Webupon

The art of marketing dictates that the design and development of marketing strategies and processes is the first step to understanding brand recognition. Idea generation, discussion forums and blogs, customer surveys, and marketplace research all provide the necessary data to formulate and develop a detailed marketing strategy. But because the Internet has armed the consumer with the ability to greatly influence prospects and customers, these strategies should also include mechanisms that encourage interactive engagement among your sales and marketing staff, partners, and customers.

In order to understand the topic-driven discussions people are having about your brand, you have to first participate in these conversations. Through the use of social networks and online communities, the feedback you receive from the public can be evaluated and developed into marketing plans that deliver measurable ROI.

So what are the steps to help you get started?

Step #1: Define and develop goals for your online community (target audience, measurable metrics, consistent processes, etc.)

Step #2: Generate relevant topics associated with your brand, and seed your community site with those things. Then give your customers the opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions.

Step #3: Leverage your employees by providing training and education on how to use social networking tools. (Yes, you really do want them to engage directly with your prospects and customers)

Step #4: Measure and evaluate the feedback from employees, partners, prospects, and customers.

Step #5: Stay committed to community growth. Showcase your best contributors and do what you can to get the word out about your community site.

Step #1: Define and develop goals for your online community.

Step #1 requires that organizations clearly define their objectives for the use of online customer communities, including:

(1) Identifying the target membership audience for the community

(2) Determining how your customer community is different from your competitor’s community

(3) Establishing measurable goals, such as total members, average level of member engagement, site visits, etc., and

(4) Defining the overall purpose of the customer community—is the goal to use it in integrated marketing campaigns, as an online customer support function, as a supplement to traditional online advertising, etc.?

Whether it’s a public-facing community for your product or service, online customer communities allow you to understand and participate in the topic-driven discussions people are already having. Therefore, clearly defining the goals at the beginning is critical to the overall success of supporting your brand with this new initiative.

Once you’ve defined and developed your goals, you’re ready to move on to Step #2.

Step #2: Seed your community site with relevant topics associated with your brand, and give your customers the opportunity to provide feeback and suggestions.

Whatever the aim of your community—product support Q & A, customer experience testimonials, a new branding initiative, etc.—seed your community with those things. For example, if your product is recycled paper and your goal is to educate visitors on the benefits of recycling, seed your online customer community with more than a Web log about why recycled paper is good. Record little-known facts about the benefits of recycling, small steps customers can take today to help protect the environment, and maybe even offer a coupon to a local store where recycled paper can be purchased. In order to extend your brand online, you have to make sure your community is not isolated to a single forum or blog. The content has to be robust.

Another suggestion: Provide prospects and customers access to valuable 3^rd-party comments about your product or service. By offering these unbiased reviews, articles, etc., you help build awareness of your community site. Customers feel more free to express their views, post their opinions, and communicate in your open forums when 3^rd-party comments are published on your site.

You can also link your online customer community to multiple areas of your product site. Remember to pull the best community content into other parts of your Web presence.

Finally, empower your customers to share their opinions and experiences with your brand . . . and let them know they’re being heard. (Participants are more likely to provide encouraging and supportive feedback if they feel ownership in what is being marketed).

Now it’s time to get those closest to your brand involved. Let’s move on to Step #3.

Step #3: Leverage your employees.

Provide your staff training on how to use social networking tools (i.e., how to set up a blog, respond to a discussion forum, post files to the media gallery, etc.), and you’ll quickly learn that your employees become the front line to engaging and connecting with your customers on the Web.

Have your employees:

• Generate content and help answer questions.
• Ensure that first-time visitors get an immediate “feel good” response.
• Provide a clear message of the community’s purpose and the value to the user.
• Showcased as experts. (Remember that customers love to communicate with the people who can actually stimulate change).

NOTE: If your staff is reticent about this new initiative, develop a “socialization plan” that motivates them to participate in the online customer community. One way to drive employee adoption is to monetize involvement in the new venture. But don’t get frustrated. Sometimes it’s just a process of retraining your employees, and that takes time.

Above all else, make sure feedback loops are in place. You want your employees, customers, and prospects to share content, but you also want to know how to improve your product or service.

That leads us to Step #4 . . . .

Step #4: Measure and evaluate the feedback received.

Participants are more likely to express their views (either positive or negative) about a product or service when it’s in the context of an online customer community. This information and data retrieved from the participants’ feedback can be used to improve customer service. Once that data is evaluated, focus groups can then be developed to address specific issues, and information posted to the discussion boards about upcoming releases, responses to outstanding issues and concerns, and events can be provided to the customer community at large.

Because social networking is becoming a driving force and an expected commodity when introducing and promoting a product or service, this step requires that you constantly evaluate what your prospects and customers are saying about your brand.

Use business intelligence tools to provide detailed analysis of your forum threads, track answered/unanswered status of comments, and measure the overall sentiment threshold. By taking time to do this, you can quickly identifying influential community members, measure and analyze customer and prospect behavior, and calculate the incremental value of the customer community. When you understand how the online community is being used by its members, you can more accurately measure your ROI and brand recognition.

Once you have these metrics in place, you’re ready to move on to Step #5.

Step #5: Stay committed to growth. Showcase your best contributors and do what you can to get the word out about your online customer community.

As more companies (your competitors included) begin to incorporate the use of online communities to promote their brands, we will continue to see a new type of dialogue that encourages user participation in the development, evaluation and promotion of products and services.

In order to keep customers coming back for more, showcase your best contributors as community MVPs. Remember that they are doing this out of a commitment to your brand and that their recommendations are priceless. Show appreciation by creating rewards for those who consistently show up and form the backbone of your community.

Another way to stay committed to the growth of your online customer community is by spending the necessary resources to make it a success. Establish a small team that is committed to moderating and participating in the community. Keep your site dynamic and unique. Be accountable to and ready to hear feedback about your brand, product, or service.