Part 1: The Future of Marketing: Exploring the Power of Digital Communities

Over the past few years, we have witnessed a remarkable transformation in the way businesses connect, collaborate, and thrive. With the onset of the global pandemic, Digital Communities have emerged as essential platforms that have propelled B2B companies forward. In this episode, we will explore why these communities are more important than ever, and how they have become a catalyst for growth, innovation, and success in the B2B landscape. We’ll answer the question: Are Digital Communities a new marketing channel?

Listen now to hear part 1 of Laliv Hadar, VP, Marketing, InVision Communications, and Michael Cooksey, Head of Qualtrics XM Community, Qualtrics’s discussion on how brands can grow digital communities, best practices, how to measure success – and so much more. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the InVision Xcast to stay fresh on the latest industry trends, technologies and insights.

Transcript

Laliv Hadar:

Hi everybody, welcome to the InVision Podcast, the Xcast, where we help brands navigate audience engagement in times of change. Over the past few years, we have witnessed a remarkable transformation in the way businesses connect, collaborate and thrive. With the onset of the global pandemic, digital communities have emerged as essential platforms that have propelled B2B companies forward. In today's episode, we will explore why these communities are more important than ever and how they have become a catalyst for growth, innovation and success in the B2B landscape and how they essentially are a part of the future of marketing.

Hello everyone, I'm Laliv Hadar, VP of Marketing here at InVision Communications, a leading audience engagement agency, and today I'm joined by Michael Cooksey.

Michael Cooksey:

Hi, Laliv. How are you today?

Laliv Hadar:

Good, good. It's nice to see you, Michael.

Michael Cooksey:

Likewise. Nice to see you again.

Laliv Hadar:

Great. And Michael, give us a little bit of info on your role at Qualtrics and what you do.

Michael Cooksey:

Absolutely. Here at Qualtrics, I am the head of XM Community. I have spent the majority of my career in the world of digital communities. I was lucky enough to get on board in this world at the time of the big bang of digital communities before Facebook, when MySpace was really at its peak. And so I've had a front row seat at the complete story arc of the world of digital communities. And at Qualtrics I lead a peer to peer community that is truly global. We have customers represented on every continent, even Antarctica. A lot of people don't know this, but we have folks who use Qualtrics based at the research station in Antarctica. So when I like to brag that our XM community is truly global, it really is.

Laliv Hadar:

Huh, that is amazing. I can't wait to hear more about that. And it's great to have you here today with us. And yes, full disclosure to our audience, Michael and I go back to our days at Fandom by Wikia, where we worked together, and he was none other than our amazing head of community. So he knows a ton about this, and I'm very excited to have you here today.

Michael Cooksey:

Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to speak with you, as always.

Laliv Hadar:

Yes, absolutely. So let's get into it. The growth of communities has really been staggering in the last couple of years, especially. According to a study by IDC, B2B organizations with online communities experience an impressive 48% increase in customer engagement compared to those without communities. Additionally, since the pandemic, the growth of digital communities has been exponential with the surge in online interactions and collaborations among professionals. In fact, research shows that digital communities have witnessed a remarkable 75% increase in user activity since the onset of the pandemic. These statistics not only highlight the significance of digital communities, but also shed light on their tremendous growth and potential in the B2B realm.

So Michael, let's dive right in. It's a lot to take in there and I can't wait to hear your perspective on all of it. So question one, what role do digital communities play and what business challenges do they solve? Related, what are the benefits of creating a digital community for a brand?

Michael Cooksey:

There are really and truly countless benefits to creating a brand community. First and foremost, communities are an altruistic, benevolent exercise. Communities should be free, they should be accessible to all customers, and your end goal should be, first and foremost, to be of service to the customer. That should take precedence over any other motivations behind starting a brand community.

Some of the challenges that I've noticed brand communities can solve, over the years in working both in tech brand communities and other types of communities, is really the relationship management aspect of creating a tight-knit bond between your brand and your customers. Communities have been referred to by researchers as being the holy grail of brand loyalty. That actually comes from a James McAlexander study that appeared in the Journal of Marketing back in 2002.

