The document provides strategies for marketing internal communities to employees, including identifying superstar participants, defining target audiences, using incentives to drive participation, and holding regular online events to engage new members and share information. Case studies of Nestle, Cisco, Ace Hardware, and Wrigley demonstrate how establishing communities improved communication, increased productivity, and drove business results. The document advocates starting simply and analyzing effectiveness of different tactics to refine community marketing over time.

1. Marketing to Those Within:
Arm-Twisting Tactics for
Community Participation
Dawn Marie Yankeelov
President, ASPectx
dawny@aspectx.com
6/17/02

2. Is There Participation
Without Pain and Suffering?
Eliminate Community Killers
– No participation
– No focus in information
sharing
– Unanswered questions
– No experts with a
knowledgebase
– No purpose for being

3. Tougher Crowds to Sell:
Employees and Distribution Channels
• In the last three years we have seen community
now serve:
– Technical Support
– Human resource departments
– Sales force automation
– Interdepartmental objectives
– Distribution channel partners
– Finance departments

4. Basics of Marketing:
Crawl First,Then Walk
• Time-tested steps apply to community
– Do your homework on what is needed
– Target known audiences
– Create “Experts Within”
– Train the Excited to Participate
– Depend on the Few to Execute

5. Vision Behind Marketing Goals:
Knowledge-Sharing
• Requiring employees to be management-
oriented for accountability
• Creating peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges
• Requiring instant response to satisfy client
queries
• Real-time analysis of trends,
both internal and external

6. Awareness: Don’t Get Stung by
Bad Choices
• 1. Know Your Community Superstars
• 2. Define Your Potential Constituents
• 3. Consider the Following Key Questions:
– Do the number of identified targets match my goals?
– Can we quantify what audience segments we have?
– What are the breakouts in terms of demographics?
– What types of communication work best for these
targets?

7. Target Marketing: The Buzz
• 1. Know Your Customers
• 2. Define Your Potential Customers
• 3. Consider the following key questions:
– Do the number of identified targets match my goals?
– Can we quantify what “verticals” and/or horizontal
plays we have?
– What are the breakouts in terms of demographics?
– What types of communication work best for these
targets?

8. Hunt and Kill the Targets
• Five market identification strategies:
– Geographic. Physical location of your publics
– Demographic. Attributes such as age and sex
– Psychographic. Lifestyle dimensions such as hobbies and
interests
– Usage Rate. A small percentage of the population account
for a large percentage of sales
– Benefits. Certain users want to achieve particular benefits.
Ex. Airline tickets
– Strategic Internet Marketing, Tom Vassos

9. Spend the Money Where Needed
• Plan for Ongoing Marketing Expenditures
• Tactics Must Support Community Strategy
• Do a Budget and Measure the ROI
• Build in Training for Experts
• Where’s “Your Honey Pot”
for Arm-Twisting?
• Does it Hold Weight?

10. Sweet Success with Community:
Case Study Examples
• Nestle
• Cisco
• Ace Hardware
• Wrigley

11. Primary Arm-Twisters
• Outreach: “Whatever you think you need
for a rollout, increase it by 3 times.”
1. Target Awareness Groups through
Emarketing
2. Send Regular Newsletters to Participants on
Updates
3. Cull Excerpts from the Community to tease
new members and/or do Special Events
4. Give Financial or Recognition Incentives

12. Nestle
• Corporate Fact:
– A total workforce of approximately 224,541
people in some 479 factories worldwide.
– Nestlé is not only Switzerland's largest
industrial company, but it is also the World's
Largest Food Company.

13. Nestle Needed
Community to Save Dollars
• Problem: Wasted Time Through Too Many International
Conference Calls
• Solution: Chat with Akiva idea management products
• Marketing: Incentive Approach for Community:
Acknowledgement of Cost Cutting in Employee Reviews
through participation
• Corporate Facts:
– A total workforce of approximately 224,541 people in some 479
factories worldwide.
– Nestlé is not only Switzerland's largest industrial company, but it is
also the World's Largest Food Company.

14. Cisco
• Cisco Systems, Inc. is a worldwide leader in
networking for the Internet. Cisco's Internet
Protocol-based (IP) networking solutions
are the foundation of the Internet and most
corporate, education, and government
networks around the world.
• Cisco focuses on using technology to solve
its internal process requirements.

