Don't just buy it, buy into it. This is the subtle subtext of many new online marketing efforts--most notably, community-building efforts. For such items as simple registration forms, online forums and seminars, and collaborative calendars, communities are being used for everything from increasing user loyalty to providing customer service to collecting customer feedback.

Deriving value from community isn't a new concept, of course. Successful commercial communities are as old as commerce itself, and modern examples are plentiful. Harley-Davidson's Harley Owners' Group (H.O.G.) and Saturn's CarClub are famous examples. Both tap into customers' common interests to build brand loyalty and ultimately drive sales. In fact, H.O.G.'s tagline ("Some H.O.G. benefits you hold in your hand. Some you hold in your heart") could be a rallying cry for most community-building efforts.

Online, from Salon.com to xml.org, netizens get together in millions of e-spaces, including business-oriented communities. eBay, for example, is arguably one big commercial community; even excluding auction pages, however, a large chunk of the site is dedicated to extratransactional user interactions. Amazon.com is another popular community builder: innovations such as its Friends & Favorites section, Purchase Circles, permission-based marketing, and customer reviews all drive user participation.

Fostering community has obvious intangible benefits: one-to-one connections with site visitors, increased site stickiness, higher brand awareness, improved customer service, and support of consumer trust, loyalty, and even dependence. The issue facing many companies, however, is how such intangibles can be leveraged to drive concrete returns. Does stickiness really translate into sales?

Bill Perry, director of public relations at Participate.com, a community-building and management company, is certain of it. "On one B2C [business-to-consumer] site that we manage, we found that the people visiting the site who are the e-community are 5 percent of visitors, but are responsible for 30 percent of purchases," he notes. "One of the things we emphasize is that community, along with other things, builds brand loyalty and fosters collaboration and conversation. That obviously has to be going on in some form, and these numbers are proof of it."

Taking it offline

A recent study, "Real Numbers Behind 'Net Profits 2000," by ActivMedia Research, an online market researcher, reveals that business-to-business (B2B) sites are used less to generate profit from consumers than to enhance market share and business relationships. Even among B2B models that focus on selling products and services, 77 percent of B2B sites are by companies that focus on offline contact for arranging sales, the study finds. In fact, only 44 percent of sites surveyed offered transactional functionality.

B2C sites are more likely to offer online transactions, but the recent popularity of click-and-mortar retailers, combined with the failure of such e-darlings as Boo.com and ToySmart, seems to indicate that B2C commerce--from marketing to fulfillment--is still on training wheels.

Given the challenges of selling online, it is a small wonder why e-marketers seem to be shifting away from inspiring a need for goods and services and moving toward inspiring a belief in brands and companies. In the end, this shift might be a simple matter of using the right tool for the right job. No application will upload Barbies or airplane parts to a buyer's desktop--not even on Linux (and those would be simple transactions compared to, say, services or enterprise-level software solutions). On the other hand, it's comparatively easy to send megabytes of persuasion to influence real-world purchasing patterns.

Putting your mouth where your money was

"Companies make the mistake of assuming technology is more important than psychology," says Perry. "They spend a lot of time thinking about what computers can do, but what about the people using them? Fancy features might attract attention to the site, but there's no substitute for understanding customers and the human relationships."

In its most passive form, a community can consist of any group of people with some identifiable commonality. For example, visitors to topically focused sites such as Women.com or Auto-by-tel are likely to share some common characteristics or interests that can be a basis of communication. Members of these loose communities can be targeted based on information inferred from actions such as site navigation and search-form use. Through dynamic page publishing, pop-up promotions, and relative link suggestions, even this limited information can be grounds for promotional communication.

Companies can create more active communities when users open the door to communication through site registration, feedback, or other site-level interactions. The important distinction is user permission and the means for direct contact. Strategic e-mail campaigns, highly targeted content delivery, and even multiple-interaction-based marketing scenarios can be very effective means of attracting repeat visits, building user loyalty, promoting brand awareness, and encouraging commercial engagement over time. For many businesses, the highest hurdle is convincing a customer to make the initial purchase. Permission-based marketing can be very persuasive in encouraging that commitment.

More sophisticated communities offer constant contact: discussion groups, support forums, chat rooms, collaborative calendars, organizational tools, and other highly interactive functionality often used in real time. Many benefits, both direct and subtle, can be derived from these interactions.

