Research Communities are Affordable
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Tue, Oct 28, 2008
One item I haven't focused on in my earlier posts about Brad Bortner's Forrester report, "Will Web 2.0 Transform Market Research?" is the subtitle: "Yes - But High Cost Will Mean That Firms With Big Budgets Lead".
While many solutions are expensive, online survey communities can be implemented affordably. Brad's white paper refers to fully-managed communities, where you hire a firm to design the community, recruit members, monitor their interactions and manage community surveys and events. This is the most expensive, and most comprehensive, approach to communities. But you can minimize costs by setting up an online community with a SaaS vendor such as Vovici and by managing the community yourself. This takes that outside expense and replaces it with the staffing cost of having an existing employee manage the community.
While this approach isn't right for everyone (and Vovici partners with other organizations, including TNS, for customers who want managed services), it represents a very affordable path when outside budget isn't available.
As Mike Rowland wrote last week, "As we move through a downward business cycle, smart companies are moving counter-intuitively to engage more with their customers rather than decreasing their online community efforts." Research communities represent an effective and affordable way to better understand changing market needs.