Businesses aren’t built solo
Centre for Social Innovation, January 2022
Strategy, design, copywriting
Traditionally, the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) sees an influx of leads in January. After all, a new year means new resolutions… and new purchases to make those resolutions a reality.
But this January, Ontario was in the midst of its third lockdown, so we couldn’t conscientiously run a coworking campaign.
Instead, we decided to push our $36/month “base” membership offering: no physical workspace, just virtual access to CSI’s community of entrepreneurs and changemakers. Now, this wasn’t office revenue we were talking about, but it was something to tide us over until cases went down.
THE TL;DR
Business problem: Money. We need money. (It always comes back to this, doesn’t it?)
Audience: People who want to change the world (i.e. early-stage entrepreneurs).
Human problem: Being an entrepreneur is lonely.
Insight: You know you don’t have to go it alone, right?
Advantage: There are hundreds of entrepreneurs in CSI’s network. They’re all ready and willing to lend a hand (or a shoulder) when you need it.
Strategy: Show that a CSI’s community will make your entrepreneurial journey a little less lonely.
Channels: Email.
Results: 23 leads.
People need people.
When you have a big idea, it’s easy to get lost in your mind. And when you’re trying to change inequitable, unfair systems that have been in place for decades, it can feel like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Having someone who understands what you’re going through — or, even better, has done it themselves and come out better for it — is invaluable.
Social entrepreneurship, social innovation, changing the f*cking world — whatever you want to call it, it’s deeply personal. It’s easy to feel like every setback, every delay, everything you choose not to do hurts the very people you are trying to help.
Sometimes what these folks need is business advice or coaching. But a lot of the time, they need the camaraderie and emotional support of other people going through the same thing they are.
In short: people need people.
Community is our secret sauce.
It just so happened that CSI recently completed a massive survey of existing members and alumni. Overwhelmingly, we found that the people who love CSI love us for the community.
These numbers confirmed what we knew in our gut: there’s something magical that happens at CSI, and that magic all comes down to the most caring, generous, and supportive people walking through our halls (or hanging around our listserv). That magic is what makes CSI special.
63% of people who chose to join CSI did so because they were looking for community.
Results from CSI’s 2021 Member Survey
Putting the insight to the test.
Literally. With an A/B test.
We decided to send an email campaign to our mailing list. These were warm leads: people who had interacted with CSI in one way or another, and knew, at least vaguely, what we were about. We haven’t had much success with cold leads, and, also, sending an email was free. (If you count the Mailchimp subscription fee and… my salary.)
I wrote two introductions: one doubling down on finding support (professional and emotional) at CSI, the other highlighting how our staff helps new members find their footing in a new community. (The latter aimed to tap into the fear of joining a new group and not being heard — I show my work in the appendix.)
Then I built out the rest of the email: identical subject lines, pre-headers, images, and membership details.
I sent the tests to half of our audience and waited 24 hours for leads* to come in. There was a clear winner: the change makers, entrepreneurs, and innovators in our audience resonated with finding emotional support. Ultimately, we generated 23 leads. The year before, we sent out a four-part email campaign, and the best-performing email yielded 29 leads.
*Why leads? Opens and clicks are great, but our goal was conversions. That said, if one introduction got more clicks but less leads, it’d be worth testing as top-of-funnel messaging.
Appendix: Finding your footing in a new community
I had explored this messaging as another option, but ultimately my gut said “go with emotional support” — and my gut was right. Here’s a quick summary of my thinking:
Human problem: Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone is also scared of rejection.
Insight: Knowing you have someone who will back you up makes speaking up easier.
Advantage: CSI’s Community Animators help new members wayfind. They won’t leave you hanging.
Strategy: Show that you won’t get lost in a sea of thousands.
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