Building B2B Communities in a Low Trust World

Building B2B Communities in a Low Trust World Lou Ordorica Social Networking Conference Senior Community Manager 2010 Reseller Marketing Services

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 + webinars events 1 per month 8 - 12 per month Boot Camps Cisco WebEx Partner Councils Meeting Center Customer Citrix GoToWebinar Appreciation Events High Cost Medium Cost

Community Model physical + + online webinars community events 1 per month 8 - 12 per month 7x24 Boot Camps Cisco WebEx Private Partner Councils Meeting Center Branded Customer Citrix GoToWebinar Discussion Groups Appreciation Events Managed High Cost Medium Cost 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?

Reaching Out to the Community • 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!

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 Reducing Support Costs • Ask the Experts • Reduce Support Calls • Discussion Forums • Fewer FTEs • Blogs • Decrease OPEX • Wikis • Improve OI

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 Aggregated tools and Timely, productive, and information covering visible dialogue that helps business functions — sell, people run their Effort quote, conﬁgure businesses Repurposed web pages, Market research — best white papers, podcasts, practices, competitive videos covering products analysis, insights and solutions Value

Content Taxonomy Community Category Name Description NPV, IRR, Evaluating Payback, Cash Investments Flows Capital Costs, Business CEO ROI Risk Enablement Management Business Process Improving Refactoring 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 Ordorica lou.ordorica@gmail.com @lordorica Subscribe to my blog: http://web-achiever.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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Building B2B Communities in a Low Trust World

by Lou Ordorica

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