Better Outcomes Through Innovation(tm)

The Age of Online Community Leverage

We've entered the next era of the Internet's development - the "Interactive Rich Media" era. We see it all around us in the latest social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, with social book-marking sites like Digg, Delicious and Squidoo, along with the mainstream adoption of streamed video and podcasting. 

Web blogs and forums provide a convenient way for people to express themselves, and then to get feedback on their thoughts, which helps further shape and develop these thoughts into more powerful ideas - some of which take hold and have a major influence in today's online society.

Each of these sites is like a magnet, attracting flocks of visitors who are hungry - for entertainment, social interaction, and a place to "belong".  People have a need to belong.  Belonging to a group provides people with a sense of direction, a greater sense of purpose and a more profound realization of being "alive" - due to the simple ability to share their experiences and lives with others via an online "community".

Online communities are (relatively) safe places to meet other people who share common interests, goals and needs. The Internet provides all of the tools and places to create communities, enable relationships to be built within the community... and to capitalize on those relationships in appropriate ways.

Community Leverage is the collective term being given to a set of strategies developed and proven in various niche markets, beginning with the Internet Marketing marketplace - a niche market full of Internet entrepreneurs selling digital information products (e.g., e-books, video courses), software tools and software as a service (SaaS).

As it turns out, when you create a "purpose-built community" around a hot topic or niche, it's relatively easy to attract and motivate a very large group of prospects and potential customers - due primarily to the "leverage" that's inherent in the scale of the Internet itself and the available communications tools (e.g., email, blogs, forums, videos, webinars, social media, etc.).

It also turns out to be an incredibly effective way to:

• Identify new market opportunities
• Validate market needs quickly
• Create new product prototypes and test them with real customers
• Find out whether a product is really ready to take to market
• Get real customer testimonials before the product goes to market on a broad scale
• Find out what the biggest questions and sales objections are that must be handled to sell the product effectively
• Create a "big bang" of initial sales that jump starts the new business unit quickly

What are the advantages of an Internet-based community for my business and/or product?

Properly done, Internet-based communities and related launches create an early adopter community comprised of eager buyers - who then spread the word about the new product throughout their own spheres of influence - before, during and after the initial launch.

Using Community Leverage methods provides numerous advantages to both existing and new businesses:

• Enables product teams to ensure they provide what customers really want and need most
• Enables marketing teams to ensure they are interlocked properly with development and customers
• Enables go-to-market teams to ensure initial success
• Enables business unit owners to achieve must faster profitability by reducing costs and time, minimizing waste and mis-steps and maximizing initial success
• Enables sales to quickly recognize the successful product, leading to faster adoption by sales teams and partners

What are the objectives for Community Leverage campaigns?

1. Create topic-focused communities that are qualified early adopters to guide product development, design and go-to-market activities
    
2. Educate the community on problem/solution space & product offerings
    
3. Build a relationship with tens of thousands of prospects highly efficiently - becoming their trusted advisor
    
4. Create massive awareness and buzz around the product that's coming; e.g., "spy photos" of the product before anyone else has seen it, demo clips, webinars with the product managers, architects, and developers, teleconference interviews with analysts and experts, etc. By openly sharing this publicly, the early adopter community begins factoring the new product into their life well ahead of its actual release, advancing the normal adoption sequence "clock"
    
5. Validate the product's readiness for the market with real customers, addressing any significant issues or shortcomings before the product is formally released broadly to the public and sales channels
    
6. Gain hundreds of credible testimonials before the product launches
    
7. Create social proof - of the vendor's credibility in the space and product's suitability and readiness through peer customer discussions
    
8. Uncover real customer questions and objections so that marketing can properly equip sales to overcome them during the sales process
    
9. Bring early adopter customers and resellers together, creating a "big bang" of product sales, kick starting the revenue engines quickly
    
10. Generate sufficient initial sales that thrusts new products into "rapid profitability":  Drive Profitability On Day 1(tm)
     

Why not just "stick" with more traditional methodologies?

These days, people are trained to filter out most forms of advertising and promotion, rendering traditional broadcast methods increasingly ineffective and cost prohibitive.

And when potential customers do hear about a "new product," the initial reaction is "fine, let me know when it's ready or when someone else has worked the kinks out of it."

Instead of reacting to broadcast marketing methods, customers now respond directly by "opt-in" to specific channels of information that's actually of interest and relevance to them; i.e., customers expect the ability to choose what to listen to and what to ignore.

Broadcast methods are still useful, but more as a means of creating awareness and driving sufficient interest for prospects to actually opt-in to our focused channels of relevant information.

Unfortunately, "traditional" methods fail to achieve most of the objectives stated above. Instead, those campaigns rely upon "broadcast marketing" techniques to "get the word out," often resulting in lengthy and iterative post-release cycles and a learning process that is more diffuse, less focused and increasingly ineffective.

Effective marketing today involves achieving the right balance of traditional, offline and Internet marketing - including taking full advantage of Community Leverage as a competitive, profit-producing weapon in our marketing arsenals.