"Communities are most valuable in making your product more valuable through their community members," notes Heather Duggan, community management team leader at Web Crossing Inc., a community service provider. "A perfect example is Amazon.com. I go to Amazon instead of a regular bookstore because if I'm interested in a book, I can find out what 100 other people think about it. If I go to a bookstore now, I'm lonely. Where are those 100 people?"

Customer service is another way in which communities can provide immediate and obvious benefits. Interactive functions such as company-moderated user forums are a relatively resource-friendly way to provide real-time customer responsiveness--a decided advantage, because few service areas provoke such strong emotional responses, positive and negative, as company reaction to customer queries and problems.

"If you don't give people a forum on your Web site," Perry says, "they'll find somewhere else to do it. People are going to talk about your product." Case in point can be found at Untied Airlines, a virtual community of dissatisfied United Airlines customers. "If United isn't reading it, they should be; it would be better yet if they could bring it all to their Web site and address it in real time."

Communities can do much more than provide a line to user complaints, however. Highly interactive groups such as support forums can evolve into beneficial partnerships between "volunteer" community leaders and the business hosts.

According to Perry, the key to this interaction is community management: "There has to be company buy-in. It'll fail if the company isn't responding to customers and they're not reviewing and responding to the data they're getting."

Company presence also helps ensure that interaction remains beneficial to both the company and the community members. "Many times people will ask for information if the manager is a presence in these communities," Perry explains. "We manage AT&T's WorldNet community port. People know the manager is an active presence in that community and that he or she can act as a guide. It's a mix of passive and active. In well-run communities, there are guidelines members set up and police themselves."

Community tips

Online community has come a long way since the idealistic if-we-build-it-they-will-come days of the last century. Even as businesses are recognizing the value of building community, they are realizing that careful planning, integration with site content, dedication, and applied learning are key to driving business.

Duggan explains, "Managing a community is harder than it looks from the outside. Companies look at community and they think that if they just start it, it will work. It really helps to have people working with you who have done this 10, 15, 100 times before. It's good to go to people who have a set of best practices. Also, the management itself is really time intensive. If you have an active community, you'll need a couple of full-time people to manage it."

Given these challenges, many companies are turning to community management services such as Participate.com to help them develop visions, apply technologies, and provide appropriate interaction. In addition to offering experience and technical skills, community management services generally offer just-in-time personnel services that kick in when companies experience heavy traffic spikes for interactive events that overwhelm their internal resources.

Whether you hire a management service or go it alone, here are some tips on supporting community success:Identify potential affinity groups. Like all site content and functionality, communities should be designed primarily with the end-user in mind.

Develop a revenue strategy. Early in your community-planning efforts, decide how the community should contribute to revenue (e.g., by reducing phone-based customer service interactions or by driving traffic to commercial site areas). If possible, develop ways to measure the success of these strategies.

Focus. Particularly in forums and chats, interaction has a way of drifting off-topic. The key to maintaining focus is to narrowly define community interests in the first place. If, in the course of discussion, additional relevant topics become popular, consider creating new communities for them.

Recognize community leaders. In most active communities a small number of individuals will become de facto leaders through their expertise, helpfulness, and frequent postings. These participants are strong marketing assets. Try to cultivate their interactions, recognize their strengths, and reward them, if possible, to keep them engaged and active.

Encourage lurkers to participate. Experts estimate that on average about one in 10 people who read discussion group content also contribute to it. Try to provide bystanders compelling reasons and convenient places to join discussions by posing open questions, initiating breaks in discussions, and inviting new threads. In both interactive and e-mail-based communities, always welcome new members and encourage their participation in community events.

Eliminate dead ends. Be prepared to recognize dying elements of community--from discussion threads to action efforts to e-mail responses--and address them, lest they negatively impact more successful efforts.

In all cases, manage your community. Corporate contributions, assistance, moderation, and guidance are all necessary for continued success. As Perry notes, "Community is about giving you a forum where you can connect with other people of like interests. We feel that if it is managed in the correct way, [community] brings customers that are most loyal back to the brand again and again."

Cass Brewer is the senior marketing consultant for PlanetSoft.com and a contributing editor for ComputerUser.

Community benefits

Customers and belief-based marketing are the soul of commerce-oriented communities. How does fostering belief translate into bread and butter? It encourages customer loyalty and commitment.

It drives sales based on customer-to-customer education and peer reviews of products and services.

It promotes innovation though shared information on best practices and innovative ideas.

It supports product development through direct customer feedback and interaction.

It lowers operating and customer acquisition costs.

It spurs viral marketing.

CB