Let's imagine you've decided that a Market Research Online Community (MROC) is a good fit for your organization...  You've read all about the benefits of a MROC, developed your objectives and metrics for success, selected a MROC vendor and are ready to get started.  What's next? 

Most companies can (fairly) easily digest the findings from a set of focus groups...  However, MROCs are a bit different, as they present a steady stream of customer insights that may have far reaching implications for your company.  The issue then becomes:

• How do you explain this new research resource to your internal stakeholders?  
• How do you level set expectations for appropriate content/topics to explore in your MROC?
• How do you effectively distribute the findings across your organization?

How do you explain this new research resource to your internal stakeholders?

To borrow a bit from Chip and Dan Heath (authors of Made to Stick), it helps to put your MROC in light of an existing "schema."  For example, you may want to talk about how a MROC is like an ongoing focus group with a larger sample size than normal.  We touched on this before in our post on "A Focus Group on Steroids."  That will help set the expectation early on that a MROC is primarily a qualitative tool. 

Also consider showing them a sample deliverable from a community, to help stakeholders understand exactly what they can expect from the output.  Finally, a mock-up and guided tour of the pre-launch site (with a bit of "seed" content for reference) will help sets the stage for what is to come.  Most (or all) of this can be accomplished in a single afternoon meeting...

How do you level set expectations for appropriate content/topics to explore in your MROC?

You'll want to quickly outline what is appropriate and not appropriate to explore in a MROC.  Typically, MROCs are qualitative in nature, meaning anything that you would normally cover through a survey should probably be left to a survey.  That's not to say that surveys cannot (or should not) be run in a MROC; rather, it is important to caveat the output to ensure decisions are made with the appropriate data.

In general, a simple document explaining how to use the community with some specific examples of "ideal" community questions will help set expectations properly early on.  We like to seed the facilitation plan with examples of relevant activities to help get people thinking about how to use their MROC.  Again, this is something that can be accomplished over the course of a kickoff meeting.

How do you effectively distribute the findings across your organization?

Last, but definitely not least, is how you plan to distribute findings.  Unlike focus groups and other "point in time" qualitative research methods, the findings from a MROC are continuous.  Left unattended, they can accumulate into very large reports that get lost on a company's intranet.  The key is to deliver findings in "bite size" pieces in the form which your stakeholders are most likely to pay attention. 

For example, if your company's culture is driven by email communication (as most are) then you have a variety of options at your disposal.  These options might be in the form of a monthly email announcing the report (and providing a link to download directly from the email), weekly emails with topline findings and highlights of activities to come or even "twitter-like" bursts of insights throughout the week/month to keep people intrigued by what is happening in the community. 

If your company is a bit more "hip" to technology and social media, then you could experiment with various means of distributing findings via those channels (more on that in future blog posts...).

The takeaway...

You'll have to do a bit of prep work to get your company ready for a MROC, but it will be well worth it in the form of happy stakeholders who are more knowledgeable about your target audience than ever before...  

- Matt 

So you've spent a few weeks or months planning out your research community, including defining your objectives, drawing up your facilitation plan, seeding your site, screening participants, etc...  Launch day comes and goes, and things go off without a hitch.  Your research participants start signing in, introducing themselves to you and other members and participating in early research activities.  Life is good.  

A few days later you start to notice that the initial buzz and excitement is beginning to die down a bit, so you check the stats.  People are still signing in, but it seems a bit different somehow than the "honeymoon" right after launch date... 

No worries, this is completely normal for a community launch and nothing to be too concerned about (yet).  The "lull" right after launch is bound to happen.  The key is to make sure it doesn't stay, and that the community builds into something sustainable, with regular participation from a broad cross-section of members.  Here are a few tips to help you get your MROC off on the right foot... 

