brandedcommunities playbook

ENGAGE LIKE NEVER BEFORE, WITH A COMMUNITY LIKE NO OTHER

Julie Paul, SVP Communities

Communities PlaybookJanuary 2017

www.corporate.toluna.com

Information about the communities who took part: UK, USA, APAC communities. Total Base 6,456

• Majority of communities are within the media sector (42%) or ‘general’ category (32%). The remainder were in a mix of education, consumer goods, auto, finance or entertainment industries

• Community sizes were either 5k, to 5-10k in general

• The study fielded in September – October 2016

Julie Paul, January 2017

Learning what motivates community members to engage - and put your brand in the heart of deep conversations

At Toluna, we’ve been building communities for years and one of the topics we feel is most important to provide best practice for our clients, is engagement. In simple terms, engagement means having a strong connection with your community members to elicit thoughtful opinions and insights and maximize your return on investment.

It means members are both interested and involved. They are participating in the community.

It’s important for 2 reasons: 1. Better quality data 2. Save money

We undertook a study with our clients, and asked them to provide us with access to their community members, and we designed a survey to better understand members’ motivation for participation, likes and dislikes, and more.

Here’s what we found.

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Traditionally, Community-Panels offer three main benefits:

1: Provide deep engagement with customers to really understand what they are thinking about your brand.

• You do this by interacting directly with customers through a number of methods – qualitative activities, discussions, and survey; it’s an iterative process where you interchangeably are doing qual and quant research, this provides continuous insights and also has the side benefit of building advocacy.

2: The second benefit is just good quality data.

• Community-panels will generally garner higher response rates than a traditional panel, if the panel is managed properly and the members are engaged.

• Communities and the software platforms they use allow you to gather extensive data on each individual member and aggregate that in a number of ways – you have all the profiling data you collect when members join, all the data you collect through qual and survey activities, and you can layer on segmentation and so your entire community is segmented into meaningful groups.

• Your community offers multiple data sources – you can easily and quickly pre-test questionnaires with small groups, validate qual data with quant, and then layer on other data points such as from CRM databases to really get a very rich set of quality data.

• This iterative process allows you to collect insights over time, tracking community members over weeks, months and even years.

3: Return on Investment.

• All of this offers the benefit of very comprehensive research, over time, for an overall fee that is economical (e.g. you might spend 100K on the initial community set-up and build, but will likely spend over 100K in research over the first few months – and these panels can go on for years, amortizing your initial investment even further).

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Playbook v1 – Key Finding

In developing our Playbook V1 last year, we did a survey of our clients who have a community and asked them how valuable they found their community and how often they did research with their community members. The vast majority (87%) reported using their communities at least weekly, with a large sub-segment saying even daily. And that statistic makes sense, because we know that the more you use your community and amortize the initial cost of building it over several research studies, the higher the return on investment. So the trick is to go out to your community members as much as possible – BUT, without burning them out. Which leads us to the whole topic of engagement.

ROI comes from RECRUITING a panelist and then USING them

as much as humanly possible, without burning them out.

59%28%

Report using their community at least

once each week

Report using their community

daily

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Clients often ask, “From your experience with all the communities Toluna has, what goes into the most successful ones?” My answer is immediately, “Member Engagement!” And it’s true, the communities we have that are the most successful are where there is a high level of member engagement.

Member Engagement is important for 2 reasons: 1. You will have better quality data from higher survey response rates and richer, more in-depth responses in open-end verbatim answers – both on discussions and survey.

2. You will save money – if you look at the big picture - it requires an investment of time and funds to implement a good engagement strategy, but the payoff is in members who stay longer with your community and therefore less time and cost on recruitment of new members; engaged members also tend to refer friends to the community, so another savings on recruitment costs.

Engagement means having a connection with your community members to elicit thoughtful opinions and feedback. It means they are interested and involved. They are participating in the community.

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A platform for expressing my opinion

Being able to express myself is a nice thing in regards to products and topics that interest me

Primarily the best thing about being part of a community is to be able to share opinions express views and feedback.

I want to share with you what community members have said to us about WHY they joined the community and why they continue to participate. You may be surprised to learn that it is not for the chance to win 100 bucks or to get 20 points for an Amazon voucher. Although those things are important to them, as we will see later, the #1 reason why they join and why they stay is because they want to share their opinion, and express their views.

www.corporate.toluna.com 6


The first step in a highly engaged community is setting goals relevant to the type of community you have. Setting goals is important because the things needed to ‘engage’ members takes time and therefore, cost money.

The obvious goal of course, for an online research community, is to have high participation rates in qualitative research and high response rates to surveys. The type of community you have will help to drive what your engagement goals should be. A community focused on qualitative research will typically gain insights through observing the behaviors and discussions of your members.