Communities allow you to have a two-way dialogue with your customers. They allow you to help your customers and support them on their journey with your product, whatever that product might be. They also facilitate personal connections and relationships with your end users. You get to know them on a more personal level, because you have that working relationship with them. And in turn, it creates more loyalty on the customer side to your company, because they know you, they trust you, and they know you're there to help them, because communities are, as I mentioned, a benevolent exercise. You are really there to support and help your customers. They feel safe with you because they know Michael's not trying to sell me anything, Michael's not trying to upgrade me on anything, Michael's just trying to support me on my journey in being successful with the product. And so I think for all brands, no matter what your business is, having a brand community can help you both in terms of building relationships, brand loyalty, and also overall customer success, which impacts retention, which impacts renewal, et cetera, et cetera.

Laliv Hadar:

Yeah, many, many benefits to count there. Over the pandemic this clearly changed drastically when life moved into a 100% digital and virtual and digital channels became the primary touchpoint for brands engaging with their customers. How have digital communities evolved in the post-pandemic era, now that we've come out of that very critical stage and hopefully are onto a new reality?

Michael Cooksey:

Absolutely. I think a new reality is a great way to describe it. I think one of the societal or social changes that was brought about by the pandemic is this need or desire for authentic connections and authentic engagement. Prior to the pandemic, my personal belief is that a lot of people viewed most brand digital channels as an inroad to, yes, doing more with the brand, but also as an extension of sales. And I think now what I'm seeing is more of an authentic connection, authentic relationships that are not necessarily sales or webinar driven, but essentially real human relationships. A lot of us were starved for connection, I think, during the pandemic because we were so isolated and now we crave more connection to one another. And that's something that digital communities have always offered.

Now I think people are realizing the power of that and seeing it even more because collectively, globally, all of us are experiencing that need and desire for more authentic human connections. And that's why digital communities have been so successful. I can also just share anecdotally that I am getting more LinkedIn requests for invitations to interviews and people looking for community experts. This is something that's happening not just in the tech world, but across the spectrum. People realize the power of digital communities, the authentic relationships they can bring, and more and more people are joining the party.

Laliv Hadar:

Yeah. So more brands realizing the importance of having this as an, I'm saying channel, but that formalizes it a bit too much. To your point, it's more about creating this community and this authentic space for our customers to connect with each other and with the brand. Yeah.

Michael Cooksey:

Absolutely.

Laliv Hadar:

So yeah, that's interesting and nice to see the growth, right?

Michael Cooksey:

Absolutely. And I know I'm connected to a lot of community leaders and they're all experiencing the same thing. Everybody is inundated with requests for thought leadership, talks like this, community hiring, guidance on starting communities. There's a lot to be said for authenticity in this digital age that we find ourselves in. I think most consumers are savvy enough now to see through other motivators behind online behavior from folks who are experts in a certain space and they're realizing they're now, "Well, this person is trying to get more followers, or this person is trying to sell me something, or this person is trying to build their own brand." We're all much more savvy in terms of how the tech world works now and what people use all of these channels for. So when it comes to communities, having that authentic connection with customers, building an authentic relationship that's not built around any of those external factors is really important. And I think that's why communities are seeing a renaissance now, so to speak.

Laliv Hadar:

Right, yeah. And so, they we're talking about a lot of the growth there and with growth, there's always challenges too. So I'm curious what you might see as the challenges, like you mentioned too, people are savvy, they know what's going on digitally, online, there's a lot of bad actors and bad behaviors as well, as we all know. So what are some of the challenges of creating or maintaining and growing a community right now?

Michael Cooksey:

There's one challenge that I can highlight for anybody who's listening, and this is really an evergreen challenge. The world of online communities, whether it's a brand community or any other type of digital community, it's so crucial to the success of any business. And there have been numerous academic studies in peer reviewed journals that show the clear benefits of having a community to support your business, but not everybody totally understands what community is. And a factor that really doesn't help in that regard is that communities can be so many different things. They can sit under so many different orgs within organizations. And so the evergreen challenge is making sure you're communicating the value of your community to your company's leadership in a way that they understand. That's a challenge that I've noticed at virtually every company I've worked for. It's not as clear, for example, as the value that, say, your finance team provides or your HR team, or even to a certain extent your marketing or sales teams.

Everybody knows exactly what the outcomes of those teams are. But when you say community team, it's not always as clear. So that challenge that I'm referring to is really making sure that there is transparency into the community playbook, why it's important for your org, how it benefits the org, and making sure that leadership is also signed off on that playbook and that they also properly are read in and understand the value of brand communities as well. So that's one challenge.

