Your Customers Want to Belong, Not Just Buy

Most B2B marketing feels like a first date where someone talks about themselves for two hours straight. Companies blast messages into the void, hoping something sticks, while potential customers perfect their digital eye-roll.

Meanwhile, I’m over here building communities through scaled events, watching businesses transform when they stop treating customers like walking wallets and start treating them like, well, humans who crave connection.

Here’s why community should be your marketing team’s new obsession.

The ROI of Human Connection in a World of Boring Business Transactions: 10 Business Headaches That Community Solves

1. Your Customer Acquisition Costs Are Eating You Alive

The Problem: You‘re spending more on ads while getting less in return. It‘s like paying rising cover charges for an increasingly empty club.

Community Solution: Members bring friends because they actually want to have shared experiences, not because you bribed them with a $50 Amazon gift card. Radical concept, I know.

2. Your Customers Are Playing Musical Chairs

The Problem: They sign up, look around, and promptly leave for the next shiny solution.

Community Solution: People stay for the relationships, long after the novelty of your features wears off. They’re not just buying products; they’re joining a professional family.

3. Your Revenue Graph Looks Like a Heart Monitor

The Problem: Up, down, up, down—unpredictable revenue that keeps your CFO up at night.

Community Solution: Community members spend more, stay longer, and weather economic storms because they value belonging to something meaningful. They’ll cut other expenses before they cut ties with their community.

4. Your Product Looks Identical to Seven Other Competitors

The Problem: When everyone offers the same features, you‘re stuck in a race to the bottom on price.

Community Solution: Your technology can be copied. Your community can’t. Try replicating years of relationships, inside jokes, and shared experiences. (Spoiler: you can’t).

5. You’re Building Products Based on Guesswork

The Problem: Your product team is essentially throwing darts blindfolded, hoping to hit customer needs.

Community Solution: Caring humans tell you exactly what they want, often before they even realize they want it. It’s like having a crystal ball, except it’s powered by conversations, not mystical nonsense.

6. Nobody Believes Your Marketing Claims

The Problem: Your prospects have developed an immunity to marketing promises after years of overhyped disappointments.

Community Solution: They’ll believe Susan from Acme Corp. who solved the exact problem they‘re facing. Susan’s word means social proof and carries more weight than your entire content marketing team (sorry, content team).

7. Your Onboarding Process Is a Leaky Bucket

The Problem: New users get stuck, get frustrated, and leave.

Community Solution: Veterans guide newcomers, share shortcuts, and provide the emotional support that your help docs never could. “Been there, struggled with that” resonates more than any instruction guide.

8. Your Content Team Is Drowning

The Problem: They’re expected to feed the content beast while maintaining quality, relevance, and volume.

Community Solution: Your community generates authentic stories, questions, and solutions daily. It’s like having hundreds of content creators who work for the price of belonging.

9. Your Competitors Are One Feature Away from Stealing Your Customers

The Problem: There’s little stopping customers from jumping ship when a competitor adds that shiny new feature.

Community Solution: Leaving means abandoning relationships and resources they value. That’s a much higher switching cost than breaking a contract.

10. You‘re at the Mercy of Social Platforms You Don’t Control

The Problem: Algorithm changes, policy updates, and rising ad costs on third-party platforms leave you vulnerable.

Community Solution: You own the relationship. No algorithm can take away the direct connection you’ve built through events and community spaces.

This Isn't Fluffy Nonsense—It‘s Strategic Growth

I’m not suggesting you form a drum circle and hope for increased market share. Community building is strategic, measurable, and directly tied to business outcomes.

Look at Salesforce—they‘re not just selling CRM; they’re selling membership in the Trailblazer community. That’s why they command premium prices while competitors scramble for scraps.

Or consider HubSpot, whose user groups and annual INBOUND event create such fierce loyalty that customers become walking billboards for the brand.

Events help nurture brands’ communities, some examples are: Disney’s D23 Expo, Adobe MAX, Figma Config, Canva Create, Squarespace Circle Day, Slack Frontiers, Blizzard’s BlizzCon, TwitchCon, Mattel Creations REVEALED, YouTube Creator Summit, Stripe Sessions, Apple WWDC, Twilio Signal, etc… you get it. Major brands are seeing the value in community-building.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here’s what nobody wants to admit: features are temporary advantages. Pricing strategies can be matched. But a thriving community creates a moat around your business that competitors can’t easily cross.

In my years of building communities through events, I’ve watched companies transform their fundamental business metrics—not by optimizing funnels or A/B testing button colors, but by creating spaces where customers feel they truly belong.

The Bottom Line (For Those Who Scrolled to the End)

You can keep treating marketing as a megaphone for broadcasting messages, or you can build a community that makes your business fundamentally more valuable, defensible, and human.

One approach is increasingly expensive and decreasingly effective.

The other solves ten critical business problems while creating connections that transcend transactions.

Your choice.

What’s your experience with community building in B2B? Drop a comment below—I promise to reply, unlike those “we value your feedback” automated surveys.