5 Strategies that Define Harley Davidson’s Community-Building Success
It is hard to find a better example of community building than Harley Davidson.
They are one of the most successful motorcycle companies around the globe. Everyone knows about them; even if you are not a bike culture fan ( I know you are lying 😀), you will still associate bike culture with them.
You might be surprised to learn that one of the key strategies that has helped them reach a valuation of 3.77 billion dollars (as of November 2023) is leveraging community building.
So, if you are a brand that wants to increase brand loyalty, customer engagement, and overall success, it would help if you learned how they achieved it.
Let’s begin with 5 community-building strategies that have helped Harley Davidson become so big without further ado.
1. Build Personality
One thing that makes a brand stand out from its competitors is personality. And Harley Davison is the master behind it.
To understand the importance of brand personality, let’s look at an example.
Imagine yourself attending a party where you meet two strangers. The first one is easygoing & loves to talk. Meanwhile, the second person is both rude and antisocial.
Who would you prefer to talk to again?
The first one, without a doubt. As it has a good personality, and unlike the second person, they are not rude. And even though the second person has a personality, it’s not appealing at all.
Now, if you have ever watched Harley Davidson’s marketing messages, ads, or social media handles, you would have noticed that they don’t shy away from presenting their personality. Not only that, they do it effectively and are consistent with their personality (which is, again, a key to brand personality).
Their brand personality portrays them as masculine, powerful, and adventurous. And one thing that stands out is their eternal love of freedom.
Harley Davidson also holds strong opinions, and they are not afraid to stand up for something they believe in.
These qualities make them different from other brands and get them so much attention.
2. Rise above Stereotypes
At one point, Harley Davidson noticed that their brand was becoming associated with certain stereotypes, like masculinity, power, freedom, rebellion, and adventure.
And they didn’t want this to happen.
They knew their brand personality helped them stand out. However, it limited their reach to a different group of people, and they wanted to rise above it.
To break from this stereotype, they started a campaign called #stereotypicalHarley in 2012. And it succeeded instantly. In this campaign, they targeted a different spectrum (niche) of people who did not previously associate with their brand.
With this campaign, they beautifully woven those audiences along with their brand.
With growing trends, they also dare to grow. This is an excellent lesson for the brand on community building.
It is a reminder that even though you have a brand tone, voice & personality, you should still dare to rise above stereotypes.
3. Focus on selling a lifestyle, not a product
I’m sure watching Harley Davidson ads would make you want to leave your desk, work, and everything behind and embark on an adventure.
This is the power of building brands around lifestyles.
Most brands have already started doing this, and Harley Davidson is one of the brands that stands out. Despite a tough market, their audience is still loyal.
They love Harley-Davidson because it gives them purpose and identity.
Like here in this ad:
Here they have not even attempted to sell any of their products. But still, they have showcased the lifestyle Harley Davidson customers want to live.
4. Leverage the power of emotion
In one episode of Shark Tank India season 1, Aman Gupta (Founder and CMO of Boat Electronics) said, “Price main Kabhi Nahi khelna chaiye”.
It means that in the market, you should not compete by cutting down your price or product quality. Instead, you should focus on building a brand. Now, I am not saying that they are not important, and don’t influence the buying decision (Walmart is an exemplary example). But they won’t help your brand become a market leader.
Harley Davidson has done this.
In the 1980s, when they faced low sales, they shifted their focus and started building their brand centred around emotion. They understood that pricing and quality strategies alone wouldn’t be enough to stand out, so they shifted gears and focused more on leveraging emotions.
That’s why their customers are not just customers but also brand ambassadors. And there is no better marketing channel than user-generated content and word-of-mouth.
Similarly, they don’t sell bikes, but they sell freedom, power, strength, and the essence of life. Emotions.
When building communities, you should also remember this: use emotions. It will instantly accelerate your community’s growth.
5. Know your customer
When in 1981 they noticed a decline in sales because of Japanese companies’ arrival in the USA. They immediately understood that they had to focus on listening to their customers.
Since then, Harley Davidson has devoted most of its time to understanding what its customers say on social media and what they want.
They started conducting marketing research and even during Daytona Bike Week (a famous yearly motorcycle event in Florida) they interact with customers through their employees through generating real-time marketing research. They also started focusing on gathering other data to make better and more informed decisions.
When you are starting to build your community or in the process of improving it, you can drastically improve your community performance by just listening and observing how your customers behave.
Updated November,2023.