Another challenge too, I think that a lot of early stage communities experience, is being able to seed activity and spark engagement in a way that feels relevant and authentic for the end users. And so you really have to have a very thorough understanding of your audience and what's going to be of value to them. And that can be challenging for a lot of folks that are starting out and even some experienced community managers. It takes some time to understand each individual audience and what their needs are. So I think those are two of the main challenges that I see when it comes to the world of digital communities. But the good news is those challenges can be easily overcome.

Laliv Hadar:

Yeah, that's great. And I know we're going to get into some more of that a little later as well. So one other thing, as we think about communities, and obviously they need to be authentic and very safe environments for people to truly engage and engage with one another and the brand, but to the point of communities helping with brand loyalty and customer engagement and retention, I thought that was interesting as well. And I definitely, as a marketer, see that as tangentially related, not to perhaps the main goal, but a nice outcome. Could you talk to that some more? That'd be great.

Michael Cooksey:

Yeah, I would be happy to. Again, I want to highlight officially on the record, communities are an altruistic, benevolent exercise. Anybody who's looking to do community right, has to approach it with that energy in mind and that intention. Communities are not a lead list. Communities should not be viewed as another sales outlet. So it's really important, first and foremost, that when you are approaching community, you're approaching it from that altruistic, benevolent, help centered mindset.

Now that being said, there is a related benefit that is a natural organic outcome of having that attention when you start a brand community, and that is increased loyalty, increased retention and renewal. I don't necessarily approach my work as a community leader saying, "How can I influence retention or renewals?" It just happens organically. And while I can't share the specific numbers, I can tell you that at Qualtrics, the customers who are a part of our community expand and renew at a much higher rate, exponentially higher, than any other program we have going on at the company.

What the company has set as targets for folks who are more involved in that world, sales, SDRs, all of those folks, they have stretch goals that are very difficult for them to reach. We are smashing those success goals organically on the community, again, just because of the intention that we have when we're approaching our work. So increased retention, renewal loyalty, customer engagement, are all natural outflows of a successful brand community when you approach it with the right intention.

I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to brand, community, academia, but there are countless journal articles that show in specifically quantifiable numbers what the benefits are. There's a University of Michigan study that came out in 2005, and I believe if I'm getting my numbers right, they mentioned that on average in this study, on average brand community members spend 20% more with a company versus customers who are not a part of that company's brand community. So the benefits are clearly there and there's a lot that's been documented and studied as it relates to renewal or retention of brand loyalty with communities.

Laliv Hadar:

Potentially more integrated, more formally with other marketing channels. Again, that notion is keep them protected and safe space, but do you see a more formal integration there in some ways?

Michael Cooksey:

Absolutely. Absolutely. There is 100% a symbiosis that exists between digital communities and a company's digital playbook as a whole. The community is a tool in the toolbox that can support external messaging to customers. It's just a matter of, again, knowing your audience, knowing what messaging works for them and making sure that they don't feel like they're being marketed to necessarily, but making sure that your audience understands we are here to support you with these initiatives. And that means not everything might be appropriate for your brand community in terms of marketing messaging, but there is indeed a lot of overlap between the work that marketing professionals and digital community professionals do. And depending on your company, your community could even sit under marketing. I have seen that before. I've also worked for companies where community was its own team. I've also worked for companies where community was part of support. So a lot of it really just depends on your intent and the audience's need, but digital communities and marketing teams should work together very, very closely.

Laliv Hadar:

Yeah. And so would love to get a little bit into Qualtrics's community, and so our listeners have an opportunity to learn from you in that regard. So I'm curious about the size of the community and any best practices you can share that make your community or digital communities more effective, and then any watchouts too. There's a lot, but sort of like the things to do and things not to do. If you want to just focus on maybe some of the main ones that come to mind, would be great.

Michael Cooksey:

Yeah, of course. The Qualtrics community is a peer-to-peer digital support community. So on our community it is primarily Qualtrics customers and experts helping other Qualtrics customers. We talked briefly before about some of the natural tangential benefits of a brand community. In the example of the Qualtrics community, customers helping other customers means there is less strain on our support teams on the product expert side. There's a lot in terms of ticket deflection that happens because customers are helping one another.