15. Cisco Communities: Get People
to Live in the System
• In 2000, community activity by department
• Targeted internal awareness groups
• Company developed an Internal
Communities Business Organization (CBO)
– Group gave advice on how to design, train, and
host appropriate level of community
– Used outside consultants to augment facilitation

16. Cisco CBO Process:
Feedback Essential
• Uses a Teaser Approach to Build
• Cisco wants to stimulate feedback for product development
and organization of workflow
• Strategic marketing budget to each launch—legal
department, and marketing department were two of first 7
communities
• Oldest success story—Networking Professionals Group
began in July 2000 (for external networking professionals)
• Used heavily polling, surveys, quizzing on products
• Link Marketing: More than 100 links to get into NetPro
from the outside

17. On Driving Adoption
• “Adoption is different for every department.
Developers know that there are changes
everyday and that they need to keep up.
Legal uses its communities to tap expert
resources.”
• Advice: Develop Marketing Budget
According to Need
– Gil Ben Dov, Senior Manager of IT e-
communities, interview 2001

18. Talking to the Dealer
• Ace Hardware is one of the world’s largest
wholesale hardware suppliers with an US
dealer network of 300+ dealers.

19. Dealer Networks:
Educate as an Employee
•Built Outreach
through Traditional
Approaches
•Newsletters
•Consolidated
teaser-style
management tips
•Holds Expert
Online Seminar
Series every 2
weeks

20. 600 Percent Return on
Investment
•Improved
communication
with its 300+
dealers
•Participants
spend 1-4 hours
a day in forums
with other
dealers to get
quick research

21. Wrigley
• The Wrigley Company is the world's largest
manufacturer of chewing gum and home to
some of the best-known brands in the
world, including Juicy Fruit, Doublemint,
Big Red, and Wrigley's Spearmint gum.

22. Wrigley Sales Force Community
• Wished to thread together best practices in sales
globally—October 2001
• Challenge: 2,000 to 3,000 people to bring
together
• Hope: Bring to sales management into real-world,
retail level understandings
• Focus: Connect salespeople globally to share
viewpoints
• Vision: Ability to review progress in the
organization desired

23. Background on the Community
In October 2001, The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company launched a strategic
initiative to develop a Sales Web Center (SWC) to increase its sales force
productivity and ultimately drive revenues for the company. The formal
goals for the Sales Web Center included:
– Integrate the company’s U.S. sales force by sharing information
through a central communication vehicle
– Streamline existing business processes and remove non value-added
work
– Deliver actionable and targeted advertising, marketing, and product
information to impact business results
– Increase sales as a result of increased productivity

24. The Prototype
Key to
Success:
Events to
Draw More
Participants

25. Event Importance
• “People tend to underestimate the value of
online events to draw new community
members and rejuvenate a community.
Since Jan. 2002, Wrigley has seen events
draw the best results to assist in pre-product
launches.” Events are held monthly
bringing marketing and sales people
together.
• Participate.com, Joe Cothrel

26. Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. Sees
Community As a Key to Winning
“We are very committed to our sales team and consider our sales and
distribution capabilities among our key competitive advantages
around the world. To the extent that we want to drive our business
into the lead across various markets and channels, we need to
outperform our competitors at the store level.
To accomplish this, we have not only increased the size of our sales
organization, but we have provided them with the tools that are
necessary to win, including increasing communication and
collaboration capabilities through initiatives such as the U.S. Sales
Web Center that was discussed in the presentation.”
-- Bill Wrigley Jr.
CEO, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
Annual Shareholders Meeting, April 19, 2002

27. Final Analysis on
Marketing Tactics
• Difference of Group Target Matters
– Small tightly knit communities (under 150)
• Marketing can be one-to-one—even phone calls to
jump start
• Formal process and deliverables easy to distribute
• Project-oriented in objectives

28. Final Analysis on
Marketing Tactics
• Difference of Group Target Matters
– For Groups of 1,000+ and global “Outreach”
also known as target marketing is essential
• Events work and can become self-sustaining for
community
• Recognition is important
• Corporate Strategy Sessions through community
brings more community

29. The Bonus Question
• “Bonuses are being tied to participation, but
generally community succeeds when it is
voluntary, since, for example, quantifying a
good answer in a forum is difficult.”
--Interviews with Participate.com &
Akiva.com

30. WrapUp
• Look for ways to “Keep It Simple”
• Look for ways to have “high touch” in marketing
– One-to-one efforts
– Emarketing
– Online Newsletter
– Teaser Excerpts
– Recognition incentives
• Be Dr. Freud: Analyze what works after three
months

31. Aspectx
Competitive Intelligence *Marketing *
Public Relations *Business Planning *Event Marketing
*Web Consulting
For more information contact in the United States:
Dawn Marie Yankeelov, President
Aspectx
Dawny@aspectx.com
www.aspectx.com