Bill Johnston over at OnlineCommunityReport recently released the 2007 survey results from those running communities online. Fifty respondendts commented on the average yearly spend, staffing and other statistics. You can get the report here from Bill.
I am particularly interested in measurment and reporting. Here is one key question and answer included in his report about how those running communities (90% were commercial enterprises) justify their activities:
Question 14
From your experience, what are examples of effective strategies and tactics for
making the case to management for investment in online community activities?
Summary:
Key strategies and tactics for making the case to management for community
investment were:
- Report Direct Revenue: Report on direct revenue from Community Members.
- Establish Comparative Costs: Compare cost of the same result or activity in other
media, like blog post comments vs. the cost of hosting a focus group.
- Communicate Cost Savings: Cost savings by hosting community, including support
call deflection. Word of mouth vs. traditional marketing vehicles.
- Compare value of Member vs. Non-Member: Track and compare activity of subset of
community member vs. non-member activity, including activity outside of community.
- Highlight the Direct Connection: Communicate the disintermediation opportunity for
businesses, especially if your business is not directly selling to customers. Their online
community creates a connection with the customer during and after the sale being
handled by channel.
- The 24/7 Focus Group: A subset of your community will be giving real-time feedback
on initiatives, products and company activities. “Human voice compliments the
numbers.”
- Evangelist Creation and Mentoring: Communities attract your biggest fans and give
them a place to connect with others, in the process creating new evangelists.
- Communicate the Cost of Not Being Engaged: Including increased marketing
spend, and the threat of competitors engaging prospects and taking existing
customers.
- “Value for all Departments” Communicate the broad value back to the business,
including:
- “HR - Recruiting talent through fostering relationships with engineering interns
and other prospects
- Customer Service - Tie in to the KnowledgeBase and help users help
themselves and others
- Sales - pre/post sales, online
- EBC (executive briefing center), lead gen
- Marcom/Marketing - brand awareness and loyalty
- Engineering - product development/enhancements"
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