5 benefits of b2b success communities

5

Success Communities

Hannon Hill Corporation

950 East Paces Ferry Road

Suite 2440, Atlanta, GA 303

www.hannonhill.com

o: 678.904.6900

f: 678.904.6901

5 Benefits of B2B

Success Communities




www.hannonhill.com

678.904.6900

678.904.6901

Benefits of B2B

Success Communities




www.hannonhill.com

678.904.6901

Benefits of B2B

Success Communities

6

Benefits of B2B

Success Communities

Benefits of B2B

Success CommunitiesSuccess Communities

© 2008 Hannon Hill Corporation, all rights reserved.

950 East Paces Ferry Road ∙ Suite 2440 ∙ Atlanta, GA 30326 o: 678.904.6900 f: 678.904.6901 w: http://www.ecrowds.com

Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 3

Build Transparency & Credibility ............................................................................................................................ 3

Improve Quality & Depth of Content & Make it Relevant ..................................................................................... 3

Give Your Best Community Members a Voice in Shaping Your Company ............................................................. 3

Now is the Time ...................................................................................................................................................... 4

Drastically Improve ROI .......................................................................................................................................... 4

About eCrowds ....................................................................................................................................................... 5

About Hannon Hill .................................................................................................................................................. 5

5 Benefits of B2B Success Communities 3


950 East Paces Ferry Road ∙ Suite 2440 ∙ Atlanta, GA 30326 o: 678.904.6900 f: 678.904.6901 w: http://www.hannonhill.com

Introduction

If you're in marketing, chances are you're always looking for ways to add value to your organization, its

community, and its message. While there are many distinct applications on the market that provide some of

the tools needed to build an online community around your product or service, there are some solutions that

combine the added value of community building with the convenience of consolidating the systems that

power your web presence. Building an active customer success community can benefit your organization in

countless ways; we've outlined the top five reasons to engage customers and build brand with online

corporate communities below:

Build Transparency & Credibility

Allowing your users to vote ideas both up and down, suggest product ideas without censorship, and make

their voices heard affords your organization two benefits: improved transparency of information and opinions,

and added credibility. Eliciting both positive and negative product and service reviews improves your

organization’s reputation in the eyes of prospects by showing them you have nothing to hide. This creates an

immediate sense of trust between prospects and your organization. In addition, by being open and honest

with product and service-related information via the use of wikis and discussions, you will earn respect from

stakeholders. Beyond simply gaining stakeholder buy-in though, embracing all types of user reviews and

feedback, will also earn your business respect from prospects and the most cynical of web browsers.

Improve Quality & Depth of Content & Make it Relevant

Most content and community management solutions out there allow you to select to which people you do

and do not grant community access. Limiting access ensures the right community members will contribute to

your success community. In many cases, a user community limited to those members that actually have a

vested interest in your offerings, is best. Private customer and prospect communities result in active and

invested contributors who continue to add to discussions, ideas, content, and comments. Additionally,

assuring contributions and activity form the right group ensures your community will be a dependable and

relevant resource in addition to reassuring your community that they are dealing with a credible organization.

Solutions that provide the ability to tag and rate content also afford added-value by tying content together

with keywords, enhancing correlation, and strengthening your overall web content.

Give Your Best Community Members a Voice in Shaping Your

Company

With so many solutions in the marketplace, it may be difficult to determine which tools will be of most benefit

to your company. Think about what means you'd like to make available for community involvement. If your

company's offerings are best suited to be discussed via a corporate wiki, make sure the solution you choose

provides wiki functionality. Along these lines, providing a forum, idea exchange, discussion platform, blog, and

best practices wiki may also benefit your community and its communication about your products and services.

Make collaboration a click away and engage your community so you can tap into their collective wisdom. Keen

insight gained from suggested new features, product improvements, and new ideas can only benefit your

5 Benefits of B2B Success Communities 4


950 East Paces Ferry Road ∙ Suite 2440 ∙ Atlanta, GA 30326 o: 678.904.6900 f: 678.904.6901 w: http://www.hannonhill.com

organization in shaping its vision and offerings in the future. Additionally, some platforms allow you to

recognize your most active and valuable community members, by keeping track of number of posts,

community ratings of each user's feedback, and the like. Furthermore, improve relevancy and "stickyness" of

your web content by allowing your community to draw correlations between different ideas, tag content, and

rate contributions to give further momentum to the best ideas and insights.

Now is the Time

With the recent influx of popularity in social networking, social media, customer communities, and Web 2.0

functionality, so too has there been an equally impressive influx of vendors on the market selling such

solutions. While these vendors are competing for the limelight in the market of brandable content and

community platforms, now is the perfect time to capitalize on competitive pricing and market momentum.

Again, it is critical that your organization evaluate which tools it needs to truly build its brand and community.

Blogs, forums, idea exchanges, discussions, and wikis are all key tools to look for in a community and content

management platform. Make sure you have a functionality checklist put together before researching

solutions. For example, if your organization only needs one, or a handful of these tools, one platform may be

much better suited for you than another. Where some solutions provide true wiki functionality, for example,

others do not; this is something to keep in mind when shopping for a community and content management

platform.

