Digital Community Leaders - Madeleine Milne

This week, Madeleine Milne joins us to chat about her experience and insights into her work as a Digital Community Leader. Madeleine is the founder of Customerization, a company supporting businesses and entrepreneurs through the power of community.

Madeleine Milne has an inspiring variety of experience in a range of different roles, which seem to have led her down the community path - in which she is an excellent and passionate leader.

From music publication to founding multiple projects, Madeleine offered a lot of great advice during our conversation, with her expertise shining through.

From Customer to Member

Consumer behaviours was a theme throughout our discussions, and there were some excellent points made about how this has changed over time. Nowadays, consumers are wise to what businesses are working towards, and many of the methods used to grab their attention.

It's becoming increasingly clear that a sense of belonging ignites a personal investment into a business, which can spark greater retention.

Madeleine explained that treating your demographic as a community member - rather than a conventional patron - is likely to have a longer lasting effect on someones interest in an organisation.

“Consumers are very much wanting to be involved in what organisations are doing. They're much more purpose-driven and value-led. They want to know what products stand for. It's now the time for community.”

Providing Value

A very topical conversation point was the need to provide value, given the current economical climate. With the overall downturn in the economy, people are naturally being a lot more savvy with what they spend their money on.

Consequently, to really capture and engage a community, it's really important that what you're doing is providing value for each consumer. Little bonuses in the services you provide can go a long way to achieve this.

For example, giving introductions, submitting clients for awards, or supplying forms of training etc. could all be that one extra reason someone needs to invest in what you're doing.

Becoming a purely transactional service could lead to a lack of retention. Even Netflix lose subscribers sometimes!

“If you're part of a community, you're much less likely to give up.”

There was so much high-quality insight in this episode of the Digital Community Leaders podcast. To listen to the full conversation, check it out on your podcasting platform.