ve seen so many common themes and challenges pop up with businesses building communities, that we put our findings into The 2021 Community Industry Report.

Fortunately, some of the best business communities have already done the hard work in figuring out how to measure ROI and report on its value to supervisors. Salesforce is one company that spent years fine-tuning its community’s ROI, and now can measure the retention and revenue from loyal members.

There are lots of takeaways in our detailed customer case studies that will inspire you to take action and start growing and measuring your community with ROI in mind. Check out some of these case studies to get going.

Case Studies

Breaking Down Udemy’s Model for Tracking the ROI of Community

Pick one community measurement goal to focus on, and optimize toward it relentlessly.

How to Measure and Report Your Community’s Value: A Moz Case Study

All of your community projects and products must serve a function. Decide who will own each function and let them manage their own area.

How Erica Kuhl Proved the ROI of Community at Salesforce
Persistence is key in community building. Erica Kuhl worked for seven years to prove the value of community at Salesforce, and it has had enormous positive effects such as decreased costs, better products, and higher revenue.

[Video] Evan Hamilton: Measuring the Retention Value of Community
Retention is the most powerful thing a community can do for a business, but it’s also the hardest to measure. Here’s how to build elements of value for your customers.

From the blog

17 Simple Ways to Measure the Value of Community in Marketing Teams

Measuring the marketing value of your community, relationship building and the purchase journey can feel daunting, but it’s doable when you define your marketing goals. Your metrics will vary, but keep a baseline success in mind to monitor progress over time.

Announcing the Definitive Study on the Business Value of Community

We set out to discover how to approach the challenges of community measurement in response to more and more questions about how to prove its value to executives, teams and entire organizations. The results from our study will provide community professionals with a roadmap for determining business value and metrics.

Build a Community Measurement Strategy You Can Be Proud Of

We built the SPACES Model to categorize the type of communities businesses are utilizing to help determine business value. But that value can also change over time and lead to a shift in your measurement strategy.

From the CMX Summit

Jenna Meister: Measuring the Success of Your Community

The hardest element of ROI is making frameworks that can apply to your own business goals.

Maia Josebachvili: How to Understand the ROI of Investing in People

Figuring out the ROI of investing in your people and community requires focusing on metrics, creating a situation analysis and proposing a solution.

2017 CMX Summit

CMX Summit is the premier conference for community professionals, founders, and organizations. Join us and hundreds of your fellow community builders in LA September 19 – 20 for 2 days of community-focused sessions and connecting with community-driven professionals.

CMX Summit brings together experts and pragmatic approaches to community for business success. Our conference seeks to expand the discussions, techniques, and tactics applied to community building and support communities and their builders at scale. We want to show businesses practical ways to invest in their communities.