A vertical online community is an environment where customers and their vendors come together to help each other succeed. Vertical communities reflect meaningful customer segments. The more narrowly defined, the more relevant the content, the more value they provide to all parties. Communities facilitate interactions that are both synchronous and asynchronous, and also in person. Successful communities must be based on candor, trust, helpfulness, and discretion. This presentation outlines community drivers and enablers, the challenges addressed and benefits received by all stakeholders, the dimensions that deliver successful communities (Content, Community, Commerce), development processes, community participants, how to measure success and much more.

1. The Value of Online
Vertical Communities
Helping Meaningful
Customer Segments Succeed
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2. What is a Vertical Community?
• A vertical online community is an environment where
customers and their vendors come together to help each
other succeed.
• Vertical communities reflect meaningful customer
segments. The more narrowly defined, the more relevant
the content, the more value they provide to all parties.
• Communities facilitate interactions that are both
synchronous and asynchronous, and also in person.
• Successful communities must be based on candor, trust,
helpfulness, and discretion.
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3. Community Drivers & Enablers
• Technology:
– There are more digital “feeds” of information than ever before with
more people watching, reading and participating in those feeds
– Cross-channel integration of feeds
– Explosion of devices enabling 24/7, location agnostic feed access
– Cloud computing
– Measurement and analysis tools
• Culture:
– Far greater willingness of participants to engage and share content
– Content Creation has become democratized
– Age of the Customer: customer empowerment
– Socialization of marketing
– More unity between IT and marketing
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4. Challenges Addressed
• Customer Challenges • Vendor Challenges
– Lack of responsiveness from – High cost of support
vendor – No brand loyalty
– Frustration using purchased – Limited referrals
products – Unclear how to be customer-
– Long learning curves focused
– Use of expensive consultants to – Unclear how to “do” & measure
succeed customer engagement
– No or little acknowledgement from – Difficult to learn what customers
vendor of suggestions, ideas or want/need
complaints – Cross-sell and up-sell opportunities
– No way to learn purchase criteria not based on knowledge of
or best practices from other customers
customers – Customers expect to interact with
– No community recognition of good vendors online 24x7
ideas/suggestions – Less than satisfactory search
results
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5. Benefits of Vertical Communities
• Customer Benefits • Vendor Benefits
– Responsiveness from vendor – Reduced support cost
– Ensure success in use of product(s) – Increased loyalty, support for brand
– Build expertise and domain – Makes being customer-focused a
knowledge reality
– Easier access to broader pool of – Source for innovative product,
subject matter experts service and business model ideas
– Feedback heard and magnified – A place to float new ideas to
with potentially greater impact customers
– Learn new approaches from other – Cross-sell and up-sell opportunities
customers based on customer knowledge
– Recognition – Unity driver for IT and marketing
– Analytics – of members, as a
reason to build community
– Employee community
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6. Dimensions of Vertical Communities
• The value of the web lies at
the intersection of content,
community and commerce.
Communities will vary on the Content Community
degree to which they
emphasize each depending
on purpose.
– Training & support Commerce
– Customer experience
– Word-of-Mouth referrals
– Purchase decisions and sales
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7. Measuring Success
• Community success metrics include:
– Revenue tracked back to community members
– Referrals by community members to prospective customers
– Revenue generated directly or indirectly by ads, sponsorship,
membership fees
– Reduction in customer support costs
– More efficient/faster close rate
– Number of visits and members, free and premium
– Active participation of community members/engagement
– Improved brand reputation
– Improved customer satisfaction
– Amount of User-Generated Content (UGC) and user comments
– Amount of third-party tweeting, posting, links, etc.
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8. Core Processes
• There are
several
processes
that must be
defined and
managed for
a vertical
community
to succeed.
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9. Vertical Community Participants
• Host company: marketing, sales, support, IT,
product development, executive management
• SMEs – bloggers, journalists, technologists
• Content catalysts
• Evangelists
• Participants
• Lurkers
• Rabble rousers
• Problem solvers
• Problem sufferers
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10. Pathways to Community Engagement
Social
Vendor Media
•Twitter
•Facebook
•LinkedIn
•Blogs
•YouTube
Vertical
•Bookmark sites
Community •Virtual Events
•Email/newsletters
•Twitter Direct Contact
•Customer support
•Traditional marketing Customers
•Events
Traditional marketing and social media marketing must be
integrated in order to maximize the effectiveness of both.
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11. How to Stimulate Engagement
• Develop a deep understanding of the audience through demographics,
psychographics, support and education needs, problems and challenges,
satisfaction with status quo, and others
• Narrow the focus and purpose of the community
• Create & maintain relevant content
– Content sources include internal, external, user generated (UGC), crowd sourced
• Add new content on a regular schedule & promote its availability
• Recognize and reward UGC and referrals
• Use multiple social media platforms AND traditional marketing to drive
traffic to community
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12. Attitudes for Community Success
• Host • Participants
– Customer centric – Supportive
– Open-minded – Candid
– Candid – Collegial
– Listening – Willing to provide content
– Helpful and insight
– Staff are empowered to – Take “ownership” of vertical
address issues community
– Committed to convictions
– Willing to recognize
contributors
– Clearly set customer
experience expectations
– Shares “ownership” of
vertical community
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13. Target Company Attributes
• Products / Services • Customer Attributes
– Have complex products/services – Want access to expertise 24/7/365
– Offer products/services that can be – New to product/service or upgrading
customized – Want insight into performance metrics and
– Customization requires users to have value
significant knowledge – What is impact of product/service on
– Evolutionary: products/services can be co- customers’ culture
created in collaboration with customers. – New staff need to get acclimated quickly
– Products/services that have commodity or
near commodity status but can be used in
• Brand
innovative ways – Care about customer loyalty, referrals,
satisfaction, levels of engagement
• Operational – Want a platform to address issues being
– Growth in customer base taxing support discussed socially
staff and budget – Want a platform to announce new
– Want to provide customers with access to initiatives
expertise 24/7/365 – Want a platform to gather real-time
– Want to augment existing support feedback
capabilities without driving substantial – Care about reputation management
budget increases
– Want regularly, high value contact with
customers and prospects
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14. Target Company Commitments
• Internal culture • Customer experience
– Every action taken tells customers their – Interactions = moments of truth when
value customer learns if promises made will
– Listen more than talk/push be kept
– Embrace customers teaching & helping – Employees are empowered to care for
each other customers
– Deliver what is promised – Experiences should match the level of
– Organization structure driven by what’s importance, value, meaning of the
best for customer interaction
– Committed to customer centricity • Technology enablement
• Internal processes – Driven by internal culture, internal
processes and customer experience
– Integrate community insights with
traditional databases
– Integrate into existing marketing, sales
& support messaging
– Sales, marketing, IT & support
participation in development &
information sharing
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15. Developing Vertical Communities
• Market research and analysis
• Define community segments
• Identify strategic opportunities
Community
• Prioritize segment needs
Assessment
• Define success metrics
• Define benefits
• Define supporting features
Community • Look and feel
Design • Define needed content
• Determine best technology platform
• Build out community platform
• Content acquisition and/or creation
Community • Identify and incorporate measurement tools
Implementation
• Recruit members
• Marketing and social media strategy design and implementation
• Editorial review
• Content acquisition and/or creation
• Success measurement and analysis
Community • Capture community innovation ideas
Management
• Retain members
• Primary research with members
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16. Thank you.
Harry Klein
Customer Engagement Strategies
1-781-559-8202
hklein@customerengagement.com
Twitter: @CustEngagement
www.customerengagement.com
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