These types of communities tend to be small and require heavy participation through online discussions, possibly one on one interviews, and sometimes observation of what your community members are posting, what comments they are making and how they are interactive with other members.

Engagement goals for these types of communities should center around achieving a high participation rate for discussion posts and commentary, as well as a goal for the number of members posting their own topics for discussion. Looking at how much time a member is spending on the site is also important.

On the flip side, communities focused more on quantitative research with survey as the primary method of insight would require engagement

goals centered around individual survey response rates, as well as a higher segment of ‘medium to heavy responder group’ vs. the ’non or low’ responder group.

Many research communities fall on the quali-quant spectrum where there is a good amount of both qual and quant research going on. For these hybrid communities, goals centered around both survey response rates and participation rates on the community site, # of visits to the site, a # and quality of posts on discussions, is where you want to start.

Another consideration when setting goals for engagement is to think about the affinity your members will feel toward your community. If the community is branded, then there will be a naturally higher level of engagement – the members can relate to the brand and feel like they are contributing to helping the brand.

If the community is unbranded, then your work will be harder in building engagement. Your engagement plan, which we will talk about in a moment, will need to be more extensive and with a blind community and your rewards may need to be greater in quantity and value.

Setting Goals

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Once you have specific goals, you then need an Engagement Plan. The plan lists out the tactical things you will do to achieve your goals, with timelines. It spells out what you are going to do to drive participation. The plan does not need to be a 50 page document – keep it simple so you will execute it. The plan is not set in stone, you can and should change it over time, as you learn more about the nuances of your community.

Some examples are:

- a monthly newsletter- an annual satisfaction survey- choosing a member each month to be the VIP of the month

and profiling who they are to the other members- posting a discussion on a specific topic that members themselves

have told you is of interest to them- offer a surprise reward – pick a member who gave you really valuable

input and give them something, then announce it within the community

There are a lot of different kinds of activities you can do to engage with your members – this is just a few ideas. The point here is that you need a plan and to execute that plan.

Engagement Plan



Surprise RewardPurchase an item relevant to the community & give it to the member who has participated the most in the past 3 months

Discussions

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Provide members a forum to discuss topics relevant to the community (topics submitted by members or by client).

Winner Postings

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Brand Impact Piece

6

Article with survey results showing how insights influenced new products.

Updates to website with latest winners of sweepstakes.

To provide members information on the impact their contribution is having to the community.

To understand satisfaction with the community & ways we can improve to drive higher participation levels.

To provide members a good ‘1st experience’ and build trust.

Within 1 day 1st Monday of the month

February 4th Tues of the month

1st Tues of the month

Second week of month

Last week of month

Bi-monthly

Monthly VIP

5

Member Profile

4

Highlight a specific community member to encourage members getting to know one another.

Highlight and reward the community member with the highest participation in discussions that month.

Annual Sat Survey

3

Monthly Newsletter

2

Welcome Activity

1

Below is an Example of an Engagement Plan Timeline. It spells out a range of activities you will initiate with your members.

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So, you have your goals, you have a plan. Now here are the

5 rules to follow as you execute your plan

Rule 1. Make it RealRule 2. Content is King Rule 3. “Just Right” Timing Rule 4. Offer The Right

Incentive ProgramRule 5. The Platform

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1/3 of members have been on the community for more than 3 years! Another 1/3 for 1-2 years; in other words, the majority of your community members are in it for the long haul.

Creating a highly engaged community starts with realizing you are in a relationship – with each and every member of your community. I want you to think about your significant other, your Mother, your child, your best friend… think about what makes that relationship work well. (assuming it works well!)

You treat them with kindness, build trust, have open communication, set the right expectations and admit when you are wrong.

Building trust and setting expectations starts right at the beginning of the relationship – when you recruit community members, explain what they can expect by being part of your community and what you expect of them. Explain the reward program, but also explain what they can expect. For example, how many activities do you want them to participate in? Will it mostly be surveys? What other types of activities will they participate in? Will they receive a newsletter?

To build trust, make sure you deliver on what you promise, and be open and honest, when you can, share your business challenges and how the research you are conducting will help.

Be kind by thinking about the activities or surveys you are asking them to complete. Would you ask your friend to fill in a 35 minute, 10 grid survey on the topic of how often you use paper clips?

If you make a mistake – let’s say there was a computer glitch and everyone got 3 emails instead of one, or you sent out a survey that some considered insensitive. We are human, we make mistakes. Say sorry – send an email and apologize.

Finally, recognize that a relationship where you don’t really know the person very well, will require more effort to build that relationship – so blind communities where the sponsor is an unknown is going to be harder to ‘engage’ then a branded community. Think “would you like to join a beverage community” vs. “would you like to join the Coke community”?

Rule 1. Make it Real Insight: You are in a relationship!

