Latest / Community Marketing with Fexingo: Discord, Slack Groups, and Brand Communities / How ZoomInfo Built a Community of Sales Pros
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a question that comes up a lot in B2B marketing circles: can you build a genuine, engaged community when your product is something as dry as a sales intelligence database? I mean, it's not exactly a fitness app or a beauty brand. Luna: Right, the classic challenge. People don't typically feel passionate about a data vendor. Lucas: Exactly. But ZoomInfo, the B2B contact data company, has actually pulled it off. They launched what they call the ZoomInfo Community back in 2020, and as of this spring, it has over 50,000 active members. Not just passive lurkers — these are sales and marketing pros who regularly contribute. Luna: Fifty thousand active members is serious. How did they get people to engage with a data platform? Lucas: They leaned heavily into the idea that their users — sales development reps, marketing ops managers — are already part of a profession that relies on shared tactics. Cold email templates, prospecting sequences, ICP definitions. ZoomInfo realized they could host that conversation. Luna: So it's less about the product itself and more about the job the user does every day. Lucas: Exactly. The community is structured around use cases, not product features. There are groups for 'Outbound Sales', 'Marketing Operations', 'RevOps', even a group called 'Women in Sales'. Each has its own moderators, many of whom are power users of the platform, not ZoomInfo employees. Luna: Smart. Let the users own the conversation. What about gamification? I've seen that work well in other B2B communities. Lucas: They use a points and badges system. You earn points for posting, replying, and having your answer marked as helpful. Top contributors get a 'Community All-Star' badge that actually shows up in the product interface — so when a prospect is evaluating ZoomInfo, they might see that a potential champion in their industry is a recognized expert. Luna: Oh, that's clever. It turns community participation into social proof for the user's own career. Lucas: Exactly. And it feeds back into the platform's stickiness. ZoomInfo also runs quarterly challenges. For example, in Q1 of this year, they had a 'Cold Email Throwdown' where members submitted their highest-performing email templates, and the community voted. The winner got a feature in ZoomInfo's official blog and a $500 gift card. Luna: But isn't there a risk of the community feeling too corporate? If it's seen as just another marketing channel for ZoomInfo, people will tune out. Lucas: That's the tension. ZoomInfo has been careful to keep the tone peer to peer. They don't allow sales pitches in the main discussion threads. There's a separate 'Marketplace' section where partners can offer services, but the core channels are strictly about sharing best practices. They also have a 'Feature Requests' board that's highly visible, and product managers actively respond there. Luna: So it doubles as a feedback loop for product development. That's a major benefit. Lucas: Huge. They've actually built features based on community suggestions. One example: users wanted the ability to export lists directly to Salesforce without a third-party tool. That feature request got enough upvotes that ZoomInfo prioritized it and shipped it within two quarters. The community saw that their voice mattered. Luna: That kind of responsiveness is rare in B2B. Most companies just have a support portal where tickets go to die. Lucas: Right. And the data shows it works. ZoomInfo has reported that community members have a 30% higher net retention rate than non-members. They also spend more time in the product — because they're learning new use cases from peers. It's a classic community flywheel. Luna: Thirty percent is a massive lift. But what about the cost? Running a community of 50,000 active users isn't free. Lucas: They have a dedicated community team of four people — two community managers, one program manager, and one part-time content curator. They also use a platform called Khoros for the forum software. So the total cost is probably under $500,000 a year, including salaries and tools. Compared to the lift in retention, that's a bargain. Luna: That's a great example of a community that's not a cost center but a retention engine. I want to zoom out for a second — what can other B2B companies learn from ZoomInfo here? Lucas: The big lesson is: find the job to be done that your users already care about, and build the community around that, not around your product. ZoomInfo's product is data, but the job is 'becoming a better salesperson'. That's a much richer conversation. Luna: And don't over-polish it. The best communities feel a little messy because real people are talking. Lucas: Exactly. They also didn't try to launch with a big bang. They started with a private beta of about 500 invite-only users — their highest-engagement customers — and iterated on the format before opening it up. That's a smart, low-risk approach. Luna: Before we move on, I want to touch on something that's been on my mind. These shows take a lot of work to research and produce, and they're ad-free because of listeners like you. If you've gotten value out of our community marketing episodes — maybe a tactic you've actually used — it would mean a lot if you'd consider supporting the show. Lucas: Yeah, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, but if it's made a difference in your work, that's the best way to keep it going. Luna: And we really mean that — the support goes directly into making these deeper dives possible. So thank you to everyone who already chips in. Lucas: Alright, back to ZoomInfo. One area I think they could improve is internationalization. Right now, the community is very us centric. Most of the case studies and templates are geared toward North American sales motions. If they want to grow globally, they'll need local language groups and region-specific content. Luna: That's a fair point. But overall, they've built something that a lot of B2B brands only dream of — a self-sustaining community that drives retention and product improvement. I think it's a model worth studying. Lucas: Absolutely. One final takeaway: don't underestimate how much your customers want to learn from each other. Even if your product is 'boring', the people who use it are not. Give them a place to connect, and they'll surprise you.