1. Throw a few "softball" activities out there - Try throwing out a few "softball" activities at first.  Think of the types of questions you would ask in the first five or ten minutes of a focus group when you're building rapport with the group...  Those are the perfect questions to start with in an online research community.  They're personal and fun, without being too deep.  Every moderator has their own bag of tricks that will probably work just as well in the online environment, so why not try them out to see what works best...
2. Try out some surveys - Also try starting with a few surveys or polls that may or may not be related to the topic, and be sure share or discuss the results with members.  Surveys are easy to fill out and provide a quick engagement point for members that are just getting their feet wet in the community.
3. Email them more at first (and regularly) - In the first few weeks, be sure to setup a regular schedule for emailing participants about community news and updates.  We like to email all of our communities every Tuesday with news and reminders that the latest research activities are available.  As long as you're fairly routine in your communications (and set this precedent early), you'll be assured of regular participation among a core set of members.
4. Get personal (on their profile pages) - We like to add a welcome message to member profile pages initially, and then find any excuse we can to follow-up with additional messages.  That lets members know you're paying attention and sets up an expectation for reciprocation. 
   

Those are just some tips that have worked for us in the past.  Feel free to share any ones that have worked for you in the comments to this post!

While we've learned a lot over the years about how to run successful research communities, we've also had our share of mistakes.  However, it's from these mistakes that we've learned some of our best techniques for running research communities... (To learn about some of these techniques, download our "10 Tips for Creating Successful Online Research Communities" paper).

Here are three examples of where we've gone wrong in the past, and what we've learned from our mistakes.  Hopefully they'll help you as you setup or run your own online research community.

Mistake #1 - Trying to do too much, too soon

It's easy to get really excited about all the possible topics a research community can cover in the planning stages.  In the past, we would sit down and brainstorm every possible topic and try to figure out how we could cram that into a facilitation plan that made sense. 

Since then we've learned that it's best to pace out the activities over the life of the community for two reasons:

• It is more mindful of the member experience - While participants are generally compensated for their time and are usually very willing to share their opinions, there is a certain point of no return.  Overwhelm them early on with too many activities and they won't come back.
• It acknowledges the role of "organically" building out the facilitation plan - We've learned that it makes more sense to start with a few guided topics/areas of interest to the client, and then let them build into detailed discussions over time.  It's impossible to anticipate everything members want to talk about.  Once you realize and accept that as part of your planning, you're on your way to a more authentic and in-depth discussion with participants.   
  

Mistake #2 - Combining segments that don't fit

We've made this mistake on a few occasions now...  There is often the temptation to combine segments during the community design phase since it saves money and is generally more efficient to moderate and manage.  However, it's wise to carefully consider the topics you intend to cover with each and whether or not the segments belong together.  I've covered this before in my post on "Should I combine segments in a single research community?"

If you have a primary segment of interest, we recommend starting there first and then thinking about the segments you can cover otherwise.  If budget is a concern, perhaps using an already-established shared research community would be a better option to cost effectively run ongoing research with your secondary segments. 

Mistake #3 - Not varying activities

This is an easy mistake to identify, but a hard one to overcome...  We've made the mistake before of just running discussions, since research communities are ideal for ongoing qualitative feedback.  Over time, this impacted attrition rates in some of our larger ongoing communities. 

Since then we've learned that it's wise to vary up activities with a short survey or multimedia exercise from time-to-time, just so the experience doesn't become boring for participants.  This seems like a fairly obvious recommendation, but it's one that can be tricky to plan for.

Care to share?

Have any "lessons learned" from mistakes you've made with research communities?  Comments are welcome!

One of the favorite parts of my job is the day before a new research community launch (one of which happens to be tonight). It’s always a great feeling to know that you’re going to flip the switch on recruiting and start to meet people as they roll into the community. It’s also great to think about the potential for the community as it grows. After weeks (or months) of preparation you’re finally ready to roll. It’s kind of like that feeling in the back room of a focus group facility right before a group, but on a much bigger scale. Here’s to hoping this one goes as well as others!