I think also, all of us as consumers can safely say the voice of another customer often carries more weight than your own voice as the brand representative. And that's been proven by platforms like Yelp or Google Reviews or any other website or platform. Exactly. Any other website or platform that allows for people to share their thoughts and experiences genuinely with one another. So for us, it's really great that we have this very supportive community who are first and foremost looking to contribute to, in a very positive way, the world of experience management, employee engagement, and also how to apply data in a really smart strategic and intentional way. And the Qualtrics XM community is an open platform to allow people to have these discussions.

We get involved very infrequently in terms of the scientific discussions that are happening around parsing data, the quality of survey responses, things like that. We do bring in leaders from the Qualtrics product team and other experts from within Qualtrics to get involved in some of those customer conversations when we find it will be helpful. But for the most part, it's customers helping other customers and making connections with each other, which again feeds back into that theme we were talking about of authenticity: having those genuine connections and relationships.

One thing that I would say is really important for brand communities too is making sure that you have, in addition to the in-platform interactions, a series of live digital interactions as well. And we do that at Qualtrics through the form of a web series called Community Connect. Those are often webinars that either feature the voice of the customer in the form of a customer spotlight or they can be more educational in nature. We have an event coming up, for example, about improving response rates and response quality. We've identified that as a theme in the community that people have questions about. So we're doing a free event for everybody on the community to take part in that and learn more. So I think those are a couple of the best practices and things I would say make our community especially effective.

Things that I would watch out for, if I were advising a company that's starting a community from the brand up, is making sure that you have your own owned platform, as much as you possibly can. I know a lot of folks say, "Well, we'll just do a Slack community." Or, "We'll just do a LinkedIn group," or something like that. And I don't find that to be as effective. For starters, those are not necessarily owned platforms. You can't always control when or how people are going to interact with those. I've seen folks make the mistake of starting LinkedIn groups and then falling victim to algorithms that don't prioritize their content. Whereas if you own your own platform, like we do at Qualtrics, it's a third party vendor, but it's essentially an always-on platform. We don't end up falling victim to somebody else's algorithm or way of prioritizing our content.

The final thing I'll add, at the risk of going too long on this question, is also just in general making sure that when you have a brand community, that you always have a channel for product feedback as a part of that community as well. While it's great to have customers helping other customers, what customers really value in a brand community is being able to make their voices heard. So making sure that there is at least one avenue on your brand community that connects customers either with your product team, your product devs, or at least the product roadmap so people can see what's coming and can contribute to what they feel would be best for the platform in the long term.

Laliv Hadar:

Great. And just a quick follow-on on the platform. You mentioned it's a third party powered platform, but I imagine there's certain customizations that you guys at Qualtrics had done for that? Is that correct?

Michael Cooksey:

Yes, yes, absolutely. There are lots of community platform vendors out there, and depending on your needs, listeners will need to select the platform that's best for them and has the features they need. We went with a platform provider that allowed us to completely customize the look, feel and layout of the digital community experience, so it feels like a part of our brand, and you don't feel like you're on a distinct or different property. We wanted to make sure that our community feels like any other experience you would have within the Qualtrics ecosystem. So that's also important for listeners to know who are looking to start digital communities.

Laliv Hadar:

Yeah, that makes sense. And sounds like there's a good ROI there in doing so and making that investment. Okay, so the next question is related as well to the notion of digital communities and marketing. How does Qualtrics align, or does it, internally, to use digital community for integrated marketing?

Michael Cooksey:

We partner very closely with our integrated marketing and digital marketing teams. One thing that we're focusing on at the moment at Qualtrics as a whole are digital journeys. We're putting digital journeys under the microscope and making sure that everybody has access to all of the resources that they may possibly need at the right time when they need it. So we've been looking a lot at in-platform connections to not just the community, but other digital success resources that we have at Qualtrics. And so we're bringing all of that together into a centralized hub, so to speak, that also involves our base camp team, that's our learning and training and development team.

We are also very closely connected with the XM Institute, which is actually a product agnostic community of users who are focused on experience management and the customer experience at a high level of, I guess, theory around that world. Whereas the XM community is very product specific. So from an integrated marketing perspective, we look at everything as being very interconnected. All of these are tools that can benefit customers, and we've taken steps to make sure that when you're working within the platform, within Qualtrics, everything is just a click away. And that's a lot of what we call our Digital Hub does for our customers.

Laliv Hadar:

Well, that wraps up part one of our podcast, Exploring the Power of Digital Communities. Tune in to the InVision Xcast for part two of our discussion.