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Content throughout the community needs to be considered and interesting. Otherwise, why would someone bother to read it? or to participate? The content you write for the community website is critical – this is the place your members call ‘home’ and you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. Share, share, share information – about your company, about your brand, about how the last survey they did made an impact on the business. Remember, members join your research community because they want to know they are making a difference in how you develop your products and services.

I hear this often “but we can’t share because the information is private - we don’t want to let the cat out of the bag ahead of the campaign, no spoilers, etc.”. I totally get it, there are ways around this: add a few questions to the end of a survey where the information is important but can be shared, do a survey just for the members where the information collected isn’t going to jeopardize anything, and finally, share the information after the critical campaign is over - it’s not too late.

Also think about the content of each activity you ask a member to participate in – the topics for your discussions need to be interesting and catchy. How can you reword to draw in your members to participate in the topic?

Be present – there is nothing better than having the Brand Manager participate by generating content for the website, or by personally asking members to probe on specific topics.

For surveys, provide thoughtful surveys that are well crafted, and an appropriate length. Ask your friend, Father, sister to do your survey, do it yourself! If they hate it or you hate it, so will your members. Be conversational in everything you present to members – whether it’s a blog, an article, a discussion topic, a survey invite, a survey question. Remember, you are in a relationship.

In all content you provide, be relevant – to the brand, to the member themselves, to the world if you can. The ultimate way to build high engagement is if you can show your members how being part of your community can benefit and be relevant to them.

Rule 2. Content is King

Insight: When asked how they would describe their community to friends, the main themes are around giving feedback, hope (to make a difference).

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And this seems to be the sweet spot, as the majority (67%) said this was about right.

Rule 3. “Just Right” Timing

3%Too often

30%Not often enough

Insight: (60%) of members take part in activities at least once a month, with 2-4 times a month more likely.

67%Just the

right amount

1%Once a year 2%

Don’t know

27%More than once

a week

19%Once a week

10%Once a month

8%A few times

a year

33%A few times

a month

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Action: • Deploy surveys and activities 1-4 times per month

• Cadence is important – sending newsletters and a ‘weekly email’ is important to train members on what to expect (remember, you are in a relationship)

Further, members told us that they usually take part in activities in the evening and generally in the first half of the week. The cadence is important because we are creatures of habit and like to know what to expect.

Rule 3. “Just Right” Timing (cont’d)


Insight: Members told us that they usually take part in activities in the evening, and generally in the first half of the week.


• Match the incentive to the audience – be relevant (e.g. a community about food, should give away different prizes for restaurants, or a ‘grocery’ shopping spree

• Match the incentive to the activity – a two hour group discussion needs an individual cash incentive, not an entry to a sweepstakes

If you must ask your members to participate in something boring, or lengthy, then be sure to offer the right extrinsic incentive. As I mentioned before, one entry into a draw to maybe win 100 bucks is not going to cut it for a 30 minute survey on the topic of paperclips. The incentive must match the activity and amount of time you are asking of your members – remember – be kind!

Same for qual, if you want members to spend 3 hours of their time each week taking pictures while shopping, spending 20 minutes an online diary every night and then participating in a 30 minute discussion, it will be important to pay them for their valuable time. The rule of thumb is think about how much time you are asking of your member and then provide an incentive appropriate for that length of time.

Knowing what the right program to offer – be it points, sweeps, judged contests, charity donations, cash, is very important on the road to high engagement. There are pros and cons to each type, suffice to say, you need an incentive program for an online community – make sure it’s the right one.

Rule 4. Offer The Right Incentive Program

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Today, there are many, many platforms out there, but I can say that there are only a few providers that can truly offer the full package – or almost the full package, there still is not one supplier that has everything, but some come pretty close – and those that do also offer the ability to use a variety of different software tools, depending on what you need.

So, to be able to provide all these wonderfully engaging activities, you need a platform that can do these basic functions:

- have the ability to customize a member website to your brand

- you need functionality that allows for interactive activities such as discussion boards and other activities

- ideally, features that allow for members to do things themselves

- post their own discussions, interact with other members on their own

- scripting features if you’re looking to do survey research

- a robust database that allows you to segment the members into different groups – low responders vs. high responders for example

- and an ability to offer points programs and online rewards

Rule 5. The Platform

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Insight: The Technology is important.



Setting Proper Expectations • Members that understand ‘what they signed

up for’• Regular communication with members• You are in a relationship!

Member Engagement • A good mix of both survey and qualitative

activities• Surveys that are short and interesting• Proper monitoring of content• Appropriate and meaningful incentive

programs

Community Management • A Community Manager who cares about

the brand• Communicate with your members• Track your success: response rates, time spent

on site, # of posts, etc.

Conclusions

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Putting It All TogetherI hope this short playbook gives you a place to start to engage your community members in a meaningful way. Once you have your panel in place and running smoothly, you’re sure to find the benefits well worth the effort.

Want to get in touch? Email us at [email protected].

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