ONLINE COMMUNITY

PERFORMANCE
DRIVING REVENUE OR BECOMING DEAD ZONES?
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Introduction 29 Community Satisfaction & Support

5 Executive Summary 32 Analyst Bottom Line

6 Online Community Adoption 35 Acknowledgements

10 Communities & The Buying Process 35 About Influitive

14 Community Participation & Content 37 About Demand Metric

19 Community Performance 38 Appendix – Survey Background

25 Community Participation
INTRODUCTION
Conceptually, branded, online communities1 seem like a great strategy for increasing prospect and customer engagement and
getting all the benefits of doing that: shorter sales cycles, a better customer experience, more loyal customers, and ideally,
greater revenue. Modern marketers don’t dispute these potential benefits of online communities. What is largely unknown is
the degree to which online communities are delivering these benefits.

As they exist in their current form, do online communities represent more potential than kinetic energy? How well are the
organizations that have online communities experiencing the benefits of having them?

Rather than serving as revenue-generating assets, many communities have become “dead zones,” rarely visited and
showing no signs of life. A comment made by one survey participant reflects this “dead zone” status: “we can’t figure out how
to create one [a community] that actually works.”

Online communities have reached critical mass in terms of adoption, with a majority of organizations reporting that they have
one. Even a vast majority of those that don’t have an online community agree that these communities are an effective way to
help drive revenue. What’s less clear is how well organizations are using online communities to drive revenue. For that to
happen, communities must live in the critical path of creating the customer experience.

1Demand Metric defines Online Communities as website and private Social Networks that enable members to interact in a controlled setting that are created and
maintained by a company or group to foster communication among peers or likeminded individuals.

3
INTRODUCTION
Furthermore, adequate participation by the right people is necessary, resulting in a steady stream of high quality
content. This holistic blend of people, participation levels and content are creating results that meet expectations. This is not a
difficult blend to understand, but it has proven elusive for many brands with communities.

In a study sponsored by Influitive, Demand Metric completed a survey to measure how well communities are
performing. This research gathered data to learn what organizations were expecting when they implemented their online
communities, and what outcomes they are getting, including who is participating in generating those outcomes. The goal of this
study was to provide benchmarks that organizations can use to strengthen their online community efforts.

4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Online communities are found across many industries, but they have a strong presence in technology sector, from
which almost half of participants came. Most of the respondents were from B-to-B organizations that are experiencing
revenue growth, and the size of company that responded to the survey ranges from less to $10 million to over $1 billion.

The analysis of this study’s data provides these key findings:

 63% of organizations report having a branded, online community.

 The most frequently cited reason (25%) for not having a community is that it is a low priority.

 A vast majority (67%) of those who don’t have a community believe that branded, online communities are an
effective way to help drive revenue, not just offset technical support costs.

 For respondents with communities, just 21% report that it is very likely for customers to encounter the community during the
buying process, and just 18% say their community helps support that buying process to a great extent.

 Just 6% of participants report that their communities are meeting all their expectations, yet almost half plan to increase
the budget, staff and resources for communities in the next year.

This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data. For more detail on the survey participants, please
refer to the Appendix.

5
ONLINE COMMUNITY ADOPTION
Figure 1: Well over half of surveyed organizations maintain an online community.

Existence of a Branded, Online Community?

More organizations report having a branded, online

Yes 37% community than not, as Figure 1 shows.

In October 2014, Demand Metric published its initial

research covering online communities, which also
No 63% measured the presence of a branded, online community.
The adoption rates in that survey and this one are
almost identical.

Online Community Performance Benchmark Study, Demand Metric, April 2015, n=251

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ONLINE COMMUNITY ADOPTION
Figure 2: The top reason cited for not having an online community is that it is a low priority.

Reasons for No Branded, Online Community While most of this current study focuses on those
organizations that do have communities in place, those that
Familiar with benefits; low priority 25% do not were asked why. This data helps uncover the
perception of online communities from those who have
Simply haven't looked into it 19% yet to commit to one.

Don't believe benefits justify one 10% Figure 2 summarizes the reasons survey participants
provided for not maintaining an online community.
Unable to justify 9%
Figure 2 shows that for the most part, participating
Satisfied with other tactics, e.g. social media 9% organizations either haven’t investigated implementing
a community, or that having one is a low priority.
Unsure of benefits 8% What’s also clear is that few study participants view other
tactics, such as social media, as good alternatives or
Other reasons 20%
replacements for online communities.
0% 10% 20% 30%
Online communities have achieved some level of
differentiation in terms of their positioning as an
Online Community Performance Benchmark Study, Demand Metric, April 2015, n=251 approach to customer engagement.

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