building b2b communities in a low trust world
TRANSCRIPT
Building B2B Communities in a Low Trust World
Lou OrdoricaSenior Community ManagerReseller Marketing Services
Social Networking Conference2010
Agenda
• Business climate, business drivers, and business values
• Case Study:
• Construct a B2B community for $3B Hi-Tech distributor
• Building the community — methodology
• Lessons learned
A Challenging Business Climate
• “Flat is the new growth.”
• “Necessity buying” patterns taking hold
• Doing more with less is the new normal
• Margins are under pressure
• Work much today harder to earn the same dollars
• Weaker companies disappearing
• Customers putting off large purchases
Business Drivers
• ROI
• Gaining net new business
• Protecting customer base and margins
• Filling the pipeline with qualified leads
• Converting leads to paying clients
• Achieving market differentiation
• Reducing costs and improving efficiencies
Business Values
• Trust in corporations is deteriorating in the U.S.
• People buy from people they know
• “This is a relationship business.”
• Success or failure in relationships occurs “one conversation at a time”
• Golden Rule deviations usually end in tears
Our opportunity: to create a business community environment where trusted relationships flourish
Case Study
• $3B specialty distributor of data networking and phone systems with 1,500 employees
• Customer base comprised of resellers, VARs, and ISVs
• Rebooted marketing organization
• Created a marketing joint venture with channel-focused conference organizer in March 2009
• Spending less on traditional marketing and investing in community resources
• Hired Community Manager and invested in Telligent community platform
Business Goals
• Enable resellers to grow their businesses profitably
• Develop “Silver” level dealers into higher revenue producing “Gold” and “Platinum” levels
• Double revenue in 5 years
• Grow wallet share — and take it from competitors
• Gain competitive advantage through innovation and differentiation
• Develop high margin professional services business
Community Model
Community Model
physical events
1 per month
Boot Camps
Partner Councils
Customer Appreciation Events
High Cost
Community Model
physical events
1 per month
Boot Camps
Partner Councils
Customer Appreciation Events
High Cost
webinars
8 - 12 per month
Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
Citrix GoToWebinar
Medium Cost
+
Community Model
physical events
1 per month
Boot Camps
Partner Councils
Customer Appreciation Events
High Cost
webinars
8 - 12 per month
Cisco WebEx Meeting Center
Citrix GoToWebinar
Medium Cost
+ online community
7x24
Private
Branded
Discussion Groups
Managed
Low Cost
+
Building the Community: Describe the Problem
• Who is the executive sponsor? Who are your champions?
• Who are your buyers? Partners? Competitors?
• What are the “people places”?
• Web sites
• Conferences
• Meetings — physical and online
• What keeps your community up at night?
• Get guidance from executive sponsors and people invested in business goals
• What is generating the most calls?
• What are the big trends?
• Who can speak to issues and opportunities facing the community?
• Group and prioritize the resulting list of topics and people
• Conduct interviews
• Listen generously!
Reaching Out to the Community
Capture the Community Vision
• Clearly articulated, memorable, and easily repeatable
• “We want the online community to be your Google — a starting point for information, best sales practices, and networking.”
• “Enable our customers to grow their businesses with practical advice they can put to work right away.”
• “A tool that brings closer to our customers and partners— one conversation at a time.”
• Group brainstorming is best to capture and refine the community vision.
Selling the Community
• A B2B Community exists for business — customers, profits, productivity
• Make the community relevant to executives. How will the community:
• Make it easier to find new customers?
• Increase customer loyalty?
• Improve employee productivity?
• Decrease costs?
Make the Community Relevant to Executives
Benefits Area Business Impact
• Ask the Experts
• Discussion Forums
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Reduce Support Calls
• Fewer FTEs
• Decrease OPEX
• Improve OI
Reducing S
upport Costs
What Makes a Business Community?
• Community building blocks are the same
• Identity
• Belonging
• Connectedness
• Social capital
• Caring for the whole
Create Business Community Structures
• Primary audience is C-level business executive
• A “gated” community:
• Exclusive
• Controlled access
• Segmented, based on roles — very important!
• Managed
• Long-term growth
Create Community Member Personas
• Personas are fictions rooted in reality
• Describe roles, motivators, pain points, trigger words
• Use personas to guide editorial decisions — microcopy, too
• Example: William Smith is a CIO at a Fortune 500 company.
• Priorities: Growth (acquisition / retention), Controlling costs, Improving productivity
• Trigger Words: Cover Capital Costs (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Payback, Cash Flows
Select Tools for the Business Community
• Focus on the building blocks — identity, belonging, connectedness
• Leverage mass social media where it makes sense
• Survey the landscape — look at competitors
• Focus on requirements, but be prepared to wear many hats
• Design
• User Experience
• Usability and User Acceptance Testing
To Brand or Not to Brand?
• Does your company possess brand equity? Protect the brand.
• Trademarked names of products and technologies
• Logos, colors, shapes
• No or little brand equity?
• Build the community first
• Let your customer’s needs dictate choices
Build the Community Plan
• Audience definition — primary, secondary, tertiary
• Content — taxonomies that define topics and relationships
• Data sources
• Moderators
• Working Groups
• Steering Committees
• Editorial Calendar
Drive Participation with Content
Effort
Value
Aggregated tools and information covering
business functions — sell, quote, configure
Timely, productive, and visible dialogue that helps
people run their businesses
Repurposed web pages, white papers, podcasts, videos covering products
and solutions
Market research — best practices, competitive
analysis, insights
Content Taxonomy
Community Category Name Description
CEOBusiness
Enablement
Evaluating Investments
NPV, IRR, Payback, Cash
Flows
CEOBusiness
EnablementROI
Capital Costs, Risk
ManagementCEO
Business Enablement
Business Process Refactoring
Improving Productivity
Establish a Social Proof
• Follow people and adoption patterns
• Implement structures and processes that spur interest and growth
• Leverage sponsors and existing community base
• Roll up your sleeves — this is hard work!
• Create interesting profiles for your “starter” members
• Start discussion threads, write blog posts, set up wiki pages
• Get people interested and excited, and ask for their participation
Market the Business Community
• Market within the organization and externally
• B2B outbound marketing is alive and well
• Leverage communication channels and customer touch points
• Email: Newsletters, Email Signatures
• Direct Mail, Tele Marketing, On-Hold Messages
• Webinars
• Tap into existing systems used for digital marketing — SEO, CRM, SEM
Measure and Report
• Be sure to tell the stories
• Unsolicited member praise or criticism is gold
• Don’t fixate on activity — it is not the only measure of business impact
• Perceptions matter — be persistent, talk up the community at every opportunity
• Enlist champions — people who believe and can convert others
• The most useful feedback is rooted in truth. Be open and avoid defensive postures.
Lessons Learned
• Manage expectations early and often
• Delivering high value content is critical
• Embrace your role as a sales person
• Expect course corrections, sometimes mid-stream
• Guard your time and attention with vigilance
• Be courageous and take risks
• Leverage will get you to your goal faster and with less effort
Thank You
Lou [email protected]@lordorica
Subscribe to my blog:http://web-achiever.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.