April Roundtable Webcast

4.3.2008

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Welcome

• Introductions• Housekeeping• Research Highlights: Online Community

ROI Models and Reports• Report Back from SxSWi - Jake McKee

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Introductions

• Your Name (I’ll call on you)• Your Organization• Your Title• What is the most challenging ROI or Value

reporting issue that you are struggling with?

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Housekeeping

• Online Community Research Network site– Members Directory

– Request Advice

– Documents - being updated weekly

• Blogging policy– Please do!

• Next Topic: Online Community Marketing, Growth and Engagement

• Sponsors:

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ROI Models & Reports

• Study initiated in January 08• Report Published in March 08• Sent out 1000 invitations, received 150+

responses• Participants included:

– large software companies, – large community destination sites, – niche community sites, – independent consultants– platform providers– Interactive marketing & advertising firms

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ROI Models & Reports

Highlights• Two main roles are clear: Community Manager and

Community Moderator• Strategy: 67% of respondents said they were actively

developing a strategy• Goal alignment: 59% felt Community Goals in line

with Organization’s goals• Measurements tools & techniques: Leaning heavily on

“defaults”• Metrics that are critical: Walk through highlights• Reporting results: Stakeholders skew to C-level,

satisfaction is mixed• Elevator pitch: 2-3 points of value

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ROI Models & Reports

Q10: Please briefly describe your staff resources including full-time employees, contractors, and outsourced functions.

• Crucial Roles: Community Manager & Moderator– Community Manager: drives features, content and

activity programs, technical (platform) decisions, metrics collection and reporting.

– Moderator: a community liaison, advocate, and “keeper / enforcer” of the rules.

• Avg 6.6 full time employees (88 Respondents)

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ROI Models & Reports

Q12: Community Strategy in Place?

34

58

15

3

Yes, a comprehensive strategy isalready in place = 31%

Actively developing our strategyas we move forward = 53%

No strategy in place now; we areessentially feeling our way = 14%

Not yet = 3%

s

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ROI Models & Reports

Q14: Community / Corp Goal Alignment

36

29

19

11

2

13 Very closely aligned = 33%

Closely aligned = 26%

Loosely aligned = 17%

Somewhat aligned = 10%

Not aligned = 2%

N/A = 12%

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ROI Models & Reports

Q15: Measurement Tools & Techniques

40

18 15

5

8486

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

Defaultreports

StandardWeb Metrics

ManualHarvesting

Word-of-Mouth

Other Surveys

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ROI Models & Reports

Q16: Metrics Critical to Demonstrating ROI

75

74

72

70

59

45

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Traffic patterns & statistics

Community member engagement

Unique number of visitors

New Member Registrations

Member Satisfaction

Product feedback and/or ideation for R&D

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ROI Models & Reports

Q16: Metrics Critical to Demonstrating ROI

33

31

29

27

27

25

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Number of referrals to the community bymembers

WOM generated by community

Transition of lurkers into active members

Impact of the community on revenue

Mentions of organization or brand on othercommunity sites

Ratio of Comments per post

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ROI Models & Reports

Q16: Metrics Critical to Demonstrating ROI

20

20

17

16

13

13

12

11

11

10

0 7 14 21

% product forum posts that receive answers

Promote of cmty members to moderators

Keywords for forums & blogs

Cost savings for Customer Service

Av. # Customer Service tickets / month

Other

# of product trial downloads

Av. # Tech Support tickets / month

Cost savings for Tech Support

Av. time for a response

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ROI Models & Reports

Q16: Metrics Critical to Demonstrating ROI

0 50 100 150 200

Online Community &Social Media

Software company

Non Profit

Media Company

Consultant

Community memberengagement

Traffic patterns & statistics

Unique number of visitors

New Member Registrations

Member Satisfaction

Product feedback and/orideation for R&D

Number of referrals to thecommunity by members

WOM generated bycommunity

Transition of lurkers intoactive members

Mentions of organization orbrand on other communitysitesImpact of the community onrevenue

Ratio of Comments per post

Promotion of communitymembers to moderators orcommunity leadsPercent of Product Forumposts that receive answers

Keywords for forums & blogs

Cost savings for CustomerService

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ROI Models & Reports

Q17: Reporting Results

12

12

9

8

7

3

3

1

31

24

0 8 16 24 32

C-Level Staff

VP

Director

Manager

Others

Client

President

BOD

SVP

Owner

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ROI Models & Reports

Q21: Satisfaction

19

15

22

4

8

103

Very satisfied = 23%

Satisfied = 19%

Somewhat satisfied = 27%

Dissatisfied = 5%

Unknown = 10%

N/A = 12%

Other = 4%

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ROI Models & Reports

Q21: Satisfaction9

4

6

4 4 4

2 2

1

5

2 2

0

1

3

00

3

6

9

# MembersBasic MetricsOnline Content

# Visitors# of PostsParticipation# Page views

# of Comments

Very & Somewhat Satisfied

Satisfied & Dissatisfied

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ROI Models & Reports

Q23: Compelling Sources of Value (a.k.a the “elevator pitch”)• Faster and more efficient than customer support

• “Using (discussion groups) is more efficient then email, telephones or fax. It saves us time and money and increases our ability to service the consumers in our sector.”

• Availability of information and content for specific areas of interest

• Increases site traffic / more engaged relationship with us• “Our members consume 49% more average page views per

session every month than non-members.”• “Our community sites get more than 3 times the engagement

for solutions, capabilities and use case content than our traditional sites.”

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ROI Models & Reports

Q23: Compelling Sources of Value (a.k.a the “elevator pitch”)• Co-creation / co-learning

• “We will have the opportunity to get first hand feedback on products and ideas for improvements and enhancements.”

• “We have been able to gather more than a thousand best practices/lessons learned in two years use.”

• Lead Generation / Conversion• “When we enlist our community members to represent us

physically or virtually, our reach and conversion metrics dramatically increase.”

• People are saving time / building skills by using our site:• Build customer loyalty:• Online community is growing our membership base

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ROI Models & Reports

Q23: Compelling Sources of Value (a.k.a the “elevator pitch”)

• People are saving time / building skills by using our site:• “Our community members credit participation in our community

with their increased skills in using our products.”

• Build customer loyalty:• “Employees who belong to the community almost never 'turn

over'. They are consistently the best performers out in the stores.”

• “We have doubled the size of our community membership in the last 6 months. 2 years ago, only 34% of our Company's upsells and renewals were also members of the Community. In 2007, 75% of our upsells and renewals were Community members.”

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Discussion

• Open for questions

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Thanks for participating!

Next Roundtable in June!