Drastically Improve ROI

Countless studies have been conducted and conclude that organizations benefit tremendously by fully

engaging their communities. Not only are there inherent organizational and financial benefits to doing so, but

online success communities streamline prospect/customer/vendor interactions and collaboration. However,

one of the main arenas in which to look for improvement due to use of such a platform, is your organizational

ROI. For example, community users spend an average of 54% more than non-community users1. For these

members, the sentiment that they are attached and invested to your organization and its products or services,

is meaningful. These users come back consistently to contribute to your community, and end up bringing more

than just sales dollars to your company. These individuals display high levels of customer loyalty, another

aspect that is increased tremendously with creation of corporate success communities. In fact, community

users visit sites nine times more often than non-community users visit those same sites2. There is something

to be said for improving your community and its collaboration. Additionally, processes are streamlined by

doing so. Costs per interaction for typical customer support average $12 via a contact center, whereas support

via self-service options, such as success communities, is only $0.253. However, not only are there financial

benefits to using a content and community building platform at your organization; it is also the tacit and

intangible benefits, such as building loyalty, adding value, and gaining industry respect, that truly speak to the

benefits of using a content management and community-building platform.

1 Ebay, 2006.

2 McKinsey, 2000.

3 Forrester, 2006.

© 2008


5 Benefits of B2B

© 2008 Hannon Hill Corporation


About eCrowds

eCrowds is an on

management

their communi

platform provides an on

providing a realm for the sharing of ideas and content. eC

is ideal for businesses of all sizes, including: technology companies, mid

sized b2b organizations.

About Hannon Hill

Founded in 2001, Hannon Hill is a leading provider of web content management software

and creates web marketing solutions that give people and organizations the freedom to

manage their Internet, Intrane

Hannon Hill was recognized by

representing the top 500 fastest

Located in the high

management solutions. Its products enable users to easily update their websites through an easy

Hannon Hill's content ma

while decreasing associated costs.

Hannon Hill’s WCM solutions provide core content managemen

solutions have been implemented in all types of industries, including

education, energy, hospitality, and publishing. We provide a comprehensiv

modules to manage the complete content lifecycle.

enefits of B2B Success Communit

Hannon Hill Corporation, all rights reserved.

950 East Paces Ferry Road ∙ Suite 2440

eCrowds

eCrowds is an on-demand content

management and social web 2.0 elements. eCrowds allows organizations of all sizes to harness the wisdom of

their community via the use of blogs, wikis, forums, and idea exhange functionality. The eCrowds community

platform provides an on-



sized b2b organizations.

About Hannon Hill


creates web marketing solutions that give people and organizations the freedom to

manage their Internet, Intrane

Hannon Hill was recognized by

representing the top 500 fastest

Located in the high-tech capital of the South, Atlanta, GA, Hannon Hill continues to deliver high


Hannon Hill's content management solutions allow users to maintain up

while decreasing associated costs.



energy, hospitality, and publishing. We provide a comprehensiv


Success Communit

, all rights reserved.

Suite 2440 ∙ Atlanta, GA 303

eCrowds

demand content-centered community platform that merges the best of content

and social web 2.0 elements. eCrowds allows organizations of all sizes to harness the wisdom of

ty via the use of blogs, wikis, forums, and idea exhange functionality. The eCrowds community

-demand means to capitalize upon the collective wisdom of web 2.0



sized b2b organizations. For more information about our

About Hannon Hill



manage their Internet, Intranet, Extranet and Portal content with ease

Hannon Hill was recognized by Inc. Magazine

representing the top 500 fastest-growing private companies in the nation.

tech capital of the South, Atlanta, GA, Hannon Hill continues to deliver high


nagement solutions allow users to maintain up

while decreasing associated costs. Hannon Hill continues to accelerate its customers’ online success.





Success Communities

, all rights reserved.

Atlanta, GA 30326

centered community platform that merges the best of content



demand means to capitalize upon the collective wisdom of web 2.0



For more information about our



et and Portal content with ease

Inc. Magazine, placing 247

growing private companies in the nation.




Hannon Hill continues to accelerate its customers’ online success.





o: 678.904.6900





providing a realm for the sharing of ideas and content. eCrowds is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, and


For more information about our platform, visit



et and Portal content with ease

placing 247th

amongst the prestigious






Hannon Hill’s WCM solutions provide core content management capabilities for managemen



678.904.6900 f: 678.904.6901





rowds is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, and

is ideal for businesses of all sizes, including: technology companies, mid-sized marketing companies, and mid

platform, visit www.ecrowds.com



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solutions have been implemented in all types of industries, including technology, health

energy, hospitality, and publishing. We provide a comprehensive tool set that provides all the necessary

678.904.6901 w:






sized marketing companies, and mid

www.ecrowds.com



. Most recently,

amongst the prestigious Inc. 500,

tech capital of the South, Atlanta, GA, Hannon Hill continues to deliver high-quality content

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t capabilities for management of online information. O

health care, marketing,

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http://www.hannonhill.com




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www.hannonhill.com



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www.hannonhill.com

5 benefits of b2b success communities

Documents

east paces ferry road

online community

build transparency credibility

product ideas

best community members

online corporate communities

negative product

countless ways weve