Major consumer companies are still searching for the winning formula to maximize the use of Internet in gathering insights and understanding behavior of their target customers.
An emerging answer lies on online communities just like “I Love My Dogâ€, a private network for dog owners created by Del Monte, Inc.
According to a WSJ, corporate spending on this proprietary method is projected to grow from $40 million in 2007 to $69 million in 2008.
Aside from its proven effectiveness, cost is another inherent advantage of online networks. No need to spend ridiculous amount of money for focus group discussions (FGD) and telephone surveys. With little financial capital, it is very easy to create a private network or even use existing social networks such as MySpace to communicate with customers.
Aside from that, it speeds up the product development cycle because of the interactive communication and quick responses between the company and members of the community. Unlike in an FGD, companies have to wait a few months to generate and analyze insights badly needed to develop a product.
On the other hand, the biggest challenge to date is how to counter member boredom which might lead to massive withdrawal. This is where coupons, discounts, giveaways, games and other enticing offerings must be used wisely.
Originally posted on January 14, 2008 @ 9:37 am
I run a focus group facility on Second Life called the iAsk Center. We’ve been doing focus groups for all size companies, non profits and associations there since early 2007. I can tell you that conducting research with online communities has its challenges but with proper techniques and experience, we have found the groups on Second Life to be not only cost effective but provide excellent value to our clients. See information on our services at http://www.iAskCenter.com
An interesting post on engaging with consumers and forming a long term relationship to gain insight and support.
You can set up
You are absolutely right that this has to be done carefully by reaching out and selecting participants carefully and then taking care not just to sell to them.
A useful adjunct to this and quite often a necessary first step is understanding where people are talking about
particular products, services or brands in social media and extracting insight from this. This is important because:
– This opinion mobilizes further opinion both online and offline
– It is spontaneous, freely expressed, unfiltered and not censored
– It allow you to access profiles that can be difficult to reach by other means: competitor customers, potential
customers, former customer, opinion leaders
The link below is to a paper I have contributed to the Journal of Online Research on the subject:
http://ijor.mypublicsquare.com/
Let me know if you have any questions or would like to find out more