The business value of community.

Online communities can transform your business in a number of ways. Over the next few pages, we’ll take a brief yet very important look at 5 key ways in which communities can provide business value to organizations - from bringing in leads and driving sales, to increasing brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Brand Loyalt

y

Market Research

Acquisition

Support

Social Commerc

e

1. Customer acquisition

•Organizations can save up to 30%* in the cost of generating inbound leads and opt-ins online, just in the first year of building a community.

"Leads from inbound links are 5 times more likely to close than outbound leads." - Hubspot

*Based on data collected from over 100 community implementations between 2005 and 2011.

2. Market research

•Companies can cut their annual market research costs in half*, in just a year of building a research community.

•What's more, they can exercise better control over the research process and receive better quality data.

*Based on data collected from over 25 implementations of communities for research.

Benefits of community-driven

research

Naturalistic Setting

Engaged, motivated

participants

Relevant timely

actionable results

Large open

ended data @

low cost

3. Quality service, reduced support costs

•Companies typically achieve up to a 20-30%* decrease in weekly support tickets, within the first 3 months of implementing a thriving community.

•From our experience, well constructed support communities cut call centre costs by almost 30%* in the first year of operation.

photo: allthingscrm

*Based on data collected from over 40 implementations of support driven communities.

4. Brand loyalty

•While a softer measure, communities can turn the most angry of customers into loyal fans and brand advocates.

“Customers who engage with companies over social media are more loyal and they spend up to 40 per cent more with those companies than other customers.”*Bain & Company, 2011.

5. Commerce

•Community users spend 54%* more than non-community users!

•Communities can be monetized. In fact, the more niche a community (and the interests of its members), the more opportunities it has for building unique business models.

photo: buddy media/spinback

*Jupiter, 2006.

Interested in learning more?Visit out website, download our Community Needs Assessment or contact us via email/phone.Gabriel.Tait@sequentiaenvironics.com

416 203 3656 ext. 231