There are quite a few questions to ask before you consider launching a continuous market research online community, but of all of them here is the one we've found is the best indicator of long-term success:

Can your company's culture support a continuous MROC? 

This really boils down to the following questions:

• Do you have a constant need for customer feedback?  Is there a consistent (i.e., weekly) stream of questions that need to be answered and issues that need to be explored on an ongoing basis?  While one could argue that having a continuous community available will help generate steady demand for insight, it certainly doesn't hurt if the demand is already there since that will form the basis of topics for the critical first 3-6 months of the community.
• Are people in your organization willing to take the voice of the customer to heart as they make decisions?  Without an environment of open listening and dialogue, it will be difficult to get the full value of an ongoing community initiative.  Again, establishing an insight community could represent a movement toward open dialogue, but changing deeply ingrained attitudes toward customer feedback can be a time consuming and difficult thing to do...

If you have questions as to whether or not you can satisfy these conditions for an ongoing community, then perhaps a pilot community or short-term MROC would be a good way to "test the waters" and start to get people excited about the prospect of having continuous customer feedback...

In previous blog posts, we've talked about how it is important to have a shared purpose or background for members in a research community.  The stronger that shared purpose is, the more vibrant the community will (likely) be.  For example, a research community of iPhone users is likely to be a really vibrant group...  However, even if you don't sell a "sexy" product like the iPhone that people naturally talk about, you can still build a successful online research community...  You just have to be a little "creative" in the way you define your shared background.

One relatively easy way of defining the shared background for just about any industry is to invite a targeted group of customers to a branded community and position them as trusted advisors to the company.  The shared background in this case is merely the fact that they are all customers, which is usually sufficient for establishing an ongoing research community.  While they may come from all walks of life and may represent any number of target segments, they at least know why they are there and what they share in common with other members. 

Of course, this post is for anyone looking to create an ongoing market research online community.  If you're using a MROC on a very short-term basis (e.g., a few weeks or months), then finding a shared purpose is far less critical to the success of the initiative.

At some point during a pitch there is always the inevitable question - how much does it cost?  When designing an approach to a market research online community (MROC), a few key variables play the greatest role in deciding the ultimate price of the initiative, including:

• Community Size - As you can imagine, the more members in your community, the higher the price, as the costs for incentives, recruiting and overall community management scale with the number of members.  Building smaller research communities can help keep your costs down, while offering a number of advantages over larger communities.
  
• Length of Time - Running a MROC over many months (or years) is going to be more expensive, although the average monthly cost tends to decrease over time due to certain economies that result as the community progresses.
• Activity Level - Some research communities are highly active (e.g., daily research-related activities), while others tend to be moderately active (e.g., weekly or bi-weekly research activities).  As you can imagine, the costs for incentives, community management, moderation and reporting will scale accordingly.
• Sample Source - Recruiting from client-provided sample will result in significant savings over purchased sample, as will using an online recruiting method over phone-based recruiting. 
  
• Frequency and Type of Reporting - Last, but definitely not least, are the reporting requirements for a MROC.  Weekly memo community reports can be less expensive than a comprehensive summary report, although they may lack some detail. 
  

As you can imagine, the actual amounts for each of these categories will vary by the vendor, objectives of the community, etc...  However, I hope this provides you with a starting point for the variables to consider when outlining a MROC approach for your organization.

--Matt

One of the biggest benefits of an online research community is the ability to take a step back and listen to what people have to say, beyond what you’re asking them directly through planned research discussions and surveys. It’s important to let go a bit and let the community guide where the direction of the research activities should go. The most “natural” conversations often occur that way, leading to questions you may have never thought to ask.

When you first start your research community there might be a temptation to setup formal approvals for all activities launched to the community. I’ve noticed this urge is especially strong with customer communities, even if they are private online communities. While I can understand the urge to control all interactions with customers from the client perspective, I strongly recommend resisting the urge to do this (if you can). Here’s why…

Resist the “approval” mechanisms (if you can)

If you are constantly going through an approval process for moderators to launch a new activity to the community, you’re going to lose the spontaneity that results in better activities. For example, you wouldn’t expect a moderator to check in the backroom every time they wanted to ask a follow-up probe in a focus group, would you? Doing so would just disrupt the flow of the group.

It’s really no different in the online community setting. Community moderators should be given a degree of freedom to ask impromptu questions when necessary, without waiting weeks for approvals. Otherwise, they may miss their window of opportunity to ask a great follow-up probe or question.

Of course there are industries where it makes sense to be a bit more cautious with every activity you run due to the legal ramifications (the healthcare, automotive and education industries comes to mind), but my advice is to generally keep the conversation as “organic” and free flowing as possible. That’s going to help guide your research community to generating valuable insights that you may never have obtained otherwise…