A simple, cost-effective way to connect and strengthen relationships
with your customers.
An online community is a great way to develop a strong customer base and organically increase sales. This environment brings people with a common interest together to interact virtually, promoting a passion for your product by creating a forum for customers to share their experiences with others. And the best thing? It builds brand loyalty.
How?
Online communities (such as blog and interactive website users) enable and encourage connections between likeminded peers. The more your customers converse online, the more they learn about your product. Through open dialogue they discover usage tips, ideas for unusual or new uses and much more, which is so valuable AND valued, having come from people just like them.
A sense of community is fostered by members becoming known to each other, gaining credit for their contributions, and by allowing other community members to respond. The result is a steadily growing enthusiasm for your product – and enthusiastic people are inspired to ‘spread the word’ on yourbehalf.
The stats:
- Community members return more regularly, remain clients for longer and buy more.
- Community users visit nine times more often than noncommunity users (McKinsey, 2000)
- 56% percent of online community members log in once a day or more (Annenberg, 2007)
- Community users remain customers 50% longer than non-community users (AT&T, 2002)
- Community users spend 54% more than non-community users (eBay, 2006)
An effective example of a growing online community:
As a means of engaging customers at a grass roots level, the Heat Beads® company has recently embraced online community with the launch of Sizzle, the Heat Beads® blog. The sustainable growth of an impressive database of dedicated char grill BBQ subscribers is impressive. With each edition of the Heat Beads® email newsletter – emailed bi-monthly, opt in subscriber numbers increase significantly as a result of online competitions, giveaways, and encouraging existing subscribers to ‘forward to a friend’.
The Heat Beads® website is becoming recognised as a top source for all things barbecuing, and a lively and dynamic space that offers Heat Beads® customers a voice.
One thing to remember is that most online communities grow slowly at first – patience and perseverance pay off. According to Wikipedia (itself a form of online community), this is ‘due in part to the fact that the strength of motivation for contributing is usually proportional to the size of the community.
As the size of the potential audience increases, so does the attraction of writing and contributing’. Usually community members start out as visitors, and then eventually begin to participate in community life. Some will eventually become regular or even ‘leading’ contributors. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community
Treat your customers like a community and capitalise on the return the
interactions can bring. An online community provides you with:
- The opportunity to innovate more quickly and produce higher quality products as a result of the immediate and direct feedback gained from your customer community. The Heat Beads® company recently invited its database of contacts in Victoria to participate in testing a new product in order to get practical learned feedback
- A channel for discovering when you’re doing something well. Customers report good experiences in forums more than twice as often as they do via calls or mail (Jupiter, 2006).
- A more targeted, less expensive way to communicate with customers than traditional marketing channels (such as advertising and direct mail). You already know who they are, have an existing relationship with them and they are open to and interested in receiving correspondence from you.
- An enhanced reach by issuing news and event announcements, quickly, directly, efficiently and cost efficiently