Is an online community right for your business?

These days most companies have a website of some kind. In most cases the websites are what is called a “brochure site.” This means that the site serves as little more than as a place to display the company’s products and a few headshots of the company management. And this is all fine. It’s a minimum requirement and as long as the website is visually pleasing, easy to navigate and graphically integrated with the company’s other marketing materials, it can be a real asset to the company.

Other minimum requirements
Unlike a piece of printed material that is being viewed once and then tossed in the recycling bin, a website is nearly per definition meant to be updated frequently. This means that potential customers tends to judge a company by how updated the website is.

Imagine this scenario; you have spent a large pile of money to reach new customers, for the first time acquainting them with your company and its products. When these people come back to their offices or homes they will very likely go and look at your website to get some more information about your company. Once there they see that you have not updated your news section since 2002 and that you are still advertising an offer from January 2003 they might start wondering how good of a business partner your company might be.

OK, that’s a bit harsh since this is a very small problem to fix; it takes only 5 minutes per month to write up something new on the site. But a website can be so much more. They can help a company forge a very strong bond with their customers. It’s not for all companies but an on-line community can be a competitive advantage that makes it really hard for your competitors to pry away your customers.

For some it works…
I have some friends in Sweden that build sailing boats. People will order their boats according to their wishes, customizing interiors, equipment, motor choices, etc. They are not a big company and cannot build a large number of boats every year. But the equipment and craftsmen needed are still very expensive which makes it imperative to maintain a backlog so they can keep their facility running 100% busy at all times. This means of course that people sometimes has to wait for quite a while for their boat which is never fun but my friends have found a good way to deal with it.

They have built a very nice website that allows potential customers to start playing with their own boat design by themselves seeing what their boat could look like. This makes for a “sticky” website, great at catching prospects. But once a customer has signed the contract for their boat the website also serves as the main point of contact between the company and the customer. On the website they can see the production schedule, pictures of boats currently under construction and if they log in they can see all the information regarding their own boat-to-be and when it will be finished.

On their website they have also chat rooms and bulletin boards where “their” boat owners can discuss boating and share experiences. This makes for a very strong bond between the customer and company. Their company has only been in business for a few years but their brand awareness within the sailing communities along the Baltic Sea has grown incredibly despite a fairly low marketing budget.

For some it doesn’t…
But as said, not all companies and not all products lend themselves to this kind of community building. I heard of a company that market and install high end Jacuzzis. Things like shower heads, soap dispensers etc. They tried to set up chat rooms on their website but no one to ever used them. They basically found that their customers had no real interest in chatting about their Jacuzzis, they just wanted to enjoy them and if there ever was a problem, they wanted help NOW; so they needed a customer service number. Simple. Easy. Less IT costs…

Whether an interactive, community building site is worth the effort for your business will take some research to figure out. But what is probably a truth is that a site can be more than just a brochure. So unless you are in the enviable situation that you have way too many customers and really don’t need more, why not test a few new functions?